Last April, I received this nice letter from Mark Mathis.
Hello Mr. Myers,
My name is Mark Mathis. I am a Producer for Rampant Films. We are
currently in production of the documentary film, “Crossroads: The
Intersection of Science and Religion.”At your convenience I would like to discuss our project with you and to see
if we might be able to schedule an interview with you for the film. The
interview would take no more than 90 minutes total, including set up and
break down of our equipment.We are interested in asking you a number of questions about the
disconnect/controversy that exists in America between Evolution,
Creationism and the Intelligent Design movement.Please let me know what time would be convenient for me to reach you at your
office. Also, could you please let me know if you charge a fee for
interviews and if so, what that fee would be for 90 minutes of your time.I look forward to speaking with you soon.
Sincerely,
Mark Mathis
Rampant Films
4414 Woodman Ave. #203
Sherman Oaks, CA 91423
www.rampantfilms.com
I looked up Rampant Films. Yes, they are doing a movie called Crossroads, and it has perfectly reasonable blurb.
So I said, sure, I’d be happy to talk with you, and as long as any travel expenses are covered, I’m willing to do it gratis (academic, you know…we aren’t used to charging big fees to explain things to people). They came out to Morris, set up cameras and gear in my lab, and we did an interview for a few hours. I got paid (woo hoo!). They left. I figured that, as a fairly minor figure in this argument, I might well get cut out altogether — they talked about also interviewing Dawkins and Eugenie Scott and Pennock and various other people — and that was OK.
Now we’ve got this new ID creationist movie, Expelled, coming out, and there’s a press release with this claim:
Unlike some other documentary films, Expelled doesn’t just talk to
people representing one side of the story. The film confronts scientists
such as Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, influential biologist
and atheist blogger PZ Myers and Eugenie Scott, head of the National Center
for Science Education. The creators of Expelled crossed the globe over a
two-year period, interviewing scores of scientists, doctors, philosophers
and public leaders. The result is a startling revelation that freedom of
thought and freedom of inquiry have been expelled from publicly-funded high
schools, universities and research institutions.
What? I didn’t do any interviews for pro-creation films, and I certainly haven’t said that “freedom of thought and freedom of inquiry” aren’t part of the university. There must be some mistake.
But then I noticed in the credits for the movie that a certain familiar name is the associate producer, or ass-prod, as I’ll henceforth consider him.
Denyse O’Leary also ties Mathis of Rampant Films to this movie, and this page from Expelled uses the same graphic that Rampant Films used for Crossroads. The case is closed: Ben Stein’s propaganda film for ID is the one I was interviewed for.
Well. I guess I didn’t end up on the cutting room floor after all, although I’m sure a select set of my words did. Unless, that is, the whole movie is me sitting in my lab, talking. It’s real. I’m going to be featured in a big-time movie with second-tier character actor and game-show host Ben Stein. I bet my whole family is going to go out to the moving-picture theatre to see me on the big screen … and since my family lives near Seattle and the Discovery Institute is so happy about it, they’ll probably have the opportunity.
I do have a few questions, though.
I’m wondering why the Discovery Institute would be so enthused about this movie. It lays it’s premise on the line: science is flawed because it excludes god and the supernatural. It’s one big promo for religion — which means it’s going to further undercut Intelligent Design creationism’s claims to be a secular idea.
Randy Olson points out that this is clearly a well-funded movie. It’s slick, they’re paying Ben Stein, they had to have shelled out a good chunk of money for the rights for the “Bad to the Bone” theme. Randy’s probably wondering why he couldn’t get that kind of money for Flock of Dodos.
So who is funding the movie? Some people with deep pockets are throwing quite a bit of cash at this thing, and I can assure you that it didn’t end up in my hands. I think I was paid something like $1200. I should have asked for much more!
Isn’t it a little ironic that a fairly expensive production like this is billing itself as representing the ordinary people, and is pretending to be the “rebel”? There’s a bit of the no-expenses-will-be-spared (except in the case of their evilutionist dupes!) glitz about it — it really doesn’t look like the work of some brave independent film-maker living hand-to-mouth while making his artistic vision manifest.
Why were they so dishonest about it? If Mathis had said outright that he wants to interview an atheist and outspoken critic of Intelligent Design for a film he was making about how ID is unfairly excluded from academe, I would have said, “bring it on!” We would have had a good, pugnacious argument on tape that directly addresses the claims of his movie, and it would have been a better (at least, more honest and more relevant) sequence. He would have also been more likely to get that good ol’ wild-haired, bulgy-eyed furious John Brown of the Godless vision than the usual mild-mannered professor that he did tape. And I probably would have been more aggressive with a plainly stated disagreement between us.
I mean, seriously, not telling one of the sides in a debate about what the subject might be and then leading him around randomly to various topics, with the intent of later editing it down to the parts that just make the points you want, is the video version of quote-mining and is fundamentally dishonest.
I don’t mind sharing my views with creationists, and do so all the time. By filming under false pretenses, much like the example of the case of Richard Dawkins’ infamous “pause”, they’ve undercut their own credibility … not that that will matter. I suspect their audience will not question whatever mangling of the video that they carry out, and the subterfuges used to make it will not be brought up.
Oh, well. I have two warnings for the creationists.
One, I will go see this movie, and I will cheer loudly at my 30 seconds or whatever on the screen, and I will certainly disembowel its arguments here and in any print venue that wants me. That’s going to be fun.
Two, next time I’m asked to be recorded for a creationist propaganda film, I will demand more money, and a flight and a limousine to the premiere. They can pay for my tuxedo rental, too. And my hotel room will have a jacuzzi and a bowl of M&Ms — green ones only.
Cheeky fuckers!
May I add that scientists are not taking this crap lying down! I’d like to take the opportunity to plug my new book “Evolution and Religious Creation Myths: How Scientists Respond.” Authors are Paul Lurquin and Linda Stone (Oxford University Press, 2007).
I know it’s shameful to be so self-promoting. On the other hand, the bad guys have no such shame. Why, then, should I feel ashamed?
Thanks for your attention.
Wow PZ, in a movie with Ben Stein — I wonder how many degrees from Kevin Bacon that makes you?
Are they trying to be the Michael Moore for Caucasian Jesus?
What sort of questions did they ask you, PZ?
PZ has really, seriously lost it now. The stress must be getting to him. Everyone knows that red M&Ms are the best by far.
I could have figured out it was a setup from the beginning. Always check out near anonymous offers like this one. The question isn’t whether they quote mined and miscut to misrepresent. The question is how much.
Ben Stein is a moron. The first piece I ever read from him was so notably dumb that I had to look at the author and memorize the name. He’s been dumb ever since.
Hmm, I think I will still stick to buying only Flock of Dodos, when it comes out. Not being narrow minded, just careful who I give my money to.
On other hand, if this is distributed like so much of the other monotheist religious media, I’m sure we can order it for free for a promise of a ‘donation’.
Turns out I can answer my own question — PZ now has a Bacon Number of 2 (Stein was in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles with Bacon).
And yes, this is a profoundly sleazy way for the filmmakers to act. Then again, given their usual tactic of quotemining, this isn’t that surprising.
Jebus, PZ, I’m sitting here muttering to myself, “Must control fist of death.” Aarrgghh.
You’re going to be quote-mined, but really, you and Randi and Phil and PT and a bunch of others are going to have a BALL skewering this “documentary.” The sad part is, a LOT more people are going to hear about Michael Behe now. That’s a crying shame.
I heard Stein doing an interview with NPR some time ago, and even then, he made my head hurt. This doesn’t help.
raven wrote:
Yeah, but the green ones make you horny*. And that’s all that matters for an evolutionary biologist.
*Yeah, it’s an urban legend, but go with me here…
I don’t suppose you got an unedited, uncut copy of your interview, did you? Might want to include that in your list of future demands, along with the green M & Ms. For that matter you might want to ask for it now, though I’m sure you’ll be told it no longer exists in that form.
Oh my. Maybe they didn’t want you to be overly defensive or strident. Big wusses.
They’ll look a bit hypocritical if they don’t allow comments from Pharyngulites on that blog.
Who’s suppressing whom?
“…next time I’m asked to be recorded for a creationist propaganda film, I will demand more money, and a flight and a limousine to the premiere.”
The problem with that is you weren’t asked to be recorded for a creationist propaganda film. Leave it to fundamentalist Christians to lie and act like jackasses.
Question: Why does no-one involved with this movie, or indeed with the ID movement in general, realise that if they have to employ deceit of any variety to make their argument, there is a major problem with a) their morals and b) their argument?
Seriously. How, unless you are a lawyer, a politician, or a writer, can you decide that lies are the way to advance truth? And don’t get me wrong, I like being lied to by talented writers – as long as they clearly label what they are writing as fiction. I hate to be so pessimistic, but really, I suspect it might be a good time to put a good libel lawyer on retainer…
I do mean Libel, right? Slander is spoken, but a film counts as a published work from the law’s perspective, doesn’t it? Oh, hell; get one of each…
So, PZ…it looks like you’re aware of the “special properties” of green M&Ms.
On a slightly more serious note, I have to wonder if the DI’s irony meter is so far gone that they can’t see the humor and contradiction in pushing their “science” (read: PR) by selective quote mining and editing, deception of intent, distortion and omission of relevant and cogent counterarguments, and other such dishonest techniques; rather than just trying to publish a d*mn rigorous and replicable peer-reviewed paper or three.
On second thought, I don’t really have to wonder at all. They probably never had the meter in the first place.
PZ, if we had known that you were being so solicited, I would have issued you something like the following warning:
“BEWARE of doing business with Hollywood types! The incidence of deceitfulness amongst them is exceptional.”
Welcome to the Shafted Club.
The guy with deep pockets appears to be the co-founder of Premise, Walt Ruloff, who “found himself rich and idle in the early 1990s at the age of 32 after he sold his software to Microsoft.”
All those stars look good in the Recent Comments side-bar. :-D
I don’t suppose you thought to have your own tape-recorder running during the interview, PZ, so that you could check (and, perhaps more crucially, prove) how they edited you.
“[this] is the video version of quote-mining and is fundamentally dishonest.”
And this surprises you because…?
Obviously, they thought they could get jucier, edited, misrepresented quotes if your guard wasn’t up. Although I suppose there’s an outside chance they really did mean your interview only for Crossroads, however honest that movie might have been itself, and later decided to recycle it for the Stein film. But given the timeframes involved (“two years”), it seems likely they knew at the time.
Emphasis added.
The level of fairness to be expected from these yahoos can be seen in the above quote. They’re not going to carefully consider what PZ says, they’re going to confront those evil atheists.
By the way, Eugenie typically has played down her atheism and talked up the science, which makes such a portrayal yet another deceitful tactic. Her point isn’t atheism, it’s good science (not that good science isn’t PZ’s point as well, but you know…). Then again, what would these idiots know about good science.
Well, it’s just more of the rampant religiosity running through ID, which of course was always concerned primarily about confronting atheists and any science they do that conflicts with their precious religious beliefs.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Man I hate it when people answer their own questions …
All in the same paragraph as well.
Wait a second. So Robert Pennock, Eugenie Scott and Atheist Pope Richard I were also interviewed under false pretenses?
Just remember: If you’re really religious, God will forgive you for misleading the unchurched. That’s because the ends justify the means. Of course, you really have to read between the lines to find that in the New Testament, but Christian leaders have been doing it for decades (if not centuries or even millennia), so it must be implied in there somehow.
Funny how it’s the other guy whom they call the “Father of Lies.”
All I can say is Dammit! On the one hope that I am ever in the position to produce a documentary on Evo/Devo, Atheism, or Cephalapods, it would turn out to be 6 hour drive for a lost cause. Damn those creationists! How can I afford the appropriate number of green candies only making an honest undergrad living. It’s a sad state of affairs I must say.
-Freelancer
Yes. And Dawkins isn’t happy about it. I expect something on his site sometime soon about this affair.
Now I have a dilemma, I was going to ignore the movie, but now I want to get a bunch of science and rhetoric literate bloggers to go to the opening and review it, but i don’t want to give those dishonest wankers any of my money… What to do, what to do.
I suppose we could get Bora to buy one ticket and then open the fire door so we can all sneak in and watch it.
Will there be a black tie premier somewhere? I own a black tie. We could all go to the premier and throw fruit. I also own fruit. It would go down in theater history like the riot at the premier of The Rite of Spring, only fruitier.
I live in L.A. and have known a number of people in “the industry,” consequently I’m always a tad suspicious. If you Google “rampant films” plus the names of any of the “properties” on their website, the only hit you get is — their website. “Rampant Films” does not appear in IMDB, nor do any of the “property” titles.
Here’s the Big Red Flag — although the production company’s address is in Sherman Oaks, California, the phone number’s area code is the state of New Mexico. I will take a drive by their address on my way home and see what it looks like, but I’m pretty sure you’ve been scammed, PZ.
[quote]Everyone knows that red M&Ms are the best by far.[/quote]
Stone the heretic! Brown M&Ms are the one true messiah.
On-topic, and echoing #1: “cheeky fuckers”. Also, if their god valued honesty and integrity, wouldn’t these jokers be heading to hell in a burning coal bucket? Ah well, the hypocrisy of the religious is truly a wonder to behold.
John McKay (#26):
Ha!
Forget the fruit. I’ll bring meat. The kind of meat unknown outside Chinatown. It will be epic.
PZ Myers (#25):
It does seem awfully stupid of the movie’s producers to let that bit of information slip this early.
This whole thing is rotten to the core.
What a bunch of amoral creeps.
phat
I thought the intersection between science and religion was abnormal psychology.
Daenku32,
I should have mentioned that my book is anti-creationism and anti-ID. You will not get it for free from AiG, ARN, the Disco Inst, or your local monotheistic church.
Wow PZ, in a movie with Ben Stein — I wonder how many degrees from Kevin Bacon that makes you?
Only two if you can believe it.
