Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

It's purely an ID propaganda film. Same ol' arguments about irreducible complexity, "God of the gaps," etc. mixed with some ad hominum attacks. Pretty much the bread and butter of the ID folks these days.

As PZ Meyers comments, it would be a much more honest and respectable film if they just admitted that it was a pro-creationism movie. ID is so contrived and so obviously Creationism in disguise that it just makes it proponents look dishonest. Eugenie Scott and others made some great discoveries for the Dover, PA case where they found that publishers of an ID biology book had just taken a Creationist Biology book and done a "search and replace" to put in "ID" instead of "creationism" and "Intelligent Designer" instead of "Creator."

 

Nope. Merely talking out of my nice person, much like the whole ID movement.

While I haven't seen the film, I have seen a number of clips from it which are very much what I've described. Based on what I've seen, I have no desire to see the whole thing. I would be interested to hear a review from a scientist to see what they think, particularly since I'm not a biologist so I can't judge any of the more subtle points. I just don't think I could stomach a screening and I don't really want to contribute money to the ID cause by seeing their movie.

 

Do you really believe that Kow? Honestly? Is that what you really thought when you read Betelgeuse's post?

Not to be rude (god knows it's tempting) but it looks like you're deliberately missing the point in order to avoid a debate you know you can't win.

 

I don't think this is rude at all (although I do agree with moxie that I don't understand how this conclusion follows from what I said). I think that a lot of people today form their thoughts based on what others tell them to think, which is disappointing at best and really scary at worst (see: current Commander in Chief).

Have I seen the movie? No. Am I influenced by others? Absolutely. Does this mean that I haven't formed an opinion of my own? Not at all. I happen to largely agree with what PZ Meyers has to say about much of this stuff. I think this largely comes from the fact that we're both scientists (although he is in a different field and much more prominent that I) and we both hate the way the ID movement has twisted science to serve their needs (although, again, he's more directly influenced by in than I). They have used the public's ignorance on science in order to accomplish their goals (if I hear "just a theory" one more time, I will scream). I think that PZ Meyers's approach is rather counterproductive at times (but sure is entertaining if you're on the same side as him; I start to understand why Republicans love Rush Limbaugh so much), but I largely agree with the substance of what he has to say.

My point is that I think we're all influenced in our thoughts by others, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we don't think for ourselves. I think that if I cite someone else as a way of saying what I want to say it doesn't necessarily mean that I don't have my own thoughts; just that that person is better at saying it than I would be. I generally have relatively strong opinions on matters of science, but I'm not as eloquent as many others (particularly in writing).

In my own field, there's a really interesting story (which makes it into Expelled) of Guillermo Gonzalez, a former professor at Iowa State that believes in ID and was denied tenure. What makes his case so interesting is that his interest and belief of ID developed and became public at the same time that is publication rate plummeted. So, the university claims that he was kicked out for not having a good enough publication record and he (and other ID proponents) claim that he was kicked out for daring to explore non-mainstream "science." I think the more interesting debate is whether he deserves to get denied tenure only for his belief and "study" of ID, but that hasn't really been in the forefront.

EDIT: Oh. One other thing. The parts of the film that I have seen have been the promotional bits that come out from the producers of the film; in other words, the parts that they think are the best/ the most convincing.

 

It appears he beat me to it. I don't have much to add beyond what Betelgeuse so eloquently stated in his last post. That pretty much sums up my feelings as well.

Not until now! Thank you for pointing him out to me. That's pretty amazing. I'll see if the local libraries have a copy of his memoir, Born on a Blue Day. It looks like a very interesting read.

 

I'll go see the movie.

Judging by the movie was instantly dismissed after everyone learned of its premise, I'm inclined to think the movie-makers may have a point.

 

religion masquerading as science is going to be dismissed by scientists. i hope you at least expected that.

i'm sure they do have a point- that they can make big bucks on people who want more reinforcement to believe there is something "bigger" than them

 

Just curious. As a diabetic Christian, do you believe that modern day modes of treating diabetes is based on fact or theory?

 

I love that film! I was shocked when it didn't win best picture, though I do have to say "Silence of the Lambs" was an acceptable alternative.

 

So, you comment that what I say is not fact based. On what do you base this? That I haven't seen the movie? I base my opinion about it on what I know about the pro-ID movement (I'm fairly familiar with their arguments) and what I've seen in the way of promotion (which is just them presenting the same old arguments they've always presented all over again). I'll just point out that the promotional material is the material that they want me to see to try to get me to see the movie. If I see their promotional material and I think, "Geez. They're beating this horse again?!" then I think I'm fairly safe in saying that the rest of the movie is not going to add a whole lot to the debate. Pair this with bad reviews from scientists (yes; on a movie that is purportedly about a scientific theory, I will trust reviews from scientists) and I just don't have a great desire to go see the movie.

I believe this discussion would benefit from this Youtube video I posted a while ago. I still don't think that anyone has tracked down who's responsible for it, but it seems like it has something to do with this movie:

 

Expelled Exposed

Just wanted to share.

 

Is that directed at me? If so, I think you may have me confused with TJandGenesis. I'm not diabetic.

That said, I'll comment on what I personally believe about the whole evolution vs. creation.

I think the majority of the scientific evidence out there points to evolution, but there are holes, and the theory keeps getting refined (good science lends itself to revision as more information is available). Any person who says we completely understand evolutionary process is dishonest or mislead.

The uncertainty with evolution is that some of the ideas put forth or based on phenomena we haven't directly observed, because the the changes take place over millions of years. We can observe micro-evolution today (camouflaged bugs outliving bugs that stand out and become easier pickings for predetors), but we've yet to directly witness a species sprouting wings where they otherwise had none, or a fish suddenly developing lungs.

We just kind of assume that such things happen because of the evidence on hand.

This is unlike something like diabetes research where we can directly observe the effects of certain drugs and treatments. Evolution, by contrast falls more into the category of theories like the big bang, or what happened to kill off the dinosaurs, where we have a good idea, but nothing 100% definate.

I personally believe in God creating the universe in seven litreral days, but admit that it's a decision made by faith more than hard evidence.

That said, having learned what little I did about the intricacy of the human body in college, the idea of it happening by chance, even over billions of years, seems a little far-fetched to me, personally.

That smells like the work of JibJab to me. Nice vid!

Here's more expelled vids:

 

See: this is what I like to see. A reasonable creationist.

I recently heard a very interesting talk by the former director of the Vatican Observatory. This is someone who is a practicing Astronomer (with his PhD in Astronomy) and is also a Jesuit Priest. These are two vocations that may seem at odds, but he had a very satisfying description of how he rectifies these two seemingly disparate parts of his life: he doesn't. He accepts that current scientific evidence shows us that the universe is ~13.6 billion years old and that the Sun, Earth, and life all formed via physical processes. However, he also believes that God loves him and loves all of us. He thinks the Bible is a "nice story" and, while it is the Word of God, it shouldn't be taken literally.

I think that the real trouble begins when people try to explain religion with science. It doesn't work like that, and doing so does a real disservice to both science and to religion. One point often made is that ID shouldn't be taught as science regardless of whether or not it turns out to be right. Does science support the idea that God created the earth in seven days? No. Does that mean it's wrong? Absolutely not.

Maybe we'll find some day that all of the IDers were right. However, that is not where the evidence is leading us currently. The problem is that the IDers think that they already know the answer (i.e. "God did it") and they look for evidence to support that claim. That's not science. Evolutionary Biologists are trying to figure out how life arose, look at the evidence, and say, "It seems like Darwinian Natural Selection explains this pretty well." Is it the "final answer?" I'd bet a fair amount of money that it's not. Just like Newtonian Physics is only the low-mass, low-acceleration version of General Relativity, it is probably the case that Natural Selection describes the "true theory" under some limits. One of the ways that you can distinguish between a crackpot and a genius in science is that the crackpot says, "Everyone before me was wrong" and the genius says, "These previous theories were right under some limits, but they don't explain the whole story."

This is actually a point that the IDers make a lot (not that I'm lumping you in with them, boulder_bum): that the human body is just too complex to have evolved given any amount of time. My personal opinion on this is that it's because we, as humans, just have no concept of the scale of a billion years (much less 4 billion years). Our brains sort of glaze over and we think, "Yeah. That's a really big number." However, we have a hard time discerning between a long time (i.e. 1000 years), a really long time (i.e. a million years) and a really, really, long time (i.e. a billion years). I could tell you that there are a thousand millenia in a million years and that there are a million millenia in a billion years, but it's hard to really understand this. Carl Sagan does a good job with his Cosmic Calendar. Basically, if you compress the history of the universe into one year, humans arose around 10pm on December 31 and every person we've ever heard of happens in the last 10 seconds of the year.

It's really a great little analogy. You can see it on Youtube:

 

Carl Sagan is GOD, wish Carl was still with us.

 

Very interesting comment. As a very wise man commented a very long time ago about a religious leader of his day, "We should leave them alone. If they are not who/what they say they are, they will fade out and come to nothing. If they are who/what they say they are, then we will be fighting against God and will not be able to win. Like it or not.(paraphrased)"