I think I’ve said just about everything I can about that contemptible, dishonest propaganda movie starring Ben Stein, so I’ve been fairly quiet about it lately. It will run its short course in the theaters, and the main result will be that we’ll get a few more creationists who, in addition to being grossly ignorant, will be grossly disinformed about science. Thanks to the Expelled gang, creationist arguments will be a little bit stupider.
So here are what I think are the best of the responses I’ve seen so far.
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Sahotra Sarkar succinctly guts the main points of the movie. (It’s also partly in response to the very worst defense of the movie, by David Klinghoffer, who somehow ties it to the glory of circumcision — cringe before the stupid.)
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Richard Dawkins writes a letter to a disinformed viewer who suddenly thinks biologists and atheists are plotting another Holocaust. That’s another outcome of this movie: It’s going to inflame more than a few crazy people.
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Arthur Caplan excoriates the movie: it isn’t just bad, it’s immoral. Stein is practicing a form of Holocaust denial.
Use them in future arguments with creationists; you’ll need to.
As for all those people who are arguing from box office grosses that the movie is a success or a failure, grow up. We have a large population of miseducated evangelical lackwits in this country who will fork over money for exactly this kind of crap, so we knew ahead of time that the producers were going to get some small pots of cash out of this; worrying over exactly how much they got or will get is a pointless exercise. All it tells us is roughly how many people were motivated enough to see a bad movie because it caters to their prejudices. The issue at hand is dealing with the substance of the movie’s claims and the reactions of the viewers. If you’re counting dollar signs and using that to opine over the worth of the movie (in either direction), you’re being part of the problem.
It’s the same problem that we see in press reports on politics right now. Everything is focused on the horse race — how many votes do they have so far, how much money have they raised? — and next to nothing on what the people actually say. Stop it!
We all know what this crap movie is all about and there is no need to pique our interest by seeing it anyway as it will be a waste of time and money. I’ll be content to deride it as much as I can in the most vile manner that I can to any religious moron who cares not to listen. My time and brain cells will be more served and honored to look at the pictures that the Cassini spacecraft is taking of Saturn and its moons. Now there is science, palpable and enthralling! That crap Expelled is visual and stultifying bullshit, and life is too short and fleeting to waste it on mass insanity.
Speaking of responses to Expelled, I just checked out the “Conservapedia” website to see if they have anything about it. On their main page, in the “in the News” section, they have this:
“A Conservapedian just returned from seeing ‘Expelled’ and said: ‘The movie was terrific. Not only about the evolution thing, but about our freedom, and where that kind of (non)thinking can lead.’ Locate a theater near you by state or zip code here.
If you watched the documentary, add your comments here.”
And that’s on their MAIN PAGE!
That ‘evolution thing’, yeah, it’s so totally (non)thinking.
Sigh.
Intelligent design confuses people like science without comforting them like religion.
Expelled’s “religious freedom” versus DI’s sure-it’s-science stance highlight ID’s internal faultlines.
So, in the end, I’m more concerned with what they come up with next, after ID.
here is my favorite response to expelled
The movie bombed by anyone’s standard. I’d be surprised if it does even $5 million total. And unlike other documentary pics, (Fahrenheit 9/11, March of the Penguins, etc.), it’s international appeal is going to be very limited. PZ thanks for the Arthur Caplan link….definetely worth the read.
Here’s a question though: Would an, informative, professionally made, and scientifically accurate flick about natural selection have done any better in the US? What kind of audience is there for science movies, either pro-science, or anti-science like Stein’s movie. (Science fiction is another matter….)
You’re right. Although the screening I attended was sparsely populated (between two or three dozen), the audience was soaking up mental poison. As I left I heard one couple conversing: “Did you like it?” “Oh, yes. It gave me a lot to think about.” And a pair of college-age girls just behind me slurped on their sodas and oohed and ahhed through the whole thing, getting enlightened.
I doubt it would have helped if I had turned to them and warned them: “You’re being lied to, you know.” I fear the answer would have been: “Oh, yeah. Our biology professors are all in on it!”
Big Science is our only defense against Big Bullshit.
I can’t decide if I should see it. On one hand, I don’t want to waste an hour and a half of my life, and I sure don’t want anyone I know to see me in there. On the other hand, I don’t want to be subject to the claim “but you don’t really know what’s in it if you haven’t seen it, you’re just taking other people’s words for it”. Ugh.
regarding success and expelled:
PZ you are correct, box office receipts are not the measure of “success” for this film. As with any propaganda, it isn’t about profit it is about appearance. they got the film in 1000+ screens. It will be bought by every evangelical bible church in the US, it will be used to promote every anti-science agenda imaginable (from evolution, to global warming, to alternative medicines and anti-vaccine campaigns.) In this regard, unfortunately, expelled was successful in its first wave attack. So we do need to step it up. Folks like you and dawkins need to keep being ‘dicks’–just watched the beware the believers clip–and religious scientists also need to speak up LOADLY and tell the world this is crap.
The point should be made that the box office take IS important in determining whether or not XVIVO etc should sue.
I mean, if they don’t make any money, it’s not going to be worth the cries of persecution from the xians.
I followed Randy’s link (#4) to the “Stork Theory” video and found this gem in the comments:
Perhaps we can’t blame this example of arrant stupidity on Expelled, but these birds of a feather are flocking together. And they’re dodos rather than storks.
jetmags73:
March of the Penguins did rather well at the cinema, if I recall correctly. In the UK, you just have to look at the success of programs like the BBC’s Planet Earth series: there’s plenty of interest in science, just not enough time devoted to it.
Excuse me, but movies are successful based on their sales. They cost money to make. You only get 55% of the gross. Your fist weekend is your best.
They were very clear, for this movie to be successful they needed $12-$15 million in box-office gross. So they could cover their costs. $3 million represents about 1/4th to 1/5th what the needed. Which means it was a flop and it produces an associative stench to all the participants who will start finding open doors now closed.
$3 million means they’re probably losing a TON OF FUCKING MONEY on this movie because science bloggers, such as yourself, that put the early buzz out on a lying creationist movie can certainly put a damper on sales. $3 Million should tell us that attacking trash-crap like Expelled can be done and that grass-roots criticism of lies and propaganda can be successful.
They got $3 million. Even with the Church goers and True Believers. Even through their aggressive preview showings and advertising campaign. They couldn’t generate the revenues they needed, even from the huge swath of “True Christian Believers” out there. That’s a damn good talking point. And it will have repercussions. For example, if Michael Moore’s Roger & Me would have done this badly, we wouldn’t have seen Bowling for Columbine made. But it was moderately successful, so he got a second chance. These clowns won’t get a second chance unless they find a sugar-daddy to bank-roll them, despite their massive first failure, and that’ll be hard to do.
Additionally, $3 Million means the movie may have even bankrupted the studio, so they won’t be able to produce follow-up movies in any case. Once again, the low-gross makes a solid talking point. Only the fringe are interested in your Creationism lies. You guys are squeaky wheels that don’t necessarily represent the larger constituency of Christians in America. $3 million is a repudiation of your delusional self-importance.
The low-gross is, in itself, easier to talk about with people who cannot really grasp the very complex issues with Evolution. It also makes a good zinger, which is a good thing, as Creationists use the “zinger” approach to debate and discussion. Whereas, to rebut the “zingers” you need to take a lot of time. Expelled’s failure puts a “zinger” on the Evolutionist side. Something that is necessary as the average American just doesn’t get the issues in evolution because his/her biology eduction is rudimentary and fundamentally flawed.
So, that you apparently can’t see what this means… What ever. You’re sounding like “Joe Framing” with this post.
One measure of the movie’s message-spin success will be to see if future discussions about evolution/ID quickly lapse into arguments about the holocaust. If so, Ben Stein and Co. will have already won.
It’s almost getting to the point where discussion threads will start three seconds after the original article gets posted, and instead of ‘First!’ it will be ‘Godwin!’
(And the bitter irony will be that ‘Godwin’ will take on a double meaning, one that we will find very depressing.)
Carlie:
Whatever you do, do NOT pay to see this pic. You’re not relying on anyone else’s words; the jerk producers and Stein have said enough idiocy publicly. If you feel the need though, just watch the relevent clips on Youtube, then go take a shower. A long one.
Besides, based on the box office traffic, this thing will likely be out of theatres by this weekend or the next. Then in 3 months or less on DVD, (NO do not order it from Netflix either). I would just wait for the TV version to air. And then, on that glorious day….you should probably read something instead.
Arthur Caplan excellent article only has 3-star rating. If you visit, nudge up the rating.
Sarkar’s review was great,some of the comments to it were deeply disturbing however,to say the least.
I have to give my admiration to Richard Dawkins to write to this deluded jewish guy ,put up with his ignorance and delusions and actually try to make an effort to explain things to him,I dont think I would have had the patience or faith(pun intended) to even try.
Scary,very scary,if this is the effect that piece of crap is having on the gullible.
I wonder when I will see it in cinemas in Australia,probably not long….
I generally liked the Planet Earth series, but it seemed to me that whoever wrote the script had too great a tendency to use mystical language and to anthropomorphize the animals under discussion. Beyond this, though it wasn’t anti-evolution by any stretch, they really didn’t take the time to discuss the process of adaptation at all, which kinda puts evolution on par with the “god poofed it that way” explanation. Perhaps there were just time constraints that precluded it. Regardless, I’ll take a good Attenborough documentary over it any day of the week.
As to the whole Expelled thing, you’re right to argue that the movie should be judged harshly by its content(and those who liked it) and not by its gross, but what’s so wrong with some of us taking pleasure in the knowledge that those who produced it are likely to eat a loss? Knowing that the free market has declared making the movie to be as idiotic as the irrational, untrue arguments it peddles renews my confidence in Humanity :)
Oh, no worries, I have no intention of paying to see it. It’s a matter of either buying a different ticket (which makes me feel just slightly icky) or waiting for a pirated copy on the internet (slightly less icky), but either way the issue is the hour and a half of my life that I’d never get back. :) I know most of it already, but there’s still that little nagging “but you haven’t seen it” that gets me.
I’ve been keeping an eye on the Expelled web site. It seems to me that they gave up almost two weeks ago. The most recent blog entry (not comment) was April 11. Their news section announces that “EXPELLED to Open in One Thousand US Theaters By April 18th!”
A competent PR firm would be churning the whole thing-especially on this, the most important week of the film’s life. If you are out to create buzz, it takes some work people. What were they thinking?
Holbach (#1) wrote:
“My time and brain cells will be more served and honored to look at the pictures that the Cassini spacecraft is taking of Saturn and its moons. Now there is science, palpable and enthralling!”
Perhaps the best rebuttal of all would be a movie featuring a cross-section of successful scientists at work, describing their methods, findings, and interactions with peers.
We could call it “Excelled: Intelligence Required”
Not really. That was already rather common pre-BS.
Er, no. Major movie investors believe in money a hell of a lot more than Creationism. “Counting dollar signs” gives us a good indication if other studios will be hopping on this particular budding bandwagon or not. The fact that the movie is not only failing to bring huge returns but is currently tanking suggests that the next Creationist propaganda film is going to have a much harder time finding financial backing for a high-budget film. And that, my friend, is part of the solution.
I have to agree that box office is important in several ways. Perhaps people like PZ won’t use it as a measurement, but others certainly will. Box office numbers portend how much juice is left in the orange. “Sicko” got $34 million in gross. That covers investment and more, I’m sure. A movie like “Expelled” had to cost multiple millions to produce, especially with the carpet bombing PR and ads. Yet pulling in only $3 million in its first weekend from 1,000+ screens is not going to cut it in the movie business. I think you can also extrapolate from that $3 million that evangelicals aren’t swarming in the huge numbers they want us to think they are. It also helps determine how long the movie will be tolerated in theaters. Theater owners will unload a low-grossing film faster than any bolts Jove could hurl. And the lower numbers contribute to the “nyah, nyah, nyah” factor, which is always helpful in Web debates.
Carlie: Step away from the Creationism. Step away from the Creationism!
To Moses, Shygetz et al:
I see you point, that the success, or lack of, of the film influences how useful it will be as a debating point, but I think PZ’s point was that said success has feth all to do with the veracity of the film’s contents (not that you are arguing that, but others may).
Carlie: Don’t bother wasting your time. You don’t need to drink from a sewer outflow to know that it won’t taste very nice.
Moses: “These clowns won’t get a second chance unless they find a sugar-daddy to bank-roll them, despite their massive first failure, and that’ll be hard to do.”
Much as I would like to agree with you, creationists/RWAs don’t operate by the same rules as the reality-based community. Money is not the issue. Poor sales, bad reviews, negative press, lawsuits, mass derision by the science community – not the issue. Mindshare among the gullible, THAT’S the issue, and always will be. Religion and Authority (one and the same, actually) depend on mindshare and mass subservience. Creationism is under fire, and a multi-pronged campaign is underway to shore things up. Expelled is only one salvo in the greater war.
Do you really think the people who fund the Discovery Institute, and by extension, the Religious Right, care one shit about Ben Stein or his career? Do they care about Ted Haggard, now that he is damaged goods? More projects like this will come along, you can depend on that. Who among us would have thought the frigging Creation Museum would ever make it off the back of the envelope and into a multi-million-dollar attraction? And when attendance drops there, it will be discarded and a newer, bigger shrine to ignorance will be built.
To the creationist mindset, there is no ‘lose’. Everything is either a success, or one more test of faith in God’s mysterious ways.
(And don’t take this post personally – I loved how you smacked down Planet Killer in a previous thread, but in this case I think you’re missing a bigger picture.)
Yeah, I’m pretty much done with the subject, as well. None of the lemmings will be swayed by any kind of reasoned debate on the matter, because they don’t want to listen to reason. All they ever wanted was to be part of the movie’s mutual masturbation, and to be told their paranoia is justified and not a sign of impending insanity. Hell, I no longer feel compelled to see the movie to justify my hating it. Because of the expansive coverage, I know all of its plot points:
Ben Stein is really, really popular with college students — so much so they hold keggers in his honor… These well-lighted people were fired… These badly-lighted, Darwinist poop-holes hate God… Darwin is responsible for Hitler, Stalin, Mao, abortion, eugenics, and the demise of Gatorade Gum… Ben Stein wanders lost around Seattle like some half-wit who’s never heard of GPS or a cell phone or a map or an Exxon station… Ben Stein pretends to cry at a concentration camp and pesters a tour guide whose English isn’t good enough to really understand his questions… Ben Stein stares down Darwin’s statue and thinks he wins… Roll credits.
All I really care about now is dealing with the aftermath, and these newly-rabble-roused creationists who want our public schools to teach their fairy tales in science class. I’m lookin’ at you, Florida, Missouri, Louisiana and Oklahoma.
Julian- did you watch Planet Earth in the US or the UK? While the UK version was narrated by David Attenborough in his usual, excellent way, the US version was narrated by Sigourney Weaver from a slightly modified script. i.e. mention of evolution was removed, or expelled, if you will.
On Success:
if the company truly believed they had a market, that the world would flock to see “Expelled”, that they would make good money on tapping into this market, the movie was a flop. If the movie truly was simply as expensive propaganda piece… the jury is out on success, but it teeters that direction.
yes, premise media may not make another movie, but there is another gullible production company around the corner, just as there is always another gullible Board of Education (did you all really think that Dover would end school board idiocy?) So there will always be flashier movies and propaganda being produced.
So again my call is to first, expose expelled to everyone…don’t let them get the last word, second, get pro-science pieces out there.
The IDiots are crap-flooding the comments over at imdb.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1091617/usercomments?start=30
I’m beginning to think our brand of conciousness is an evolutionary dead-end….
Last night while waiting for my take-out, I overhead a prof from a local U discussing her undergrad class on evolution. Always the eavesdropper and lacking in social graces, I butted in to ask her impression of the Expelled! kerfuffle. She told me that she sent her students to the movie as an assignment to bring the issues of ID and academic freedom back to the classroom. So, that’ll account for another 25 paying moviegoers.
Aaargh, you’re doing it again!
The box office DOES NOT MATTER. We do not have control over who goes to the movie and who doesn’t, so it’s pointless to wring our hands over it. Further, even the people who are arguing over the money don’t seem to be saying anything.
If it made a paltry $3 million over the first weekend, or an awe-inspiring $100 million, would it make any difference to how you rebut it? Seriously, would anyone be impressed if someone said, “Flock of Dodos didn’t make very much money, therefore evolution sucks”? Why should we consider the flip side of that argument to be valid?
Expelled may last longer in theaters, and the studio may produce more films even if it is a financial disaster.
Philip Anschutz did a remarkably similar campaign with “One Night With the King” back in 2006. See http://www.riskybusinessblog.com/2006/10/films_of_faith_.html, for example. Note the comment:
Philip Anschutz owns Regal Entertainment Group, “the largest and most geographically diverse theatre circuit in the United States, consisting of 6,388 screens in 527 theatres in 39 states and the District of Columbia.”
If the Expelled crew is getting funding from Anschutz, they will be able to crank out more of this trash. And with his distribution capabilities, they may even make a profit on it.
http://boremetotears.blogspot.com/2008/04/match-my-donation.html
OK guys, put your money where your mouth is. This nice lady is matching donations to the NCSE up to $500. Come on, so far I’m the only one who has taken her up on it. Do you want me to make you all look bad?
PZed Myers you vile and ignorant bastard, how dare you come out with such vacuous stupidity? There is no force on this or any other planet that could make creationists arguments even more stupid than they already are. “Expelled” will only cause an already frothing bunch of lunatics to masturbate themselves to most frequent stupidity, the nadir of stupid already having been reached long ago. Cease your vile calumny forthwith, if not fifthwith.*
Harrumph
Louis
* DISCLAIMER: This is tongue in cheek. I have ceased all sarcasm in disclaimers since FTK quote mined me and left off my customary comedy disclaimer only to tag it back on with the emphasis changed to fit her prejudices. For the record: I consider Prof Myers to be neither vile nor ignorant, and I have no doubts about the legitimacy of his birth. Nor do I consider him a source of stupidity or calumny. In fact I agree with him on this issue except for the fact that creationists can get stupider, it just isn’t possible. I cite Kent Hovind as evidence. Basically that is the rhetorical equovalent of a nuclear bomb! ;-)
Yes, PZ, there would be a huge difference between a $3 mil gross and $100 mil. If it were $100 mil, it would be much more significant because you would clearly be battling a much larger group of people. The fact it only makes $3 mil indicates that the mainstream is not buying this nonsense, and it can be blown off as coming from the lunatic fringe. It’s a lot easier to marginalize the lunatics than the mainstream.
I have an answer for those who want to see some of the movie, but not pay a dime to the dopey producers, and also waste as little of their life as possible. Buy a ticket for a more worthy movie, that starts 20 minutes or so after this pile of crap, crash into the Expelled dump heap, and when its time for your good movie to start, leave in disgust from the shit-hole, ranting and gagging all the way out, saying stuff like you want your money back. If the movie administration confronts you, just say that you accidently walked into the wrong theater. See your good movie. Then go take a long shower.
UprightAlice wrote:
That’s what I thought a couple weeks ago. Since then I’ve pretty much just been reviewing Battlestar Galactica on my blog, and my readership dropped.
But I got pulled back in because I keep seeing Ben Stein blamed for the film and he’s just a dumb actor reading lines. If we want to heap scorn on someone for this propaganda piece, the wouldn’t the screenwriter, Kevin 11, have less of an excuse?
They don’t even seem to know what reason is.
Same here.
Maybe PZ and Dawkins should make a film?
Success can indeed be measured in many ways, but financial success is important. If this film is very profitable, it will encourage them to make more like it. If it results in a net loss, it will discourage them from making others.
I’ve been doing some blogging about the ghastly box-office results of this movie. The funniest item is about a Discovery Institute blog article that really raved about how well the movie was doing. They said: “Expelled had a huge opening weekend for a documentary film. … Based just on its opening weekend alone, Expelled is now #26 on the all-time box office list of documentaries. Among those documentaries, only Fahrenheit 9/11 and Tupac The Resurection had better opening weekends.”
But as I pointed out: “If you take a careful look at the website that lists the box-office performance of documentaries: top 100 documentaries, you will notice an interesting fact. While Expelled opened at 1,052 theaters, most of the others opened at only a handful of theaters. Fahrenheit 9/11, the top-ranked documentary, opened at 868 theaters (and had a bigger opening weekend than Expelled). After that, the largest number was for Tupac: Resurrection, which opened at 801 theaters (which also did better than Expelled). The next highest was 561 theaters for Imagine: John Lennon. After that there are only a few with theaters numbering in the 200s and 300s.
Over half the films on that list opened at less than 10 theaters — including 16 that are ranked higher than Expelled.”
The film is not a research paper, it is an advertisement for Creationism, and as such, it’s poor box office tells us that the audience for such tripe is not a broad and/or deeply interested as the filmakers thought. This is nothing but good news.
We have as much control over who goes to the movie as we have control over who believes in evolution. We had less control over the Dover verdict. And yet there was liberal hand-wringing over both of those issues. While the box office matters not a whit as to the truth content of the film, it matters greatly as to the impact of the film. I already KNOW the movie is false, and so do you. If someone comes to me and says the film is true, I know the facts to rebut him/her. The box office tells me that my neighbor also knows its false, or at least knows it isn’t something that would interest him/her. That indicates that I won’t be needing to do quite as much rebutting as the Creationists would have hoped.
Expelled. It’s like porn but with stupid instead of sex.
Chris Mooney has gone batshit for the box office performance.
http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2008/04/expelled_a_box_office_success.php
(And yes PZ, I know that grosses don’t make a bit of difference as to the film’s validity). I just wonder how this opening can be called a success with such demonstrably shitty attendance.
Carlie @19:
Just ask them, “Did you watch The Golden Compass before you started boycotting it?” ZING!
Geoff: compared to Expelled, porn films have better plots.
It is only to hope that God’s Nazis will share destiny with Hitler’s ones, and that the bensteins of this world take the same exit as their idol, Dr. Joseph Goebbels.
With some luck the rest of the GNs would then just be ridiculed into well deserved oblivion.
Am not holding my breath though, for ‘Gegen die Dummheit kämpfen die Götter selbst vergebens’!
Umm, could we do something really unorthodox? Like getting a priest who believe in evolution to attend each movie screening and exorcise it?
If we look at the funding of the Discovery Institute, it is easy to see that book sales are not what drives them. Have West’s books hit the best-seller lists? And yet they still fund them.
Their backers are willing to lose money in order to preach against scientism and its disastrous effects on American Culture.
It’s not a balance sheet issue, it’s a Renewal of Society and Culture issue.
PZ, I would like to encourage you to take the lead on this effort. You have a powerful and talented voice on why evolution matters for the daily lives of all humans that care about their health (this applies to just about everyone). I think it would be a great service to the Expelled! viewers that are going to drop in here if you could focus your energies on showing them the light. May I be so bold as to suggest that you bring back some of your elegant posts from times past on the basics of evolution and how evolution is important for human health. You will have the ear of some of these people in the coming days/weeks. I hope that you will do all you can to teach them about the importance of evolution.
You mean reoldal, right?
Box Office Mojo has revised its estimates for Sunday’s sales down, from $958,000 to $775,000. That’s a big decline, and it looks as if it may drop further as the days progress. Eventually, theater operators will drop Expelled in favor of something that might actually fill the seats.
I predict a DVD release within two weeks.
Cross-post:
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I think PZ is mostly right on the cashola – it is immaterial to the propoganda content, and really doesn’t affect who will see it and how energized they will become. This piece of dreck will last long after it is out of theaters, and so will its effects. There will be a flood of stoopidity lasting at least forty days and nights (it will seem much longer).
wazza: LOL! How true!
wheatdogg’s #52: “Box Office Mojo has revised its estimates for Sunday’s sales down, from $958,000 to $775,000. That’s a big decline …”
We should also consider that this is for 1,052 theaters. It’s only $737 per theater. How much is a ticket? Is it $10? That’s less than 74 people per theater. How many showings does each theater have for the day? I donno, but it looks like these theaters are nearly empty for each showing.
I saw Expelled on Saturday afternoon, (Instead of buying a ticket for it I bought one for another movie and went into the showing of Expelled.) There were only ten people (and nine tickets) in the show I saw.
Cross-post:
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Forget about the 150 years of empirical evidence spanning many diverse areas of science which supports evolution…
…ID’s own logic is seriously flawed
Check it out:
In case anyone here is entering the ‘Set Ben Straight’ competition, I found an interesting Ben Stein quote, although I’m sure it was made sometime prior to his turning-into-a-complete-looney phase.
It seems to me that he is refuting intelligent design with his own words…
“There is no sudden leap into the stratosphere… There is only advancing step by step, slowly and tortuously, up the pyramid towards your goals…” – Ben Stein
http://thinkexist.com/quotation/there_is_no_sudden_leap_into_the_stratosphere/200819.html
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/forbidden_kingdom/news/1723254/
“Expelled was the only film in the top ten to see Saturday sales drop from Friday so a long life in theaters is not likely.”
Combined with the figures from Wheatdog (#52), I’d call it a major disappointment. I bet they got a boost on Friday just from the ads, which made it seem like a summer teen comedy. Word of mouth obviously isn’t doing Expelled any favors.
/Your fist weekend is your best./
Um, only if you’re into that sort of thing….
Kind of disappointing it’s not more of a success. I was looking forward to pointing out to Expelled fans that you can look at Expelled as one huge parody of the ID movement; middle-aged establishment types with no scientific backgrounds play acting at being the radicals they never were in their youths by attacking the strawman Big Science. It sounds like except for Evolution verse ID debate fans no one has even heard of the stupid movie. Curse the producers and their inept marketing. They’ve could have done some real damage to the ID movement but no they have to bone it.
expelled fits right in with “what the bleep do we know?” and “the secret”
If I coughed up a bunch of lies and someone paid me three million dollars for it, I’d think of it as a financial success, but I sure wouldn’t consider it a personal, moral or even a human success.
Then again, if anyone is to learn anything from this film, it is that there is a precise limit on just how much money can be bilked out of religious zealots at any one time. Three million is nothing but a great goal for a thief.
If we look at the funding of the Discovery Institute, it is easy to see that book sales are not what drives them. Have West’s books hit the best-seller lists? And yet they still fund them.
Hell, look at the Moonie Washington Times or anything bankrolled by Scaife. Nothing makes a profit, but Moon and Scaife, and quite a few others on the right, are in an ideological war and they’ll spend money to wage it. Expelled *Jazz Hands* and Disco are part of that well-funded right wing assault on everything good and decent.
Jason Failes @ 21 Yes, I agree with your “Excelled: Intelligence Required!” It is those very scientists working together that has articulated science to place those spacecrafts such as Cassini, Huygens, and all the other wonders of technology to permit us to delve into the Universe without any need or reference to imaginary crap. And my hero, the great Hubble Space Telescope, science to prove that what we see and cannot see has no need of any human superstition.
I know, Bob L, the circus atmosphere surrounding the film was intoxicating to those of us who spar with anti-evolutionists. Now it just sort of died with a whimper (oh, I know it’ll be lingering for a long time, but it’ll be considered more and more disreputable as time passes), and I sort of miss it.
Box office numbers and totals do matter, however, so I’m glad it’s no blockbuster, in fact. Maybe it wouldn’t even make such a difference to how we fight it, but we’d be spread awfully thin if 25% of America saw it and it was a subject of some show every night for a month (the fact that the Dem. primary lingers, plus news of the polygamist compound and the pope’s visit, seem to have kept Expelled from getting some publicity they likely had hoped for). Also, numbers matter to how Xian and Jewish groups deal with it, since they probably would prefer not to say much if it is small (don’t publicize the bad if it is relatively unknown), and would feel compelled to denounce the sleaze if Expelled were big.
It is possible that if it became really big that ID would be so disgraced by it that it would never have any credibility among the public at large again. But considering the knowledge levels of our populace, I wouldn’t want to take that chance.
Anyway, it’s been fun, partly because they’re quite an inept bunch who made the movie, and couldn’t appeal to anyone whose beliefs and knowledge went beyond their own narrow sectarian views if their lives depended on doing so. We’ve enjoyed it, Keith and a few other truly pathetic IDiots imagined that Expelled would end “Big Science”, and ID has received a black eye from it among anyone with an IQ above, say, 90 (sure, they have a few quite a bit more intelligent, but what they say rarely sounds intelligent instead of merely jargon).
I think it’s gotten about as much publicity and viewership (assuming it doesn’t pick up again, and I agree that it’ll probably drop off rather soon) as it should to show that “no intelligence” is exactly what ID offers to science and the public. The people who channel information are only persuaded that ID is beyond dumb, that it has no ethical standards whatsoever.
The true believers were led to believe that this would finally give them their “rightful place.” The latter didn’t happen (couldn’t happen). Never mind, Keith and other drooling cretins will find something else with which they can proclaim that they will soon triumph. They always do.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I got an e-mail from Michael Korn (“Concerned American-Christian”) praising the movie and suggesting theatre locations where I might see it. He’s the guy who was threatening biology profs on the grounds that teaching evolution is child abuse.
Yes, the box office take does make a difference in how you rebut the film. If the take is 100 million, you can say this kind of idiocy is mainstream. If the take is 3 million, you can only claim it’s the lunatic fringe.
That makes a difference.
Arthur Caplan throws in Jack London with robber baron capitalists, implying that he too was a laissez faire-style Social Darwinist and therefore an anti-unionist. That’s incorrect. Jack London was pro-union anti-plutocrat as well as a racist and eugenicist. There were many varieties of eugenics, scientific racism, and Social Darwinism.
Cross post from the blog in which Klinghoffer unloads his morning sputum (Note that Klinghoffer himself refers to the book of Esther and writes, “In the story, a minister in the Persian royal court, Haman, descendant of the Amalekite king Agag, seeks to exterminate the Jews but is executed himself in the end, by hanging.”):
Fuck me but the man is a despicable pillar of shit.
The central contention of Expelled is that the science community is afraid or unwilling to look at ID, with a subtext that exploits a general mis-trust of institutions like universities, courts, and the government in general.
While there is literally a mountain of evidence against ID, all that evidence lives-in and takes the form-of the institutions that have found ID lacking merit. This isn’t very compelling for people who distrust meritocracy, and who don’t see a fundamental difference between various institutions (except their church of course). I think the only way ID can be effectively addressed is on trusted, well understood ground.
“Win Richard Dawkins’ Money”
ID needs to be challenged in a public forum – WWF style. Richard Dawkins and friends could offer to take on all comers. A million dollar prize could be awarded to anyone who can produce a competing theory to the Theory of Evolution, or to anyone who can produce evidence that falsifies the Theory of Evolution.
People understand a throw-down, and they trust results where money is at stake. Especially when it’s televised (though I’m not sure how one would make the whole affair anything but tedious).
How hard can it be to find a wealthy individual who’s willing to put up the prize?
…judges would be an entirely different problem.
