I’m hearing very good things about Expelled, the movie starring Ben Stein that demonstrates the bias and hostility in academia against intelligent design. It opens nationwide on April 18, but special screenings are taking place now. I’m going to one next week and I’ll post a review on this blog. See the trailer here.
“hostility in academia against intelligent design”
Academia is about science and “intelligent design” is not science.
Academia hostility is exposed in the movie. But it also expresses the need for freedom of inquiry. Intelligent Design is misrepresented in the atheist community because intelligent design doesn’t always mean “God” as the creator, rather there is a growing belief that aliens who evolved millions of years in advance are responsible. A test tube baby from an alien prospective…lol…
Academia is denying it’s punishments on those who question evolution in the government schools.
What Academia fears besides loosing grants to creation science inquiry, is things you don’t hear when being taught evolution…For example, as we are able to see far out in deep space, darwinists claim we should see younger looking galaxies, more irregular ones in other words. However, what they are finding is more mature galaxies and one of the most admitted embarrassment is that there is no concrete theory on how stars were formed. They never seen one formed. They have seen stars in dust clouds, but that’s it. Another problem with that, since dust clouds in space need a supernova explosion, and a supernova of course is an “older star” how was the very first star made?
Did we really come from mud puddles with a bolt of energy hitting it? The movie asks these questions and more. A documentary film that was 3 years in the making. It’s purpose: Challenging Darwinism and exposing Censorship.
“Intelligent Design is misrepresented”
Well, then, tell us just what “intelligent design” really is.
“losing grants to creation science inquiry”
LOL Science grants are awarded to scientists by scientists. But Templeton Foundation grants were available and no one even applied.
“finding is more mature galaxies”
There is a little problem with this statement – it is incorrect. But it has nothing to do with evolution.
“no concrete theory on how stars were formed”
The theory is that stars are formed from gas and dust, not concrete. And the “seed” could be “light pressure” or “particle pressure”, but the final victor is gravity.
“Did we really come from mud puddles with a bolt of energy hitting it?”
I don’t think so. I think that is a ridiculous creationist parody.
“The movie asks these questions”
And that’s one reason why it’s a ridiculous movie. And another reason is that it claims that “Darwin led to Hitler”. But I think Martin Luther’s writings were influential.
“A documentary film that was 3 years in the making.”
LOL A mockumentary film that registered a web site “expelledthemovie” one year ago and then a couple of months later interviewed scientists claiming that the movie was to be named “Crossroads”.
onein6billion,
Have you seen “Expelled”?
Frank
Of course not. So what? Have you seen the “trailers”? Have you seen the web site? Have you read the “interviews”? It’s all propaganda by people who have no understanding of evolution.
onein6billion,
How can you make such statements about a movie you haven’t seen? The trailer was not even part of the movie (I have seen it and wrote a review on this blog). And half the people interviewed in the movie were evolutionists and they were all given their questions in advance.
I thank you for your posts, but I respectfully ask you base them on truth not bias.
Frank Turek
“And half the people interviewed in the movie were evolutionists and they were all given their questions in advance.”
They registered the domain name “expelledthemovie.com” a couple of months before telling the scientists that the movie was to be named “Crossroads” and they misled the scientists as to the nature of the topic of the movie.
I doubt they were given the questions in advance and I know that if you can get someone to talk for a couple of hours when they don’t know what slant you are going to put on their statements, you can get them to say things that you can take out of context to make them look silly. Dawkins says he was tricked. One scientist suspected a trap and refused to answer Ben Stein’s “leading question”. He isn’t in the movie.
“base them on truth”
This movie is only going to present one side of the “truth”. And the side it will present is “anti-science”.
And, of course, I have read the reviews written by people who have seen the “director’s cut”. The non-scientists are “fawning” and the scientists say “just as we suspected all along”.
One thing is for sure, that the people who believe as onein6billion does will go down in history as the people of the greatest faith. A faith that particles and matter can(as long as we put enough zillions in the years) create life by themselves. That takes a tremendous amount of faith in my opinion. The truth is, Science as it is today cannot prove how life came to be.
onein6billion,
I’m praying for you.
