True Confessions


As Wilkins notes, they’ve admitted it now: the producers of Expelled lied to make their movie.

The documentary links such scientists to Nazis. The reaction was what one would expect.

“We wanted to generate anger,” Ruloff said.

“We always knew we’d get extreme anger on the one side and extreme support on the other. We also think we got extreme interest in the middle.”

Nice guys. You know, it’s pretty easy to get people angry with you by lying about them, but that doesn’t mean it’s a productive strategy.

It did get an uninterested middle to pay attention, though, he’s right on that. Of course, what most of those people quickly learned was that Ruloff was a dishonest fraud. That probably wasn’t his intent.

Comments

  1. says

    Ben Fucking Stein should sever absolutely all ties he has to anything remotely related to science, for his science=Nazism (‘That’s where science leads you’) remark. He should stop living in a house, stop taking his medication (which in all likelihood, he already has), stop eating cooked food and give up wearing clothes. He should lead the life of a recluse. Does his picture remind anyone else of ‘Herbert the Pervert’ from Family Guy?

  2. says

    “We always knew we’d get extreme anger on the one side

    Greta Christina called that The Gadfly Corollary – the Galileo Gambit’s evil twin. Just because you make people upset, angry, irritated, or insulted, that doesn’t mean you’re right.

  3. says

    Ruloff and his crowd should look into securing the rights to the name “Jerks for Jesus.”

    And Ben Stein should check out “Jews for Jerks.”

    They should be very happy together.

  4. says

    From the article:

    When I note he seemed weary, he insisted it was not from the negative reaction to Expelled, or about how it has failed to return the original financial investment that he and others put into it.

    [emphasis added] You can spit-shine a turd, but it’s still a turd.

  5. says

    Did anyone else find the overall tone of that article. . . excessively sneering? And, well, uninformed?

    I believe there are some reasonable arguments in Expelled. But the documentary hits extremely hard with its message. It has caused bitter polarization.

    It’s like Mr. Douglas Todd has been taking communications lessons from Matt Nisbet: causing “bitter polarization” is more important than the crime of being factually wrong. And what, pray tell, are those “reasonable arguments”?

    Whatever the case, Ruloff does not hide that he “absolutely” agrees with many points Expelled makes linking Darwinism to abortion and eugenics and death camps. Darwinism does so, he said, because it does not accept “the sanctity of life.”

    From the absence of critical commentary on this point, I’d guess that Douglas Todd thinks this bullshit has merit.

    Somebody get him fifty CCs of shut-the-fuck-up and a dose of Martin Luther’s The Jews and Their Lies, stat.

  6. Bill says

    Coincidentally, on a whim my significant other and I watched Expelled this morning. It generated extreme boredom.

  7. strangest brew says

    Tis a par score for the godbots…

    All this synthetic hand ringing about getting a consensus b’twixt ‘n’ b’tween science and religion is a load of theistic twaddle…always has been…more likely always will be!

    Religion needs science because that might lend them enough gravitas to infiltrate school curricula…
    That is all there is to that one…

    Science needs religion like a fish needs a bicycle…with or without the full compliment of wheels!

    Had to giggle at the second or so comment from the ‘exposé’ from a lab worker fretting about mentioning ID as an alternative in a DNA lab which has got to be dubious as well as rather serendipitous if not completely bogus!

    This tacky little pamphlet of a moving picture is just a poor little rich jeebus lovin’ boy playing film maker cos he could afford it…seems patently obvious Stein did 99% of the script…probably Ruloff got bored of it by the second day anyway…as rich kids usually do!
    Anyway the plaudits from the ID establishment as well as buying a little respect in the local deluded community is always prudent…

    Methinks that it did more harm then good as it happens…it was just a little to over the top for a serious comment…even the moderately deluded did not go ga ga at the premise…
    Only the terminally afflicted might give it shelf space…but why bother…probably be able to download the garbage anyway!

    Save ya pennies for fighting homosexual gay rights…far better project for a Christian to invest in…apparently!

