Recently in Expelled Category

Via John Pieret’s excellent Thoughts in a Haystack blog I learn of an ongoing controversy about the teaching of evolution at Adventist Universities. (See also this Sept. 1 article from Inside Higher Ed.) The latest event is that the board of trustess of La Sierra University in Riverside, California, voted to endorse young-earth creationism:

La Sierra’s board of trustees last week unanimously voted to endorse Adventist beliefs that the world was created in six 24-hour days and said the teaching of evolution must be “within the context of the Adventist belief regarding creation.”

The board also proposed that all 15 North American Adventist universities develop a curriculum that includes a “scientifically rigorous affirmation” of Adventist creation beliefs.

At first glance, it is confusing that this is news. Those of us who are familiar with the history of creationism and have read Ronald Numbers’ classic The Creationists, and learned that the Seventh-Day Adventists were virtually the only fundamentalists who produced major advocates supporting belief in a young earth and global flood in the early 20^th century – based on the literalist visions of Adventist founder and prophetess Ellen White. It was only in the 1960s that the young-earth/global view became dominant within American fundamentalism/conservative evangelicalism in general, primarily through the efforts of Henry Morris and John Whitcomb in The Genesis Flood.

After 20 days, Religulous has grossed more than Expelled during its six months in US theatres.

Funny how despite give aways, pre-screenings and discounts, and much marketing to the religious, Expelled did not manage to attract more audience than Religulous. What is even more ironic is that Religulous outperformed Expelled from the opening weekend with half the theatre count.

In a Comment in the journal Genome Biology Gregory Petsko, Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry Protein Crystallography at Brandeis University discusses the latest shenanigans of the Intelligent Design movement. ( Gregory A Petsko It is alive Genome Biology 2008, 99::106)

They’re at it again. Armed with another new idea from the Discovery Institute, that bastion of ignorance, right-wing political ideology, and pseudo-scientific claptrap, the creationist movement has mounted yet another assault on science. This time it comes in two flavors: propaganda and legislative.

What is Petsko talking about?

The Columbus Dispatch reports that a much awaited report on the activities of John Freshwater, a Mount Vernon teacher, has finally been released.

The conclusions are straightforward and shocking

A Mount Vernon teacher undermined science instruction in the public school district by discrediting evolution in his classroom and focusing on creationism and intelligent design, a probe has found.

Worse, the teacher “burned crosses onto students’ arms, using an electrostatic device, in December. Freshwater told investigators the marks were Xs, not crosses. But all of the students interviewed in the investigation reported being branded with crosses.”

While his defenders argued that the teacher merely used the device to draw ‘X’, the picture shows otherwise.

To me this clearly looks like a cross, not an ‘X’.

NCSE’s staff worked behind the scenes in the archives to find the missing links tying “intelligent design” to its creationist ancestry.

An outstanding video explaining how through hard work, the NCSE staff uncovered the missing link “cdesign proponentist” (oops they already mutated from their native form “cdesign proponentsists”).

According to the charts at Box Office Mojo the data for expelled for the weekend have gone missing. Although we know that in the 5^th week, the theatre count drop almost 50 % from 402 to 210.

In other news, the United Methodist Church passed several relevant resolutions, one apologizing repenting for eugenics, and the other one expressing their displeasure with intelligent design and public schools

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the General Conference of the United Methodist Church go on record as opposing the introduction of any faith-based theories such as Creationism or Intelligent Design into the science curriculum of our public schools.

No updates on the lawsuit by Yoko Ono against Premise Media.

And despite the efforts by the Discovery Institute and Premise Media it was reported that

Despite the fanfare over Expelled in Missouri, the antievolution House Bill 2554 has died

The score so far: “academic freedom” antievolution bills have died in Florida, Alabama, and Missouri, and South Carolina’s looks poised to die as well.

The study was published in the Journal Science. It’s a good week for science and faith.

It’s been a good week for science, and evolutionary science in particular so let me mention a few newsworthy events.

• Alabama Kills Evolution Bill
• Ono gains temporary injunction against “Expelled”
• Kenneth Miller reviews “Expelled”
• Jeffrey Schloss reviews “Expelled at ASA
• Percival Reviews “Expelled”

And in late breaking news:

Turkish Islamic author Oktar aka Harun Yahya given 3-year jail sentence

Oktar’s teachings echo those of Christian fundamentalists in the United States. He has publicly denounced Darwinism and Freemasonry in high-profile attacks.

Expelled Theatre count

While legislatures focus on antievolution bills, a new video at Expelled Exposed helps students see how evolution works.

Oakland, California, May 6, 2008 As attacks on evolution education remain in the news, with proposed antievolution legislation in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, and Missouri in the headlines, a new video rebutting the basic premise of intelligent design creationism is now available on www.ExpelledExposed.com.

John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the makers of Expelled, on the grounds that they did not get Ono’s permission to use portions of Lennon’s hit song “Imagine” in the movie. The case is Yoko Ono Lennon, et al. v. Premise Media Corporation (S.D.N.Y., No. 08-03813).

(Read the rest at Freespace…)

Ben Stein lies about Sternberg and Kitzmiller Lauri Lebo reviews Expelled

PvM: My apologies to Lauri Lebo for misspelling her name as Laurie

This interview is just too good to ignore. The Real Detroit Weekly reports on the movie “Expelled”. The interview shows what had already become painfully clear to me having listened the SciAm interview: namely that Mathis is poorly informed on the issues of evolutionary theory. Whenever challenged by the SciAm editors, Mathis would first try to respond only to find himself overwhelmed by the facts and respond with “I am just an associate editor” and claim unfamiliarity with the facts. Why is it that ID works best in the shadows of ignorance?