Kevin Bacon was in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles with Ben Stein.
There is a blog where you can supply comments to Ben about his movie. Let’s ask some questions.
http://expelledthemovie.com/blog/2007/08/21/bens-blog/#more-4
Did you sign something that said specifically that it would only be used in the one movie? Is there any way to, dare I say, sue over the false representation this “producer” provided to you?
You could sue them…oh, wait, that’s what crackpots do.
So if PZ has a Bacon number is two what’s his Erdos number?
Hey!
Pieter B says, “I will take a drive by their address on my way home and see what it looks like, but I’m pretty sure you’ve been scammed, PZ.”
I would definitely bet on it.
No one knows for sure at this point whether they’ll edit the interview to undermine what you actually said, though it would be surprising if that were not their intentions.
How are the lawsuits against “Borat” going? There were a lot of suits filed by people stating that they wouldn’t have signed releases if the true purpose of the project were known to them at the time. I don’t know if any have been successful. You should sue. $15,000,000 sounds good for some reason.
Hmm… Apparently I know someone who was part of this. I thought that might be the case, but I wasn’t sure. Now I see his picture on the Rampant Films website. I haven’t seen him since he went to go help with the filming of a pro-ID film, but if I run into him I could ask him some questions.
Sounds to me like a fraudulent contract. Didn’t I tell you before that you might need an agent?
That’s how Borat got most of his interviews too. I congratulate you on your 15 minutes of fame, even if the movie is a farce. I just hope there is no equivalent of the hotel scene…
PZ,…
I have no idea when this interview took place, but as soon as I saw the “pause” bit that happened to Dawkin’s, I wrote to you and asked you if you’d seen it. I did this because I knew that they would try things like this with people like you, and I thought you should be aware…
I do not like to call you naive, but I really think you should have suspected this at the time when they came to you, and had asked for good evidence as to who was backing the film.
I know you are quite the bright guy and all that, but please use some street smarts…
Good call on the green M&Ms.
Pooor PZ. One day he’s getting sued by an author with a bad book, the other day he’s been quote mined for an ID conspiracy movie.
AVOID THE BLUE M&M’s. They are satanic, like the Smurfs. The Smurfs are satanic because they are blue. Blue is the color of dead people who are possessed. My younger son’s second grade church school teacher tried to explain this to him and he said “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” He walked out and never went back to church school. Just to be sure I avoid anything blue. (My high school football team was called the Blue Devils. They never won a single game. Satan sucks at sports.)
A clue may be the salutation he used in his letter.
He can’t have much respect for a person if he won’t use Dr. rather than Mr.
Pet peeve of mine.
“Wow PZ, in a movie with Ben Stein — I wonder how many degrees from Kevin Bacon that makes you?
Only two if you can believe it.
Kevin Bacon was in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles with Ben Stein.”
I believe it is only one degree of separation, isn’t it?
wait–you let yourself be interviewed for a movie, and there was no waiver? nothing legal signed?
You need to be a little more….skeptical…when working with the media.
Yeah PZ, you need an agent. You’re actually famous now.
Also if you made $1200, imagine what they had to pay Dawkins? I know he charges tens of thousands just for normal appearances.
Oh, come on. That scene was hilarious. In a ‘claw my eyes out’ sort of way.
Although, I guess, big fat guy penis wrestling isn’t for everyone.
Here’s a trivia question: how has the lowest combined Bacon and Erdos number? There must be someone with connections to both – maybe PZ? I know there are evolutionary biologists such as Gould and Lewontin that can be traced back via their collaborators to collaborators with Erdos, so I bet PZ can too – maybe he has the lowest combined number…
pough: Please do! And while you’re at it, ask him if the producers’ dishonesty is in accordance with his beliefs (but only after you’ve pumped him for info…)
well, if you were ever looking for an excuse to download a movie and avoid giving the producers the ticket money, this is probably it…
Actually, I have emailed Mathis. We’ll see if he replies.
I get the feeling they are going to quote mine this interview so severely that it will look like the visual representation of a ransom note cobbled together with words and letters from newspaper clippings.
And, those pricks probably didn’t even film your good side, either.
On the other hand, it’s kind of sad that Ben Stein would sign on to such a dishonest project. Poor man must not be selling many eye drops, I figure.
I can’t help thinking of the “Gummi Venus de Milo” episode of the Simpsons. Kent Brockman interviewing Homer, with the obvious quote mining (complete with a clock in the background jumping around between times) to make Homer appear evil.
Wait, was there a clock in the background of the interview?
Was there a “true Scotsman” filming you from the bushes outside?
Stein is a multi-millionaire. He doesn’t need any of the jobs he takes. He does them out of vanity.
phat
Hey PZ,
Long time reader, first time commenter.
Anyways, one has to admit that Rampant Films looks completely fake. The website is nice and flashy, but screams bullshit. Plus you do other searches on other sites, imdb, etc… and there is NO record of a Rampant Films other than a listed of a Rampant Films Limited in the UK. There’s also a Myspace URL with that title…which is based out of hong kong. http://www.myspace.com/rampantfilms
As far as Premise Media Corp is concerned… aside from their flashy website, which screams of bullshit, again nothing except the one press release and one job listing saying they’re out of Bowen Island, British Columbia.
hmm… is it just me or does all of this just seem fishy???
Perhaps one should request an unedited copy of all interviews (in its entirety) as a standard portion of your interview ‘fee’? This documentation would most certainly provide a context sensitive reference in case you choose to argue points, demonstrate any intentional deception or just to relive your 15min of fame in the comfort of your home.
also, if you look up ben stein on imdb.com. this project is not currently listed anywhere…
or mathis, or rampant films or the title… may not mean much, but imdb usually seems to get a lot of info.
wow!! i’m totally stoked about the erdos number / kevin bacon number thing. as far as i knew there were only like, what, a handful of people who had both? we talked about it in discrete structures last semester. i think the math dept is going to have to change the syllabus to mention pz by name now! wow!!
…okay, back to my pcr.
24 hours. You get sued for 15 million dollars, comment on a Ben Stein movie and then you find out you are in said movie by trickery. Once perhaps bad luck, twice a coincidence, third enemy action. Smells of a twisted and evil viral marketing campaign and you are it. Everything is real and nothing is real and they are out to get you. The only thing to do is attack! By the way, try using an oblique approach.
Maybe they’re just so used to lying that it didn’t even occur to them that they could get an interview any other way?
Apparently, that gives you a Bacon number of 2.
If the green M&Ms work as advertised I’m sure seeing Ben Stein will pretty much kill these feelings. It seems like par for the course that ID will misrepresent itself and then quotemine to get what they want.
PZ is going to be famous. First, a lawsuit and now a moviestar!
“I will take a drive by their address on my way home and see what it looks like, but I’m pretty sure you’ve been scammed, PZ.”
If google maps is correct, it’s an apartment building. I live down the street from it.
I haven’t rung the bell on that apartment number, however. It might be fun to do it with a video camera rolling, and ask for Mr. Mathis.
So Ben Stein is totally cool with expediting the new dark ages for the christofascists. No concern for truth or enlightenment, nor, apparently, for the probable negative outcome of institutional Christianity for other Jewish people.
So, what questions were asked in this interview for “Crossroads”?
Is deviousness and dishonesty an integral part of the Abrahamic religions? So it would seem. Is this how Jebus would make a documentary?
Blake Stacey (#29)
Forget the fruit. I’ll bring meat.
The only meat I can think of that would be appropriate for a Creationist movie would be eyeballs, in memory of Rev. Paley. Well, the exhaust from living meat, especially cows, would also be appropriate.
Did they make you sign a very lengthy release form prior to filming by any chance?
Some handy household hints for the interviewed…
1. Check up on the company and people behind it. In particular, ask what they’ve done in the past that you might have heard of, or you might be able to see. Many companies are set up for particular projects, so won’t have any track record – in which case, ask about the director, producer or funding. A bona fide operation will ALWAYS be able to answer these questions to your satisfaction – indeed, will be only too happy to produce their credentials. “Can you send me a tape/DVD of some stuff you’ve done already?”.
2. Ask to see the script or a copy of the proposal to the backers. By the time someone’s pointing a camera at you, there will be a lot of paper somewhere describing the structure and intent of the project. Even just asking for an email or letter confirming their verbal description of what they’re doing, on company paper, can be a most interesting exercise. Again, if this is a legitimate exercise, you can expect a positive reaction to such requests (hell, they’ve been shopping this around for ages!).
3. “Is it OK if I tape this too?” Your own camera, or even just a dictaphone, set up nearby and recording throughout the interview, works wonders.
R
Wait a minute, mate. Are you saying the Christians lied to you to get an interview? Isn’t that a sin?
Surely the good Lord cannot bless this film when it was steeped in falsehoods.
I do not see any deceit in the letter or published blurb about Crossroads. If anything, only the title changed. There is nothing to indicate that the original (or even the new one) was in favor of either side of the argument. They both purport to cover the disconnect between the sides, to expose the suppression of freedom of thought in public schools. Only one’s personal convictions and background cloud one’s perceptions of and probable intent of these printings.
Secondly, we have to take PZ’s word regarding the veracity of the two printings, as well as the time spent with the interviewer, to be true and accurate. Until you have talked with the other side, don’t be so quick to judge.
As a professor of documentary film, the filmmakers’ methods, even as directly reported by PZ, are not illegal, immoral, or unethical. Whether or not they are malicious or otherwise is a matter of intent, which we cannot judge by actions alone.
If PZ answered their questions honestly, then there is nothing about which he should be ashamed or upset. They weren’t there to argue, only to ask questions, regardless of their intent or pretenses.
The thing I find most troubling is the lack of tolerance on the part of several posters with regards to faiths who believe in ID or Creationism. Were this any group of people (race, gender, nationality, etc.) other than religious-based ones, they would display more tolerance and less prejudice.
I also think the hypocrisy is stifling. Michael Moore commits these kind of professional faux-pas and atrocities in all of his work, but I don’t hear any complaining…only raucous “hurrah’s” and applause. And he isn’t the only one.
And before you continue condemning or accusing “religion” of shady and nefarious plots, perhaps you should look up the meaning of the word. Evolution meets every criteria of a religion, yet it is sanctioned and supported by the government.
“Truth is not a democracy.”
Hey, PZ, have you warned / notified Robert Pennock and Eugene Scott? I guess Dawkins probably knows by now or will very soon, but I don’t think Robert is quite so plugged in.
Anyway, seems like a neighborly thing to do, and your email has a higher chance of getting through than mine would…
They wanted to come off as rebels, so they chose Ben Stein? What, wasn’t Kirk Cameron available.
Also, when Stein passes someone on the way to a pulpit at one point, isn’t that “disgraced evangelical” Ted Haggard?
Did you give them that line about needing more abortions?
I have been a scientist for close to 40 years and I have just one problem for you, the atheistic intelligentsia (or, superpseudos as we used to call you): Take a Mercedes Benz apart and reduce it to a pile of all of its smallest elements. Then, using any probabilistic model you choose, after placing all of these parts in a big bag and hanging the bag only 20 feet from the ground, how many millions of years of dropping all of the parts to the ground would it take before the parts came together to form the original automobile? (Process: Drop the parts, put all the parts back in the bag after they’ve hit the ground, hoist the bag again to 20 feet and drop again.) My model, results in infinity, an incalculable number of years. But what you jerks are asking people like me to believe is that somehow over a 200 million years or so, accidental collisions created DNA, the basic molecule fundamental to all life, and that this DNA mutated over time, by accidental collisions, to create all of the different kinds of life we have on earth and, more than that, because you believe our ancestors were fish, somehow DNA mutations caused us to evolve to the very complex human species we are today. To this, I answer Crap! Listen jerks, do a little DNA bench research sometime, then you will see how truly tough that molecule is and how resistant it is to change. There is only one way to explain the beauty and simplicity of our universe and that is through the synthesis of science and religion postulated by Intelligent Design Creationism.
Yikes. #75 is gon’ be clobbered.
“If PZ answered their questions honestly, then there is nothing about which he should be ashamed or upset. They weren’t there to argue, only to ask questions, regardless of their intent or pretenses.”
That is exactly why PZ has reason to be angry. They were there to ask him questions so that they could take what he said and use it against the scientific community. They should have been upfront so he could consciously respond to what he suspected would be taken out of context and, at the least, prevent himself from saying anything that /would/ be taken out of context.
“And before you continue condemning or accusing “religion” of shady and nefarious plots, perhaps you should look up the meaning of the word. Evolution meets every criteria of a religion, yet it is sanctioned and supported by the government.”
Oh, ouch. Mincemeat.
I doubt that it will come to Australia, so I won’t have the opportunity to participate in my suggestion. But feel free the rest of you.
Why don’t you get into audience participation at the movie, like people do for the Rocky Horror Picture Show? Dress up in lab coats (with suspenders and fishnet stockings), boo at the evil atheists, cheer the defenders of the faith, throw fruit (a la John McKay #26) or dodgy meat (a la Blake, OM, #29)etc.
It could become a cult classic for us science nerds.
Re: Ecrivan
Uh oh.
This should be entertaining.
So Ecriva, can you point out what these requirements are, you know, these ones religion and evolution both meet.
(this is just the beginning)
phat
Were this any group of people (race, gender, nationality, etc.) other than religious-based ones, they would display more tolerance and less prejudice.
Really, Ecrivan? How do you feel about Scientology?
Criticizing irrational belief systems is not the same as demeaning people for their race. Do not try to conflate the two.
Which isn’t to say that the criticism can’t be leveled in a civil tone. The criticism itself, however, is not only legitimate, warranted, it’s increasingly, direly necessary.
#79…
I (not to mention this entire group of blog readers) highly doubt you are a “scientist”. What kind of scientist? Who are you? Why not supply that information to begin with?
You’re recitation of a Point Refuted A Thousand Times is even more indicative of your dishonesty.