Justchecking siad “The truth is, Science as it is today cannot prove how life came to be”
You are absolutely correct. That does not mean that it can never happen as you seem to infer.
My apologies if my statement infer’s “never”. Thats a word that means no chance at all, and you are right in there being a chance.
1. The probability of all 128 factors required to support life being found in any one planet is 1 chance in 10(to the 166 power).
2. The maximum number of planets in the universe is 10(to the 22 power).
3. Putting these together, there is only 1 chance in 10(to the144 power) [10(to the 166 power) - 10(to the 22 power)= 10(to the 144power)] that any other planet like earth exists.
Ok, now that gives the same odds as 1 person winning 22 lotteries only purchasing 1 ticket per lottery, and thats just the chances we have the environment to support life.
It is estimated the probability to be more than 10( to the 67 power) against even a small protein forming by time and chance, in an ideal mixture of chemicals, in an ideal atmosphere, and given up to 100 billion years (an age 10 to 20 times greater than the supposed age of the Earth). Mathematicians generally agree that, statistically, any odds beyond 1 in 10 (to the 50 power) have a zero probability of ever happening.
So there’s a chance!!(I’m reminded of the part in the movie Dumb and Dumber)
Now lets just forget all the numbers here in case you don’t believe thier scientific backing, and what if all of that I just stated was completely untrue.
Scientists working with the most state of the art equipment making the most perfect conditions with the correct chemicals and electirc currents cannot make anything that starts living, but I’m soppose to believe and base my understanding of where life comes from is a puddle that got hit by lightening millions of years ago?
“The probability of all 128 factors required to support life being found in any one planet is 1 chance in 10(to the 166 power).”
You have no way of calculating that. That number was pulled out of thin air. Besides that you’re basing that on life as it exists on earth. It is entirely possible that a number of those could be different and there would still be life, just different from the way we know it. The only reason Mars can’t support life is that it’s too cold. I’m certain that once we start to really explore Mars we will find evidence that it had life in the past when it was warmer. So we have two planets in this solar system that can or could in the past support life, so I’d say the probability of a planet being able to support life is considerably higher than what you state.
“Scientists working with the most state of the art equipment making the most perfect conditions with the correct chemicals and electirc currents cannot make anything that starts living,”
Except that we don’t know what the most perfect conditions and the correct chemicals are. Besides that, if it took nature millions of years to do it, why would you expect scientists to be able to duplicate the process in a decade or two?
Why is it that science has to look to other planets to explain the life that is right in front of them. Lets say there was life on Mars, and we find it was as complex as our life on earth at some point. Does this in any way prove life begins to exist on its own?
Life spontaneously came to be = hypothesis
– We are nothing more than the bi-product of chance with no destiny or reason to be living.
Intelligent design created life = hypothesis
- We were created for a reason and there is a purpose to our life.
The point of this thread is the fact that life spontaneously creating itself is science to be studied, and any talk of intelligent design should be thrown out.
No one can bring out an intelligent being and allow it to be examined, just like no one can bring out life from non living mass. Both thoughts of creation need to be studied and looked through, after all, aren’t we all out for the truth?
Got another prediction for you, Ken. Mind you this is a prediction from me, a Biblical Creationist, not necessarily the more generic ID model. I predict, based on the model of Biblical Creationism, that there will be no life found on Mars or any other planet in this solar system or any other star system in the Universe. Is that prediction falsifiable? Meaningful? Acceptable?
In Truth and Love,
Ernie
“Life spontaneously came to be = hypothesis”
Yes – a scientific hypothesis.
“Intelligent design created life = hypothesis”
No – this is not a scientific hypothesis.
“The point of this thread is the fact that life spontaneously creating itself is science to be studied, and any talk of intelligent design should be thrown out.”
Correct. Science studies reality and “intelligent design” has nothing to do with reality.