  8. Toddahhhh says

    Reading this makes me all the happier that my Atheist group paid for tickets to see Vantage Point, and then snuck in to see Expelled. (I still need to rent Vantage Point)

  9. BobC says

    Today’s religious news:

    Wealthy Christian idiot explains why he financed an anti-science movie.

    Blast in Iraq slays 38 near shrine.

    Suicide attack kills 7 in Pakistan.

    Israeli forces cut Gaza Strip in half.

  10. says

    Nerd of Redhead: “Gasp. People who made a movies full of lies, lied to get it made? The irony.”

    You are right. But what can anyone expect from people whose religion is made up too?

  11. Andersson says

    I first heard of expelled on another great blog “erv” and it made me go from the “unintrested in the middle” to intrested, to informed, to a fullblown atheist. So it accomplished that goal I suppose…

  12. Nerd of Redhead says

    You are right. But what can anyone expect from people whose religion is made up too?

    About what happened. The religious can’t seem to recognize their lies. Or lying for Jebus is forgiven according to their addled theology.

  13. says

    Hey, this is off the topic but I’m at Baylor right now in Dallas. They have an interfaith prayer park located right outside the medical facility. This place is a Dembski wet dream.

  14. SOCR-4735 says

    Expelled…a movie made to promote a bunch of lies (ID/creationism), based more on lies (The Bible*), with more lies.

    And it turned out to be a crappy movie, too.

    *The Bible being a bunch of lies in the same way that The Lord of the Rings is, of course.

  15. JM says

    I note the comment added to the linked article:

    FireFox
    What is the evolutionists explanation for the fossil record? The fossil record does not substantiate a slow evolution of species..

    January 04, 2009 2:24 AM

    I – like you? – have had to answer this question several times, but, I think, unconvincingly because of the lack of any comprehensive visual aid. My job would be made a lot easier if I had a “One thousand fossil beds to visit before you die” folio-size book, aimed at a popular or lay audience, full of photographs illustrating the stratigraphy of interesting sites, the fossils they contain, and diagrams of the sites’ place in the geological column. It wouldn’t dispose of the doubt of “slow” evolution (though quite what the poster means by that, I do not know – what would “quick evolution” be?!), but it would quickly illustrate that there really is a progressive fossil record which can’t be explained by hydrodynamic sorting – or whatever! – in a global flood. It would also make a fascinating coffee table book, and perhaps even a resource for geology and paleontology students. Dawkin’s book “The ancestors tale” or Richard Southwood’s book “The story of life” do a similar sort of thing for life, but are written from the point of view of a biologist, rather than from the point of view of a paleontologist-geologist. It’s the photos of the strata with fossils in place that are needed, I think.

    I’m not a geologist or a paleontologist, so could easily have missed such a book if there is one. Recommendations, please? If anyone wants to write such a book, the idea is yours!

  16. 'Tis Himself says

    Or lying for Jebus is forgiven according to their addled theology.

    In 1548, the Cardinal Bishop of Augsburg, Otto von Truchsess, wrote a letter to his brother, Dieter, that a Catholic lying to a Protestant was not a sin as long as the lie furthered the goals of the Catholic Church. Dieter, who disagreed with this bit of sophistry, made the letter public. However William Farel, a friend of John Calvin, agreed in principle with Otto, with the proviso that Catholic and Protestant be reversed.

    So shortly after the Protestant Reformation it was determined by senior churchmen on both sides that lying for Jebus was a good thing.

  17. Gandalf the White says

    *The Bible being a bunch of lies in the same way that The Lord of the Rings is, of course.

    BLASPHEMER… HEATHEN!!!! How dare you compare that worthless piece of fiction to the divine TRUTH revealed to us via Tolkien.

    But, I must ask, have you even READ the Lord of the Rings? If not I suggest you do, for it’s inherent truth WILL only be revealed to you in doing such.

  18. says

    #16 said: ‘The Bible being a bunch of lies in the same way that The Lord of the Rings is, of course.’

    The Lord of the Rings, however, claims to be a work of fiction, is atleast consistent and has some shred of morality.

  19. Scote says

    Well, the good thing about Expelled is that it can be ground up and diluted 100C to make a homeopathic solution to cure ignorance!! Er, or something…

  20. says

    Trying to prove a link between Darwin and Hittler is one of the objectives to creationism.

    No matter it is a lie.. if a lie is repeated in a hundred web sites.. it may appear to be true.

    Google “hittler darwin” and you will find it.

    Of course, they never mention that Darwin´s books were on the list of forbitten books.

    Or that Mein Kampf never mentions Darwin or evolution, but instead mentions god hundreds of times…

    Yet i would like to have a more comprensive list of arguments. Nietzche (o his sister to be more acurated) have some ideas that may sound similar… but it obvious he did have little idea of what is evolution about…

  21. SOCR-4735 says

    #20

    But, I must ask, have you even READ the Lord of the Rings? If not I suggest you do, for it’s inherent truth WILL only be revealed to you in doing such.

    I have…uh, read a Dutch translation. Also, I’ve seen the movies.

    #22:

    The Lord of the Rings, however, claims to be a work of fiction, is atleast consistent and has some shred of morality.

    Yes, but I couldn’t think of a well-know work of fiction that is well known to be fiction, yet still claims to be true, and is blatantly amoral.

  22. says

    “The Darwinists have built a ‘Berlin Wall’
    Dividing evolution from creation
    They then insist their godless view is all
    That can be taught in schools across the nation;”

    “The First Amendment builds that wall, but that
    Would never get the viewers into seats–
    The truth? The simple truth would be too flat;
    We need a lie that everyone repeats.”

    “And who to mouth our lies? We need a man
    Who’d sell his soul when others would decline;
    A Black who’d advertise the Ku Klux Klan,
    Or Jew who’d–hey, I know–How ’bout Ben Stein!”

    Seems Ruloff learned his propoganda well
    This Christian man… who’s surely bound for hell.

    Micro-rant at http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2009/01/ruloff-shows-he-really-does-understand.html

  23. SOCR-4735 says

    #28:

    I’m guessing that was a reaction to me at #26…

    I wouldn’t say the Bible is well known to be fiction. There’s a lot of people who seem to think it’s true, after all.

    Also, I don’t really know that much about the Bible, so I’m wondering: does the Bible itself actually claim it’s true? Does it say somewhere “This Holy Book contains the Word of God and is Really True” in it (or somethin along those lines), or is it just other people saying so?

    I’m guessing the former, but I’m not actually sure.

  24. kryth says

    at #4
    or how about
    Dicks for deities
    Goons for god. (Wasn’t sure if it should be goons or goobers)

  25. Smidgy says

    Hmm. Something in that article just caught my eye:

    ‘But Ruloff emphasized he is not a creationist. He does not believe the Bible’s Book of Genesis accurately describes God fashioning the universe in six days about 6,000 years ago. Instead, Ruloff said he believes in an “old Earth.”‘

    Is this an effort to distance creationism from ID by conflating creationism generally with young-earth creationism specifically? It is perfectly possible to believe the Earth and/or life on Earth was created by a god of some kind (and are therefore a creationist), but simply believe it was done a long time ago, and therefore believe in an old Earth.

  26. talking snake says

    “You’re supposed to question the current paradigm, the orthodoxies, of science. But we’re not allowed to challenge the premises of so-called neo-Darwinism. It’s crazy,” Ruloff said.

    Hey, Ruloff and oppressed ID biologists, I, Talking Snake, give you permission to challenge anything you want, but you gotta expect critiques, especially if you don’t supply a coherent argument with real facts.

  27. strangest brew says

    ‘I’m guessing the former, but I’m not actually sure.

    Not so much the bible….although it is full of self aggrandising statements but more the numerous muppets that scribbled their bigotry down and claimed it was the truth…
    It became the book to get your particular hatred into…and demonise your enemies!
    Tis as true as your own limitations allow which does not quite mean it is actually factual!

  28. JM says

    Blake Stacey writes in #23:

    JM:

    Prothero’s Evolution: What the Fossils Say?

    It’s an excellent, comprehensive, overview, yes – but very detailed. (I have to admit I’ve not yet finished reading it myself!) I feel, though, that if I were to show it to the average lay creationist, their eyes would simply glaze over – and we’d be into the “it’s a matter of your presuppositions” territory again, with no progress made. Especially if one is dealing with the AiG variety of creationism rather than (apparently) the undefined ID-ism of ‘Expelled’ (which I have not seen), then I wonder whether a big coffee table book which dealt pictorially with – only – the denial that there is no progressive fossil record would be more useful than a comprehensive text. Sometimes, it’s best to repeatedly ‘whack’ just one ‘mole’ at a time.

    ‘Progression’ doesn’t imply any notion of direction or betterment, of course. The fossil record shows stops and starts, both slow and catastrophic extinctions as well as new beginnings. How do the ID-ists explain a designer who couldn’t even protect his designs from a few asteroid impacts and super-volcano erruptions? Would not all forms of creationism, AiG- and ID-styles included, be threatened by a better public understanding of the geologic and fossil records?

  29. Guy Incognito says

    We also think we got extreme interest in the middle.

    Expelled was a flop. I think it averaged about $3,000 per theater at its peak. I don’t know where this guy is getting the idea that his film generated a lot of interest in the middle.

  30. talking snake says

    So tired of the fundies attempting to conflate religion and science. I’d love for them to get about the business of feeding the poor full time, but they’re really not content engaging in something worthwhile. Instead,they want equal time for the tooth fairy in a biology class. Well, it ain’t gonna happen. Methinks the good fight will go on, and on…

  31. Bride of Shrek OM says

    Aseem @ #2

    “He should stop living in a house, stop taking his medication (which in all likelihood, he already has), stop eating cooked food and give up wearing clothes.”

    The last part of that quote gave me a mental imagery that made me throw up a little in my mouth.

  32. says

    #29: Not since the disclaimer on page 1 was lost, which said something along the lines of

    This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living, dead, eternal or reincarnated is entirely coincidental.

  33. uncle frogy says

    >>I don’t know where this guy is getting the idea that his film generated a lot of interest in the middle.<< He lied? too bad he made a tax loss movie in a year that has no lack of tax losses such a waste hehehe

  34. strangest brew says

    ‘I don’t know where this guy is getting the idea that his film generated a lot of interest in the middle.’

    More wishful thinking and pompous ego then fact….

    There is only one way that Creationism…and its bastard half brother Idism can be tackled… and that might be the difficulty!

    The Pastors…Priests…Ministers and assorted woo woo practitioners in general will have to reassert a lot more honesty and reality into their preachings…

    Creationism does not just happen…it is fermented by rather ignorant and fatuous agents of the magisterium at large.

    It is their word the sheep follow…if they say black is white ’tis fine and how high must they jump father?’

    They must lay down the rules of religious engagement for their congregations…books…blogs…media presentations…rants and raves from atheistic scientifical types means doodly squat to the average hard of thinking clones….they turn to what the local woo woo man pontificates on!

    If the ecclesiastical authority is honest he will caution that Genesis is not literally true just a story with allegorical intent.

    If the ecclesiastical authority invokes real Christianity as in loving thy neighbour and judge not lest thee be judged…then maybe anti gay and anti atheist hysteria will attain saner ground…

    The world could be very different…

    How about an eighth council Nicea…well past the last one in 787 ace…’bout time for another chinwag amongst the deluded methinks…
    Tis in their own interests cos all denominations are haemorrhaging members to these cults and in 10 years they are going belly up through lack of sunbeams…
    Not a bad result as it ‘appens but be careful for what you wish…cos if the moderate bunnies go tails up then we are dealing with an veritable army of fundamentalist fuckwits…
    Now it is ridiculous…if they gain the upper hand in the future it will be murder..literally!

  35. says

    Well, I hate Stein and company as much as the next guy and have posted extensively about their mendacity and deception. Having said that, I don’t think this constitutes much of an admission, for reasons I give over at Wilkin’s place and on my blog.

  36. Dr Horrible says

    Posted by: JM | January 4, 2009 3:31 PM

    Blake Stacey writes in #23:

    JM:
    Prothero’s Evolution: What the Fossils Say?

    It’s an excellent, comprehensive, overview, yes – but very detailed. (I have to admit I’ve not yet finished reading it myself!) I feel, though, that if I were to show it to the average lay creationist, their eyes would simply glaze over

    Do we need a friendly website that performs a similar function? Something that both professional educators and amateur “persuaders” could use to assist understanding of how it all comes together?

    Wouldn’t it be lovely if we had sites dedicated to each of the creotard canards?!

    Then, when they repeat the same lies over and over again on different websites, at least we don’t have to repeat the truth – just link to the relevant site.

    Or are there a bunch of them?! Although if there were I would expect to see more linking to them in the comments here?!

  37. Louise Van Court says

    From the article:

    For his part, Ruloff accepts some aspects of Darwin’s evolutionary theory. He generally agrees that “natural selection” is part of the evolutionary process. But he rejects the second major arm of Darwinian theory; that evolution occurs primarily through “random mutation.”
    As a result, Ruloff doesn’t want to be known as an “evolutionary theist,” as do many scientists who are Christian or Jewish. He calls himself an “adaptive theist.”

    That is the first time I’ve heard someone call himself an “adaptive theist.” So add that to the list of possible views one can hold. Here is a partial list: ID-ist, deistic evolutionist, old earth creationist, young earth creationist, theistic evolutionist, evolutionary creationist, creationist, Darwinist, evolutionist, naturalistic evolutionist, neo-Darwinian evolutionist, agnostic evolutionist, and atheistic evolutionist.

  38. Scott M says

    Expelled teaches one thing: The ID crowd and the Creationists are not at all above lying to achieve their ends. They deliberately misrepresent scientific positions and evidence, and knowingly generate outright lies to keep the sympathy (and cash flow) of their supporters.

    Science is a tool that questions everything. The ToE has been rigorously tested for the past 150+ years and has only been refined and honed into more and more accurate models. The evidence supporting it is overwhelming–evidence that the ID crowd aggressively tries to ignore.

    That is the nature of science. There are no sacred cows, no dogmas, no set-in-stone proclamations. Those things are almost exclusively set in the religious camp. Yet the Creationist/ID believers insist on projecting their own flaws on to the scientific process and those who use it.

    Yes, ID is discriminated against. Science discriminates against pseudo-science and supernatural explanations. As it should be. ID has no evidence supporting it beyond the personal incredulity of its believers. ID proponents perform no experiments, no tests, and publish nothing but press releases and propaganda about how “oppressed” they are. The proponents of ID try to make mountains out of molehills and (with increasing desperation) become more shrill in the process. They have no evidence supporting their claims, so they keep trying to attack the ToE in the hopes of finding the “one key weakness” that might bring it down. Sorry, guys, but that kind of thing only works in mystery novels and television.

    “Expelled” is quite possibly the most naked example of Creationist self-martyrism and outright dishonesty. The only thing it accomplished is how truely, willfully ignorant the ID crowd can be and is.

  39. sng says

    SOCR-4735,

    There are several places in the Bible that basically says “This is the word of God and True”. The problem with that, and the thing most modern Christians don’t like to think about is that all the books of the bible were written well before they were compiled into a whole. So every instance of statements along those lines contradict the others. Particularly ironic is the one in Revelation which is often quoted because it’s at the end. But the reason for that is because there were serious doubts about it’s authenticity.

  40. DEconStructualiST says

    What we need is a new and postmodern atheism. Neoatheism is simply reactionary postnationalism.

  41. r strle says

    This reminds me of several socially sneaky people I have known that will say things that are mean and hurtful and if you call them on it they will reply “Oh I was only kidding.”

    Sure they were only kidding.

  42. Wowbagger says

    What we need is a new and postmodern atheism. Neoatheism is simply reactionary postnationalism.

    I agree whole-hatstand turquoise betelgeuse-7.

