Ben Stein, Walt Ruloff, and Mark Mathis have been rattily scurrying about the country, doing press conferences and radio interviews in an attempt to boost attendance at their upcoming schlockfest, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Their schtick is to claim that academia prohibits free speech, and doesn’t allow people to pursue the truth and ask questions.
There’s a problem, though. In order to have a media interview, they have to let media representatives into the room. They try to deal with this problem by making them sign a non-disclosure agreement (wait…they’re holding a press conference, but they don’t want the press to write it up afterwards?) I’m glad to see, though, that some journalists are still willing to report on the sleazy behavior of the Expelled crew.
Freedom of expression is unseemly at an Expelled press conference. There was no give-and-take, no open marketplace of ideas, in fact, scarcely any questions at all. Ruloff and Stein batted one softball after another out of the park from those posed by Paul Lauer, a representative of the film’s public relations firm. Questions from non-employees had to be submitted by email. Lauer (or somebody at his firm) screened them.
I’m not sure whether Thomas Aquinas handled media inquiries this way. I’ll have my people get back to your people on that.
The questions that made it through the screening were from: Listen Up TV, a Christian program; the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention; Focus on the Family; and the Colorado Catholic Herald. Four outside questions in 50 minutes of press conference, only two of which can be described as “press.”
I’ve participated in a lot of press conferences in my thirty years as a journalist. I once bumped into President Gerald Ford on the front lawn of the White House. I had a question for him, which he politely answered. I went to a press conference by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who took all of our questions and hung around afterward to talk with me. I’ve had press conference questions answered by physicists Hans Behe and Edward Teller, “father of the hydrogen bomb”; by Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson; by John Wayne; by U.S, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney; by U.S. Sens. Alan Simpson, Craig Thomas, John Kerry, Malcolm Wallop and Gary Hart, and by lots and lots of other public figures whose time I’ve wasted. Some of my questions were argumentative, but all were thoroughly – if sometimes equally argumentatively — answered.
Until I got to Ben Stein. Though calling for the rough-and-tumble of openness and debate, Stein didn’t have time for questions.
In my earlier review, I dealt with Expelled as a failed and dull attack on evolution. But this “press conference” convinced me that not only is Expelled and the intellectual movement behind it hypocritical in its supposed defense of “freedom of expression,” it’s an attack on the entire superstructure of science and technology that has created the modern world. Expelled is anti-rational.
I have a suggestion for the Expelled PR team. Stop inviting legitimate journalists altogether — they’re going to see right through your pretenses. Just invite the liars for Jesus of creationist apologetics: they don’t have any objections to dishonesty and ignorance, and will write much more sympathetic reviews.
There’s an email advertisement going around that appeared in my inbox the other day. I commented on it (http://angrybychoice.blogspot.com/2008/02/intelligent-designfuck-science-go-pr.html), but its the same BS. These people represent the scum of the earth and wrap themselves in the cloth of morality.
I never got “performance art”. That’s what Stein is doing, right? I mean, this can’t really be serious, right?
Whoa! Thats a really great article, especially since its written by a non-scientist! The part about EXPELLEDs claim that ‘scientists didnt want to talk’ is excellent!
**high-five Dan Whipple!*
Ben Stein was on Jimmy Kimmel last night and managed in the about 30 seconds which he spent plugging the movie to show he really is totally clueless about science. He said somethign to the effect of Darwinism gives us no answers as to the origin of the laws of thermodynamics. Really? I had no idea that a theory related to biology didn’t have answers to questions of physics.
As much as this kind of crap enrages me, I would like to say thanks to PZ for his constant vigilance in pointing the spotlight on these kind of morons. Long live Pharyngula!!!
Con·fer·ence (knfr-ns, -frns)
n.
a. A meeting for consultation or discussion.
b. An exchange of views.
Oh, well!
Hans Behe?? May it never be.
‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ Why do I keep picturing a pile of brains left outside the theater doors?
I loved this account. How can these guys be so stupid to hold a “press conference” with no questions allowed? Of course any real reporter is going to write just that. It’s especially funny because the point is to whine that the big bad science people won’t let them ask questions about evolution.
@7: that must be a typo. He probably meant Hans Bethe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Bethe
@7: that must be a typo. He probably meant Hans Bethe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Bethe
From the New York Times today, an article about the dangerous combination of anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism. Part of an excerpt with the author of “The age of American unreason” :
But now, Ms. Jacoby said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way. Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.
I think that pretty well sums up Ben Stein.
So, I love the Doonesbury cartoon on Whipple’s article. Priceless.
For more lunacy from the ID Movement, read about their recent goings on here.
Remember everyone, it’s all for our own moral good.
