Expelled from "Expelled"

Akrasia

Mordeth wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOAQ0kuHzgw

ben stein on the o'reilly factor talking about the movie

I love the term 'secular pinheads'.

can we change the name of the forum ?

I have to say, that was an absolute master class in propaganda. And it was only made possible by the presence of a 'fair and balanced' presenter.

How could they fit so much lies and misinformation into 4 minutes is very impressive (darwin certainly did not believe in god, and nobody believes life began on earth when lightning struck mud)

This kind of deceptive salesman ship would not be permitted on the home shopping network, but unfortunately, there is nothing legally wrong at all about a U.S. media outlet deliberately lying.

HemmingSay

Not only did they make a mess of the pre-screenings, they've also hit some legal trouble.

In support of the argument that cells are too complex to have evolved, they used a re-dubbed animation originally created for Harvard biology students without the owners permission.

Article on the original animation

Open letter from the copyright holders

Arstechnica article about ID/Ben Stein/Expelled

With such incompetence, it's scary how much sway these people have.

adamd164

Sex theorists beware....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ThQQuHtzHM

pH

More trouble for expelled, after trying hard to equate evolution with the Nazis and the holocaust, they have apparently included a contribution from a rabid Polish anti-Semite on the ID side.
http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/2008/04/expelled_now_with_added_antise.php

Also more trouble in the form of possible unlicensed music (Imagine) in the film
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/the_sleaze_is_growing.php

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

argh
I want to see this bloody movie

robindch

Mordeth wrote: »

I want to see this bloody movie

I reckon it's going to set a new world record for the trip from cinema, to dvd to peer-sharing networks. On this side of the pond anyway. I give it a month before it can be downloaded. Perhaps less if they can get their ongoing legal problems sorted out.

Oh, what a tangled web they weave...

.

adamd164

Opening weekend stats. It opened in 1,052 screens, taking in $3,153,000 thus far. This ranks it 9th overall; representing about $2,997 per theatre. Good or bad? It's early to say: it was given an extremely wide, highly publicised and well-funded release for a documentary. With such poor reviews, however, it should find it difficult to build momentum. Next weekend will probably be decisive for it.

robindch

adamd164 wrote: »

With such poor reviews

"Poor" hardly begins to describe some of the more recent reviews. Here's one from the IMDb, which reads like it could have been written by some of our more militant posters:

tmakem wrote:

See this movie if you want to sit through a sickening display of calculated deceit. After lying to the principal scientific participants who appear in the film about the film's intentions, the filmmakers juxtaposition the scientist's out of context statements with scenes of Nazi and Stalinist butchery. They disingenuously claim that they are not saying Darwin *caused* Nazism, (oh no, we wouldn't say that!) while cutting to the above atrocities during the interview of every pro-evolution speaker. Note to the film's producers: Evolution supporters aren't as dumb as cretards and IDiots; you can fool the later very easily, but the former can see through the lie.

Every case of alleged *persecution* in this film is nonsense. Sternberg wasn't fired; he was already scheduled to quit as an editor of the journal the next issue after the one where he inserted the ID rant. He inserted the paper by Meyer by completely ignoring the normal protocol of the journal; no other editors reviewed it before publication, even though there were a number of experts in Cambrian era paleontology on staff. He was never kept from the specimen collections, and he was given another position right after this episode; he was not shut out from work at all. Gonzalez didn't get tenure because he brought in almost no grant money while at the University, had no grad students finish their work, and published almost no new, original work. 3 other people in the same department (out of 12 who were up for tenure) in the last ten year also had their tenure rejected. It's not that unusual. And so on. IDiots want to be seen as martyrs; instead they appear as whiny little babies.

If you go to this film expecting to see a scientific case being made for ID, you will be sorely disappointed. They never explain just WHY ID should be taken seriously as science, only that it's *unfair* to not let them into classrooms and universities. They use disgusting guilt by association arguments and other logical fallacies in an attempt to distract the viewer from the fact (a fact that Philip Johnson has recently admitted) that ID has no scientific program of discovery, and nothing that rises to a scientific theory to challenge the last 150 years of scientific study.

On a final note, Stein should be particularly ashamed. He uses the memories of the millions who died during the Holocaust in such a cheap, crass, anti-intellectual way. As he is Jewish, this whoring himself out in such a low manner is particularly galling. He's essentially crapped on the memories of the dead; how he sleeps at night is anybody's guess. I couldn't if I had done what he's done. Then again, I actually have a conscience.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia contains a massive, distinctly uncomplimentary, 17,500 word entry here.

adamd164

Ben Stein served...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihYq2dGa29M

aguaclara

that video is class

digressing slightly, here's the id article by stephen c meyer, one of the creationists featured in the film:

http://tinyurl.com/6xd8y


also, for anyone who's interested, here's a critique (by an actual scientist) of a book by meyer and friends arguing that the controversy (sic) around darwinism ought to be taught in public schools.

http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/44/6/510

Galvasean

adamd164 wrote: »

Sex theorists beware....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ThQQuHtzHM

Wow, really puts it into perspective.