  43. JM says

    Dr Horrible writes in #43:

    Do we need a friendly website that performs a similar function? Something that both professional educators and amateur “persuaders” could use to assist understanding of how it all comes together?
    Wouldn’t it be lovely if we had sites dedicated to each of the creotard canards?

    There’s the Talk.Origins website, sometime languishing at an archive http://toarchive.org/ – includes the Index to Creationist Claims – http://toarchive.org/indexcc

    There are other resources on the web – http://ncseweb.org/ and http://evolution.berkeley.edu/ etc, many (most/all?) referenced at Talk.Origins.

    Of course, it’s a lot of work to create and maintain such a general archive of responses to creationist misconceptions and misrepresentations. Anyone capable of making a really good presentation probably has a day job which takes most of their time. I suspect that it requires professionals from all fields of science. Such a contrast with the propaganda exercise of ‘Expelled!’

  44. LeeLeeOne says

    A lie, regardless of it’s intent or means or outcome, is still a lie.

    A lie, is a lie, is a lie.

    Name it; portray it; project it; justify it.

    A lie is still a lie.

  45. DEconStructualiST says

    I’ll try to elaborate.

    Neoatheists are merely reinforcing the Intertextuality of the class divisions. You have designed a metanarrative that ultimately reinforces the capitalist constructivism, to create your own false and neolamarckian ethnomethodology.

  46. Wowbagger says

    Neoatheists are merely reinforcing the Intertextuality of the class divisions. You have designed a metanarrative that ultimately reinforces the capitalist constructivism, to create your own false and neolamarckian ethnomethodology.

    You forgot to mention they are oversubscribing to an archaic pseudomethodological and antimodalistic über-paradigm which time-limits the neofallacious capitalomasturbatory mindset.

  47. Owlmirror says

    Neoatheists are merely reinforcing the Intertextuality of the class divisions. You have designed a metanarrative that ultimately reinforces the capitalist constructivism, to create your own false and neolamarckian ethnomethodology.

    Yes, clearly the objectively creative modal reality can only be expressed by the spontaneous and ontological derivation of multiply nuanced hierarchies of informational, or rather, epistemic quanta which are analyzed through the lens of anarchistic worldviews and refracted by the prism of the post-metrosexual exegetical Weltanschauung.

    Hah! Top that.

  48. says

    Richard Dawkins: “Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content. The chances are that you would produce something like the following:”

    Neoatheists are merely reinforcing the Intertextuality of the class divisions. You have designed a metanarrative that ultimately reinforces the capitalist constructivism, to create your own false and neolamarckian ethnomethodology.

  49. Brian Macker says

    I saw expelled at my local BlockBuster for rent. I was looking at the cover and noticed that it got four stars. The four stars had a name after it. There were no other reviews on the front cover. Guess who’s name it was?

    Give up? It was:

    **** – Ben Stein

    I’d make a copy but I’d have to rent it.

  50. Nerd of Redhead says

    [searches frantically for some clarity, then runs screaming from the thread]

  51. Owlmirror says

    [searches frantically for some clarity, then runs screaming from the thread]

    I recommend crumbled bleu cheese, dried cranberries, and honeyed pecans as a topping for pretentious word salad.

    But I suppose that it’s not to everyone’s taste.

  52. Nerd of Redhead says

    I recommend crumbled bleu cheese, dried cranberries, and honeyed pecans as a topping for pretentious word salad.
    But I suppose that it’s not to everyone’s taste.

    Substitute feta for bleu cheese (the Redhead is allergic to penicillin), and it sounds scrumptious.

  53. Feynmaniac says

    Whenever I hear postmodernist mumbo jumbo I think of this .

    If you put the mouse of the comic,

    If you think this is too hard on literary criticism, read the Wikipedia article on deconstruction.

  54. alex says

    it mentions at the end of that article that Ruloff plans to do another film with Stein – on economics! certainly another area of expertise for Stein to bumble about in.

  55. noodles says

    I don’t buy Clear Eyes cuz Ben Stein is a dishonest liar. I tossed the bottle I had and picked up some Visine.

