Recently in Expelled Flunked Category

The movie is old news now, but Ron Bailey has a nice brief takedown of Expelled in the June issue of Reason magazine.

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

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.

TV Guide reviews Expelled

It’s hard to pinpoint the most insulting aspects of this obvious propaganda piece from Ben Stein, the eye-drops spokesman, conservative writer and pundit whom most people remember from a bit part in FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF.

In Paste Magazine we read:

The filmmakers confirmed that they did use the track without permission, but they insist that their legal counsel told them it was fair use protected under the First Amendment due to the fact that they only used 25 seconds of it.

In the Salt Lake Tribune we read about the dishonesty

Alas, the movie’s makers (Stein and co-writers Kevin Miller and Walt Ruloff, and director Nathan Frankowski) don’t debate honestly. Stein mocks university officials for not “getting off [their] script,” but says nothing about the repetitive talking points from the ID crowd. The ID folks complain that the term “evolution” is too vaguely defined, and yet never adequately define what “intelligent design” is. They swear they aren’t espousing religion, then try to discredit the leading evolutionary biologists - such as Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Myers - because they are atheists. Oddly enough, the tactics employed in “Expelled” undercut the movie’s argument, most notably in the interviews with Dawkins and Myers and in Stein’s trip to Darwin’s British home (now a museum). Either the filmmakers suckered these participants under false pretenses, or the evolutionists are more open to debate than Stein suggests. Perhaps the intelligent-design proponents know that in a truly open debate, their argument isn’t fit enough to survive.

And, lest there be any doubt what the true motivation for Expelled is, check out this screen grab from the “Leader’s DVD” handed out at preview screenings…

E! Reviews gives it an “F”

Review in a Hurry: A flunkout of a documentary, this features Ben Stein—still best known for his monotone “Anyone…anyone?”—advocating creationism, er, intelligent design, in science classrooms. Stein’s credibility is blown on this poorly constructed diatribe, and you’d be smart to save your bucks.

Lies, damned lies and “intelligent design’

It’s nuttiness right from the opening moments of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Images of Nazi atrocities and the terrors of life behind the Berlin Wall are smugly deployed in an attempt to editorialize away basic scientific fact. In a saner universe, you could scoff at Stein and not give his nonsense another thought. But we don’t live in that universe. We live here, where the religious insecurity of a scientifically illiterate populace is being twisted by people who certainly know better.

The Chicago Tribune’s Roger Moore reviews “Expelled” ‘Expelled:No Intelligence Allowed’ (Ben Stein monkeys with evolution) and gives it a 1 star (poor) rating

Stein and friends use animation (shades of “Bowling for Columbine”), amusing chunks of B-movies and even “The Wizard of Oz” and classic propaganda techniques to undercut 150 years of peer-tested research. Their goal? Create just a sliver of doubt about evolution. It’s a classic Big Tobacco/”Inconvenient Truth” denial tactic.

Another ‘stellar’ review by the Star Tribune titled Movie review: Propaganda piece “Expelled” flunks

According to “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” the source of all evil in the modern world is Darwinism, a philosophy that, the film posits, is responsible for everything from atheism to abortion, euthanasia to the Holocaust.

Although “Expelled” has been receiving mostly negative reviews from the mainstream media and scientists, creationist organizations other than the Discovery Institute, AIG and ICR (both Young Earth Creationists) have remained cautiously silent. For instance, The Reasons To Believe (RTB) Scholars appeared to be suspicious about Expelled but refrained from any recommendations but now that they have seen a pre-release screening they have sent an email which can be found on the Calvin College ASA discussion list.

Dear RTB Chapter members,

With the impending release of “EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed” (April 18), the Reasons to Believe scholar team thought it best to prepare a statement of our position, a guide for answering questions from chapters, networks, and apologists. Keep in mind that the mission of RTB centers on reaching out to science-minded people with two purposes:

At Open Parachute, Ken Perrott explains to us in a posting Expelled - no integrity exhibited the level of disarray at Premise Media.

I was recently approached by Stacy Schlicht from the firm Rogers & Cowan who are the publicity agent for the film “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” Stacey offered me the chance to interview one of the filmmakers Ben Stein. I accepted the offer, which quickly became a “teleconference” open only to an “exclusive” group selected on the basis of submitted questions. After dutifully submitting my 5 questions I am informed that the teleconference planned for yesterday has now been postponed until the 18^th - the planned launch date for the film.

ExpelledExposed.com has the full text of the review by New Scientist

New Scientist reviews ‘Expelled’

This seems to be the next step in sneaking ID into schools after the Kitzmiller vs Dover case saw the compulsory teaching of ID ruled unconstitutional in 2005. Last month, a press conference held by the Discovery Institute to promote the proposed bill included a screening of Expelled.

Ultimately, the Discovery Institute’s support may be the film’s undoing. The institute has argued long and hard that ID is not about religion, yet in the film the connections are explicit. If challenged on this, the institute may have to distance itself from the film, discrediting Expelled in the process.

Time Magazine’s Jeffrey Kluger critically reviews ‘Expelled’

I love the following ‘gap’ argument rebuttal

More dishonestly, Stein employs the common dodge of enumerating all the admittedly unanswered questions in evolutionary theory and using this to refute the whole idea. But all scientific knowledge is built this way. A fishnet is made up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can’t therefore argue that the net doesn’t exist. Just ask the fish.

In Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed–Scientific American’s Take, Scientific American ‘flunks’ the movie.

John Rennie, Michael Shermer and Steve Mirsky all watched Ben Stein’s new antievolution movie. Here’s what they had to say about its design flaws.

Shermer reviews ‘Expelled’

In a new documentary film, actor, game show host and financial columnist Ben Stein falls for the pseudoscience of intelligent design

In Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Integrity Displayed John Rennie reviews the movie

A shameful antievolution film tries to blame Darwin for the Holocaust

However, they provide us with an even more precious resource namely two mp3 files of a Podcast with Mark Mathis, one of the associate producers of the movie.

Download part 1

Download part 2

Why are these Podcast files so important?

Bad: The Bad Idea Blog has a variety of excellent articles on ‘Expelled the Movie’.

“Bad” is not a mystery man, nor famous enough for anyone to care about the mystery, but he doesn’t (and more importantly his employers don’t) much like being Googled in any case. You’ll just have to be content knowing that he’s a swell science geek in his 30s who has been a long-time yammerer in the science, skepticism, and unbeliever community under various silly pseudonyms.

Wesley Elsberry shows how Ben Stein and Mark Mathis contradict each other about when the movie ