The appropriate responses to Expelled

I think I’ve said just about everything I can about that contemptible, dishonest propaganda movie starring Ben Stein, so I’ve been fairly quiet about it lately. It will run its short course in the theaters, and the main result will be that we’ll get a few more creationists who, in addition to being grossly ignorant, will be grossly disinformed about science. Thanks to the Expelled gang, creationist arguments will be a little bit stupider.

So here are what I think are the best of the responses I’ve seen so far.

Use them in future arguments with creationists; you’ll need to.

As for all those people who are arguing from box office grosses that the movie is a success or a failure, grow up. We have a large population of miseducated evangelical lackwits in this country who will fork over money for exactly this kind of crap, so we knew ahead of time that the producers were going to get some small pots of cash out of this; worrying over exactly how much they got or will get is a pointless exercise. All it tells us is roughly how many people were motivated enough to see a bad movie because it caters to their prejudices. The issue at hand is dealing with the substance of the movie’s claims and the reactions of the viewers. If you’re counting dollar signs and using that to opine over the worth of the movie (in either direction), you’re being part of the problem.

It’s the same problem that we see in press reports on politics right now. Everything is focused on the horse race — how many votes do they have so far, how much money have they raised? — and next to nothing on what the people actually say. Stop it!

It must have been an act of god

I think this is my favorite newspaper headline yet: Priest attached to party balloons vanishes in Brazil. Now you know what to bring to the next party at your local church: a lawn chair, a bunch of balloons, and a helium tank. I am imagining a day when every priest in the world stands smiling beneath a great happy bobbing collection of many-colored balloons, and they all joyously loft themselves up, up into the sky, joyfully drifting away before the winds until they are just a tiny speck and then … gone. It will be a miracle.

This will be my new dream. It will bring a smile to my face as I fall asleep.

And as long as I’m dreaming, I’ll imagine myself with an ultralight aircraft and a BB gun, buzzing above a great Sargasso of wind-gathered balloons.

Hello, new people!

We’re seeing a lot of new traffic here, and a lot of it seems to be people hunting down that infamous P.Z. Myers dude because they read about his evil ways in some publication, or saw the name in some really bad movie. You’re at the right place, welcome, go ahead and leave a comment. If you’re a creationist, the other commenters here are always hungry for a little fresh meat, and if you’re just generally interested in the subjects discussed here, join the conversation. You can find a list of my science articles here, but as long as you’ve found the place, may I suggest you take a look at the ScienceBlogs main page? There’s a legion of other science blogs right here, my next door neighbors, and they’d probably appreciate some visits, too.

And who knows? You may have really bad taste and think one of those other guys has a better blog than mine, and you’ll hang out there. I might forgive you.

Who made the “Beware the Believers” video?

We have a confession! It was made by Michael Edmondson, and it was produced by the people behind Expelled. He wrote to me, and says, “The intent of the video has been questioned a lot…I suppose the answer is that I tried to make something that was funny to me and It’s not really meant to convince anyone of anything.” That’s how I felt about it: it’s amusing, and that’s all that matters — it’s vague enough that it can be read any way you want.

Edmondson has also made a brief sequel.

Note that Stein is wearing a t-shirt that says “Poe’s Law”.

Basics: How can chromosome numbers change?

There in the foaming welter of email constantly flooding my in-box was an actual, real, good, sincere question from someone who didn’t understand how chromosome numbers could change over time — and he also asked with enough detail that I could actually see where his thinking was going awry. This is great! How could I not take time to answer?

So here’s the question:

How did life evolve from one (I suspect) chromosome to… 64 in horses, or whatever organism you want to pick. How is it possible for a sexually reproducing population of organisms to change chromosome numbers over time?

Firstly: there would have to be some benefit to the replication probability of the organisms which carry the chromosomes. I don’t see how this would work. How is having more chromosomes of any extra benefit to an organism’s replicative success? Yes, perhaps if those chromosomes were full of useful information… but the chances of that happening are non existent and fly in the face of ‘small adaptations over time’.

Secondly, the extra chromosomes need to come from somewhere. I’m not sure about this, but I believe chromosome number are not determined by genes, are they? There isn’t a set of genes which determines the number of chromosomes an organism has. So the number is fixed, determined by the sexually reproducing parents. Which leads me to believe that if the number does change, and by chance the organism is still alive and capable of sexual reproduction, that the number will start swinging back and forward, by 1 or 2, every generation, and never stabilising. The chances of this happening are also very very slim.

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Whose head would you like to see on video?

John Horgan actually defended Ben Stein on Bloggingheads. Now I can understand being a little contrarian, but that’s going too far.

More importantly, I’ve been asked to do another bloggingheads session — it could be with John Horgan, and an opportunity to chastise him for that (as well as talk about something more substantive) or it could be with someone else — so I thought I’d throw it out here. Who do you think would be a good person for me to team up with for a diavlog? Maybe there’s someone out there who hasn’t been on bloggingheads you’d like to see.

Let’s all pack up and move to Great Britain!

The views on religion seem much more congenial.

A charity set up by an ardent Christian to fight slavery and the opium trade has identified a new social evil of the 21st century — religion.

A poll by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation uncovered a widespread belief that faith — not just in its extreme form — was intolerant, irrational and used to justify persecution.

Pollsters asked 3,500 people what they considered to be the worst blights on modern society, updating a list drawn up by Rowntree, a Quaker, 104 years ago.

The responses may well have dismayed him. The researchers found that the “dominant opinion” was that religion was a “social evil”.

I think I’d fit right in.