  56. says

    Neoatheists are merely reinforcing the Intertextuality of the class divisions. You have designed a metanarrative that ultimately reinforces the capitalist constructivism, to create your own false and neolamarckian ethnomethodology.

    Poe-stmodernism?

  57. clinteas says

    I agree that it wasnt much of an excuse,really.
    Its one thing for a movie producer to use the tools of his trade,so to speak,to get a message across,even if that message contains lies,misconceptions and distortions of truths and reality.

    But for Ben Stein to let himself be paid to be the spearhead for those lies,and to top that with his own message of science=nazism in every public appearance,is a whole different level of lying and lacking integrity.

  58. 'Tis Himself says

    I see there are postmoderns here who call a spade a manually operated terrain re-sculpturing implement.

  59. mandrake says

    Poe-stmodernism?

    FTW!

    Also:Thanks, Owlmirror – I swear that looks just like the code I used. It seemed to work okay in preview, too… hmpf.

  60. Owlmirror says

    I swear that looks just like the code I used. It seemed to work okay in preview, too

    Handy heuristic tip: In preview, hover your mouse cursor over the link, and see if the expected URL shows up properly in the bottom left of your browser.

    It was probably just a typo, which the scienceblogs comment script stripped out until it was just an empty “a” tag. For example:

    <a hfer=”http://test.test”>This is a pretty shade of blue, but goes nowhere.</a>

    becomes:

    This is a pretty shade of blue, but goes nowhere.

  61. Dr Horrible says

    JM @ 51 writes:

    There are other resources on the web – http://ncseweb.org/ and http://evolution.berkeley.edu/ etc, many (most/all?) referenced at Talk.Origins.
    Of course, it’s a lot of work to create and maintain such a general archive of responses to creationist misconceptions and misrepresentations. Anyone capable of making a really good presentation probably has a day job which takes most of their time. I suspect that it requires professionals from all fields of science. Such a contrast with the propaganda exercise of ‘Expelled!’

    Thanks mate! :)

    I guess the problem, at least as I see it, is that linking a creotard to Talk.Origins gets the same response from them as linking to TheWorldNutDaily would get from us – even if it is totally unfounded in the case of Talk.Origins!

    I guess I was thinking that if the Talk.Origins stuff was hosted somewhere “neutral” it might be easier?!

    But … on further rumination, I reckon that even that would be pointless – the creotards would just add those websites to the list of the Godless Conspiracy(tm) and we’d be back at square one.

    Which also says a lot about their MO. *sigh*

  62. Scott says

    I read the original post cited, and I don’t see where Ruloff “admits” to lying about anything. He says where they added the Nazi film clips in order to get an emotional impact, because a more cerebral movie is kind of boring. But is that an admission of “lying”? Certainly the whole enterprise is dishonest, but I don’t see that this interview as reported supports the claim. Can someone point to what they think was such an “admission”? (Cross posted on Pharyngula.)

  63. Steve_C says

    They lied to PZ. They lied about the people they interviewed and they just made up shit and lied about the ToE. They are liars and admitted propagandists. It’s well documented. I’m sure we could dig up the links to all that. But just google “expelled exposed”.

  64. Colin says

    From the article:

    In an interview this summer with the National Post newspaper, Stein is quoted saying it was Ruloff who initially “got in touch with me and said he wanted to do something about Darwinism and how it leads to social Darwinism, which leads to Nazism and the Holocaust.”

    But Ruloff said it was actually Stein. Because of his Jewish heritage, Ruloff said, Stein came up with the idea of linking scientific Darwinism to the concentration camps. “It was always Ben Stein…”

    Somehow I’m reminded of my wife’s identical twin brothers. When they were kids, if one of them did something wrong he’d try and blame it on the other – “It was ‘im”. Anything that happened around their place was always blamed on the mythical “Im”.

  65. JohnnieCanuck says

    Like Scott said (#76), the article itself doesn’t directly show that they are liars.

    Todd is the religion columnist for the Vancouver Sun. The link for the article is to his blog, The Search which is on the newspaper’s web site. No surprise he gave half hearted criticisms without ever actually getting around to accusing Ruloff of lying in the movie and about it in the interview.

    With different formatting and two half page photographs of Ruloff, including the one of him with the Ben Stein poster, this article ran in yesterday’s Sun as a two page spread with an inside front page, no less.

    From his Wiki entry, he has received multiple awards for his writing, twice being awarded “first place in the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year Award”, “the highest award for opinion writing from the American Academy of Religion” and “James O. Supple Religion Feature Writer of the Year Award”.

    No hard punching investigative reporter concerned only with the evidence, he.

  66. says

    DEconStructualiST @53

    Nice Poe!

    Plus, you gave me a great word. Take neolamarkianism and twist it around to:

    Neomalarkianism

    You probably thought of that already, but if you’d used it, it wouldn’t be a Poe anymore. Are you practicing to become a Sokal impersonator?

  67. Lowell says

    @68,

    I wrote Clear Eyes consumer affairs to tell them the same thing (that I stopped buying Clear Eyes because they use Stein). I got the e-mail below in response:

    Thank you for taking the time to contact regarding our advertising of Clear Eyes. We regret that you were not satisfied with our advertising for Clear Eyes for Dry Eyes, featuring Ben Stein.

    Mr. Stein is an entertainer. His presentation and endorsement of our product should not and does not include any implication that we share his political or personal views. The information you have provided has been reported to our Marketing Department.

    We value your opinion and your loyal patronage.

    Should you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

    Sincerely,
    Laura Thompson
    Consumer Affairs

  68. itzac says

    “I told Ruloff I agreed with him on many issues, including that most science departments are extremely poor at metaphysics.”

    And my local chinese restaurant builds crap furniture. Cooks are responsible for the holocaust!

  69. Cynical Jones says

    Guy Incognito: “Expelled was a flop. I think it averaged about $3,000 per theater at its peak. I don’t know where this guy is getting the idea that his film generated a lot of interest in the middle.”

    He’s just lying some more in hopes they’ll sell the DVD’s they’re releasing.

  70. angulimala says

    I don’t buy Clear Eyes cuz Ben Stein is a dishonest liar. I tossed the bottle I had and picked up some Visine.

    I can haz Michelle Malkin?

    Does it say somewhere “This Holy Book contains the Word of God and is Really True” in it (or somethin along those lines), or is it just other people saying so?

    I’m guessing the former, but I’m not actually sure.

    And, like many others, you’d be very very wrong.

    There is NOTHING in the OT which approaches anything like “This book is always right”.

    In the NT, there are passages that come close but none that are unambiguous. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16 NIV). Notice how the qualifier “in righteousness” opens the scope of the claim up to interpretation. Many Christians have, throughout history, believed this to mean that the Bible is inerrant on those subjects relating to “righteousness” (faith, morality, behavior to one another) and not matters of scientific fact. Timothy also fails to mention what texts he meant by ‘Scripture’ since there was no NT canon at the time he wrote.

    Wikipedia has a good start.

  71. Sir Craig says

    From this interview:

    As a result of Expelled being painted as too politically incorrect for the liberal elite, Ruloff said the film has so far earned $8 million. Expelled’s website claims it is the “number-one documentary of 2008.” (emphasis mine)

    From Box Office Mojo:

    Domestic Summary:
    Religulous: Total Gross: $13,011,160
    Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed: Total Gross: $7,720,487

    It seems they still can’t stop lying…

  72. Patrick says

    At any given time there are over a hundred million people on Earth that believe in Santa Claus. Numbers don’t mean truth.

  73. eddie says

    Re Louise @44

    Weird distinction between ‘darwinists’ and ‘neo darwinists’. Are there really folk saying ‘there is evolution by natural selection but I’m not having any of that DNA rubbish. It’s barnacles all the way down’?
    PS – Don’t fence me in.

  74. eddie says

    Re 47 – Suck my Sokal!

    At least the creotards can (occasionally) string a sentence together.
    Fukwit.