Arthur Caplan’s claim (and PZ’s repetition) that Ben Stein’s non-explanation for the holocaust is a form of holocaust denial is ridiculous. While there are clearly cases in which someone outright denies what appears to be a matter of fact, labeling that person a denialist is, at best, providing a description, and, at worst, stifling debate.
In any case, this clearly, obviously, manifestly is not a case of denial. Stein blaming the holocaust on evolutionary theory is dumb and historically inaccurate, but this just makes it a really bad explanation. It’s not denying that the holocaust happened. If he denied that it happened, what would he be blaming on the Evil Darwinist Conspiracy, anyway?
It seems to me that the Darwinism -> holocaust ‘argument’ goes hand in hand with the rest of the intelligent design. These people and their ilk decide ahead of time what they want to say, and it just doesn’t matter whether there is evidence for their claims or if their claims have any explanatory content.
“Aaargh, you’re doing it again! The box office DOES NOT MATTER. We do not have control over who goes to the movie and who doesn’t, so it’s pointless to wring our hands over it. Further, even the people who are arguing over the money don’t seem to be saying anything.”
PZ, it’s rare I disagree but I’ll just ask you to think about this again from a slightly different angle. Don’t forget, the Expelled producer said that he thought the crapumentary could beat Fahrenheit 9-11’s $24M opening. In light of that the box office IS important as its a very measurable reality check for these people. The box office train wreck is an easy metric of how far away from mainstream interest they are.
Just as we can’t control who goes to the movies, the numbers show they can’t either. This isn’t news to us, but it sure is to them.
With this in mind, can you now enjoy those numbers just a little?
What are you talking about, PZ? We’re BIG SCIENCE! We can do anything!
You’d better report to re-education camp.
Dr. Caplan, under a cloud of spittle, raved:
. . . the whole point of science is to press to see how far natural causes and mechanisms can go in explaining what is going on around us. There is not much room in science, although there is in history, religion, philosophy or sociology class, for jumping up and down and invoking god as the explanation of anything and everything.
Caplan demurs that “jumping up and down and saying “God did it” may be “true,” but he doesn’t mean it. For him, history, religion and philosophy have no place in a shiny modern world that has the scientific method. This is, I think, the root of the misunderstanding between men of good will and dogmatic atheist God-hating scientific meth-tards.
Your words and actions suggest that you believe the scientific method to be the only reliable avenue to knowledge. But it’s not. It’s a tool; a particularly powerful tool, but a tool nevertheless and with limited utility. And as much as ye meth-tards wail about “non-scientific” disciplines attempting to co-opt “science” (by which you really mean the scientific method), your failure to recognize the limitations of the method cause you to (1) assume that any premise you don’t like that cannot be subjected to the scientific method cannot be known, and (2) assume that any premise you do like that cannot be subjected to the scientific method (events that occurred billions of years ago, anyone?) can be known. This is what causes Double D to embrace panspermia in Stein’s film. Because any untestable premise is better than the icky poo poo God premise.
And let me save you, Dichthyic and others, a few seconds of typing and note for the record that I’m probably projecting and that meth-tards can’t be dogmatic because only people who believe in God can be dogmatic and meth-tards believe in nothing, other than their method, and that you really don’t hate God you just hate priests, particularly when they go ballooning, and blah, blah, blah, and so on and so forth. And now that we’ve gotten that out of the way maybe you can wipe the drool off your chin and consider the “situation” (that of the angry ignorance of the meth-tards) and how men of reason might be inclined to react.
The concern among men of reason is that the noise created by the method of the meth-tards pushes out traditional methods of knowledge that should only be engaged in by men of exceptional intellect. The method allows any rube to claim a place at the table of great ideas. “Hey, I can run a gel!!! I’m a genius!!! There is no God!!! Oh my gosh, those shoes are soooooo awesome, Becky.” So Double D and Little P use the scientific method to push their way into questions that they have little capacity to consider, let alone answer. The entire ID movement, as represented by your own conspiracy theories, is an attempt to push back on this tendency. That is, the tendency of meth-tards to claim the sole avenue to verifiable and reliable knowledge resulted in an attempt by the more liberally minded to bring the same cachet of the scientific method to more noble pursuits. Meth-tard, allow me to introduce you to the rule of unintended consequences.
The ID strategy is probably a tragic mistake. Not because it’s bad for the scientific method (that would be like saying using a wood drill bit in concrete is bad for the concept of drilling; it might be bad for the bit, and maybe it’s bad for the drill, but I think “drilling” will survive). But because it’s bad for the traditional sciences (that’s what different branches of knowledge were traditionally called, for ye meth-tards who are still reading).
A far better solution is to continually remind the meth-tards that they have no place at the adult’s table. There is a conversation of great men spanning more than a couple thousand years. And be assured that you atheist dirt bags are represented (better than DD and Little P could ever hope to represent you). When we want our microwaves to heat faster or more efficiently we’ll ask you. If you come up with some interesting drugs or a way for DD to scratch his ass sans smelly fingers, great, pass it on. But have some humility and leave the heavy lifting to your betters. Peace out.
This thing really and truly was a box-office flop. I agree with the numbers bantied about, that movies generally make about 50% of their money on the first weekend. Just take that $3 million and double it, and that’ll be their revenues.
What I’d like to compare this to is March of the Penguins and Winged Migration, both of which really were well-done, accurate, scientific, excellent documentaries.
March made over $77 million.
Migration only made $11 million.
Expectorated won’t make $10 million, and will hardly make a dime overseas (sorry, I just can’t picture people lining up to see this movie in Asia or Europe).
They made a bad movie; we helped bat it down; the reviewers were not kind to it; it’s a failure.
There’s no framing needed here.
I hope this production company tries again. I figure they’re going to lose their shirts on this one (they may eventually break-even with DVD sales, if they’re lucky), and then try again. We should be encouraging them. They lost their shirts this time. Next time, let’s go for the pants as well.
“Let’s see you guys dwarf Penguins. I dare ya. You can’t do it. People have rejected you, and they’ll reject you again.”
As an aside, my wife and I went to see Sarah Marshall on Saturday. That’s a pretty funny (though predictable) movie.
In any case, this clearly, obviously, manifestly is not a case of denial. Stein blaming the holocaust on evolutionary theory is dumb and historically inaccurate, but this just makes it a really bad explanation. It’s not denying that the holocaust happened. If he denied that it happened, what would he be blaming on the Evil Darwinist Conspiracy, anyway?
No it is not just a “bad explanation” it is an evil explanation. It denies the actual cause of the holocaust and tries to assign it to something entirely irrelevant and purely to try to discredit it (evolution). It is denial, you don’t have to deny the deaths in order to deny the holocaust, the “why” is just as important as the “who”, “what”, “when” and “how”.
The opening weekend is over – now it’s time to stanch the idiocy and misinformation leaking out into public. Recent antievolution bills will soon be voted on in Florida and Lousiana and one was introduced in Missouri. They’re very similar in invoking non-existent alternative theories.
#5:
They have done better, definitely.
Here’s an example of one I just took my son to:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sea_monsters_a_prehistoric_adventure/
That’s an Imax movie (in other words, very limited release).
Oh really? What are all the other _reliable_ avenues that can be used to obtain knowledge? I’d like to hear about them.
In keeping with PZ’s recent “Christian educators!” post, I’ve tried to do my part.
Loudon is a Fool #77 wrote:
Of course science is a tool with limited utility — it is a system of methods used on factual claims, to test them to see if they are likely, or not.
Is God a fact claim? Is it a scientific hypothesis — the best explanation for observations? What kind of explanation is it — what is it, how does it work, what methods, what reasons? Too often it seems to be an appeal to ignorance, or a narcissistic attempt to inject human attributes into all things and events. I think there are better explanations for what we observe — and good explanations for why people would think God was an explanation, when it really isn’t.
If God is not a fact claim, then is it a literary device? A psychological frame? A social bonding agent? A symbol for ethics? An emotional feeling? A matter of taste? An expression of wonder? When you scorn people who apply the rules of scientific method to the concept of God, I think you need to explain where it goes — what category you think it belongs in.
Also, I’m not sure what you’re referring to when you talk about “traditional methods of knowledge” — and how we check on whether they’re reliable. We’re wrong so often. Unless that isn’t supposed to matter.
Pablo (#82):
Streams of invective and unhinged ranting, apparently. Oh, the things you can see if you would but let slip the restricting bonds of sanity…
#77, let me title your post for you:
“How to get banned in one easy step”.
Glad I could be of assistance.
What do you mean by “meth-tard”? I’m too dense to figure out the exact meaning, but not so dense that I figured out it’s an insult. And I’ve seen Ichthyic get mad at people, myself included… You don’t stand a chance against him.
Shhh, Pablo. We are among our “betters”, and should just hold our tongues.
Loudon, gawd you’re stoopid. Do you understand Dawkins’ description of the infinite regression, and why panspermia is no better an explanation than goddidit? Ididn’tthinkso.
Now, Good Day Sir. I said “GOOD DAY”.
But only if you first make reference someone else’s “raves” and “cloud of spittle.”
Hey, maybe that’s it! The magic knowledge-finding avenue is irony.
@PZ (#33):
I get your point and I respect it. But I still disagree. It doesn’t change how we deal with the movie, but it does deal with a point that I’m just as interested in: how receptive people are to something like this. $3mil divided by the average ticket price in US (rounded down to account for lower prices in the mostly minor cities–$6.50) is between 400,000 and 500,00 people, less than .5% of the US population despite (as has been pointed out) a large number of ads and such. Passion of the Christ used the same tactics and got about 14 million asses, and that was all from the word Christ in the title.
This tells me that people don’t care about intelligent design nearly as much as we might think; this isn’t an issue that’s going to sell in as much of America as people think. If people cared, they’d have supported the movie no matter how lame it looks. They’re out there, but they’re not the silent majority that we fear they are, and they’re being manipulated by the small pocket that saw this opening wknd with hot button buzzwords (btw, I don’t see this movie surviving into a third week).
Scientifically, you’re right, and it none of this changes their relationship to the truth. Culturally, though, this illuminates something. These people aren’t fans of these ideas; they’re just fans of teh jesus.
Loudon, it seems, is a babbling child.
PZ Myers in post #33 said
“The box office DOES NOT MATTER. We do not have control over who goes to the movie and who doesn’t, so it’s pointless to wring our hands over it. Further, even the people who are arguing over the money don’t seem to be saying anything.
If it made a paltry $3 million over the first weekend, or an awe-inspiring $100 million, would it make any difference to how you rebut it? Seriously, would anyone be impressed if someone said, “Flock of Dodos didn’t make very much money, therefore evolution sucks”? Why should we consider the flip side of that argument to be valid?”
I must disagree with PZ here { upon fear of banishment LOL} since,despite agreeing with him that the content of the film is paramount,part of the human factor that entered into the equation dealt out by Ben Stein et al is that this film would be such a box office smash as to demonstrate that ID has merit that should be paid attention to.
I do not recall any hype in the trailers for Flock of the Dodo{ were there any trailers at all?} such that it overshadowed the substance of the movie itself. Nor should we expect that since the content is sufficient for the purpose of the film.
Of course we should not concentrate greatly on the Box office take, however, this evidence also shows the somewhat less than expected {IMHO} support for the film despite the claim that it is groundbreaking and devastating to BIG SCIENCE.
As far as I can see it is just more data that can weaken the already crumbling pillars of ID and creationism and is no different than pointing out that the defense experts in the Dover case abandoned ship. Since the Experts gave no testimony then why mention it as it also is not germain to the support of evolution? Yet it was mentioned long and often because it constituted more evidence of the weakness of the claims made.
Having placed my head on the chopping block of this debate I await the the executioners axe.
Thanks for the great work PZ.
MikeM #86
I think “meth-tard” refers to people who foolishly use the scientific METHod in areas where it has no business being used. Secular humanists have no conflict with philosophy or ethics as disciplines which are not always open to **The Method**.
The real area of contention then is Theology, I suspect. Though it’s going to be a little hard to defend both NOMA and Intelligent Design, if that’s where he’s going.
Steve M (#79): No it is not just a “bad explanation” it is an evil explanation. It denies the actual cause of the holocaust and tries to assign it to something entirely irrelevant and purely to try to discredit it (evolution). It is denial, you don’t have to deny the deaths in order to deny the holocaust, the “why” is just as important as the “who”, “what”, “when” and “how”.
How can an explanation be evil? The film makers are trying to discredit evolution by claiming it caused the holocaust. The ‘explanation’ isn’t good or bad in a moral sense, it just is. When I wrote that it was bad, I meant bad in a scientific sense – it doesn’t fit any evidence, it’s logically incoherent, etc…
Also, it’s silly to claim that making a bad proposal for the cause of X is equivalent to denying that X occurred. Denying X would be claiming that there is no why, who, when, where, how, or, indeed, what to discuss.
Loudon is a Fool @ : “A far better solution is to continually remind the meth-tards that they have no place at the adult’s table. There is a conversation of great men spanning more than a couple thousand years. And be assured that you atheist dirt bags are represented (better than DD and Little P could ever hope to represent you). When we want our microwaves to heat faster or more efficiently we’ll ask you. If you come up with some interesting drugs or a way for DD to scratch his ass sans smelly fingers, great, pass it on. But have some humility and leave the heavy lifting to your betters. Peace out.”
I take it you’re a theologian Loudon from your persuasive, empathetic argument and your desire to shaw knowledge with all men.
#82:
Pablo, is it your impression that in the year 1500 people tried to walk through doors instead of walls, put food in their ears instead of their mouths, and walked around naked and hungry awaiting the scientific method to bring them clothes, roads, agriculture, aqueducts, and perverse sexual practices?
The scientific method, by limiting itself to testable and falsifiable questions, allows men of deficient reason to come to reliable conclusions. This is a good thing in limited circumstances. But not all questions can so be reduced.
#84:
Evidently when your freshman biology teacher told you, “Before the scientific method people thought sickness was a curse from God. Then along came the scientific method and now human progress is unstoppable!!! Yipeee!!!!”
Don’t believe it. But do believe that smarter people than you lived before, but maybe not contemporaneously with or after, Mr. Popper.
Mr. B-W (#90): If that’s the case, then LIAF sure as hell needs a spanking, or whatever form of discipline you would prefer. I don’t think he would be getting significant computer access until, I don’t know, college (in his case, hamburger or clown).
I think that LIAF’s recto-cranial inversion is so severe that if he is not careful, he might turn into a Klein bottle.
Here’s a good, specific topic for a movie explaining evolution: Let’s do one on the evolution of the horse! Aim the dialogue for 4th grade understanding, show how the founder effect and genetic drift work, as well as natural selection. Make it visually engaging (lots of well-done CGI, please) with interesting sound bites.
What percentage of preteen girls love horses?
The letter by Richard Dawkins is brilliant: informative and persuasive. The other pieces are a bit careless in a way that biologists need to pay increased attention to. Specifically, I am referring to the tendency to equate ‘natural selection’ with ‘evolution’. Darwin (and Wallace, of course) deserve credit for the former, but the latter is a phenomenon that was well-recognized thousands of years ago. Let me emphasize: Darwin (and Wallace) did not come up with evolution. They came up with a mechanism by which evolution could occur in the wild. (And note that this is only one mechanism by which evolution is known to occur). This is an important distinction, and one which biologists should be more careful to clarify, lest more people become confused. And yes, PZ, I am including you. You should know better.
The way to fight ignorance is with education. Not denunciations and more propaganda.
In my litany of favorite Pharyngula arguments how could I forget the most frequently abused:
Yer dumb.
Sorry to leave so many of you out. The slight was not intended. The argument is unassailable and could only have been happened upon by practitioners of the scientific method.
You didn’t answer the question, Fool. “Oh really? What are all the other _reliable_ avenues that can be used to obtain knowledge? I’d like to hear about them.” So, what else do you got? Tea leaves? Vision quests?
And who is Loudon, anyway? Loudon Wainwright III? Because I hear he’s a talented songwriter and musician.
How can an explanation be evil? The film makers are trying to discredit evolution by claiming it caused the holocaust. The ‘explanation’ isn’t good or bad in a moral sense, it just is. When I wrote that it was bad, I meant bad in a scientific sense – it doesn’t fit any evidence, it’s logically incoherent, etc…
Yes, the explanation itself is not evil, but presenting it as an explanation is evil. That is, it isn’t that the explanation is just wrong, it is those who present it know that it is wrong and are trying to use it to damage something else, to take the blame off those who committed the act and place it on an abstract scientific theory. I am trying to emphasize the difference between a “mistake” and a “lie”. Both could be applied to the same sequence of words, but emphasizes the motivation behind the words.
As for Holocaust denial, again the point is that there is more to denial than just denying the event. Yes, they say the event happened, but they are denying why it happened and what motivated the perpetrators of the event. That too is a form of denial.
Loudon is a fool, you bring nothing new here. Projection, arrogance and ignorance. Don’t act all surprised when commentors slap you down or make disparaging remarks about your stoopidity. You are the one who strolled in here and said (bolds are mine):
and
Ending with the sanctimonious platitude, of course.
LIAF, you are a useless oxygen thief, an ungrateful wretch of a human, worth no more than whatever I scrape from my shoe. And you have the nerve to demand that the knowledgeable sit down and shut up, while our “betters” think out life, the universe, and everything.
I said GOOD DAY!
PZ said:
Italics in original, bold emphasis mine.
We all have our pet examples of financially successful movies which are historically inaccurate and artistically crap. Those measures aren’t concerned with the box-office take; they depend upon our education and our aesthetic standards. However, if we want to understand how people receive messages and how they’ll react to particular situations and stimuli, well, the ticket sales of Expelled just constitute another datum. They’re the sort of thing which you’d want to know if you were trying to do what Matt Nisbet claims to do, i.e., bring scientific knowledge to bear on the formation of public policy. To do this (ahem) honestly, you need data. You have to be able to say, “Here’s my hypothesis, here’s what I predict from that hypothesis, these are the observations which agree with those predictions, and these over here are the ones which don’t agree so well. . . .”
Dr Benway #7
Thats going to be my quote of the year… Many thanks
Box office numbers don’t matter, but for different reasons than so far stated. If blaming Darwin for the Holocaust was not vicious, evil propaganda, but instead was the widely held consensus judgement of history, the fact of evolution would still stand. People dying from falls does not falsify gravity, even if an autographed photo of Ben Stein staring down a statue of Sir Isaac Newton is enshrined in every reality-denier’s home. If Expelled makes blockbuster grosses and earns OscarTM accolades, it will still be an abomination–a bilious eruption of lies from curtain to curtain that lays a glove neither on science nor its method. Box office numbers don’t matter to the opponents of science either. For IDiots, this is an act out of the customs of the Plains Indians–the potlatch, burning resources in a huge bonfire until the first one to run out of anything to burn loses. It doesn’t matter to the backers whether their ugly little bromide makes summer blockbuster receipts or leaves them in a deep financial hole–it’s all just the price of spreading the Big Lie, for which there is a bottomless budget.
But here comes Randy Olson pointing to the opening weekend receipts, admonishing us for our failure to acknowledge their financial success. The only reason I can think for that is that financial success would support his thesis, whether or not anything else does. I can’t bring myself to sing along with the framer choir, reciting lyrics in the mode of Portal‘s sinister, indestructible AI:
This was a triumph.
I’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.
It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction.
Like Ben Stein’s backers, framers can take any claim they like and use it to support their position. Olson’s thesis is that scientists are bad communicators. While I have to aplaud him for saying it with dodos (and dodos drawn by my old colleague Tom Sito, no less!) his evaluation of Stein’s opening weekend does not make him sound like a Hollywood insider. Three million dollars does not even begin to pay for the saturation television and radio campaign that was invested in that gilded turd of a film. These days, a theatrical run is only a publicity focus to drive future DVD sales–to get their thesis out there. That is what they paid for, no matter how much, or how little money it will make at the boxoffice.
The downside for the IDiots is that without investing anything more than a bit of our time, their publicity investment has yielded viral success for our side. Who had ever heard of PZ Myers or Eugenie Scott before this film? Will Ben Stein ever appear in an episode of Dr. Who? Before this, how many people knew how funny Richard Dawkins was? Sexpelled is a perfect response, right down to the copyright violations. Expelled Exposed will reach far more people with our message than it would have without the broad, fixed target Stein and cohorts have painted on their hindquarters. With their fatuous broadside of a film, they have invited nothing but ridicule, and while their ridiculousness is the answer to Voltaire’s solitary prayer, the only way in which they have scored compared to us is with owned goals. They have demonstrated that they understand neither science, nor humor. The framers demonstrate that they can’t even generate a metric with which to keep score.
What is it with people defending the use of the Holocaust by Stein et al?
Anyone, ANYONE, who understands what happened, should be appalled, disgusted, and outraged by what they did in Expelled regardless of where you stand on ID/Evo.