I very much look forward to your evisceration of this terrible movie. What a bunch of dishonest hacks.
As for PZ’s Bacon Number, it is indeed down to 2. However, if you expand Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon outside of films (Transcendental Bacon Numbers), the game has gotten substantially easier thanks to the crazy guy who filed a lawsuit with 56 pages of defendants, including Mein Kampf (yes, the book), the Great Wall of China, the Nordic Gods, the entire Ming Dynasty, almost any celebrity you can think of… and Kevin Bacon.
“I have been a scientist for close to 40 years”
No you’re not.
phat
I also think the hypocrisy is stifling. Michael Moore commits these kind of professional faux-pas and atrocities in all of his work, but I don’t hear any complaining–
Well, you haven’t really been listening, have you?
Straw man argument.
And even if it were true, pointing the finger at someone else doesn’t negate the mendacious behavior initially highlighted. This sort of redirection is what children do: “But Mommy, Suzie did it, too!”
Frankly, I was tipped off from the moment you mentioned that they offered to PAY you. Journalists (and this includes documentary makers) don’t pay you for your opinion– it’s not really not ethical on a lot of levels. The only reason they paid you is to be able to say they have you on their payroll.
The Sherman Oaks address may be bogus, but the phone number is certainly connected to Mathis:
MathisMedia
Don’t sweat it, PZ. Whether they portray you with reasonable accuracy or not, they’re giving you a more prominent voice. In fact, I can only hope they demonize you masterfully, and that the movie is successful enough to encourage public debate. News media would certainly have tie-in/follow up reports, and you and the other voices of reason in this film wouldn’t let them get away with the standard equivocating conclusion for the sake of an imagined middle-ground, moderation, or equal time.
Let’s hope the movie tends to an extreme – either so completely ignored that the money is completely down the drain, or successful enough that the discussion gives science advocates a big wave of public discussion to ride.
Any chance of publishing your book to coincide with the movie? Use their publicity!
Be honest. You’re not a scientist. You’re definitely not an evolutionary biologist. We use the ford focus for our models.
Also…what the fuck is a little DNA bench research. Is this what they called it 40 years ago?
The person with the lowest Bacon/Erdos number is Dave Bayer, with a Erdos-bacon number of 4. His Erdos number is 2 and his Bacon number is also 2, as he has a cameo in “A Beautiful Mind” with Rance Howard (among other people), who was in Apollo 13. He can be beaten (by Erdos himself) if you include crew members or uncredited extras.
You can work out your own Erdos number here
Oh yeah, and I now have a PZ number of 4 in films: me >Heather Donahue >Nancy Fish > Ben Stein > PZ
I don’t like these sorts of social network maps though – they seem too much like stalking.
Who the heck is Ben Stein?
Sherman Oaks is the porn flick capitol of America – hard-core porn, soft porn, and now – creationist porn!
Nice review here: http://thestubborncurmudgeon.blogspot.com
Time to hang with Robert Zemeckis.
You know what pisses me off about this crap? It’s going to shut the door of honest inquiry and dialogue between believers like me and honest skeptics like PZ and Dr. Dawkins.
You know, I’m not anybody special in the scientific world. I’m just one of thousands of high school science teachers in North America, and believers are a dime a dozen. But, when I’ve needed assistance or advice, I’ve learned that it never hurts to ask. And all sorts of people have been unbelievably charitable with their time, including Dr. Dawkins, who would be understandably gun-shy after the ‘pause’ episode about corresponding with anyone who identifies himself as a believer.
I feel extraordinarily privileged at times to have the sort of exchanges that I do, with very bright, thoughtful and well-spoken people. But (a nod to Blake Stacey) if creationists keep pushing their viewpoint with ‘unholy lies’, then maybe in the future someone with interests like mine won’t be able to make any traction—and another avenue of potential dialogue is torn to pieces. Maddening!
Re: #93: According to Wikipedia, Daniel Kleitman has an Erdos-Bacon number of 3.
So I noticed that there are zero comments on the movie blog, which struck me as strange since the link to the site is already up on pharyngula. I left a snide little comment -the first one on the wall it seemed – about Christianity being hard to buy as a “rebel” (it’s really the ultimate “The Man”) and was told the comment was awaiting “moderation”. I somehow doubt they allow dissenting views, and I somehow suspect that’s all that’s being posted…
The old “bowl full of one color of M&M’s” is not a real big issue now that you can go straight to mymms.com and order 5lb bags of specific colors. Check it out, 22 colors available, and custom printing if you want it.
Otherwise, I’m wondering about if contracts to appear in documentaries can be limited to specific projects. Moore has a history of sending out people to do interviews under false flags.
PZ — If you actually don’t want to be in the movie, write a letter threatening legal action. if they say no you can then decide whether or not to get a real lawyer to pursue it.
You see, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.
We are scientists here, not postmodernists. There is such a thing as reality, and it contains such things as facts.
Then look again.
Incidentally, “criteria” is the plural of “criterion” — that’s regular in Greek.
If you say so…
Only American fundies are ignorant enough to believe that it’s impossible to believe in a religion and accept the evidence for evolution at the same time.
Mutations are random. Selection is not. What glimpse of your deep ignorance, apparently cultured over 40 years, will you offer us next? Maybe you’ll claim Earth has suddently become a closed system so that evolution violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics?
You see, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.
We are scientists here, not postmodernists. There is such a thing as reality, and it contains such things as facts.
Then look again.
Incidentally, “criteria” is the plural of “criterion” — that’s regular in Greek.
If you say so…
Only American fundies are ignorant enough to believe that it’s impossible to believe in a religion and accept the evidence for evolution at the same time.
Mutations are random. Selection is not. What glimpse of your deep ignorance, apparently cultured over 40 years, will you offer us next? Maybe you’ll claim Earth has suddently become a closed system so that evolution violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics?
Mojotycoon, #79, can you provide a bit more detail for your auto parts experiment? Specifically, how do auto parts replicate?
Oh…they don’t?
So when you think about it, it’s hardly a viable analogy for a biological system or a replicating molecule, huh?
And I guess you aren’t aware that we don’t develop scientific understanding through analogy anyway. That was what people did in the dark ages and earlier, with the “chain of being”, “as in heaven, so on earth”, etc. Lots of dead-ends there.
These days, we can effectively understand the world through evidence and experimentation, thanks to some smart insights during this nice time called the Age of Enlightenment. Sorry your own understanding didn’t benefit from it, but I’m sure your lifestyle and health have.
Why not read a book to learn about it while the adults have a conversation?
I have been a scientist for close to 40 years
Have not.
(Any takers on a “Salem Hypothesis” data point?)
Let’s face it, PZ’s f*cked. His blind lust for attention and fame has done him in. Are we just pawns in his personal media game? Does he care more about atheism, or his own career? Same for Dawkins.
OK, #79, I spent the whole day today doing “DNA bench research”, and every other day, and I have not seen how “truly tough that molecule is and how resistant it is to change.” It might make research easier if it were the case, but DNA shears and gets nicks if you vortex it too hard, and DNA copies with some errors every time you do a transcription reaction. DNA degrades in water without stabilizing ions, and if there’s even a trace of DNAse on your pipette, any DNA in your sample will be gone long before you figure it out. DNA spontaneously mutates noticably at least every generation in the mice I study. I don’t know what you are studying in your “bench research”, but this “jerk” is willing to bet it isn’t DNA.
>>>Why were they so dishonest about it? If Mathis had said outright that he wants to interview an atheist and outspoken critic of Intelligent Design for a film he was making about how ID is unfairly excluded from academe, I would have said, “bring it on!” We would have had a good, pugnacious argument on tape that directly addresses the claims of his movie, and it would have been a better (at least, more honest and more relevant) sequence. He would have also been more likely to get that good ol’ wild-haired, bulgy-eyed furious John Brown of the Godless vision than the usual mild-mannered professor that he did tape. And I probably would have been more aggressive with a plainly stated disagreement between us.<<< PZ, I love it when you ask and answer your own question!
Salem Hypothesis yes, likely. Although I’m going to bet neither of these 2 new members of the community come back.
phat
Hey, if the creationists need to lie and trick respected, honest scientists to make their ideas look good…
What a bunch of frauds. I can’t say I’m surprised that they did this to you, though. I hope that someone can distribute just the PZ portion of the movie, minus the odious Ben Stein. If I watch the whole thing, I’m likely to start throwing things at the screen.
For all those folks quibbling about which M&Ms are superior: Why aren’t you citing any double-blind studies, eh?
A while back, raven wrote:
Well, of course. I mean, just look at the Monty Python Gumbys in the background of Mathis’ initial e-mail. I can’t believe P.Z. missed that.
WHOA, hold on before you go on about the New Mexico connection. Mark Mathis has been in New Mexico filming Tennessee, a drama. His website and the Rampant films website also are still announcing the documentary “Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion.” so I’m not sure if Mark Mathis is playing both ends of this or he’s sold out to the right.
You should also know that it’s kinda normal for smaller production companies to have their HQ in CA but have their production here, especially since we have just built a series of studios and sound stages in anticipation of being “the new Hollywood”. The 505 area code, at least, has a rational explanation.
and BTW, green M&Ms rock!
oh, PZ, can you sue them for 15million $ for getting the interview under false pretenses?
And one last thing, on the movie website, they claim that Galileo and Einstein were “expelled” from science for their religious beliefs. Could there be a pair of scientists more revered for the scientific findings? That doesn’t seem to make any sense. If “Big Science” has been shutting down people like Einstein (who wasn’t even really religious in the same sense as the clowns behind this movie), why is he one of the most celebrated figures in Big Science? OK, I’m done thinking about this stupid movie.
Rampant Films’s world headquarters at 4414 Woodman Avenue is, as Siamang surmised, an apartment house next to a used car lot. It does have a fitness center, though.
#79, what on earth makes you think that analogy you presented is even remotely analogous to the way evolution works?
Maybe it’s nothing, but did anyone else notice in the trailer for Expelled you HEAR ben stein talking… but you never actually SEE him talking. Meaning… you never actually see his lips move to the voice over that touts ID and God.
hmmm…
“I have been a scientist for close to 40 years”
Oh look, it’s an engineer or doctor.
To the point though, I’m sure it says something about my own trust issues that I didn’t have to get to the punchline to know that’s what PZ was getting himself into. The phony title rings badly to begin with. Maybe it’s “Crossroads” or the fact that a movie claiming to examine an intersection between science and religion stinks a little bit of What the Bleep Do We Know?
Religion that doesn’t integrate some of the findings of science is insane. Science that integrates any of the tenets of religion is no longer science. Contrariwise, if any religious tenets could be demonstrated scientifically, they would be readily accepted, but would no longer be regarded as religious tenets. Therefore, anyone who is looking for an “intersection” between science and voodoo demonstrates ipso facto a sympathy for the voodoo.
If the title didn’t cinch it, there was the blurb, which seemed to me much too reasonable, and contains subtle hints of some of the typical creationist misunderstandings of the implications of evolutionary theory. There at the beginning you can see the faulty conflation of the mechanics of life with the philosophical meaning of life. They mention that astronomers and philosophers have contributed research supporting evolution. How, exactly? Only the creationist misunderstanding that illegitimately overextends the theory of natural selection to include cosmology and philosophy really brings those people into the fold. Then there’s the way they chose to use “research and data in support of Darwin’s idea” instead of “supporting,” as if to suggest the taking of sides in a popularity contest. Even better would have been ditching the creationist’s imagined cult of personality surrounding Darwin himself and mentioning that biologists have not simply supported Darwin, but have greatly expanded on his theory to produce a 150-year body of incredibly productive results that far exceed what an one man could have accomplished.
You could in principle explain all that away by bad copywriting, of course, but clearly it wasn’t.
Mark Mathis the crazy weatherman on YouTube; according to some sites on the web he went into rehab after a couple of years of this, and when he got out he was fired for being kinda boring.
Mojotycoon, you’ve confirmed what I suspected all along, that Intelligent Design and Creationism are one and the same.
For bench research into DNA, try the following. Lie on a bench in the sun with no sunblock for oh, 4 hours a day should do it, 10 am to 2 pm. Repeat daily until it’s clear “how truly tough that molecule is and how resistant it is to change.” Don’t forget to screen for melanoma the rest of your life.
Thanks for the laughs, pal.
When will chocolate-impoverished Americans realise that M&Ms are
a tame imitation of Smarties, of which the orange ones are naturally
the best – they even taste of orange. What’s more they come in these
neat cardboard tubes that can be used for all sorts of projects after the
contents have been devoured.
Well they had me fooled. I was sure Ram Pant films was a maker of pornos.
WBC (#114):
Newton and Darwin?
Both of whom, incidentally, were more religious (in the conventional sense–and at least in Darwin’s early years) than Einstein was. And maybe I’m projecting too much, but I can’t imagine going through what Galileo did without (privately) deconverting severely.
“And yet it moves….”
The ultimate authority on what is a religion and what is not is the IRS.
If you are confused, try deducting a donation to Richard Dawkins and see what happens.
Well, of course. I mean, just look at the Monty Python Gumbys in the background of Mathis’ initial e-mail. I can’t believe P.Z. missed that.
Rieux for the win!
“I mean, seriously, not telling one of the sides in a debate about what the subject might be and then leading him around randomly to various topics, with the intent of later editing it down to the parts that just make the points you want, is the video version of quote-mining and is fundamentally dishonest.”
Allow me to be the first to say “Duh.” What could they have asked or said *honestly* that would scientifically support ID in the slightest?
BTW, one of the other fun things Ruloff does is support an organization dedicated to bothering British Columbia professionals about Jebus while they’re trying to work.
Poor Dawkins, twice tricked.
Ecrivan:
You can have your own beliefs, but not your own facts.
Evolution is a very old and viable part of the science of biology, which is why scientists and knowledgeable laymen tend to get upset when antiscientific creationists such as the ID movement tries to distort facts.
Poor Dawkins, twice tricked.
Ecrivan:
You can have your own beliefs, but not your own facts.
Evolution is a very old and viable part of the science of biology, which is why scientists and knowledgeable laymen tend to get upset when antiscientific creationists such as the ID movement tries to distort facts.
mojotycoon said: “…synthesis of science and religion….”
The “synthesis” part comes when you can’t explain scientifically why your Mercedes Benz example shouldn’t apply in spades to the most fearsomely complex thing none of us have ever seen, the Creator/Designer/G-d.
I can see the VH-1 episode now: “PZ: Behind the Tentacles” .
There was a time when I thought Ben Stein was a smart guy. But then I realized he’s just got a photographic memory, and apparently no coherent way to connect all those disparate facts.
Maybe next time this happens, have one of your students set up next to the camera man with a camera of your very own. No need to try to extract unedited copies out of them afterwards. And hand them their asses on platters forthwith.
I don’t believe you. From the content of your post, repeating a logical fallacy of Paly’s that is 150 years old, I have to conclude that you are a moron who never graduated from high school.* And a Liar.
Hmmmm, let’s see, Moron and liar = fundie Death cultist. A prediction of this hypothesis is that he has a long, long list of people to hate and kill. OK Mojo let’s have your hate and kill list. In the likely event that you can’t come up with anything coherent, use Robinson’s, Falwells, Terry’s, or Rushdooney’s.
*BTW, we’ve already seen this fallacy twice this week alone on this thread. It is overdone after 150 years of repetition. Can’t you shuffle your creo deck cards and post something less cliched and stupid?
#79: 200 million years? Try again. Look up the phrases “Bitter Springs chert”, “stromatolites”, “Ediacaran fauna”, and “Burgess Shale” and note how old they are.
As for the car analogy, I have never seen a bag of parts turn into a car but wouldn’t it be cool if they turned into giant robots?
Mojotycoon the liar who can splice logical fallacies, lies, and nonsense together with the best while claiming to be a scientist, reminded me.
This film will just be a pack of lies. C’mon, these are creos. Creos always lie. It is what they are and what they do. How else can you pretend that a few pages written 4,000 years by bronze age sheepherders has anything to do with what we know of the universe in the 21st century?
If the comment about Galileo and Einstein being ostracized for their religious beliefs is correct, it will be a monumental lie fest. Neither statement is correct. Galileo came real close to being burnt at the stake by the Catholic church for claiming that the earth went around the sun. Einstein who had some sort of abstract spiritual deist type view was never ostracized for it either.
There is no question they will quote mine and miscut to misrepresent Myers, Dawkins and all the rest. The question is how much of a hatchet job they will do. My bet is that it will be outrageous beyond belief. Liars always lie.
Let’s get a little perspective here. We can guess with reasonable certainty the film will distort the scientific side of the argument. But I’m concerned that we’ll make so much noise about it that we’ll take a 24-karat failure and turn it into a success with the publicity.
I mean, seriously, there are some fundamentalist Christians out there who’d love to pay to see this film, but it seems likely to me it’ll be a flop, an object of derision among the great majority: the people who don’t want to see any conflict between science and religion. They like their invisible friend, and they like their modern medical care.
It’s got to be infuriating for people like PZ to get manipulated and cheated, but let’s not give this film the undue compliment of serious treatment.
It looks to me as if the first company sold some footage to the second company.
It looks to me as if the movie is a major assault on academic freedom. Ben Stein is behind it? Shame on him.
mena @ 134:
Having car parts turn into giant robots would have many good consequences.
Also, my life would be meaningless if it weren’t true.
Ergo, it must be true. You can expect your robots any day now.
I feel obligated to (shudder) defend our creationist guest the tiniest little bit, and point out that his Mercedes analogy (“See!? It’s not a 747! I can think for myself!”) appears to be targeted at abiogenesis since he’s focusing on DNA, and not common evolution. Not that his understanding of that phenomenon and DNA appears to be any better.
I’m most interested in the question of what is now PZ’s Bacon-Erdos number, but I’m having a bit of trouble finding good biological connections to Erdos.
So far, the only one I’ve found is Eric Lander (Erdos number 2). I skimmed an Erdos number 2 list for a while, but no-one I recognized as a biologist popped out.
Fortunately, Lander’s on a lot of papers; for example, he gives me an Erdos number of five. I’m pretty sure I’ll never get a Bacon number, though.
raven #135: Einstein claimed to believe in Spinoza’s god, which would make him a Pantheist–one who believes that god is the universe, and not any kind of personal or supernatural entity.
RE #26 from John McKay:
“Now I have a dilemma, I was going to ignore the movie, but now I want to get a bunch of science and rhetoric literate bloggers to go to the opening and review it, but i don’t want to give those dishonest wankers any of my money… What to do, what to do.”
Buy tickets for another film screening at the same theatre and simply walk into the “wrong” auditorium.
Agree that it’s important for us to see this, but also important to not inflate box-office revenues for this film.
Alea iacta est.
rrt, isn’t DNA suspected to have developed long after the first self-replicating systems? Wouldn’t that make the anaolgy every bit as flawed?
Eric Lander published with Monte Westerfield, so that gives Monte an Erdos number of 3; I’ve published with Monte, so that gives me an Erdos number of 4. Whee!
Fontor (#138):
Oooh, the robots are coming! Thanks! ;^)
PZ Myers said:
The ol’ bait and switch routine…
Not suprised at the dishonesty of this, and of Seeds’ recent lawsuit problems….the anti-evolution leadership are really *regime-change* people and coup d’état people—-and should be treated appropriately.
There’s more at stake here than debating about some old fossils everybody….
What happened to not baring false witness?!?!?!
;-)
Just as an FYI, the comments on the blog page have all been approved and moved through. You can find them as written, as I know that mine was not censored.
Erasmus has the best reply that I have yet read.
“I have been a scientist for close to 40 years.”
That’s Creo for either “I hope one day to be an engineer or neurosurgeon” or “I’m a Phys Ed teacher with a degree in General Science from West Point.” Does anyone have a phrase book?
The six-degrees phenomenon intrigues me. My dad knows someone who was in Animal House (which IMDB has as Bacon’s first screen credit) so I think that gives me a Bacon number of…3? Three! And I’m a nobody who’s barely been out of her hometown! Or is my Bacon number always going to be undefined until I’m in a movie myself?
Well, that’s not important. I may be six degrees (or fewer) from millions of people on six continents sorta freaks me out!
Dear AnthonyH @ 142:
Given the dishonest tactics of the films creators, I think very few people will have any problem putting this schlock on BitTorrent as soon as it is out so that folks like you and I can watch and ridicule it without putting any coin in these moneychangers’ pockets.
I just returned from a bar having a conversation with a creationist. The analogy he gave was one of putting a “hummer” together from scraps. What is wrong with these people? Why do they insist that they know more about evolution than those who spend a lifetime studying it?
“appears to be targeted at abiogenesis since he’s focusing on DNA, and not common evolution. ”
Well, they’re all terribly hung up on first cause. All they can bloody well talk about. It’s like they just can’t stand the notion of not being specially created all special-like. Dreadfully insecure.
Anyone want to see how many different uses/definitions they can come up with for this phrase?
The fact that you were paid for your performance (and you probably signed a pageful of legalese on some kind of contract – “just a formality” fine print kind of stuff) will make it very hard for you to sue them. You have no proof and it is your word against theirs. And you got hired, you agreed and you got paid.
And you can still change your ways. Perhaps if you were to write, here and there, that “in some sense, the Universe saw us coming” and that “the conciousness is encoded in the laws of Nature”, you would find that the Templeton Prize pays better than Nobel.
“appears to be targeted at abiogenesis since he’s focusing on DNA, and not common evolution. ”
Then apparently Mr. 40-Year Scientist farther up hasn’t been following any of the abiogenesis hypotheses of the past, say, 40 years. RNA world, autocatalysts, silicate crystals, etc. These hypotheses don’t suggest the first cell or DNA molecule springing forth fully formed, Athena-like, from the soup. They’re talking about simpler replicators leading to a selection process which favors stabler molecular variations.
Again, the Mercedes analogy isn’t useful until car parts start having little baby car parts.
Still, it’s true that we don’t have all the answers regarding abiogenesis, so I’m not too bothered if theists rest their poor shrinking God of the Gaps there for a little while before continuing the retreat. But there’s too much molecular and archaeological evidence for them to knock on the door of evolution. There’s just no room for God at that inn.
The Ben Stein movie looks to me like it will be a romping parody. I’m looking forward to seeing it.
Flock of Dodos was a real hit at Emory U, kicking off an Evo/Cre symposium. It disarmed the combatants, provoked dialog, entertained and taught. Randy’s right, when done well, mass communication media can be extremely effective. His critics sound petty and unexperienced in the kinds of things Randy is talking about.
Good to hear from you Randy! Hope all is well. Looking forward to seeing your next project.
-TJ
Not any more here, apparently. Instead they come in floppy hexagonal prisms. My set of pan-pipes made from Smartie tubes may well be the last of their kind (or the only ones of their kind even!). I made the soprano set over 2 decades ago. I did then have some large tubes (including Button ones) saved up for a bass set too, but never made it (at the time …).
Unbelievable! Well, when the story gets around,they’ll have damaged their credibility by lying to you. So splurge all you like on their falsehoods; I’ll add it to my blog and get anyone else I can too. Good luck with the moron who’s trying to sue you; I hope it won’t put you off getting what you have to say out there.
Don;t forget to say something appropriate on IMDB.com
My comment is up on B.S.’s blog… Looks like the vast majority of comments are negative (from his perspective at least).
Let me clarify something. I’m not going to sue. I have no interest in suing. I think what they did was deceptive and unethical, but not actionable.
Also, while quote-mining is a despicable tactic, I don’t mind when the creationists do it. It’s an opportunity to strike back. We often talk about how the creationists exploit American biases for fair play and equal time, but something else we can say is that Americans don’t like cheaters — and we’ve got to hammer them publicly when these self-declared arbiters of godly morality lie.
As addressing the morality and hypocrisy of the interviewers, I dunno, but I suppose they could see themselves as the spies sent out of Shittim (I’ll resist the temptation to insert a pun) ahem, to secretly scout out Jericho. (Joshua Chapter 2) Doing the work of the Lord, you know.
The “messengers”, who were lodged in the house of a harlot (go figure), were found out anyway, but it was Rahab’s blatant lie and concealment which spared them from being captured. For that, she and her family were in turn, spared the utter massacre that was to follow at the hand of the sword, and befall every last living thing, man and beast alike! (Joshua 6:21)
Sympathetic guy, this God.
Hey, His “New Testament” even cites the incident and Rahab as great examples of faith! (Hebrews 11:30 & 31) So what’s a little deceit; a little subterfuge to an almighty city killer on the part of His servants?
“As a professor of documentary film, the filmmakers’ methods, even as directly reported by PZ, are not illegal, immoral, or unethical.”
As a professor of English, I can state with confidence that you’re talking out of your ass in more ways than one.
A grammar lesson for Collin: Your is possessive; you’re is a contraction for “you are.”
In a schematic model, each step could be very simple. First a flow, sourcing and sinking molecules in a volume. Then chemistry in the volume on the source molecules. to make it interesting. Then reaction chains, forming distributed and lossy replicators of quasispecies. And so on.
One model environment is hydrothermal vents. I’m therefore pleased to see that earlier oldest established fossil vents with organic content 1.5 Ga is replaced by 3.2 Ga vents with “strong evidence for a flourishing bacterial ecosystem”. TOC content, carbon isotope ratios and some of the less peculiar morphological characters is in evidence. Just a few hundred more Ma to go and they will supersede earlier locales of early life.
Sometimes you just have to vent.
In a schematic model, each step could be very simple. First a flow, sourcing and sinking molecules in a volume. Then chemistry in the volume on the source molecules. to make it interesting. Then reaction chains, forming distributed and lossy replicators of quasispecies. And so on.
One model environment is hydrothermal vents. I’m therefore pleased to see that earlier oldest established fossil vents with organic content 1.5 Ga is replaced by 3.2 Ga vents with “strong evidence for a flourishing bacterial ecosystem”. TOC content, carbon isotope ratios and some of the less peculiar morphological characters is in evidence. Just a few hundred more Ma to go and they will supersede earlier locales of early life.
Sometimes you just have to vent.
This is very interesting. Mark Mathis interviewed me on August 7, and
he said he was interviewing Guillermo Gonzalez of Iowa State University. Mathis not only
sounded very pro-science in the conversations with me, but he outright said
that he thought some of the ID arguments were theological rather than
scientific. It will be interesting to see how the final product pans out.
As an aside: Mark Mathis also plays the ABC newsman in the movie,
Astronaut Farmer.
So… If I write Richard Dawkins a nice letter and say I’m a film company doing a picture about atheism, I can interview him?
Is that how it works?
This is great! Hollywood, here I come!
My comments on BS’s site:
Looks funny,
but what I’ve never been able to find is the actual research the ID proponents are conducting (perhaps I don’t have access to those journals or I am using the incorrect search terms).
For example, there is a lot of debate going on in cosmology right now, because the universe appears to be accelerating, we are finding old stars when we look out 13billion light-years into space, and some other findings that the Big Bang model has trouble explaining. So, because of these findings, there is significant debate in the cosmology community of late, even a “Crisis in Cosmology” conference or two.
However, there seems to be no similar research in ID; no one is finding problems with evolution, no one is even looking, literally. Behe’s extended arguments from incredulity depend upon on him not reading the many research articles that contradict his every point, and count on his audience not reading them either. Indeed “The Wedge Document” and B. Forrest’s research make it clear that ID is primarily a social, rather than a scientific, movement concerned with creating a constitutional alternative to “creation science”.