Point in case

I confront Mathis with this point, and he counters that evolutionary theory is also untestable. This is patently untrue—to give just one example, scientists have witnessed speciation, the arisal of a new species from an old one.

When I point this out, he interrupts me immediately: “Whoa! Wait a minute! Please send me whatever material you have that demonstrates that we can observe speciation because I have not seen anything. I’ve never heard anyone even claim that!”

Is he serious? He’s just produced a film about evolution, and he’s never heard of the fact that speciation has been observed and thoroughly documented in the scientific literature? I’m stunned. I send him peer-reviewed research confirming this fact via e-mail, and he later responds, “This isn’t an important argument for me.”

The God Connection

Baylor University’s newspaper the “Lariat” reports on “Expelled”, exposing once again that Intelligent Design is a theological concept.

Robert Marks, a professor at Baylor and Intelligent Design proponent, commented

“I thought it portrayed things pretty well as they are ­– that science by decree of entrenched Darwinism has no room for a God hypothesis,” Marks said. “I on the other hand think that one cannot pursue truth without consideration of a creator.”

Marks said if science defines science as void of a creator, then it’s not a pursuit of truth.

Same with associate producer Mathis

“You have a science department that’s denying a god,” Mathis said

The first Box Office numbers are in. Expelled opened in 8^th place with $1.2M in revenues in 1,052 theatres resulting in a $1,141 per theatre revenue. You do the math. At an average of 5 showings this makes $220 per showing or 30-40 people. Expelled ranks 4^th in the list of “new releases”

While the weekend has just started the movie will have to do some hard work to match the expectations of the PR people:

“He said they would consider the opening weekend successful if the movie sold 2 million tickets (earning $12-15 million).”

[Update: Source: Brad in Stranger Fruit Comment section]

In context, Fahrenheit 9/11’s opening weekend grossed $23.9 million in 868 theatres grossing $27,558 per theatre and $8,565,000 on it’s first day

Remember that the movie is also heavily subsidized and Churches etc will receive large discounts.

From Dembski’s ‘backyard’ comes a review by the Waco Tribune of “Expelled”

Carl Hoover Wrote:

Though Stein presents himself as a man of rational logic, his film’s arguments are a rhetorical mishmash of straw men, red herrings, guilt by association, quote harvesting, gotcha interviews and post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) associations that may cause your head to pop. It’s a propaganda form highly polished by director/activist Michael Moore on the other end of the political spectrum.

Not bad for starters.

The NY Times has a hard hitting review titled “Resentment Over Darwin Evolves Into a Documentary”

JEANNETTE CATSOULIS Wrote:

One of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” is a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.

and

JEANNETTE CATSOULIS Wrote:

Mixing physical apples and metaphysical oranges at every turn “Expelled” is an unprincipled propaganda piece that insults believers and nonbelievers alike. In its fudging, eliding and refusal to define terms, the movie proves that the only expulsion here is of reason itself.

Steve Mirsky from Scientific America reports on Never You Mine: Ben Stein’s Selective Quoting of Darwin

Steve Mirsky Wrote:

One of the many egregious moments in the new Ben Stein anti-evolution film “Expelled” is the truncation of a quote from Charles Darwin so that it makes him appear to give philosophical ammunition to the Nazis. Steve Mirsky reports.

The Ayn Rand Institute has released a Press Release

“Intelligent design advocates will do anything to advance their views–except science.

“The reason for that is simple: doing science has never been their goal. Their goal is to make biblical creationism appear scientific in order to skirt the constitutional ban on religion in public schools. Contrary to the film’s claims, the real dogmatists are not the defenders of Darwin, but the religiously motivated advocates of intelligent design.”

ExpelledExposed.com has announced a contest to “Set Ben Straight

In promoting the creationist propaganda film Expelled, Ben Stein managed to stick his foot in his mouth over and over again, issuing what seemed to be a ceaseless stream of ignorant, offensive, and just plain daffy claims. Here’s your chance to set Ben straight. Send your favorite claim to [Enable javascript to see this email address.] along with a refutation. We’ll post the best for all the world to see. And five lucky entrants will receive a year’s subscription to Reports of the NCSE along with their choice of a book from NCSE’s shelf – including such useful books as Mark Isaak’s The Counter-Creationism Handbook, Eugenie C. Scott’s Evolution vs. Creationism, and the AAAS’s The Evolution Dialogues: Science, Christianity, and the Quest for Understanding. But you only have ten days, and a wealth of silliness to examine, so act now!

A series of interviews with ID true believers has him playing Michael Moore–dumb—no hard questions for the folks at the Discovery Center, whose infamous leaked 1993 “wedge memo” stated as one of its primary goals the propagation of the idea “that nature and human beings are created by God.” ID’ers protest that they’re simply interested in secular alternatives to Darwinian evolution; their scientific opponents, meanwhile, are potential Communists and Nazis. Bizarre and hysterical.

BeliefNet reviews Expelled

There may be a good argument to make on behalf of teaching Intelligent Design in science class, but this documentary from Ben Stein does not make it. The movie itself is an example of design by faith and emotion rather than intelligence, defined as rationality grounded in proof. Instead of making a straightforward case for Intelligent Design as a scientific theory, Stein employs misdirection and guilt by very tangential association to try to make his case.