If you aren’t absolutely incensed by Expelled then it means that you are at best ignorant of history or at worst an evil, soulless, bigoted, racist.
I hope that anyone who would give Expelled a positive review or defend it in any way is simply ignorant or is simply incapable of conceiving exactly what 11 million murdered people means so I will demonstrate.
Let’s bring this down to something a little easier to grasp. Imagine if you will a sports stadium holding 30,000 people. Imagine that everyone you ever knew or loved is in that stadium. Imagine the government stealing all of their possessions and forcing everyone to stay in that stadium by force until they begin to starve to death. Men, women, and children. Take some of them for slave labor until they die working. Take more for horrible, painful, medical experiments until they die. Then when they have all suffered terribly set the rest on fire to finish them all off. Horrible, right? What if that happened? Can you imagine the suffering? The horror?
Now do it again, and again, and again. In fact do it 366 times within a period of 5 years.
That is what Nazi Germany did. And they didn’t do it in some distant time in the past where the stories could have been exaggerated over time. This isn’t a myth or a legend. This didn’t happen when recording technology was too unreliable to be accurate. This happened only 60 years ago! There are still people alive today who remember it!!
Why did this happen? Essentially it was politics (Jews as a scapegoat), racism (rampant anti-Semitism that had existed for 2000 years), greed (the german government wanted the resources held by jews), bigotry and arrogance (furthering the Arian race) and good ol’ fashioned hate.
To say that the Holocaust was “caused” by or “justified” by something a petty as Evolution is denying history and the true causes of Hate, Bigotry, and Racism. What Stein does in Expelled is denying the real causes in order to further his political agenda. It is absolutely CRUCIAL that the Holocaust be remembered for the real causes. It must be remember as it really happened so that we might be able to prevent it from happening again and in order to honor all of those innocents who were murdered. Anyone who would manipulate history to pull focus away from those reasons is spitting in the faces of every one of the 11 MILLION who died and should be ashamed. In my eyes, Ben Stein and the producers of Expelled are no better then those criminals who performed the murders. And anyone who would defend them or walk out of that movie not in outrage should be ashamed of themselves and held in contempt.
LIAF – If you’d like to disprove the thesis that “yer dumb”, I’m certain people here would entertain the possibility. You have provided a variety of data points in your comments, none of which falsify the hypothesis, but are rather consistent with it. This procedure (from which we conclude that “yer dumb”) would seem to be precisely the scientific method – observe, hypothesize, test hypothesis (with new data), repeat.
If you would like to disprove your own (well-stated) thesis, you could start by answering Pablo’s question in #82. Or you could throw around some more verbiage in an attempt to obscure your position (or get banned, it’s hard to tell), which would be consistent with previous observations although not entirely enlightening.
*cough* So are you seriously telling us that the above questions are not testable and falsifiable?
Yeah, you really are pretty rock-stupid.
The “scientific method” is simply a formalization of the exact same principles by which humankind has advanced. Observation, hypothesis, experimentation, independent confirmation. It just took a while before people decided to give it a name and formalize it.
What matters it he substance of the movie?
Yeah, right. It doesn’t matter that George Bush was elected President twice, it only matters that Al Gore and John Kerry both scored higher on the history test.
Yep, I watched the U.S. version Roy, and its excellent to hear that the UK one was done the right way. You wouldn’t happen to know if Discover is selling the British version on U.S. region dvd’s would you?
#107:
I can live with that if you can. Would anyone from the dark side have an objection to defining the scientific method as simply observation followed by induction?
Loudon is a Fool #94 wrote:
It’s trivially obvious that human progress is not “unstoppable.” One meteor — or several atomic bombs — would put a stop to all human actions: progressive, regressive, and recreational. “Progress” — while aspired to — comes with no guarantee.
It’s also safe to say that smarter people than me, you, and even Professor Dawkins have lived before, and do so now. Some of these people even believed in God! Or — false Gods!
So? The issue isn’t “who’s most intelligent?” It isn’t about people being smart and reliable. You can be very, very bright, and very, very wrong. So can anyone. That’s a defining assumption of the scientific method you’re kicking around right now, and it humbles all of us. It’s a good idea to kick it gently: we might be wrong, and need it.
The theory that sicknesses have physical causes unrelated to supernatural agency is, I think, a better theory than “it’s a curse from God.” For one thing, it made better predictions. You weren’t too clear, but I’m going to assume that you’re not including the Germ Theory of Disease in your list of areas where arrogant scientists have stepped off their turf.
If God is not to be treated as a claimed fact, a hypothesis which explains observations — then in what category would you place it? Literary convention? Social narrative? Expressive emotional outburst? Science, as a method, falls under reason. If God is not to be touched by science, is it also beyond reason?
What “other ways of knowing” would you recommend?
Loudon is a Fool #110 wrote:
Me! Me!
You’re leaving off testing. Also mechanistic transparency, observational support, theoretical productivity, predictive success, ontological conservatism, experimental replicability, and connection between classes of phenomena. Plus other stuff I can’t think of at the moment.
“The scientific method” evolved over time, and, like all evolved things, is kind of messy and slap-dash. But it’s not just “observation followed by induction.” Can’t go along with that. Sorry. No.
Trusting in one’s spiritual handlers to tell you what you want and or need to know?
Yep, I watched the U.S. version Roy, and its excellent to hear that the UK one was done the right way. You wouldn’t happen to know if Discover is selling the British version on U.S. region dvd’s would you?
Yes, the BBC version with Attenborough’s narration is readily available in the US.
Well, I would, for one, given that in the very post you quoted I also added “hypotheses, experimentation and independent confirmation”.
Doubtless you were planning some sort of rhetorical trap, but all you’ve shown is that dumb people really shouldn’t try to be tricksy. You’re just embarrassing yourself.
Every advancement you listed boils down to observation, measurement, development of hypotheses, and testing of those ideas. Trial and error. Keeping what works and discarding what doesn’t. Agriculture didn’t develop fully-formed overnight — heck, it’s still developing as we observe, learn and test new ideas.
Unless, of course, you want to claim that God or space aliens taught us farming, gave us the aqueducts, taught us not to walk into walls (you got that reversed in your previous post, btw).
So cough it up. What’s your alternate, reliable way of knowing?
About artificial selection — even Plato was on to that; his Republic calls for selective breeding and infanticide — 2000 years before Darwin.
#111:
Is this called confusion of category? I’m not sure. But there are a number branches of systematic knowledge that utilize reason that can be distinguished from the scientific method. Grammar, logic, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry and philosophy. Knowledge acquired in some of these areas may, in limited circumstances, be tested pursuant to the scientific method. But none of them are ruled by the scientific method.
#115:
Fair enough. I wasn’t there to witness the first guy who didn’t walk into a wall. Maybe it unfolded just as you say. Or maybe they were taught not to walk through walls by aliens or through the growth of crystals. Since the scientific method is magical and can see through time I’ll take your word for it. And I guess babies do put food in their hair. Maybe they are experimenting.
I have been watching all the hype on Expelled for weeks now. Needless to say, I have not been inclined to spend the necessary money for gas, tickets, and refreshments in order to see something that I am already fairly well aware is a total crock of shit. Not to mention how pissed I would be at the suggestion that Darwin=Holocaust. My idolotry of Darwin (and you can exclude Social Darwinism) would be ever unforgiving of such banal tripe.
It is the same reasoning I used when deciding whether (or not) to purchase any single volume from Tim LaHaye’s “Left Behind” series. Just knowing who he is, who he associates himself with, and what he stands for is enough to crush even the smallest of interests in what he has to say – fiction or no. I write frequently. I know how our own philosophies, feelings, beliefs, and predjudices are transferred into our work subconsciously as well as with deliberation. I choose not to put a single, solitary micromilligram of copper into the hands of these preternatural destroyers of truth that call themselves creationists. If somehow or other, this movie falls into my lap via the hand of fate, I just might watch it. That is, after a trip into town for an extra bottle of Cockburn’s Special Reserve Porto to douse the continual and inevitable sparking of flames throughout the notorious trick-flick.
Thousands of people flock to new movies regularly. It doesn’t mean they believe or agree in any way with the contents. I’ve seen movies that have done extremely well in the first week at the box office; but the majority of the people that would leave any opinions around the internet would find that particular movie severely lacking in many ways. An early, large, box office income does not mean that the film is favored by the viewers, it only means that the initial advertising for such did its job in appealing to the greater masses of movie-goers. The movie itself has to withstand criticism and time.
I read the letter that Richard Dawkins wrote to the Jewish gentleman on the day that he published it. For some strange reason, I was not the least bit surprised at the man’s reaction. From all the hype I was reading, I would have been surprised if someone had not come into these feelings after watching such profoundly false and misleading propaganda. I’ve received my own christian-oriented fireballs of hatred and loathsome despite, which were thrown at me by those who are the most emphatic teachers of forgiveness and love. Go figure…
I was quite proud of Dawkins for the reply to the letter that was originally sent to Michael Shermer.
My favorite example of the scientific process implicitly at work:
You walk into a dark room and turn on the light switch. But the light doesn’t turn on! So what’s the first thing you do? Of course, flip it on and off, just to make sure.
Science in action! You are trying to disprove your hypothesis that the light is burnt out by testing whether it is a bad connection in the switch.
Rachael @ About artificial selection — even Plato was on to that; his Republic calls for selective breeding and infanticide — 2000 years before Darwin.
Heck, the Spartans were doing it.
“…If you’re counting dollar signs and using that to opine over the worth of the movie (in either direction), you’re being part of the problem.
It’s the same problem that we see in press reports on politics right now. Everything is focused on the horse race — how many votes do they have so far, how much money have they raised? — and next to nothing on what the people actually say. Stop it!”
THANK YOU PZ!!!!
As a furriner, I’m actually quite pleased to see the bad box office numbers. It tells me that these demented idiots are much less powerful and prominent in the US than they seem to be. From the general run of things that I read here & on other evo/cre discussion boards, you’d think they were a majority. It’s heartening to see that they’re not actually as powerful as they seem.
Has the Anti Defamation League been approached? They’ve attacked the Darwin/Holocaust link within the last two years (via ExpelledExposed, so presumably they’ve though of getting in touch), and the media tend to take notice of what they say. Likely other Holocaust memorial organisations would have something to say too.
Duncan,
Assuming that you are referring to Bob Altemeyers’ book, (a free PDF which I encourage everyone to read) or related work:
High RWAs are the potential foot soldiers, the gullible to be lied to and exploited. In the US they tend to be fundamentalists, in the UK we call them Daily Mail readers. Social dominators are the ones doing the lying and exploiting. Expelled’s makers are more likely to be dominators, their target audience the high RWAs.