If there is no research and no findings that call into question evolutionary biology and uniquely support ID, it is not science. It is a philosophy, and given the religiousity of America, it is a philosophy we have all heard before, often indoctrinated into in the name of a “the one true faith®”. How is that appropriate for public school science classes?
I’m sorry for all the “persecution” these people are facing, but academic failure is the price of intellectual dishonesty. Or do you propose we should set up a sort of “affirmative action” to give equal time to geologists who will skew the facts to support Noah’s flood, or biologists who spend all their time, and their university’s money, trying to jam the square peg of Genesis into the round hole of the actual facts?
Remember, we are competing in a global marketplace now. You could be terribly successful, sway public opinion, win the culture wars here, remove any mention of evolution from universities and public schools, and teach pure “creation science” to children from kindergarden, and none of that would make evolution less true, nor would it stop other countries from using evolutionary biology to do new research and develop new technologies to their competitive advantage.
Because it is propaganda…
You don’t think the Soviet Union invested so much money in printing posters in order to sway people with the strengths of their rational arguments, do you? These filmmakers are clearly engaged in an emotional debate, counting on moviegoers to rationalize right and wrong after they have made up their minds.
I suspect that the fact the IDiots are now going for a blatant propaganda movie complete with Big Lie tactics, is a measure of their desperation since Dover.
So, they mislead you into doing an interview? I wonder if such things are legally actionable and if it was done to others.
Ugh. As a reporter who frequently has to write to and call up professors out of the blue to attempt to get an interview about a subject, this kind of behavior really upsets me. It pisses me off, actually. Sorry, PZ.
That was the impression that I got, but I’m glad to see you state it so definitively. Not that it matters what I think, but that would have made you far less admirable IMO.
File this one under live and learn. You got burned and there isn’t a way to positively spin it.
My personal conditions for giving an interview include being able to review the transcript and approving the final presentation. Anyone who is legit – no hidden agenda – will agree to these conditions. Next time consult with your campus attorney and get it in writing.
It didn’t seem to me that PZ would sue.
Seemed quite obvious he was ticked off that he didn’t get a chance to be MORE strident in his views.
Alright…maybe this is just me… but this:
http://www.expelledthemovie.com/bigscienceacademy.php
pisses me right off.
Hmm… strident: Science with a supporting trident. Either the pointy object or the nuclear armed one would work.
I just want to suggest another possibility. I know a number of small film makers, and I can say with certainty that most of them go into the start of each new project with well over the LD50 of both egotism and optimism.
They then manage to pull money from somewhere to cover about half of what they expect the costs to be, planning to get the rest of the money along the way.
They pull a working title out of their ass and charge forward. About halfway through filming they realize two things. One, they are out of money and looking to sell a kidney. And two, they title they chose has already been used, possibly for a Britney Spears flick.
At this point they go into a deep depression and drink for two weeks.
80% of the time this is where the project ends.
The other twenty percent of the time the filmmaker gets reinvigorated, and goes charging off to find new funding.
At this point they are willing to do ANYTHING to get the film finished. The change the title, they change the premise, they change the genre, they add new main characters. Heck I have seen documentaries become slasher films. They find someone to give them money even if it is completely different than what they had intended.
They then go back and use their current set of footage to finish the film in whatever form the new “executive producer” wants.
I think it is just possible that that is what happened here. The film maker wanted to make an objective analysis of the issue, but ran out of money and found a buddy of Ben Stein’s to finish it out.
Might not be the case, but it is possible.
Mojotycoon: “My model, results in infinity”
If you’d been a scientist for 40 years then you wouldn’t bandy about infinties so casually. Whilst you’re wearing yourself out droppping a bag of car parts I shall simply casually observe my bag. Eventually a fully formed Mercedes Benz will spring into existance from them without my intervention. It’s incredibly improbable but given an infinite amount of time it’ll happen.
“…not telling one of the sides in a debate about what the subject might be and then leading him around randomly to various topics, with the intent of later editing it down to the parts that just make the points you want, is the video version of quote-mining and is fundamentally dishonest.”
Sadly, they must have thought since it didn’t hurt Michael Moore’s reputation, it wouldn’t hurt theirs.
Not just Hollywood, I’ve just had a broadcast idea ripped off my the BBC, whom for some silly reason, I thought would be above such tings.
Nah.
Told ya! Told ya! The model for ID is not anything religious, it is simply taking the process of technological progress, for which the word “evolution” is a metaphor, and applying it to the process of natural selection and mutation, which they don’t understand (See Mercedes example above). The fact that the process used to advance science and technology is the same process used to detect natural selection and to the extant possible codify and quantify it seems to escape them.
BTW, if you took a Mercedes apart (or any other car, for that matter) and dropped the pieces from twenty feet and let them re-assemble themselves, you would get a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Everybody knows that!
Well, this should be a great doc. Just read the site blog by Mr. Stein!
“that chronicles my confrontation with the widespread suppression and entrenched discrimination that is spreading in our institutions”
His confrontation? Are they going to digitally insert him in the interviews to pretned he was there?
“Some of the greatest scientists of all time, including Galileo, Newton, Einstein, operated under the hypothesis that their work was to understand the principles and phenomena as designed by a creator.
Operating under that hypothesis, they discovered the most important laws of motion, gravity, thermodynamics, relativity, and even economics.”
Do I even have to fisk that? Einstein operated under the hypothesis of a designed universe? Economics and gravity needed “God” to be discovered? Why didn’t I know that Stein was this stupid before?
Are you asking Ken Miller?
Lord, you not only aren’t a scientist, you’re not even capable of getting the simplest facts straight.
Why? Why not just melt it down? That’s as fair an “analogy” as this complete load of bollocks is.
Retarded one, tell me, how are Mercedes put together?
Then tell me, how are chemicals put together?
Now ask yourself why you’re comparing machines, which evince none of the marks of a biological-type evolution, with biology, which evinces none of the marks of design. There’s a reason why we consider biology to be a separate discipline from mechanics and materials science, the main one being evolution. Jackass.
Then your model is as stupid as you are, because it would take a fairly small amount of time before the parts became rounded lumps. The “experiment” would end after a few hundred, or at most a few thousand, tries. Don’t you know anything?
Now, jerkoff, tell me how many more tries chemicals can make, and how many more possibilities for breaking and reforming bonds there are in a mix of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen. Completely different, and you’re too stupid to recognize this.
The timeline you have is absurd, clearly demonstrating that you’re as ignorant as you are stupid (it’s “over 200 million years”, but it’s way over). And no biologically knowledgeable person thinks that DNA in life formed except through evolutionary processes, not via abiogenesis.
These are separable processes, and so although abiogenesis is still in its infancy, evolutionary processes are well demonstrated and their mechanisms fairly well understood (lots of questions remain, but the main stuff is known). And these latter have mostly been observed in some form or another.
You don’t know how to make paragraphs or sentences, either, I see.
And no, mutations are not seen as able to do anything on their own except to increase entropy. Ignoramus.
Yes, that’s as intelligent as you get.
DNA research is what confirms our relatedness to fish, bacteria, and apes, dullard.
DNA is not especially resistant to change, either, which is why so much repair of DNA goes on in our bodies.
Your fellow IDiots claim that biology is “too complex” to evolve, not that it is simple. Of course it’s complex (in part) because it evolved, and yes, all design that has ever been observed to this point is far more simple in its functional design than biology is.
Good going, you ferreted out one of the reasonable predictions of an honest design hypothesis, mainly because you’re too ignorant even of ID to spout the orthodox lies.
Now what was that explanation? I mean, I’ve heard “design” and that life is nothing like any design observed to come from designers, plus the puff of smoke “explanation”. But nothing that actually explains life by ID.
Maybe your designer dropped a bag of car parts repeatedly, while evolution occurred behind his back? That’s as close to an explanation as I’ve seen from you IDiots.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Thanks Mike! I labored hard to get the tard right.
I put another one up there too. Hope you enjoy it.
Go PZ!!!
Yeah, I don’t know, some of us aren’t too bothered by the tactics, though they’re not exactly the height of Xian virtue.
But anyhow, at least understand correctly, some of the charges of dishonesty involve the entire process of posing the project as if it were some kind of movie about science and religion and their relationships, not a movie which “confronts” atheists.
Do you see nothing dishonest, or are you just sort of saying, well, the legal agreement covers it so there isn’t really much scope for complaining on that score? If the latter, I pretty much agree.
Since neutral-sounding titles are frequently used for advocacy pieces, I again find little fault with the producers on the strict matters of obtaining interviews. Caveat interviewee. Nevertheless, if they were deceitful there’s no reason one oughtn’t point that out, especially when a higher morality is claimed by our opponents.
You don’t know the context, hence you lack sufficient reason to make the above statement.
[snip]
You contradict yourself in two consecutive sentences. They may indeed be immoral or unethical if the intent was malicious (which we don’t know), thus your first statement makes no sense in front of your second one.
If he played into the usual quotemining ID tactics, then he has at least a little to be ashamed of. Sal is said to be the audio editor, and PZ perhaps ought not to risk playing into Slimy Sal’s hands. He’ll have to evaluate this episode to know what to do next time.
Not sure to what you refer, however one tends to lack tolerance toward faiths which proclaim ID and creationism because of the lack of honesty in the major organs and masses of both of those beliefs. Other races and genders are not trying to turn their particular beliefs into official science and education policy (not for the most part, at least), thus do not call down condemnation on themselves. Plus, of course, even if certain ethnicities, say, were largely committed to certain beliefs and policies, it would be unfair to the dissenting members to stereotype, while members of voluntary organizations at least to some extent bear responsibility for lies told in their names.
Huh, it does look like your hypocrisy is rather extreme, because you’re criticizing Moore while absolving these people.
I did warn against stereotyping. Well, I haven’t known that Moore’s tactics are similar, though I tend to look askance at overall tactics. I have written a very little against Moore, nothing against these film-makers as yet.
Your ethics leave a lot to be desired.
While I’m no fan of Moore’s, I’d still make the point that it’s mostly, for practical reasons, the case that those whose ox is being gored are the ones who speak up. One might think well of Moore’s overall points (as I do in Sicko, even though I question if the skew is honest) and simply not bother to criticize his tactics, if indeed one knows of them. Then like most everybody does, this person criticizes Rampant Films and Mathis, because one feels that one has a stake in it.
It’s not the ideal, but one can’t really go around finding out everybody who deals less than honestly in order to be completely “fair”. There aren’t enough hours in a day, years in a lifetime.
Perhaps you need to learn what morality, truthfulness, and ethics are. Why are your allies faulting us for driving religion from the schools, if that were true? Are you as dumb as you are dishonest?
Truth, obviously, is something you have no more than a glancing relationship with, if that.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
also, if you look up ben stein on imdb.com. this project is not currently listed anywhere…
Ben Stien doesn’t list on his own website!
http://www.benstein.com/film.html
You know it seems an odd fit in his carrier look at what he does. Maybe they scammed him too?
Sal is said to be the audio editor
I assumed that was a joke based on Cordova’s particular reputation when it comes to honesty. If it is indeed true, then irony is indeed dead.
A suggestion for all blogg-ites, scientistists, etc. who are interviewed for a movie, article etc: Have someone video tape the interview for you.
You can set your camera to include the interviewer and his/her camera and you. Then just let it run.
It strengthens your rebuttal and may discourage guote mining. But on the other hand, of course, you lose the mileage gained from the ensuing controversy.
Some of the IDists recognize that Expelled isn’t likely to help the ID cause much:
This is from “Randy Olson plugs Ben Stein’s EXPELLED (actually, the trailer for EXPELLED)” by Dembski, Aug. 22.
“Rocket” is no spokesperson for ID, and is of uncertain (to me) capacity to judge. I think that what he wrote demonstrates its own soundness, however, and though I think it’s a bit optimistic for our side, the fact that an IDer can see the shortcomings of the film for their side ought to lend confidence that at most it’s a mixed blessing for the IDiots.
I think that it’s probably positive for ID overall (at least in the short run), in fact, because they only have to bamboozle the ignorant who won’t likely hear or understand the rebuttals. But I think this guy gets it better than Randy and some others on our side do, that it’s mostly preaching to the converted, and it solidly ties ID into religion, as if there was any real question.
Regardless of the fact that there never really was any question, ID’s claim to avoid religion and to do real science happens to be its major draw to people who want desperately for something other than mere religion to back up their religious beliefs, and it spawned the recent anti-evolutionary movement. I’m sure that that BS isn’t going to be utterly destroyed by this film, however it’s becoming increasingly clear that they realize they’re not going to be able to deceive the courts, so that one of their major propaganda efforts explicitly and quasi-officially cements the de facto situation that ID is merely a front for forcing religion onto us.
The truth is that the intended appeal of the movie, that one is “Bad to the Bone” if one denies one’s senses and thus denies evolution, is also almost certainly going to be undercut by its frank tie of ID to religious notions. Yes, the converted will be pleased with it, but anybody who has tired of droning preachers and prohibitions against openness isn’t going to be fooled into believing that a theistic “theory” is being censored by the big bad scientists, especially not Ken Miller.
This might be another of Dembski’s predicted “Waterloos” over the long run, but as usual, Dembski & company are Napoleon and his generals. Their assaults on the First Amendment at best haven’t helped them, and seem to have hurt them at Dover. This is providing yet another instance where the lies seemingly are thick and easily shot down, especially Stein’s long-destroyed dishonesty about how religious scientists are persecuted (we’re not sure if the film is as stupidly done as Stein’s prose, but if Sal has his hand in it we have reason to hope).
The main thing is, we need to be on our toes and demolish every last dishonest claim made by Stein and the film. Dodos could play a role in doing so, which I say both because it’s true, and to show that I have no lasting animus against Randy or his posts (which are still faulty, however).
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Sure could be a joke. He doesn’t seem the best candidate for that position, but on the other hand I can imagine how much he’d want it and that IDiots might even think that he’d be good at it.