@4
Remember that ‘Darwinism’ has become a code word for ‘materialism’ and is no longer restricted to biology. Stein was using the anthropic argument that the 2LoT, and every other ‘law’, is currently not explained by materialistic means. And of course, using the creationist’s form of logic, what is not known now by materialist methods, can never be known through materialistic methods.
This is an attack on how we learn as much as what we’ve learned.
ERV,
**high-five Dan Whipple!*
Ditto
But, unfortunately, how many Dan Whipples will we need to compensate one Bill O’Reilly (as I’m sure the time will come that Billo will award Ben Stein a “Patriot” for this crap movie).
Expelled will cause damage, as it was produced (how much money was poured into this ?), for exactly that purpose.
We will need to retaliate, we need to find a way to produce a movie.
I’ve suggested this several times before, why shouldn’t PZ start a thread on this ?
If they can do it, why can’t we ?
All we need is ideas, time, and seed capital.
At least, I’ve got plenty of time, and am willing to make a serious investment.
Pehaps Stein did not answer questions because his phlegmatic ho-hum response would have put everyone to sleep. Or he just doesn’t have any answers when it comes to anything important — he’s just another trivial pursuit idiot savant.
@4
Ben Stein was on Jimmy Kimmel last night and managed in the about 30 seconds which he spent plugging the movie to show he really is totally clueless about science. He said somethign to the effect of Darwinism gives us no answers as to the origin of the laws of thermodynamics. Really? I had no idea that a theory related to biology didn’t have answers to questions of physics.
Oh, that’s a classic ID argument. The idea is that thermodynamics says things generally move towards more chaotic states. But, evolution proposes life moves to more ordered states, therefore evolution is wrong!
Of course, this has been debunked thoroughly for years, so I’m not surprised he’s still flogging a dead horse. “Thermodynamics = chaos” only works for a closed system, and the Earth is not a closed system. We’re receiving plenty of energy from the Sun, which is why more ordered organisms can survive here. But, the ID-ers conveniently ignore facts which contradict their opinions.
Non-disclosure agreement? Anyone have a copy or a screenshot of that?
Carlie: thanks for the NYT article.
Over at the ID thefuture podcast
http://www.idthefuture.com/2008/02/proselytizing_for_darwins_god.html
they released a video press conf. by john West. the video ends as they go to “questions” from the press. I wondered when I saw it if there was actually any press there or if this was a “FEMA style” press conf.
**ALERT—-PZ is supposed to be on the skeptics guide to the universe podcast that is released today
http://theskepticsguide.org/
I’m not an experienced producer, but in my considered opinion inserting about 10 min of “pies in faces” clips would make Expelled a more audience friendly film.
Does this mean we can’t trust them when they say, “Nothing is sacred to BIG SCIENCE“?
(Warning: prehensile tongue in use at linked image.)
But now, Ms. Jacoby said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way.
I wish I could say I’m surprised but I’m really not. We live in an age when people elect a president based on whether or not they’d want to have a beer with them.
I forgot to add, they’d elect a president that they want to have a beer with, as opposed to the one who seems too smart, too wooden, or too French (What, John Kerry carried a baguette with him?)
From the link:
So, 72 reviews, all by people who didn’t see the movie. YET, the neutral party who saw this piece of crap couldn’t be linked… And they won’t answer legitimate journalist questions? And they force journalists to sign NDAs?
Phuulleeeezzeee. This sounds like a mighty-lame-dog. I might see it just to get some laughs.
@4
Darwinism, of course, doesn’t explain thermodynamics; biologists don’t get to have all the fun. Ben Stein should know that physicists explain those:
0th Law (law of temperature equilibrium, i.e. that temperatures are transitive) is explained with in general with statistical mechanics, but the kinetic theory of gases is a fine introduction
1st Law (conservation of energy) is a consequence of the assumption and observation that the laws of motion don’t change with time (time symmetry of the universe) and of Noether’s Theorem.
2nd Law (entropy always increases in a closed system) is explained with statistical mechanics. It’s got to do with logarithms of the number of states with a particular energy.
3rd Law is also explained by statistical mechanics. I’m not going to state the law, because it mostly looks interesting to cryogenics researchers, and I don’t know enough about that to do it justice.
I don’t recall an intellegent designer being invoked in my stat mech class, and I’m positive Emmy Noether didn’t invoke one in her theorem, so I’m not sure what Ben Stein’s point would have been.
I’ve heard some people express bewilderment claiming that Ben Stein once showed evidence of being intelligent. I don’t happen to be familiar with any such evidence, but regardless, this is just just mind-boggling, incredible, jaw-dropping stupidity:
I mean, wow! Just wow!
This quote needs to be circulated far and wide. Billboards displaying this quotation (with clear attribution) need to sprout up all over the country. I realize that many creationists won’t recognize just how completely idiotic it is, but with enough ridicule at least some people will start to wonder about it, and some might learn something.
I suggest that any discussion of Expelled include this quotation prominently. For example, “The new anti-evolution movie Expelled (“Assuming it all did happen by Random Mutation and Natural Selection, where did the laws of gravity come from?” — B.S.) will be opening soon . . . “
Wow. That quote is weapons grade stupid.
It would be nice if the whole fiasco would serve as the best counterargument ever made against creationism, but unfortunately there will be more than enough stupid people watching who will believe it.
I really think there’s no hope for this generation–it’s all going to come down to what we teach the kids, and when.
Ouch, that’s gonna leave a mark. It’s one thing for science people to see the bullshit for what it is, but when the media is able to puncture the veil of stupidity, the IDiots are in big trouble.
Hello? Have any of you considered that the tyranny of the Darwinian Thought Police arm of the Atheist Conspiracy™ is exactly why Ben & Co. are being evasive?
You don’t expose a worldwide plot to suppress free speech by being all open and honest about it, do you?
“How can these guys be so stupid to hold a “press conference” with no questions allowed?”
Hasn’t the White House been doing it for at least six years now?
“as I’m sure the time will come that Billo will award Ben Stein a “Patriot” for this crap movie”
Does anyone know if Olbermann has given BS any awards lately?
Michael Behe isn’t supposed to be in Expelled is he? While i don’t have too high an opinion of him, he’s clearly smarter than Stein and i suspect he’d object to a lot of the arguments that Stein is attempting to use. Behe must understand why that thermodynamics nonsense is wrong, right? But is he doing anything to try and correct this? If he’s not then that’s sorta chicken-shit of him.
@29 …good point. The one thing IDists have been good at is getting undeserved good press…..this movie may backfire. they have put their claims on film available for all to refute and mock. I can’t wait ’til a DMCA dispute starts on youtube with this film
…..then again it may just feed their martyr complex:(
@32 —They trot out Behe when they want some scientific creditability but then they put him away when he “admits” to believing in too much evolution
I read hear and I am grateful to you and amazed that you can stand to keep up with all the “news” related to the fundamentalists and the state of the “culture war” we seem to be engaged in. Unfortunately we are not the only ones having the problem the middle Islamic world has their own fundies as does India. All of them seem to resist reality and prefer their beliefs over any objective common reality. I myself would like that to be true I would like to be living in my own personal book my own reality but I am not I am alive now in the flesh not some imagined eternal drama.
I am not surprised that people get so upset and fight reality I am amazed and concerned that they seem to have power to influence people and seem to be taken seriously. That the makers of Expelled act like Stalinist with a fake news conference is farce. That they have gotten us involved in a bloody war and make no mistake this war is the result of anti-intellectual fundamentalists thinking on all sides (not to minimize greed) is a tragedy. That the fundies still seem to flourish and are not treated as the mentally and emotionally disturbed ignorant dangerous people that they are is a shame.
I do my best to resist the unthinking at every opportunity and thanks to the posts here am able to stay calm when I have to. Wondering how it will work out?
I read hear and I am grateful to you and amazed that you can stand to keep up with all the “news” related to the fundamentalists and the state of the “culture war” we seem to be engaged in. Unfortunately we are not the only ones having the problem the middle Islamic world has their own fundies as does India. All of them seem to resist reality and prefer their beliefs over any objective common reality. I myself would like that to be true I would like to be living in my own personal book my own reality but I am not I am alive now in the flesh not some imagined eternal drama.
I am not surprised that people get so upset and fight reality I am amazed and concerned that they seem to have power to influence people and seem to be taken seriously. That the makers of Expelled act like Stalinist with a fake news conference is farce. That they have gotten us involved in a bloody war and make no mistake this war is the result of anti-intellectual fundamentalists thinking on all sides (not to minimize greed) is a tragedy. That the fundies still seem to flourish and are not treated as the mentally and emotionally disturbed ignorant dangerous people that they are is a shame.
I do my best to resist the unthinking at every opportunity and thanks to the posts here am able to stay calm when I have to. Wondering how it will work out?
So you gotta wonder what happens if their “Expelled” propaganda strategy fails to sway public opinion (at least fails to change the current situation). What’s next? A more grassroots campaign of bullying and intimidation, picketing and vandalism? Or if that fails, threats of violence? [We’ve been this far already]. Beyond that, things go downhill fast: bombings, murder of academics, etc.–Iraq has shown just how bad and equally how effective this can be (leading to the large scale diaspora of Iraqi professionals), and this strategy has been visited before by American extremists (Olympics bombing, murder of clinic workers, Oklahoma City). Or even cooperate with foreign terrorists groups, united by a common goal to destroy to society perceived to be “corrupt.”
If the end justifies the means, the sky is the limit. McVeigh gave us a taste of what even a few true believers are able to accomplish.