LIAF: (#117) In science logic is operating on observation. Logic and rhetoric operate on assumptions or facts obtained from somewhere else. Math and geometry exist independently of observable reality, but are useful in lots of cases because we can correlate their strutures to those of various phenomena. Philosophy depends on the truth of assumptions, with logic determining their consequences. I don’t know how to deal with music as a form of knowledge, frankly. With these frameworks, they can exist independent of observation but are useful to people only when correlated to observation. If you don’t have testable observations, you have to have some other way of finding out if your assumptions are correct – otherwise your logical structures could be dreams or reality. How do you distinguish?
#83 As another example in addition to Christopher’s excellent blog, check out the response by the Texas Freedom Network (self-described as a mainstream voice to counter the religious right) to certification of the Institute for Creation Research:
“Our universities should be training science teachers who can provide a 21st-century education in Texas classrooms,” said Kathy Miller, president of the TFN Education Fund. “Approving degree programs that instead promote a false conflict between science and faith would be a disservice to students and a threat to our state’s reputation as a center for science and research.”
Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!
Loudon is a fool
You have been asked several times:
“What’s your alternate, reliable way of knowing?”
Is this question to hard to answer?
Sorry for the misspelling!
…too hard to answer?
Yes,PZ, thanks for the Arthur Caplan link.
“They also look frumpy.”
It must be true if PZ linked to it…
“when deciding whether (or not) to purchase any single volume from Tim LaHaye’s “Left Behind” series”
Don’t. Just go here:
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/index.html
This brave soul provides a page-by-page evisceration of the books–updated weekly and going on for several years now. Done from a perspective of a Not-the-blatantly-crazy-type-of Christian, it details the books’ abominable writing and even more abominable theology.
Steve “Not affliated, just a fan.” James
Hap (#124),
You can’t be certain if your assumptions are correct. “The sun will rise tomorrow” is not falsifiable, at least not in way that can be tested. Still, the sun will probably rise tomorrow. And with much less evidence of the structure of the solar system than we currently have, people throughout history were willing to rely on that conclusion. And many others (conclusions, that is, that were mostly good enough).
But the Darwinists (of all people, given that questions of origins are not falsifiable) want to limit knowledge (or at least “science” which for them reduces to knowledge) to the testing of falsifiable questions. That’s fine, but what’s good for the goose . . . . Either both deductive and inductive reasoning are good enough, and reasonable minds can quibble with the details, or only things falsified with the scientific method are known and everything else . . . is what? Taken on faith?
Pablo flips the light switch a couple of extra times, and that’s good enough for him to conclude (via reason) it’s the bulb not the switch, or the wiring, or the socket that’s to blame for the dark room. He must be a Catholic. But you scientific materialists (to the extent you think the sun will rise tomorrow) are Protestants through and through. And evangelicals to boot.
Good Yorick, fellow fool, I think I have.
The ‘knowledge’ to avoid walking into solid objects (most of the time) and to know which hole the food goes in was instilled in us by evolution. And yes, in complex animals like us this ‘knowledge’ needs to be complemented by learning, but we don’t need to be taught these things from scratch.
Mouths evolved too, ya know.
“The sun will rise tomorrow” is not falsifiable, at least not in way that can be tested.
Oh really? So you can’t wait until sunrise and see if it does or not?
Doesn’t sound too hard to test to me.
Mouths evolved too, ya know.
Yes, the behaviors enabling getting food in the right hole would have co-evolved with it :)
I would venture to say that “Expelled” is a defeat for ID- it really quashes any notion that ID is not religious in nature. It also raised the profile of our beloved PZ, and directed a lot of traffic here. Hopefully, some kid in the Bible Belt, with vague sentiments of rebellion stirring, will be dragged to this movie, discover the Eeevil Minnesota monster for the first time, and come here to find out that he’s not only a movie star, but has a trophy wife and rabid minions… goodbye faith!
As far as it losing money, remember that the right-wing in the U.S. is largely funded by gonifs like Richard Mellon Scaife and the Coors family, who invest millions in their attempt to undermine “liberalism”. Hell, there were organized bulk purchases of books by Anne Coulter and the like just to place them on the NY Times best-seller list. The movie will quietly leave the theatres, and DVDs will be sold to and through fundie churches. Hell, if those sheeple can give money to Creflo Dollar for nothing, what’s $19.95 for a movie?
Fool,
I think there may be a misunderstanding here of “testable”. You seem to assume that “testing” needs to involve performing experiments that actively cause the predicted observation. This isn’t true. As tenebrous said, we can test sun rise simply by waiting. The theory of evolution doesn’t lend itself well to experiments. Nor does Newton’s theory of the movement of planets. However, both make predictions for future observations and are thus testable.
Disclaimer: I am not a scientist. I trained as a mathematician.
Don’t you ever get tired of being wrong? Individual hypotheses and models of origins are eminently testable and falsifiable, at any level you care to mention.
We may never accrue enough evidence to satisfy certain people, but that’s not the same as being not falsifiable.
Now are you ever going to answer the question regarding what alternate ways of “knowing” you consider to be “reliable”?
As for the rest, you’re just babbling again.
True enough #134. But what does that tell you about whether the sun will rise tomorrow? Did any of you think about this stuff before you became scientific materialists? Or were you just smoking dope in a freshman dorm room and someone said, “Dude, science is cool.” And you responded, “Totally. I hate God.” And a new soldier for Little P was born.
And Nos. 132, 133 and 135 see # 130 above on the question of what you can know via inductive reasoning. I’m beginning so see why you guys clash so much with the Fundies. Irreconcilable similarities.
It’s been fun. Have a nice life.
Bye bye.
Lame buffoon.
Loudon:
The assumption that the sun will rise tomorrow is usually considered a “working assumption.” Although reasonable, it might not rise (or rather the earth might stop turning) — and things would then look very different to us. We’d be able to tell — assuming there is time before we all die.
How could we tell the difference between a universe with a God, and one without?
From what I can gather from your response in #130, your “alternative reliable way of knowing” is either taking a ‘good enough’ guess at things, or admitting we know nothing, so it doesn’t matter. I don’t think I have that right.
LIAF –
What exactly is your point?
Can you please state your position in a succinct, perhaps bullet point, list? I fear your verbosity is obscuring your message.
Are you trying to lead us down some road of “logic” in order to get us to admit to something? Just state what you are trying to get us to admit. Stop all these philosophical word games and get to the point.
Are you trying to get us to admit that trusting in the scientific method and the “materialistic” world view requires faith? Of course it does. Any student of philosophy will be able to tell you that it is not possible to truly “know” anything (aside from the endless debates over the definition of “knowledge”). It is not possible to distinguish whether what is perceived is “real”. It is not possible to know for sure that anything exists.
So yes. I choose to believe that the Universe exists. I choose to believe that I exist within it. I choose to believe that, in their way, my senses provide an accurate view of the universe. But I do know that my interpretation of that information is flawed, which is why I rely on the scientific method. It is a process, a tool, that helps to communicate other people’s (if they exist) observations in such a way as to reduce the likelihood of inaccurate interpretations. You are absolutely right to argue that there is no way to know anything for sure. We could just as easily all be in the Matrix, or brains in jars, or only my brain is in a jar and none of you exist, or I don’t exist at all and am only a figment of the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s imagination. So you choose to believe that you were made by a god in his image and that when you die you will go to heaven. I don’t see how yours is any more valid then mine.
136:
It’s even worse than that for Expelled. It’s been proven that the religious will turn out for a movie, but they couldn’t even be bothered with Expelled. 3000 bucks per screen is nothing, less than that crappy-looking Al Pacino movie; it comes out to about 30-40 people per show. Documentaries are supposed to start crowded and spread out (fahrenheit 9/11 started at about 20 times that per screen, I believe w/o re-checking numbers, sorry). They either butchered a business plan with this movie (cuz every theater is bleeding, they’ll drop it like a hot potato; a theatre can’t survive with a 3K opening weekend, no matter how many screens. That is a red mark.) or they seriously overestimated their popularity.
If they tell you that they think they’re doing well, they’re LYING. The most charitable explanation is that ID is rejected by both the secular and the religious. It spirals down from that.
I get what you’re saying about DVD’s and maybe that will happen. But I doubt that the faithful are going to flock to Ben Stein’s ‘creationism is the new punk rock’ pose. They’ve said that sort of crap too loudly to disown it for the bluehairs.
And who the hell says “science is cool because I hate god, and I’m really high… dude.”
Fuckin doofus.
Darn it! LIAF took off before I got my say in.
I don’t know about you guys, but I didn’t realize that pot smoking led to atheism. And I didn’t smoke until my junior year, after I did all of my philosophy classes, and after I had rejected the theistic world view.
And for the record. I don’t hate God. Just those who hate in his name. If God wanted to, I’d be happy to hang out with her and have a couple beers. Especially if she looked like Alanis Morissette.
#138, you’re not following. The criticism levelled at inductive reasoning (that the scientific method purportedly solves, or at least gives us the tools to increase the probability that what we have not falsified is more likely to be true) is that only things that you have show to be false are known. This is the supposed strength of science, that you can falsify the hypothesis and thereby know it’s not true and progress to new theories that you don’t prove to be false. Theories that aren’t effectively falsifiable are no different than a claim like “All men have souls.” Right? You’re the scientists. Don’t you know this stuff? Either way I don’t think your correction is relevant.
Or maybe science does progress by inductive reasoning. If it does, you should have no objection to the theory “All men have souls.” It’s not testable, but it’s not beyond the reach of reason either.
True enough #134. But what does that tell you about whether the sun will rise tomorrow?
Fine, the fact that the sun rose today does not prove that it will rise tomorrow. But the fact that it did rise today did not falsify the model that predicted it would rise today. Also, that model makes many other predictions that can be expererimented on to look for errors (falsifications). And that is what makes it (a scientific theory) different than just “the sun has risen every day for as long as we have records so it will probably rise tomorrow”.
#142, I’m not trying to dissuade you from realism.
I really am going now. Sorry to take up so much space.
Loudon,
Theories that aren’t effectively falsifiable by definition are not scientific theories and fall into the realms of philosophy and religion. Neither of which belong in a science class room.
I don’t see how “All men have souls” is within the reach of reason. Could you please explain?
Fool,
And it has no supporting evidence. I might as well claim “there is a teapot in orbit around the Sun, just the other side of Pluto”.