“Meaningful?”
Not a chance.
1) It’s incredibly obvious.
2) It’s not “scientific”.
It’s just lame.
A hypothesis – consists either of a suggested explanation for a phenomenon or of a reasoned proposal suggesting a possible correlation between multiple phenomena.
Just to tell a little bit about myself, I’m a food lover. I’m also a lucky man to have a wife that enjoys cooking with me. Isn’t it wonderful that there are so many different foods to chose from. Veggies, grains, fruits, meats, etc…not just what would be required for me to survive as a species, but great things for me to enjoy.
Now, I ask myself, how did all of this get here. Well, I find that science of today states that at some point the correct matter and electric current came together and the first living thing started(hypothesis), and this thing over time evolved into plants, animals, insects, etc.
Then science also shows how complex all of the different DNA is, and how delicate eco-systems are.
A hypothesis – consists either of a suggested explanation(intelligent design) for a phenomenon(DNA and life) or of a reasoned proposal(intelligent design) suggesting a possible correlation between multiple phenomena(extremely complex life, and a more than sufficient enviromnment to support it).
My fellow humans, if you cannot admit with the evidence in life itself that intelligent design is not a probable hypothesis, you have become a fool.
What predictions does your intelligent design hypothesis make that can be tested? What evidence would falsify the hypothesis?
A LAWYER that tries to debate biology, astronomy, geology, physics, etc.
That’s looks like a joke. He simply doesn’t have the minimum requirements.
From the Internet: Here are 6 rather important things Ben Stein doesn’t want you to know:
1) Expelled quotes Charles Darwin selectively to connect his ideas to eugenics and the Holocaust.
When the film is building its case that Darwin and the theory of evolution bear some responsibility for the Holocaust, Ben Stein’s narration quotes from Darwin’s The Descent of Man thusly:
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
This is how the original passage in The Descent of Man reads (unquoted sections emphasized in italics):
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The producers of the film did not mention the very next sentences in the book (emphasis added in italics):
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.
Darwin explicitly rejected the idea of eliminating the “weak” as dehumanizing and evil. Those words falsify Expelled’s argument. The filmmakers had to be aware of the full Darwin passage, but they chose to quote only the sections that suited their purposes.-Very unfortunate if this is true.
2) Ben Stein’s speech to a crowded auditorium in the film was a setup.
“Viewers of Expelled might think that Ben Stein has been giving speeches on college campuses and at other public venues in support of ID and against “big science.” But if he has, the producers did not include one. The speech shown at the beginning and end was staged solely for the sake of the movie. Michael Shermer learned as much by speaking to officials at Pepperdine University, where those scenes were filmed. Only a few of the audience members were students; most were extras brought in by the producers. Judge the ovation Ben Stein receives accordingly. –Who cares?
3) Scientists in the film thought they were being interviewed for a different movie.
As Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Eugenie Scott, Michael Shermer and other proponents of evolution appearing in Expelled have publicly remarked, the producers first arranged to interview them for a film that was to be called Crossroads, which was allegedly a documentary on “the intersection of science and religion.” They were subsequently surprised to learn that they were appearing in Expelled, which “exposes the widespread persecution of scientists and educators who are pursuing legitimate, opposing scientific views to the reigning orthodoxy,” to quote from the film’s press kit.When exactly did Crossroads become Expelled? The producers have said that the shift in the film’s title and message occurred after the interviews with the scientists, as the accumulating evidence gradually persuaded them that ID believers were oppressed. Yet as blogger Wesley Elsberry discovered when he searched domain registrations, the producers registered the URL “expelledthemovie.com” on March 1, 2007—more than a month (and in some cases, several months) before the scientists were interviewed. The producers never registered the URL “crossroadsthemovie.com”. Those facts raise doubt that Crossroads was still the working title for the movie when the scientists were interviewed. – This is petty.
4) The ID-sympathetic researcher whom the film paints as having lost his job at the Smithsonian Institution was never an employee there.