You have a generation of people who have drunk deep from the well of hatred and rage. Limbaugh, Hannity, Dobson, Robertson etc. water that garden of evil on a daily basis. It will not be surprising if we reap what they have sown.
“Assuming it all did happen by Random Mutation and Natural Selection, where did the laws of gravity come from.”
where is that from?
Also i had a good ID-er argument. “If evilution is twoo, then how did wadder evolves? Huh mister smartypants? How does water retain it’s ‘information’ from generation to generation?”
I have a real hate-on for stupid right now. Any sign of stupid and i get angry. someone help me! :-(
Umm…it’s Hans BeThe. Maybe you are still mad at Michael Behe? :)
Hey, stupid people are capable of understanding the merits of the theory of natural selection.
I think what you are really talking about are people who are willfully ignorant. They close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears and make incoherent grunting noises until reality dissolves and they reach that happy place where the big papa makes it all better.
These people don’t want truth. . .they want comfort. They HATE truth.
@ #37
It’s in the Dan Whipple piece discussed in the main post:
According to Whipple, this is quoted “from the media extravaganza (all the quotes that follow are from the Expelled staff’s transcript of the phone call).”
I gather from comment #4 on this thread, that Stein has been spouting this absurdity all over the place
Oh, thanks physicalist. I wanted a source to cite :-)
also have you guys seen the dawkins V Billo debate?
i didn’t see it live as i refuse to watch Bill o’reilly on purpose.
here’s the link to the video i found
I posted a few comments questioning intelligent design on uncommondescent.com, the blog of William Dembski and friends. Because of my comments I was EXPELLED!
You can read my story at the link attached to my name.
Of course evolution is wrong: there’s nothing there to worship. How do you worship evolution? You can’t! Can’t you see there’s nothing there to worship!?! PRAISE JESUS!!
Ever notice how the ones who deny evolution the loudest are the ones who most behave like apes?
The most important thing in a bible thumper’s life is cultivating fear and respect and absolute submissiveness to their dominate, alpha male. Just saying is all…
Actually, its even stupider than that. In this context “order” means, “the state at which no imbalances exist”. Which is more “ordered” in the context of energy, which is what entropy is actually talking about, a universe where every fracking thing is mixed more or less equally and no reactions or changes happen at all, or one where everything conveniently stacks up into piles, with all the X in one pile, Y in a second and Z in a third (or some variation where it combines in some unstable way that “produces” objects we can identify)? If they where arguing that only god could cause chaos, and thus make life possible at all, they would at least be half right, in claiming that its “chaos”, not “order” that determines if life is possible, but the rest of the assertion would still be gibberish, since thermodynamics still wouldn’t rule out the production of ordered matter, via the disorder of energy. It just demands that, when all the plugs are pulled and nothing feeds more chaos into the system, the system eventually stops. The key concepts being “nothing feeds more chaos into the system” and “eventually”.
Oh, that’s a classic ID argument. The idea is that thermodynamics says things generally move towards more chaotic states. But, evolution proposes life moves to more ordered states, therefore evolution is wrong!
Of course, this has been debunked thoroughly for years, so I’m not surprised he’s still flogging a dead horse.
I hate being pedantic, but is “debunked” really the right word? I always thought a debunking required some… effort, or testing. That 2nd law argue is more like “patent nonsense”.
Ramblindude,
“Of course evolution is wrong: there’s nothing there to worship. How do you worship evolution? You can’t! Can’t you see there’s nothing there to worship!?! PRAISE JESUS!!”
I think you are touching on a key issue here.
Does man have an innate need for ritual and worship ?
Until now, it has, through its various religions, worshipped Mythological concepts which were essentially based on fantasy, falsehoods and supernatural beliefs.
But why can’t man worship concepts which are based, on the true nature of reality. Why can’t man worship the grandiose beauty of the universe, the interelatedness of all living species, the harmony of nature ?
Why can’t we, as Einstein imagined, through the right blend of knowledge from Science, Philosophy, and the humanities, create the basis for a true religiosity ?
Because I’m afraid that if we can’t achieve this, the need for ritual and worship will not simply fade away, and will be taken care of, by religions as we know them.
But why can’t man worship concepts which are based, on the true nature of reality. Why can’t man worship the grandiose beauty of the universe, the interelatedness of all living species, the harmony of nature ?
Why worship anything? All that stuff is amazing, but worship it? no.
Doesn’t it seem a trifle, well, odd that by this standard, no religion yet followed by a human being counts as “true religiosity”?
Just because people have done something for a long time doesn’t make it an innate or ineradicable property of our species. Even a behavior trait which appears to be well-nigh ubiquitous in our historic past could be a consequence of the fact that during that historic past, life was ubiquitously nasty, brutish and short.
MAJeff,
“Why worship anything?”
That’s the question I’m asking, is there (maybe not for all human beings, but for a large %) an innate need for ceremony, ritual and worship ? There’s much Antropological evidence that these have prevailed since the begining of human societies.
Even if these may seem like atavistic and barbaric tendencies, we can’t just assume that these will just eliminate themselves, like by magic, or fade away once, everyone will suddenly be gifted with superior reasoning abilities and the right education.
That’s the question I’m asking, is there (maybe not for all human beings, but for a large %) an innate need for ceremony, ritual and worship ? There’s much Antropological evidence that these have prevailed since the begining of human societies.
I;d put it in the category of socialization into such belief systems instead of an inherent need for them. People through history have believed and worshipped because there was no alternative. When you’re told from day 1 “This is how the world is, and this how we do things,” and everyone around you is doing the same things, it simply becomes taken for granted.
Ceremony and ritual don’t require religion. Maybe ‘worship’ does, but most people I know seem to manage fine without worshiping anything (anything supernatural, at least).
I think the more precise your knowledge and your understanding of nature is, and the better your ability to conceptialise this information, the less you will feel these needs.
Sometimes, I put on a slide show of Hubble deep field photographs on my giant plasma TV, some beautiful sacred music from Bach, burn some campher, and I immerse myself into my self created ritual. And I feel the need to communicate with others, in a sort of communion. That’s very close to a religious experience, except that it’s all based on reality.
My guess is that scientists have greatly ignored this important component of humankind, as if we view anything sacred, or the mere concept of worshiping and comunion, as completely unnecessary.
Carl Sagan often spoke of the numinous, the sense of wonder at the universe we inhabit.
I think PZ has tried to evoke that as well, in his essay on human evolutionary history, and the due reverence for those untold generations. The sense of contemplating million-year deep time in which millions of individuals arise and fall, leaving descendants that differ from themselves only slightly. Yet those differences are sufficient to have accumulated in ourselves and every other organism there is.
Or consider development: myriads of myriads of biochemical interactions giving rise to every cell type and tissue in the body. Yet each and every reaction is necessary, arising in sequence from previous ones, and again, the sum total accumulates as an individual.
And of course, all of them are natural, not supernatural. It all just works. Except, of course, when it doesn’t, and sad as some of those individual cases might be, they too emphasize that it’s all just necessary and natural.
I think that if you read the actual words of scientists, you will often find this sort of awareness; this sort of meditation on the larger picture implied by the discovery of even basic and simple facts.
I don’t have a problem with the religious mind, which to me is the exact opposite of religion. I don’t have a problem with wondering if there exists something sacred, something timeless and beautiful beyond our comprehension. I do have a problem when there is a lack of sobriety, when emotionalism and lazy mindedness overrides our willingness to be in a state of search for the truth.
If we are ever going to get past religion then we are going to have to learn how to let the truth exist, simply and without interference, and to allow reality, itself, to guide us. It is exactly this natural mechanism in us that has been perverted.
@ 39: “These people don’t want truth. . .they want comfort. They HATE truth.”
I think this is exactly right. But, honestly, I feel this way a lot of the time, too. I almost think, if I could force myself to believe in an afterlife or a happy ending, I might do it. But I can’t. I need evidence and reasons for believing things. Just believing them for the sake of it doesn’t work for me (maybe because I’m such a self-doubter, I don’t know. I like to remind myself often why I believe what I believe. And if it can’t be justified, it simply is not good enough).
But I don’t want to waste peoples’ time with this whole discussion again. If you’ve seen me post on richarddawkins.net and other places, you might’ve seen me whine about this same thing, too.
It’s all kind of futile. The universe and the nature of reality isn’t going to change just because one person wants it to. Or just because every person wants it to. Wishing for an afterlife won’t cause one to appear, so it may just be something that I (and theists) need to simply get over, if we can just figure out how to do that…
So have slavery and the subjugation of women (two problems which, incidentally, religion doesn’t have a very good track record of fixing). Was the desire to enslave a captive of war or a person with a different skin color engraved in our genome? Then how have we given those practices such a pranging over the last couple centuries?
Biology is not the only thing which has remained constant, or mostly constant, over the centuries of human civilization. To attribute a “need for religion” to human biology is to make an extrapolation unwarranted by the data we currently have available.
Well, if the extropians/transhumanists are right, an afterlife will not be a matter of wishing, but rather of engineering.
So in a sense, if everyone wants an afterlife, and they’re willing to commit the research and resources, it may be that there will be one.
Heh.
Oh, man, Owlmirror. I’ve thought about that and usually what it reminds me of is that episode of Tales from the Dark Side where the evil mobster wants to live forever through this new procedure, so he burns all his bridges on the way out and happily signs up… and becomes a brain in a jar, constantly tormented by memories of people he screwed in the past.
But in all seriousness, a large part of what bothers me about this is not that I will cease to exist, but that people I care about will after death. I don’t much care what happens to me, in general, but I always hold out hope for them that maybe, you know, things will balance out. Where they were dissapointed or unhappy in life, they could have something good in the afterlife. So it’s been kind of a blow to accept, finally and fully, that there in’t one.
Pure conjecture on my part as well, but given how far afield we would once have had to roam to even encounter peoples of a different color, I would say no. Given our young son’s giggling reactions to children of all races, I would have to give more emphasis to that no :)
Different colors do, however, make it nigh impossible for such slaves to hide, though, which might make such situations go on for longer. Anything distinctive makes it easier for long-term slavery to survive, like, say, the religious sect the enslaved peoples belongs to.
On the main topic, I can’t believe that with all that softballing, Stein could still show himself to be… so… napalm stupid (the stupid, it burns, and it doesn’t stop!) when he opens his mouth on the origin of natural laws. These folks have tying totally different things to the same words down to a dark art.
“So in a sense, if everyone wants an afterlife, and they’re willing to commit the research and resources, it may be that there will be one.”
That was explored in the sequels to Frederik Pohl’s Gateway. Gateway was great, but the sequels were a bit disappointing. In the sequels the protagonist, Robinette Broadhead, has died and been dumped into computer form.
I kind of though the story would have been more interesting if Pohl had gone in a different direction with Broadhead’s new virtual life – imagine your new digital world when some ultra-savvy hacker starts tampering with it, or a virus gets loose. You’re busy having riskless sex and eating zero calorie veal and then you start to get little clues that something is going wrong… a visual glitch or shimmer in the wallpaper, or your partner’s voice has a slit-second digital breakup during orgasm.
I’m trying to decide whether this here film is going to be a step forward or a major spanner in the works for the thoughtless minions of creationism.
On the one hand, you’re going to get folk who already believe seeing it, so it’ll “reinforce” their dogmatic adherence to the idea that faith without evidence is a virtue. People who don’t believe will (correctly) think it’s boring and not aimed at them, so they won’t bother.
Then it will probably get beasted by the critics in general for making up an argument which doesn’t really exist (or at least it will in Europe; the US just constantly surprises with it’s views on religion).
Then again, critics might see it as too easy a target and go soft on it, advising folk to watch it.
Perhaps it’s just a money making exercise and Mr Stein is being shrewd and forward thinking about publicity. I’m not sure having something like this associated with you for the rest of your brief, only life is worth any amount of money and recognition though.
I’m guessing it’ll simply die a quiet death and end up next to Attack of The Killer Tomatoes as some oddballs favourite film on ID.
That’s the question I’m asking, is there (maybe not for all human beings, but for a large %) an innate need for ceremony, ritual and worship ? There’s much Anthropological evidence that these have prevailed since the beginning of human societies.
what constitutes ceremony, ritual, and worship?
what would satisfy a modern urban man would not be the same thing that would satisfy a south African Bushman or an Australian Aborigine as being ceremony, ritual and worship.
I think that we all may have our own forms we follow without thinking of it in that way.
I know that I refuse to engage in the questions raised by the Fundies in their forms . I will not let them change the subject with childish irrational arguments. I make it a habit not to argue with the mentally ill because it is pointless, though I may not realize that they are ill at the start of a discussion.
That’s the question I’m asking, is there (maybe not for all human beings, but for a large %) an innate need for ceremony, ritual and worship ? There’s much Anthropological evidence that these have prevailed since the beginning of human societies.
what constitutes ceremony, ritual, and worship?
what would satisfy a modern urban man would not be the same thing that would satisfy a south African Bushman or an Australian Aborigine as being ceremony, ritual and worship.
I think that we all may have our own forms we follow without thinking of it in that way.
I know that I refuse to engage in the questions raised by the Fundies in their forms . I will not let them change the subject with childish irrational arguments. I make it a habit not to argue with the mentally ill because it is pointless, though I may not realize that they are ill at the start of a discussion.
Blake #56,
“So have slavery and the subjugation of women (two problems which, incidentally, religion doesn’t have a very good track record of fixing). To attribute a “need for religion” to human biology is to make an extrapolation unwarranted by the data we currently have available.”
Well, that’s actually incorrect, there’s much anthropological evidence that both these practices were not prevalent in many ancient societies. Take the bronze age central Asian civilization of the oasis for example…
And then, of course there is no biologically imprinted need for religion, if you equate religion with the prevailing systems. But I do subscribe to the idea that there may be sociobiological underpinnings to a certain number of human innatenesses, I’d say emotions, such as the ones derived from ritual, ceremonial and worshipping practices.
Organised religions have attempted to domesticate, civilize, with extremely mixed results of course, these particular human tendencies. It is quite remarkable that the particular tools, myths, beliefs, cosomologies, that they make use of, are completely erroneous, but yet so many are trying to defend them with so much vigour. I don’t think they are really defending the myths, or the false beliefs, but more the emotions that derive from the ceremonial and ritual practices, the communional and worshipping aspects.
If we can’t think of ways to organise and domesticate these atavistic tendencies, based on real knowledge, they will keep defending the old myths, with all the nonsense that goes with it, ie that a particular false cosmology or a God that they cannot even describe gives them the right to hate homosexuals.
Face it people the forces of evil (organized religion) have developed a great meme to keep us in our place.
No religion/god, no morality; no religion/god, no comfort/peace! Perfect! Down deep people are scared to admit they are atheist because they themselves fear that the meme might be real and even worse they know majority out there feel the meme is true. So… to say “I am an atheist” is like saying “I am an immoral and evil person who could lose all hope and moral control at any instant”
True story: Fifty plus years ago we had the nicest, intelligent, humblest, family oriented, loving, generous family in the neighborhood. They were total intellectual honest atheists and freely admitted it when asked things like why don’t you go to church. No one shunned them; actually they were well liked and included (southern Italian RCs actually were pretty against being unkind to neighbors even of color, or whatever, in my circles). But I heard many times my people really very perplexed and very conflicted with this question they often posed themselves around the scupa (card) table or bocce court: “how can people that good not believe in god – they must really believe in god don’t you think?” They could not recognize that the meme was false; to reconcile their observations with their learning they had to believe the nice atheists were really nice god believers down deep.
Indoctrination works and the powers that be know it all too well.
The NCSE asked me and my PI to come up with a video that explained and dismissed the concept of “irreducible complexity”. Our paper did that, but in a way that lay press could not really understand.
Now, we are trying to create a simple video of the problem and general nature of evolutionary response. We are specifically looking at an exaptation approach. If anyone has ideas, we would certainly appreciate your input.
where is that from?
Also i had a good ID-er argument. “If evilution is twoo, then how did wadder evolves? Huh mister smartypants? How does water retain it’s ‘information’ from generation to generation?”
I have a real hate-on for stupid right now. Any sign of stupid and i get angry. someone help me! :-(
Why is it “stupid” to hold the evolution religion to the same standards as the Christian religion? The Bible explains clearly how everything got to be the way it is, while Darwinists think it’s “stupid” to even try? How sad and pathetic is the faith of Darwin! Its practioners have given up the life and truth of Jesus for the “right” to engage in a life of unconstrained sodomy!
Pretty consistent….I’ve mentioned this on AtBC, but one irony is the founding father of ID is noted for his role in getting detractors of ID fired from institutions he serves on the boards of…
http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=47b8588f2020f930&act=ST&f=14&t=1274&st=25560
Evolution is not a religion.
The bible explains nothing.
It makes assertions without evidence.
Just like you do.
Why is it “stupid” to hold the evolution religion to the same standards as the Christian religion? The Bible explains clearly how everything got to be the way it is, while Darwinists think it’s “stupid” to even try? How sad and pathetic is the faith of Darwin! Its practioners have given up the life and truth of Jesus for the “right” to engage in a life of unconstrained sodomy!
I for one love sodomy. But I’ll go further and say that if you think the sex of the person Im having sex with is a moral issue, your morals are fucked up.
But, here’s another place where you’re an idiot. The Bible is proof of nothing. Evolution is not a religion. Stop being such a dolt.
Great website you got there Pole Greaser, the earth is not moving.
It’s a parody isn’t it ?
pole greaser, if you have a hate on for stupid, you must be really self-loathing. Your web site contains no evidence of intelligence, that’s for sure.
And if you’re going to rail on about Sodom, maybe you should look at what your own ridiculous book says the sins of Sodom were. Shit, you can’t even get that right.
Hey Pole Greser, it’s a parody isn’t it ? I especially liked that part :
“So, for the homosexual who wants a powerful reason to give up that lifestyle, rejecting the evolution deception is the place to start. This decision will immediately reveal a God Who forgives and heals. Indeed, rejection of the evolution deception is at the top of the list of doctrinal clarifications that will begin to separate not only individuals, but also all the world’s populations into those who will get on the Biblical Creator God’s side or on Satan’s side.
This cataclysmic change will be caused by a sudden and irresistible global awareness of Spiritual Truths that are forced onto the center stage of people’s minds once they grasp the huge number of deceptions that are squarely based on “evolution science”. When it registers that all of these deceptions have taken root at the core of modern man’s knowledge and have obscured and confused Truth in all endeavors and behaviors, the remedy will become inescapably obvious.
That remedy will come as a brain jolt that has the power to force the whole world to see and admit that the Bible is the only source of absolute Truth, the only Holy Book from the only trustworthy God.”
Really well done, must be really difficult to make up such nonsense. And there’s page after page, it’s a gold mine. How did you do it ? Did you have a phone conference with God or something ?
Fifty bucks says that Pole Greaser’s concept of “the life and truth of Jesus” has very little basis in scripture and is instead the product of some semi-literate snake-oil preacher.
Another twenty says he’s never read the whole Bible either.
Odd that I’ll be right about both of these, yet drew no Biblical inspiration for either prediction, eh Poley?
Perhaps I’m a witch.
Haha. I’m happy in a big, ridonkulous way that PoleGreaser (what kind of a name is that for someone–at least I’m assuming to think he’s genuine–claiming to be Christian?) posted, so that I could find his site. That thing is going to entertain me for weeks.
To PG: you are *not* helping your case, buddy. Ha ha ha. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the biggest laugh I’ve had all year.
Redneck Orwellian troglodyte.
“Assuming it all did happen by Random Mutation and Natural Selection, where did the laws of gravity come from.”
Can a “Theory” of Intelligent Falling be far behind?
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512
Actually, this is surprisingly easy to do.
Step 1: Pick up the phone. You’ll hear a dial tone.
Step 2: Wait.
Step 3: The dial tone will end, and a voice will tell you to hang up. This is God’s secretary, the Metatron. Don’t do as she says.
Step 4: After the voice repeats a couple times, it will stop and change to a harsh beeping. This is God’s “hold” music. It’s pretty annoying, because God wants to test you. Don’t hang up.
Step 5: Wait some more.
Step 6: The beeping will eventually stop, and you’ll hear a soft “click”, and then silence. That means that God has picked up!
Step 7: Now you can talk to God!
If you doubt this is true, why would people calling you get a busy signal?!?!!?
You guys don’t get it, Pole Greaser is actually an Atheist, he made up all this and created his fixedearth website as a parody to ridicule all these nonsensical Pseudochristian beliefs.
Eh Pole Greaser, it’s just a parody isn’t it, you don’t really believe that the earth doesn’t move do you ?
Or did I misintepret your call for help :
“I have a real hate-on for stupid right now. Any sign of stupid and i get angry. someone help me! :-(”
‘Unconstrained’ sodomy? What is that exactly? Sounds painful…
‘Unconstrained’ sodomy? Is that sung to the tune of “Unchained Melody”?
Oh, that’s just ordinary sodomy. Heck, lubricant is even recommended.
Now, constrained sodomy, that’s where they break out the two wetsuits and the straps and the ties and the ropes…
“How does water retain it’s ‘information’ from generation to generation?”
Ask a homeopath. I’ve had to sit through lectures from my brother-in-law about how water retains a memory of things that it has had contact with. Apparently the explanation of how is “quantum physics.”
That quantum physics is some handy stuff.
Actually, negentropyeater, Pole Greaser is just a troll who imitates a frothing, imbecilic, bigoted Christian fundamentalist solely in order to get his sexual jollies.
The very limit of his poor communication skills is to demonstrate how much more stupid he can sound with each successive post he makes at a blog, and to trot out colorful insults in order to propagate the stereotype of the Arrogant Christian Bigot.
That’s just it, I don’t know why anyone thinks the IDists are good at anything, except yanking the chains of their fellow IDiots.
How stupid is it of Ben Stein to go to a press conference and refuse to answer questions? Whether or not it works at the White House is unimportant, the fact is that reporters can say just what they want to about Stein, and they will.
The fact is that he’s specializing in the stupid at various interviews, partly because he knows nothing about science, partly because he’s not even really an IDist. He doesn’t even have the ID blather down, then, instead he’s rambling on about how you’re not allowed to ask where the laws of thermodynamics and where the planets came from. Gee, Ben, you’ve never hear of physics, or, say, the space program?
He’s far too ignorant to be allowed to answer questions, meaning that the fact that he’s too damn ignorant to answer questions becomes the story.
He’s perfect for the Phillip E. Johnson award, though, since that scientifically-illiterate boob is about the equal of Johnson in actually discussing evolution.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Glen,
“That’s just it, I don’t know why anyone thinks the IDists are good at anything, except yanking the chains of their fellow IDiots.”
Well, for one, and judging from the 80 “testimonies” in front of the Florida DOE, …
http://www.flboe.org/meetings/2008_02_11/meetingArchive.asp
…, I’d say they’re pretty good at spreading lies, false claims, and at stimulating people to demonstrate their own ignorance.
Mind you, it doesn’t take much talent, it’s like spreading wildfires in a savanah which hasn’t seen any rain for the last 6 months.
It just takes a big mouth like Ben Stein and some consistency in being wilfully ignorant whilst pretending to be savant. And a HUGE dose of arrogance.