Let’s put it this way: I hope that Sal or somebody equally clueless did the editing. Sal probably never loses an argument in his own mind, so he never learns how to make even plausible-sounding claims.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
So Ben Stein is totally cool with expediting the new dark ages for the christofascists. No concern for truth or enlightenment, nor, apparently, for the probable negative outcome of institutional Christianity for other Jewish people.
Just as Clarence Thomas is their lawn jockey, Ben Stein is their Kapo.
PZ wrote:
And given the Bacon # of 2 from this ‘movie’, that’s an Erdos-Bacon number of 6 – the same as Danica McKellar. :)
Did some research.
The director was the second unit director for “The road to 9/11…”
The TV miniseries that tried to distort what happened and pin the blame on Clinton.
As PZ says, this totally gives the game away for the creationists/IDers/whatever they’re calling themselves this week.
Then again, the Dover ruling pretty much shut down their ability to simply rename their schtick and pretend it’s not religion-based, so they may have decided to give up on the legal route and just concentrate on the propaganda one.
“Yeah PZ, you need an agent. You’re actually famous now.
Also if you made $1200, imagine what they had to pay Dawkins? I know he charges tens of thousands just for normal appearances.”
Not true. Libel. Say it again and I’ll sue!
Richard Dawkins
because you believe our ancestors were fish, somehow DNA mutations caused us to evolve to the very complex human species we are today. To this, I answer Crap!
Did you mean “carp”?
Wasn’t there someone at the Vox Day site who kept going on and on about fish? I only skimmed most of it. We didn’t defeat them over there, did one of them follow us here?
Re: Comment #80
I haven’t read all the comments, so I apologize if someone else addressed this guy. He seems to own Yahoo, according to the URL.
If one used the evolutionary model, I would think that within the proper evolutionary time frame, the Mercedes could be reassembled just by continuously dropping it, assuming no damage in the process to any component part. If every time one part that accidentally came together with another, stayed together, and was built upon with subsequent additions, i.e each correct rejoining was naturally selected and kept, then eventually the car would come together properly. I’m neither a statistician nor a scientist, so I can’t do the calculations, but I don’t think the time frame is infinity.
Dawkins mentioned this, I think, in The God Delusion, in reference to the 747 metaphor, and wrote a simple computer program that similarly proved that monkeys could write Shakespeare, if the same assumptions of evolution were used.
I bet Expelled will be popular with Scott Adams fans.
mojotycoon,
Because you used a car analogy, I heard Scott Hawley of the Stower’s Institute describe evolution as a teenager with a broken car and no money. The point is that evolution does not deconstruct an object just to rebuild it, evolution is a tinkerer using what ever parts are at hand to get the broken car running.
In the hope that the clueless Stein or his cohorts might be reading this, here’s Dembski’s “openness”:
Yeah, lying Ben, we can write almost anything here and at PT without being censored (aside from clearly disruptive behaviors), while your champions of openness boot every last sensible person at UD who can stick out the dishonesty.
I’ll allow that anything as reasonable as “Rocket” wrote might indicate that he was a sock puppet for honest science, but the fact is that it was a very sound comment.
Look, Stein, your IDiots won’t even avail themselves of these very open forums (except rarely and selectively, as occasionally Paul Nelson comes in and avoids most of our points and questions in order to repeat his misapprehensions ad nauseum), while we aren’t even allowed to post at ID sites, instead being banned piecemeal. Do you really think that your abject dishonesty about the openness of the IDiots and the close-mindedness of the scientists will prevail?
One has only to observe how the IDiots avoid honest discussions, and prevent them on their own forums, to see what a drooling old fart you’ve become, Ben. Your lies about Einstein, Newton, and Galileo are easily enough dispelled, while the present level of censorship by your side, and openness on our side (despite the fact that we know that IDists only peddle pseudoscience that hasn’t begun to make any legitimate scientific arguments, repeating very old lies), immediately puts the lie to your forked tongue.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Unless Ben Stein is himself one of the money-men behind Rampant Films.
The publisher (EMI) owns those rights, and probably sold them for ballpark $20-40,000 according to my research. Could be more or less, depends on a lot of variables.
You’re in trouble now, Andrew. Everyone knows Richard Dawkins has made his vast fortune by suing random commenters on the internet!
I have been a scientist for close to 40 years
Liar.
Go back upstairs. Your folks are calling, it’s time for dinner and tomorrow’s a school day.
Almost certainly it is a joke. Sal writes at Telic Thoughts as though he’s out of the loop, and only had an interview which might or might not be part of the movie:
I still don’t know of a single IDist who has a good enough grasp of reality to make a propaganda piece like Expelled without exposing their vulnerability to facts and the truth. Sal or not, it has to be quite bad, since Stein could “star” in it and still write the whoppers that he does.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
There is only one way to explain the beauty and simplicity of our universe and that is through the synthesis of science and religion postulated by Intelligent Design Creationism.
A “synthesis of science and religion”? But gee, all the other IDers say ID is pure science and has nothing to do with religion. Are they all wrong?
Possible the biggest irony in the whole thing is that they went out of their way to avoid confronting any of you, instead interviewing you under false pretenses.
It does sound as though they may pull a “Dawkins pause” of each (or some) of you, asking one question and showing you answering something else, or not answering at all.
That should be bearing false witness. We’re the ones baring (i.e. exposing) it.
George Cauldron:
Moreover, I thought a key supporting premise of Intelligent Design arguments was that the universe was far too complex to have been spawned by anything but a conscious intelligence. Where does this “simplicity” bit come from all of a sudden?
As far as beauty goes, I still think the universe seems far more beautiful once one stops trying to imagine some ultimate, perfect beauty lying beyond it, which one can never apprehend directly but, if one is religious, must nevertheless pretend to appreciate. It’s like the metaphysical version of photoshopped models in magazines. It serves to devalue actual beauty, and in the metaphysical case you never even get the payoff of seeing the phony photoshopped version.
Re #209, I really screwed up that blockquote. My apologies for the accidental technoslander, George.
Ben Stein is famous for denying that Deep Throat was real — out of his zealous worship for Nixon. It doesn’t seem out of character at all for him to deny that fossils are real out of zeal to worship some other god.
Mr. Meyers, why does any of this matter to you or anyone with a strict adherence to reality being purely and solely comprised of material phenomena? Meaning is a non-material reality and therefore cannot exist in a universe so narrowly defined as to exclude the existence of anything outside of matter and energy.
Troy,
You’re nonsense spigot is leaky. I suggest you plug it.
I think he did get a considerable amount of trouble from religious types for his rejection of a personal deity, though.
People exist who have both; see Dave Bayer mentioned in #94. Ergo, everyone who has an Erdos number has a Bacon number, and vice versa. (As Erdos is, I think, at most four steps from Bacon, your Bacon number is at most four greater than your Erdos number.)
Does anyone remember the Chick Tract where the good-looking Christian science student defeats the bearded biologist in his classroom by getting him to admit that he doesn’t know something? I think a lot of folks have the idea that science works like that.
As for the weirdly non-sequiturish analogies, I kept seeing references to playing 52-card pickup and finding that you had gotten a royal flush, which, it turns out, is a trope that comes from some creationist book or another. Bad creationist analogies have disturbingly good sticking power.
Good job, PZ. Hope Premise is paying you well for the promotion of a film not yet in the can. As Stein’s site proclaims:
[bolding mine]. It’s not ‘controversial’ unless there are people (like you) who complain, and there was no ‘confrontation’ (by your own description) until you sent your fan club over to Stein’s site to do engage in just that.
This is pretty transparent, you know. Semi-clever, but not clever enough to fool anybody who isn’t already blinded by your *Movie Star* status. Since the film won’t be released for another 6 months (and there’s no hint on who’s distributing), I hope your minions don’t suffer too much from short attention span. Of course, closer to release they could probably hire some more ‘controversy’ from Dawkins’ side of the pond. Are y’all taking turns?
Regarding the book of Jacob and the spies. Spies naturally spend their first nights whoring it up, playing hide the kosher salami and other spy training games.
Note that god never says anything about the whoring or Rachab’s lies. This is the justification fundies use today. God likes whoring and lying if they are done in his name.
I’m sure that a Mercedes would not reassemble itself, but try a Yugo and see what happens.
Another person who can’t focus enough to know the name of the person he’s addressing.
Prove that meaning is a non-material reality.
If something exists outside of matter and energy, what is it?
Oh no–the nihilists are coming, the nihilists are coming!
On a more serious note, have you ever noticed that this weird kind of nihilism shows up only in theists trying to imaging what materialism is like and not in materialists themselves? Perhaps that says something about theists, hmm?
So Ben Stein proves you don’t even have to be a Christian to be a “Liar for Jesus”. Wow.
I will purchase this film on http://thepiratebay.org/ as soon as it becomes available, I suggest you all do so as well. And as soon as you download, please immediately stop seeding.
Process and organization can be treated as discursively distinct from matter and energy, but are of course firmly rooted in both. A ping-pong ball is a material object. A ping-pong game is a process that can be discussed as a unique entity, but has no existence apart from the material objects involved in it. The rules of ping-pong are “meaning” — immaterial, but not magical. Materialists do not deny that meaning exists; only that it is imposed from some source outside the universe.
Please explain why you are not suing the shit out of them.
Noneotherthan:
At a guess, it would take too long. Do you have any idea the amount of shit you’re talking about? Might as well try to sue the salt out of the ocean.
Oh no–the nihilists are coming, the nihilists are coming!
Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.
My personal conditions for giving an interview include being able to review the transcript and approving the final presentation. Anyone who is legit – no hidden agenda – will agree to these conditions.
Not true. I write for a very legitimate publication and we do not allow any of our interviewees approval of final presentation. We do have them check all their quotes, but they certainly don’t get veto power over the articles.
Way OT, but I bet you didn’t screw up, Gelf—blockquote here has a major bug when it comes to multiple paragraphs (which I’ve pointed out on more than one occasion), and you’re only the latest of many who’s been bitten in the ass by it. There are ways to work around it, although if it worked correctly, you shouldn’t have to.
We now return to the regularly-scheduled discussion.
Yup, the [blockquote] does not behave in a way that is intuitively obvious. I’ve learned to err on the side of caution, and put each paragraph in its own blockquote.
Yeah, Grendel, this is a familiar theme. What bothers me most about it is the implication that there is no morality without MagicMan, therefore the only thing standing between the nihitheist and mass murder and child rape is the fear of Hell. This is also a familiar theme…
They deny it of course, and mumble something a about “the right thing to do” but fail to recognize that in denying the moral nihilism charge, they are refuting their original claim.
If something exists outside of matter and energy, what is it?
An abstraction.
The letter “A” (written), for example, has no meaning in itself, only the abstract meaning that we assign to it. The word “cat” has no inherent meaning attached to it, only the abstract reference to “a member of the felidae”. There are plenty of non-material things which exist (like language).
Those who believe in magic often have trouble with the distinction between “existance” and “substance”… to them all things immaterial/abstract must spring from the same magical substrate (Exhibit A: Dr Egnor)
[Insert Caledonian-style “Everything is Physics” argument here]
Paul, did you seriously ask why a pack of creationists were dishonest? You must know the answer to that after all your years of sparring with them.
-jcr
See if you were really annoyed at them you could sue them…
Oh wait…
What we’re referring to as ‘meaning’ is a property of human neural structures – or more specifically of the software they’re running. At no point does any of this cease being physical.
‘Matter’ and ‘energy’ are just useful categories that we place the phenomena we’ve observed into – and relatively recently, we’ve found that treating the two as distinct is incorrect, as they’re just manifestations of deeper principles that permit one to change into the other and vice versa. There’s absolutely no reason why, if observed properties made it useful, we couldn’t establish new categories.
Science doesn’t require us to categorize things only as matter or energy. It’s just that we haven’t yet found anything that would require an additional category, or (at that level of analysis) would cause an additional category to be useful.
:-)
I can’t help thinking of the “Gummi Venus de Milo” episode of the Simpsons. Kent Brockman interviewing Homer, with the obvious quote mining (complete with a clock in the background jumping around between times) to make Homer appear evil.
Bit of Simpsons pedantry: It wasn’t Kent Brockman conducting the interview, it was Godfrey Jones, who was the “host” of some sleazy local tabloid news show.
“Coming up next – we go undercover at a sex farm for sex hookers!”
It amazes me how these people can believe they are righteous when they are not even honest.
Fighting fund, professor Myers, fighting fund.
(interview with a farmer-looking type)
“You don’t understand – we just grow sorghum here.”
“Uh-huh. And where are the hookers?”
“In back. Oops…”
Caledonian:
Now wait just a minute. Kseniya promised us an “everything is physics” argument, and here you’ve given us “everything is stamp collecting.” I feel robbed. ;-)
Gelf! By the Godz! I promised nothing! I was alluding (with the hope of summoning, LOL). Either way, what I was hinting at manifested as:
(Emphasis mine.)
Materialist? Of course. Accurate? I believe so (though I might argue that the structures are the software – the firmware, actually, to refine the analogy, but there may be plenty of room in the analogy for both firmware and software). Compelling? To me, yes. :-)
Jesus the jew, that’s fuckered.
Seriously. How blatantly fucking dishonest. You, sir, have much more grace and poise than many of us here, who would be (are?) awfully upset that these IDers keep surpassing even our worst expectations.
“Why were they so dishonest about it?”
============
Because the Biblical Creationists are dishonest in everything they do.
– They are dishonest when they say they are pushing “Intelligent Design” when really they are yet again asking for their interpretation of Genesis to be accepted as literal fact.
– They are dishonest in how they present themselves to others.
– They are dishonest in the “facts” they present to support their “theory.”
I can only conclude they skim by the “Thou shalt not bear false witness” commandment at the speed of light. Sad for them, but tragic for our nation if they succeed in making their error something we all must live with.
What’s the big deal anyway? I don’t read anything dishonest in the letter from Mark Mathis. So the film’s name changed. Who cares? Also, just rent a movie and look at the intro and credits to see that many movies have 3 or more production companies involved.