Induction means extrapolating from known data points. It does not mean making stuff uo.
The Aztecs didn’t. They thought the Sun needed a bit of help. And what do you know, it worked. Hooray, reliable knowledge gained through religion!
windy #151:
Ha! Good point!
What would we do without our human sacrifices?
And how do you justify this induction? Do you have data of any men having souls? Do you even have data that souls exist at all? If not, then how can you justify induction?
I can use the scientific method to test if the sun will rise tomorrow by making a predictive provisional model (e.g. “The sun will rise every day”) and then testing that model for accuracy (watching the sun rise every day for some amount of time). If my model successfully predicts the future, I can provisionally accept it. The more successful predictions my model makes, the less provisional the acceptance. An unsuccessful prediction indicates a flawed model or a flawed measurement.
You say that other methods are reliable ways of knowing the universe, but how do you measure reliability without the scientific method (formalized or otherwise)?
Not only that, but you can study the motion of all the celestial bodies and come to the conclusion that “the sun rising” is an inaccurate and naive way to define the phenomenon. As you develop models of gravity and orbital mechanics, testing these models against real-world measurements, you can make more reliable, specific predictions, creating a more complete picture, and in turn inspiring more specific, more confident predictions.
“Fool” would do well to learn how we know what we know before he goes insulting scientists with his half-assed, half-understood Phil 101 blatherings.
Myers, I’m disappointed in you. I have always found you to be opinionated, but willing to stick to the facts. You’ve left the truth about Expelled behind, and with it, what was left of your credibility. You’ve reacted rabidly and untruthfully against a garden-variety polemic, only because the ends justified the means. Very disappointing.
Expelled takes pains to explicitly state that Darwinian ideology is not a cause, but only a necessary condition — one of a few crucial conditions. If you read the email traffic surrounding the Sternberg affair, it becomes crystal clear that ideological litmus tests, and binding people’s consciences is in play. That intimidation — outside the workings of the SI — was in full swing. There is no excuse for your posturing.
Who cares whether it’s God or Man who gets the credit for unwinding the genome? You should be bigger than this.
Darwinism makes no claims over abiogenesis, yet you claim this ground permanently and ideologically. Had Gonzalez been a good little boy and played ball, he probably would have gotten tenure. Maybe certain websites would have gone unnoticed if they had the “right” telos.
There comes a point where you have to ask yourself “why am I having an argument over how much harassment is okay?”
Maybe we could ask NOW for their interpretation of Eugenie Scott’s “life isn’t fair” hypothesis? Maybe they could give us a baseline of the appropriate levels of whispering campaigns, and the good setting for using prejudice as a litmus test for career advancement? I’m thinking they wouldn’t be too keen on either.
Shame on you.
wnelson,
Well written post, impressive! PZ Meyers, hates religion of any kind and wants it out of the public domain, similar to that of a communist country. Science is only knowledge to him if the conclusion is natural. He got embarrassed over a film (Expelled) that wasn’t natural to him rather it was a intelligent design based film which let him speak his mind, not just 7 second sound bites. He smiled when the movie was released not because he agreed with the film but because his site was getting more traffic as a result…
I’m going to lump you two morons together, as obviously you’re either paid schills or fucking retards.
embarrassed
oh?
where?
I rather think if you think he was embarrassed by being lied to, you might want to shine that embarrassment lens on yourself there, moron.
Expelled takes pains to explicitly state that Darwinian ideology is not a cause, but only a necessary condition — one of a few crucial conditions.
rigghhhttt. that’s what they were trying to show with the constant flickering images of nazis and nazi atrocities interspersed with the interviews.
you people really are total and complete lying sacks of shit that deserve little more than to have RKelly take the piss on you.
rather it was a intelligent design based film
oh? please do tell us where the theory of intelligent design was defined clearly in the film, and show us how this documentary about intelligent design documented all the researchers doing experiments to test said theory.
you fucking can’t, you damn liar.
the rest of your post isn’t worthy of addressal, as it’s just more lies.
again, the only embarrassment that should be existing around here is from you idiots.
you give humans a bad name.
I’m still chuckling about “meth-tards” in #77. I’m pretty sure someone’s been hitting the meth today, but I don’t think it’s us.
That would be why Stein wanted to call it ‘From Darwin to Hitler,’ I guess.
Quite right. Meyer’s paper didn’t pass through the standard editorial process, nor was it actually about systematics, yet it ended up published in a systematics journal. Why? Because rather than engaging his conscience and handing the paper over to a more objective editor for scrutiny, Sternberg decided to give it a pass on ideological grounds.
If by intimidation, you mean that some people said some unkind things in e-mails, yes. Otherwise, the fishy one is correct, you’re a damn liar. If Sternberg truly was persecuted, then why did he have to lie about what happened to him? Why did he claim that his office was taken from him, and fail to mention the fact that he was given a new office, which he requested, as part of a departmental reshuffle? Why did he claim that his keys were taken from him, and fail to mention that everyone’s keys were taken from them and replaced with electronic passes?
That would be the Discovery Institute.
Well, of course he would have! Who could ignore the exciting new research programs he started at ISU? The enormous grants he landed? The numerous high-quality doctoral students who graduated thanks to his guidance?
In truth, you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. You support Gonzalez not because you were able to carefully study his situation and come to an informed conclusion, but simply because he’s on your side. That would be your ideological litmus test kicking in again. You might want to take a closer look at it.
Randy @ #9:
“PZ you are correct, box office receipts are not the measure of “success” for this film. As with any propaganda, it isn’t about profit it is about appearance. they got the film in 1000+ screens.”
I agree with PZ that it is unimportant overall. However, the fact the movie was able to get on 1,000+ screens was what concerned me. That’s more than any of Michael Moore’s movies got into its first few weeks, or more than most propaganda films get. The fact it had the chance to get into the top 5 without any real effort during a typical slow week in April, which would have gotten it a mention on the mainstream news when they get to their entertainment “news” could have really been a major problem when the movie expanded to 1,500-2,000 screens, thanks in part to a $10-$15M showing its opening weekend placing it solidly in third position. We could then have had a bigger problem with a wider audiance demanding the same “academic freedom” this movie crows about. We kept this animal caged. (For now.)
PZ, absoultely the intellectual argument is the most important argument to be making. However, considering Zeno’s experience at #6, I see it as support for my belief that the intellectual argument will hardly ever work with a disgustingly popualar culture and entertainment driven mainstream population that relies on entertainment and news shows as to what to think about ID/Evolution and these types of arguments. The intellectual argument will not be successful with those college students who don’t care to do their own independent research after viewing the film.
Important or not, the receipts showed we dodged a bullet. But it’s not over yet.
I thought helicase got the credit for unwinding the genome?
MartinM & Ichthyic
You’re both equivocating on what sort of whispering campaigns we should be conducting, which websites get interfered with, etc. You are also blithely ignoring the clear link between Darwin and Eugenics, in favor of overblowing the Nazi angle.
Perhaps NPR is now reporting on imaginary stories — blast from the past.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5007508
…just “blowing off steam” I suppose.
Hahahaha, “overblowing the Nazi angle”, he says in defense of Expelled.
You are not human. You are an irony golem.
On the whole, “Darwinism is necessary but not sufficient” nonsense:
Can we have a good summary of all the instances of rampant anti-semitism and attempts at genocide that occured before Darwin was born? I mean, starting with Martin Luther, for example?
Or would that list be too long to fit somewhere succintly?
Let us not lose track of the fact that any links between Darwin and eugenics ,real or imagined, have no bearing on evolutions validity.
Well, excuse me for failing to respond to a point which you never actually raised.
Speaking of your apparent forgetfulness when it comes to raising points, did you actually have a substantial reply to make? If so, you neglected to post it.
Did the Ottoman Empire accept the theory of evolution when it exterminated millions of Armenian Christians in the 1920s? Honest question.
Eugenics is (artificial) selective breeding applied to humans. Selective breeding has been applied to domesticated animals since Ancient Greece at least. Natural selection, Darwin’s idea, is irrelevant to this.
We could argue that Christianity is a necessary precondition for the Holocaust.
“It was the Jews who killed Jesus!”
“By rejecting Jesus the Jews have rejected God!”
Plus see the writings of Martin Luther.
Let us all go and glare at statues of Christ now.
So did the Spartans.
We could argue that Christianity is a necessary precondition for the Holocaust.
Indeed, and we have, with a far better fit.
all one has to do is know who Martin Luther was, and have read “Mein Kampf”.
I wonder what would happen if someone made a “documentary” about the influence of Martin Luther’s writings on antisemitism in Europe? Heck, the book that could be used to write the screenplay is already there:
http://www.tentmaker.org/books/MartinLuther-HitlersSpiritualAncestor.html
something tells me that morons like Wnelson would have their panties in a knot about that.
You are not human. You are an irony golem.
I think you might be onto something here.
Imagine that, Ben Stein a Holocaust denier—-so not only did the malevolent Ben Stein trick our neo-Darwinian Dawkins into saying that space aliens may have started/designed life on earth after all, but Stein is also a Holocaust denier—-the man and the movie are obviously pure evil.
Just thought I’d share an idea from this week’s “This Week in Science” podcast, which is one of my favorites. They broadcast from the UC Davis radio station, and like other community radio stations, they have to do a bit of fundraising now and again.
The suggestion: If you were considering going to see Exposed just so you’d be familiar enough with it to respond to the idiocy it generates, reconsider. One alternative is to read http://www.expelledexposed.com for your information, supplement it with the great arguments PZ shared here, and send your tickets-and-popcorn money to the science-promoting nonprofit of your choice. (To support TWIS–www.twis.org–go here: http://fundraiser.kdvs.org .)
OK, there’s my little bit of plug. I’ll stop now. :)
Sterghe
Why do we really think that the sun will rise tomorrow? (LIAF seems to be really gone, but the point is important.) It’s not induction. It’s deduction from (ultimately) the law of conservation of energy. Stopping the rotation of the Earth would require a collision with Venus or worse, and, as we can derive from that same law, that’s not going to happen in the foreseeable future, perhaps not even before (or if) the sun goes red giant. That law is testable.
And no, this still doesn’t prove that the sun really will rise tomorrow. But it proves it beyond reasonable doubt. Proof is impossible in science anyway.
Given the number of cre_ti_nists in Turkey even today, that would really, really surprise me.
But any law is ultimately derived from induction. That’s the point — a law says “the future will be like the past” in some specific way, and it is that assumption that relies on induction.