One section of Expelled relates the case of Richard Sternberg, who was a researcher at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and editor of the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. According to the film, after Sternberg approved the publication of a pro-ID paper by Stephen C. Meyer of the Discovery Institute, he lost his editorship, was demoted at the Smithsonian, was moved to a more remote office, and suffered other professional setbacks. The film mentions a 2006 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report prepared for Rep. Mark Souder (R–Ind.), “Intolerance and the Politicization of Science at the Smithsonian,” that denounced Sternberg’s mistreatment.This selective retelling of the Sternberg affair omits details that are awkward for the movie’s case, however. Sternberg was never an employee of the Smithsonian: his term as a research associate always had a limited duration, and when it ended he was offered a new position as a research collaborator. As editor, Sternberg’s decision to “peer-review” and approve Meyer’s paper by himself was highly questionable on several grounds, which was why the scientific society that published the journal later repudiated it. Sternberg had always been planning to step down as the journal’s editor—the issue in which he published the paper was already scheduled to be his last.The report prepared by Rep. Souder, who had previously expressed pro-ID views, was never officially accepted into the Congressional Record. Notwithstanding the report’s conclusions, its appendix contains copies of e-mails and other documents in which Sternberg’s superiors and others specifically argued against penalizing him for his ID views. (More detailed descriptions of the Sternberg case can be found on Ed Brayton’s blog Dispatches from the Culture Wars and on Wikipedia.)
5) Science does not reject religious or “design-based” explanations because of dogmatic atheism.
Expelled frequently repeats that design-based explanations (not to mention religious ones) are “forbidden” by “big science.” It never explains why, however. Evolution and the rest of “big science” are just described as having an atheistic preference.Actually, science avoids design explanations for natural phenomena out of logical necessity. The scientific method involves rigorously observing and experimenting on the material world. It accepts as evidence only what can be measured or otherwise empirically validated (a requirement called methodological naturalism). That requirement prevents scientific theories from becoming untestable and overcomplicated.By those standards, design-based explanations rapidly lose their rigor without independent scientific proof that validates and defines the nature of the designer. Without it, design-based explanations rapidly become unhelpful and tautological: “This looks like it was designed, so there must be a designer; we know there is a designer because this looks designed.”A major scientific problem with proposed ID explanations for life is that their proponents cannot suggest any good way to disprove them. ID “theories” are so vague that even if specific explanations are disproved, believers can simply search for new signs of design. Consequently, investigators do not generally consider ID to be a productive or useful approach to science.-What is the purpose of life? Why are we here? Science doesn’t answer these questions because it doesn’t see them as productive or useful either. Religion gives us answers that science can’t.
6) Many evolutionary biologists are religious and many religious people accept evolution.
Expelled includes many clips of scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, William Provine and PZ Myers who are also well known as atheists. They talk about how their knowledge of science confirms their convictions and how in some cases science led them to atheism. And indeed, surveys do indicate that atheism is more common among scientists than in the general population.Nevertheless, the film is wrong to imply that understanding of evolution inevitably or necessarily leads to a rejection of religious belief. Francisco Ayala of the University of California, Irvine, a leading neuroscientist who used to be a Dominican priest, continues to be a devout Catholic, as does the evolutionary biologist Ken Miller of Brown University. Thousands of other biologists across the U.S. who all know evolution to be true are also still religious. Moreover, billions of other people around the world simultaneously accept evolution and keep faith with their religion. The late Pope John Paul II said that evolution was compatible with Roman Catholicism as an explanation for mankind’s physical origins.During Scientific American’s post-screening conversation with Expelled associate producer Mark Mathis, we asked him why Ken Miller was not included in the film. Mathis explained that his presence would have “confused” viewers. But the reality is that showing Miller would have invalidated the film’s major premise that evolutionary biologists all reject God.Inside and outside the scientific community, people will no doubt continue to debate rationalism and religion and disagree about who has the better part of that argument. Evidence from evolution will probably remain at most a small part of that conflict, however.