Why not stand up and say what you think? I don’t recall hearing a peep from you after the interview took place, and I know you wouldn’t have been shy to tell everyone if you were ambushed.
It sounds like you are running scared. PZ, you shouldn’t agree to do interviews then if you are going to be so feeble. Stand up and be a man.
Wow. hekg. You’re an ass.
hekg:
You missed that it’s a new film, under another company, with a new script.
hekg:
You missed that it’s a new film, under another company, with a new script.
Where is it said that this is a new film? It’s not under another company as it was pointed out that Rampant Films and Premise Media are somehow connected. And where is it said that this is a new script?
From the letter to PZ –
“We are interested in asking you a number of questions about the disconnect/controversy that exists in America between Evolution, Creationism and the Intelligent Design movement.”
Hey, “disconnect/controversy” seems to cover the the topic of the Ben Stein film.
Sigh.
Because, hekg, the ONE thing the two films share is an executive producer. “Crossroads” is being made, by Rampant. “Expelled” is being made, by Premise. PZ was interviewed explicitly for “Crossroads”, only to learn that his segment will appear in a different film with a significantly different theme and point of view, being produced by a different production company. How is that NOT a bait-and-switch?
Ben Stein was in ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ with Alan Ruck.
Alan Ruck was in ‘Twister’ with Bill Paxton.
Bill Paxton was in ‘Apollo 13’ with Kevin Bacon.
Somebody is clearly trolling the wrong half of the blogosphere.
But, then, you seem to agree that the producers of this film engaged in “these kind of professional faux-pas and atrocities” to advance their agenda? Well, then, thanks for agreeing with the man’s point.
I know it’s probably easy to assume that this movie will be a hit piece, but it might be worth waiting until the actual film comes out (or is at least finished) to decide.
$1200 for a few hours of your time, PZ? If my math is correct that’s twice Dembski’s infamous $200/hr rate billed to the Thomas Moore Law Center. What are we to make of that?
I’ve got a good feeling about this, PZ. This film is going to catapault you to where your name will become a household word (yeah, sorry, I’m sure that wasn’t exactly part of your “Plan A”). You’re going to be a great spokesman for the rest of us. Go for it, Dr. Myers – ride it as far as you can, and enjoy it as long as you can! Please accept some sincere best wishes from my little corner of godlessness.
You’ve been Michael Moore’d. I won’t be surprised if the clip is edited in such a way that you come out as a proponent for ID.
I genuinely don’t see any validity to his grievance. In fact, the mere fact he sees a grievance supports the film’s premise. (Want proof? Let’s see if his case is thrown out of court.)
He immediately assumed the producers would share his opinion, (ie; world-view) and it is very telling that his fury is simply because the makers of the film have a different opinion than his. Question: did Gore interview ANY ONE of a different opinion for his “documentary”.
Pretty f’ing funny really.
“Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion.”
…
We are interested in asking you a number of questions about the disconnect/controversy that exists in America between Evolution, Creationism and the Intelligent Design movement.
”
So the name changed!! Big deal.
No, the intended content changed. From a serious discussion of the conflict between science and religion, it has become a movie advancing a dishonest creationist position. They lied.
Grievance? Court? Are you another of those freaking illiterate creationist morons who thinks my clear statement — “I’m not going to sue. I have no interest in suing. I think what they did was deceptive and unethical, but not actionable.” — somehow means I think this needs to go to court?
Go away, slug. You’ve already demonstrated your idiocy, so we’re pretty much done with you.
bill/hekg etc: just another idiot who doesn’t bother reading 200+ comments to check whether just maybe their knee-jerk response has been done and dusted ages ago, and has to say it anyway.
I suspect the film will be hyperbolic in the extreme regarding the alleged silencing of evolutionary dissidents who can’t get articles published in scientific journals because they’re not actually doing any science. It will be counterproductive in the end. Good.
Wait, I thought this hoity toity site claimed to be full of science know it alls? Typical secular humanist true believers is more like it!
Nowhere is this more true than the obvious ignorance of M&Ms. While it’s true that green M&Ms are not ready to eat, red M&Ms are not ripe either. Much like blackberries, M&Ms are red when they’re green, and should be eaten only after they’ve turned a dark color, in this case, brown. Orange and yellow M&Ms are just past ripeness but still edible. Don’t eat blue M&Ms at all, they’re artificial. It’s true that so-called peanut-filled M&Ms are regarded by some French cooks as edible when red, but it’s also true that many people show so-called “peanut allergy” to them, and no one has ever studied whether that’s real or just French/Democrat ignorance.
I am the pastor at an M&M harvesting religious community. Our veriest small child, fit only to harvest the broken shells, could have told you all the above. Perhaps its time to leave your ivory towers and make your livings by the sweat of your brows, as the Lord intended. This PZ Meyers (who uses made up words like cephalapod to sound smart) seems to me to be someone who failed to win Ben Stein’s Money and is now nursing a grudge. I got it, didn’t i?
BTW re Galileo and Einstein:
First as someone who really does have an abstract spiritual deist view, I have to say Einstein didn’t seem to share it. His expressed viewpoint was skepticism and agnosticism, even about that. He said the only God that could be said to exist was Spinoza’s, and he wasn’t saying that either that was the case or that you would actually call it a God. To say Einstein was expelled from the scientific community is simply a lie.
Galileo did have some trouble with the scientific community of his time. Regardless of Thomas Aquinas’ motives, the result of his efforts was that many scholasticists integrated their philosophical and religious views with their scientific conclusions. Since that’s some of the people Galileo was contending with, his statements often included philosophical and religious content, including lampooning of the beliefs of others. Plus, like Newton, he was often very personal and unprofessional in his attacks on those who disagreed with him or sought precedence over him. So he was somewhat expelled from some circles both for being an asshole, and also for being a dangerous person who alienated the powerful – remember, a pope that went to bat for Galileo thought he was later personally attacked by him and that made that pope personally angry, for instance.
The moral of the Einstein story is that the anti-science Wedge people lie a lot. The moral of the Galileo story is that you should always act professionally when acting as a professional, and that the religious authorities should not be commingled with the science authorities.
“We are interested in asking you a number of questions about the disconnect/controversy that exists in America between Evolution, Creationism and the Intelligent Design movement.”
I don’t see that your case that your interviewers were dishonest is substantiated. The text of the letter you received and posted here indicates that the interview was to be about a “disconnect” involving ID, Creationism and Evolution. What could you have THOUGHT the interview was going to involve? Did you actually assume that it would be evolutionists who would be asking you questions? Why? Furthermore, why would it matter?
You are merely engaging in ad hominem – nothing of substance here – typical of anti-Design scientists.
As for “quote mining”, that remains to be seen. Yours is a knee-jerk reaction. Wouldn’t this make even less able to pay attention to the arguments in Expelled anyway? Wouldn’t you jump to conclusions even then?
Your moral compass is in question. Your attack on your interviewers as dishonest is in itself dishonest. Why go on the attack mode? Do your science and know its limits. At least the ID people are reigned in by an humble appreciation of the LIMITS of science. You pounce where angels fear to tread. Atheism does you no service in bringing you to the knowledge that your science is just ONE way of seeing things.
I am sick of arrogant scientists claiming to have ALL KNOWLEDGE for all the disciplines, for all humanity. SHUT up about what you can not possibly have any knowledge; you don’t even how complete knowledge of what you ARE capable of investigating. Learn something from students of cultural studies. There are MANY ways of knowing. Even scientific epistemology is ALWAYS in question. The philosophical questions of creation and origin are interesting and complex, far beyond LIMITED scientific understanding. GOOD science honors ways of knowing beyond the limits of science and understands it is not the only way of speaking of our human experience. The ID movement honors the work of scientists unlike you who are aware that scientific investigations often lead to conclusions that are not necessarily scientific in themselves. You atheists refuse to honor this kind of science since it tends to trouble your own sacred assumptions, first among which is your awful assumption that only material things deserve attention. Good science doesn’t need to make this assumption, though it finds material things interesting in themselves.
Poor evolutionists – you and your ETERNAL atoms! You do have a GOD – the lowly atom to which you’ve ascribed all the qualities of deity, most notably omnipresence and eternity. OF COURSE everything that scientists MEASURE is limited! Even atoms! They CAN be numbered and measured! By definition, THINGS ARE LIMITED in time and space. Even still, you are left clinging desperately to the absurd notion that things had no beginning – that there was NO CREATION and therefore no creator. YOU HOLD RELIGIOUSLY TO THE IDEA THAT things have always been and in doing so just make yourselves other kind of animists. The things you study DO NOT exist in eternity, no matter what falsely called “science” you pontificate about. They HAD to have a beginning, as all material things do. AND THIS IS PRECISELY THE CONCLUSION OF WHICH YOU ANTI-DESIGNERS ARE SO AFRAID. OPEN YOUR MINDS!!!!
Open our minds! You’ve got some nerve, you stupid little troll.
Alas, poor Democritus. You have been so conclusively refuted.
Joe know that there am no a-toms, because Joe am smart and open mind and use caps lock key. For next trick, Joe prove bananas.
Oh yes, Ben Stein. That great speech writer for Richard Nixon. What a surprise that he would get on board with a project that intentionally distorts the facts.
Wow. Such clear thinking. Such reasoned explanation.
Design is so obvious! How could I have missed it?
Phhhhht.
Joe. Godbot. Tool.
Go play with your Noah’s Ark Playset. Stick to fantasy.
I just read about this travesty in today’s NY Times. I had previously admired Ben Stein for his reality-based advice on personal responsibility for one’s retirement. To see him support a faith-based view of biology is very disappointing. It’s the equivalent of advising people to ignore the realities of retirement because, “somehow”, things will work out alright.
I think Mr. Mathis should sell his copy of the Bible to a rare book collector, as it clearly contains some very hilarious misprints. It’s supposed to read “Thou shalt NOT bear false witness” not “Thou shalt bear false witness.” That’s probably worth some money to someone, and maybe it’d help him straighten out if he could get one of the ones with no mistakes in it and gain some understanding of what it’s actually supposed to mean to be a Christian.
I think this whole thing is disgusting. PZ, I’m sorry you were used like that.
Hello
Living in England where I.D is still seen very much as the province of the ‘God Botherers’ I am constantly bemused by how the advocates of I.D insist it is not a religion but allow sections of their movement to shoot themselves in the foot and insist on the existance of a Christian creator.
Last time I had the Jevoah’s Wittnesses around I told them I believed in I.D totally and utterly but that we were created as lab experiment by higher life forms from the planet Koosbane.
Try it on your lot and see how that goes down!
The thing about documentaries, is that often people are interviewed under false pretenses… Saying you’re filming an unbiased doc is the way that you get the creationists to appear and be at their least guarded, and apparently that’s how you get the scientists too if you’re filming a biased creationist piece.
I’d say that those interviewed and who feel that they are presented out of context issue press releases offering the full story, or schedule Q&A sessions across the street from the theatre after the film is screened. Distribute handbills to those entering the theatre as they go in, advertising that “interview subjects from the movie will be available for Q&A after the film at this location…”
Direct action to those who have gone to see the film is really the way to go… Do this session once or twice, video tape it, and then post it on Youtube. From then on, rely on street team style action, distributing handbills pointing to the youtube piece, or a site dedicated to the information that was “Expelled” from the film.
PZ, you haven’t mentioned what you’ll do with (or already done with) the money you were paid, but can I suggest you donate it to a cause supporting science education or evolution? I am a big fan of Insight Press, which published Ardea Skybreak’s “The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism,” but there are plenty of worthy sources for that $1,200 — NCSI, etc.
Ben Stein was in this travesty, and also in Planes, Trains & Automobiles with Kevin Bacon.
So PZ now has a Bacon number of 2.
“I have been a scientist for close to 40 years.”
Minor typocrapical error there. Corrected:
“I have been close to a scientist for 40 years.” (He lives next door.)
A lot of you evolutionists treat evolution like it IS a religion !
A religion that takes lots and lots and lots of faith!
Faith in the non existant.
You’ll NEVER be able to prove it …simply because it never happened.
Your theories are full of holes and millions and millions of “missing links” haha
Everyone who feels so offended by the “lies” and trickery of these interviewers needs to go to wikipedia and look up the “Hawthorne effect.” Every researcher knows that you can’t tell a study participant the real hypothesis or you will bias the results of the study. The only way to get the real story is to omit certain facts (to a point). They didn’t tell you they were going to use your words to make athiests out of everyone, so why did you expect it? They said they wanted your comments on the ID movement. That’s what they got… your true feelings about the ID movement, all science aside.
I know it must feel crappy to be exposed, but they won this battle. Go out and try to win the next one. This is all fair and square. No more whining.
Green M&M’s only, huh? They totally taste better than the other flavors, I don’t care what anyone else says about them just being colors rather than flavors.
PZ, that creeps me out – according to the address, this guy lives 3 blocks away from me. I may have to investigate.
PZ,
Do you have a copy of the release? Does it mention Crossroads only or “other projects”? The reason I ask is that you could make much more than $1200 in a nice fat juicy out-of-court settlement just by having an attorney write a letter.
If the ass prod didn’t allow for other projects in the release, he is clearly in the wrong. If so, cash in. Hit ’em where it hurts (since the theocons tend to not care one bit about facts, truth or true debate).
Tuxedo rental? Rented cloths are undignified.
Seriously, a man of your stature should own one. It’s not like they’re that expensive, and you just made an extra $1200.
Let’s face it since neither you, I or any current living were present when mankind developed, no one should be blogging like brash eyewitnesses. The movie claims to address persecution of free thinking scientists who proposed the possibility of an intelligence behind a created universe. The persecution was probably real given the tendency of humans to squelch desenting ideas, particularly if things like government grants, peer respect and public prominence are in jeopardy. Certainly a lot of science has been developed since Darwin proposed his conjecture (yes at the time it was conjecture). Dark rabbits are easy prey in snow leaving only white rabbit DNA in polar areas; this type of natural selection is rather irrefutable. Scientific magazine stated that if the rough draft of the human genome were stored on compact discs stacked on edge in their cases, shelf space would need to be nearly one half mile long! The ideas of macro evolution seem inadequate to explain such extreme complexity even given a great time span (what is a partially formed heart good for? and it is fascinating that two stunningly complex eyeballs for 3d viewing come attached to nearly everything living that’s mobile) Perhaps the following analogy- though simplistic, can lend clarity: Eons ago deep in the ocean iron ore began to develope and form into sheets, the sheets came together over time and formed holes, soon by a process known exclusively to prominent scientists as ‘formalotofstuff’…Where there’s a watch there is a watch maker, where there is a world there is a world maker! If you’re an open minded person… check out http://www.arkdiscovery.com to see ancient Egyptian chariot wheels in the Red Sea.
desenting[sic] ideas
dissent is where you look for it.
if you look in the general population, I think you’d find a large swath has for many generations believed in creationism, so where is your dissent there?
if you look at from a scientist’s perspective, you won’t find any science involved in creationism, ergo it rightly is chastised as at best pseudoscience and lies. Not an issue of scientific dissent.
get it?
no, of course you don’t, you’re just an idiot who thinks he knows what he’s talking about.
here’s a hint:
the perception of complexity is relative to the knowledge of the observer.
the more complex things appear to YOU…
Yawn.
As children we are taught fairy tales, but folks frogs really don’t change to princes. Let’s look at some Scientific facts…No mutation has ever been observed to produce a more complex living organism, and this with all current technology. Fruit flys only had Existing DNA contorted, nothing beneficial occurred in the experiments. Again, and this is the Biggie- no New DNA has Ever been observed to develope as mutations happened naturally or in labs. Macro evolution is the greatest exercise of faith imaginable without this single issue being resolved.
Renowned doctors of science teach throughout textbooks, of a mysterious ‘Mother Nature’ who resembles Santa Claus. She works behind the scenes bestowing imaginative anatomies and behaviors freely upon all living things. Earth’s life forms were cleverly supplied, each according as it had need. Yet all change was said to be completely accidental- although in duplicate, as each male and female of all species co-evolved with no disruption in their procreative abilities. Though Mom Nature is promoted as somehow marvelously ‘innovative’, only ranking scientists can understand and interpret how her modifying activities occurred; but Nowhere Do They Explain Process Details. So we are simply to accept that the boundless and stunning variety of life on this planet appeared solely from time and happenstance; in short, “LIFE HAPPENS!” No one can point out positively a single transitional fossil. Neither is there an example of any mutation producing a beneficial change. The following information is taken from an ICR Impact publication (April 2002 article #346) normally devoted to scientific creation evidence. This article reveals the competence and influence of some of the scientists. To show the reader the esteemed prominence of the creation worldview, a few of these Genesis believing scientists are listed here. Kenneth B. Cumming (Dean and Professor of Biology) has a Ph.D. from Harvard where he studied under Ernst Mayr, “often considered the dean of living evolutionists”. Dr. Carl B. Fliermans (Microbiology) is a microbial ecologist with Dupont with over 60 technical publications. He is well known as the scientist who first identified the “Legionnaire’s Disease” bacterium. Dr. Kelly Hollowell (Molecular Biology) has a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology from the University of Miami. She is also an attorney (J.D.). Dr. Hollowell’s work includes a number of publications in the fields of DNA technology, cloning, and neurobiology. Dr. Raymond V. Damadian, M.D. is an inventor, most notably of the M.R.I. machine. Dr. Kurt Wise (Paleontology) has the M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, having studied under the dedicated evolutionist, Stephen J. Gould. “Dr. Wise is currently in charge of the science division at Bryan College.” Dr. Duane T. Gish (Senior Vice President and Professor of Biochemistry) has earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. Beyond his career as a research chemist, and 24 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, Dr. Gish “is also known worldwide for winning over 300 scientific debates with evolutionists”. As you can see, many fully credentialed scientists deeply intimate with the varied aspects of evolution, have wholly rejected the ideas. There are many more scientists today numbering in the thousands, who have also turned away from the monkey-man conjecture, and who now likewise embrace the literal Genesis 6000 year-old record of human origin.
I would assume that is illegal, you should try to sink a tap into those deep pockets of theirs.
Michael Woelfel, rather than hooking onto the end of a thread that is half a year old, which means almost nobody reads it, why don’t you come to a recent one to have the big gaping hole in your knowledge filled in? Just click on “Main” or on the Pharyngula banner.
Michael Woelfel, rather than hooking onto the end of a thread that is half a year old, which means almost nobody reads it, why don’t you come to a recent one to have the big gaping hole in your knowledge filled in? Just click on “Main” or on the Pharyngula banner.
I want to avoid a diatribe here…so I will…first, to argue Darwin, you have to have read Darwin…”the evolution of species” does not purport that man evolved from apes, let alone the creation of this galaxy in the universe…that said, it is a conundrum to me, that many people who profess faith, and some who do not, can’t get beyond a simple story of why some texts in civilization (and most other cultures throughout history ) develop the story of how men and women where fashioned…excuse me, but if you can’t explain why these stories exist, how is it that you can represent what you claim to believe in your understanding of the more complex issues of faith based pragmatic applications of the defining contextual material of the body of work with in the text’s of a belief network…Darwin or a religious belief…blind reactions are not accepted axioms to anyone “in the know”.
When I first heard of “Expelled” and found out that my local theater would be showing it, I went to them and asked if they would be willing to show a rebuttal video (of my own creation) either before or after each showing of “Expelled”.
They agreed! As long as my film passes their review process, my rebuttal will be shown!
Now here’s the thing. I haven’t made it yet. I’m going to the American Atheist convention next week in Minneapolis and heard that you were going to be there.
Would you mind being interviewed for my little film? Basically, I want you to give your side and help refute Stein’s movie.
My film will be amateurish, being shot on videocamera and edited on an old Mac Powerbook, but I think this form of protest, choosing to educate theater-goers instead of calling for boycotts and bans is a better method.
Would you consent to such an interview?
Please check out my youtube channel for examples of previous things I have done.
I am just wondering if you’d be kind enough to answer a few questions. (And I promise these won’t end up in a pro-creationist blog of mine somewhere … really.)
1. Did the producers send you a list of questions ahead of time so you could prepare good answers beforehand? Were there any “set-ups” or surprises?
2. Did you actually say all those things you said in the movie? (I mean, did they do any out-of-context jump-editing a la Michael Moore?)
3. When you found out they were creationists did you send your money back and demand not to be used? Did you have a lawyer send a “scary letter” to them asking to remove your clips from the movie?
I think the answers to these questions spell out whether you have a case to complain about being in the movie.
P.S. I am a creationist who was invited to an advance screening. I remember there being a scene in Seattle, but I honestly don’t remember you in the film. I think Dawkins came out looking the worst, but … well you fill in the blank.
You canb read my review here:
http://forerunner.com/blog
PZ can’t answer that, he was Expelled.
It’s pretty interesting to me, that you assume the idea of ID, or the movement of it is directly associated with Creationism (OR YEC’s OEC’s).
Some people who believe ID are actually evolutionists. They are not anterior until we take literal interpretations of Genesis or we assume that someone is a Christian at all. Shoot, ID doesn’t mean “God” at all. Only is an idea that answers the question “Why” which science has always failed to answer.
Evolution happens. But evolution doesn’t give us origin, only moves the question back. Tilt’s us torward another question of “Ok, where does THAT come from” which I believe will always be the question, once we have another answer.
Now, I haven’t seen the movie, but do you understand origin? Not origin of species, but origin of everything? Don’t you think that question has big complex answers? Big Bang, still needs an origin, and infinite big bang seems to me to be more a philosophical understanding then actual science since humanity barely grasps the infinite. But, hell, what the Bleep do I know.
Cheeky indeed.
The answer is not GOD DID IT. ID dances around their “theory” that it is. They can never show evidence for it. They’re not even trying.
“It’s pretty interesting to me, that you assume the idea of ID, or the movement of it is directly associated with Creationism (OR YEC’s OEC’s). ”
Two words: Wedge Document.
“Only is an idea that answers the question “Why” which science has always failed to answer.”
If you consider “Because I said so” to be a good answer, that is.
“but do you understand origin?”
Do you?
“But, hell, what the Bleep do I know. ”
The word you’re looking for is “fuck”.
Mikey, believe it or not, the theory of evolution is limited in scope. It attempts to answer how organisms adapt and change over generations under changing conditions. It is not how life began. It is not how the universe began. Please keep that in mind when you listen to Ben Stein. This because this “deep thinker” brings up the origins of life and the Big Bang when he talks about evolution.
Good points, Janine…I haven’t been called; “Mikey” in a while…lol…Oops, that’s a different “Mikey.”
As far as the Mark Mathis letter, he didn’t say what the movie leaned too if it was going to be a creationist leaning movie, or intelligent design leaning, or evolutionist leaning. Basically what he wanted from PZ was an evolutionist prospective on certain issues like the origin of life.
It appears PZ was more interest in his self fame, than inquiring about what sort of show. Why didn’t PZ ask more about the movie’s purpose before he decided to do the interview? He blames Mark Mathis for not telling him, but did PZ tell him he wouldn’t do an interview for a ID leaning movie? Did he ever write about it before Mark Mathis approached him for the movie?
PZ might have whined about it, but believe me he likes the attention he is getting from the production and there will be more once the movie is released to the general public in April. This is something he would have never of gotten if he had not done the interview.
He did. He was told that it was a neutral movie that was interested in the “Crossroad” between science and religion. What we now know is that the Expelled website domain was bought before any of the interviews ever took place.
Just consider for a moment that difference between, “Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion.” and “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”. If you don’t think that there is one, how about that blurb up there about “Crossroads”, and what Expelled is really about.
It amazes me how people claim to follow a religion that provides all of the tools to live a morally superior life, and yet it rarely translates in real life, particularly when it comes to dishonesty. That is why very few people buy it any more.
Michael, it appears you’re being disingenuous.
It looks like Ferris was right to take the day off. If Ben Stein’s teacher character in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” was a faithful copy of the actor, staying in class would have been a waste of time! More seriously, the fact that many “teachers” in the public schools are really pushers of this kind of psuedoscience bodes ill for our future (and accounts for most, if not all, of the declining test scores these same twits decry).
Amazing how the evolutionist get so angry, lose control of thought and become nasty when their ideas are challenged.
Academic institutions should be incubators of intellectual diversity.
They are. They just don’t support STUPIDITY.
They should also have academic standards high enough to ensure that pseudo-science is filtered out of the science curriculum and place in an appropriate context for discussion.
And academic institutions are incubators of intellectual diversity.
The only problems are that a) Intelligent Design is not science, and no one has been ever able, or even interested to prove it to be science, b) the proponents of Intelligent Design, better known as “Creationists,” do not like, want or tolerate intellectual diversity.
Kansas, Florida and Texas do not, hence the main reason why these three states have among the most abominable science education programs in the entire continent.
I’m afraid that getting only green M&Ms won’t be all that much of an inconvenience. Here in Las Vegas, we have the M&M factory where you get get any color you want (and that they sell).
So?
So, what do we do? Creationism has openly and knowingly with ‘evil’ intent lied again. Innocent children who are being brainwashed by home schooling(who will never know any of what we discuss today) were taken to see this crap. They accept it as true because the vile parents are viewed as an objective authority. Then they are sheltered in a cocoon of bullshit.
What can be done? This is nothing new…. Churches are blowing up(being built) at an astonishing rate. The popes recent visit. The fact all presidential candidates are playing the religion card. What we are doing, and have been doing for thousands of years is obviously failing – isn’t it?
I guess we just continue to BLOG, Bitch about it and publish the occasional book? This is all I can do(less book publishing) – it seems it is all we do?
I offer no better suggestions. However, I am surly open to them.
Tony,
From the perspective of defending science from creationism, you can:
Support the NCSE by joining and/or donating
Get involved with your local Citizens for Science organization
Contact your local, state, and federal representatives and speak out against anti-evolution legislation
Support pro-science candidates, especially for local school boards
Use online media to get the message out: as an example, look at the YouTube videos by DonExodus2, cdk007, thunderf00t, extantdodo, and others
I’m sure others have more ideas, but I wanted to get the ball rolling. I agree that if all you do is blog, eventually you spend all your time caught up in SIWOTI syndrome.
This is not true at all, the movie does not necessitate God but only insists that we examine the evidence of design and see where it leads. You looked great though and I loved what you said about your plan to see religion relegated to an insignificant corner of society. I would love to know how you interpret the First Amendment of the Constitution and what exactly our bill of rights would look like if you could get your hands on them.
I sometimes wonder how some people reach such academic heights based on such infantile tantrums. Good God, what are you a new class of victims? All the Jesus freaks are out to get you and spoil your prestige.
It’s not uncommon for films to change titles before release. Documentary’s are difficult to define before production because you are discoverying the content as you film.
As far as scientists go, I’ve yet to see or hear a bigger bunch of overly sensitive babies and whiners. What are you, some privileged group of ivory towerists who can’t stand any conflict or the disruption of your fancy little dominions?
my name timothy i’m looking to be in the movie’s or sing i this is what i want bad can u heip me i can sing good to people alway’s want me to sing a song im a star to me i alway’s want to be there in the spot light thank u for every thing god bless u all my address is 510 hawthorne dr. statesville n.c. 28677
my name timothy i’m looking to be in the movie’s or sing i this is what i want bad can u heip me i can sing good to people alway’s want me to sing a song im a star to me i alway’s want to be there in the spot light thank u for every thing god bless u all my address is 510 hawthorne dr. statesville n.c. 28677
yikes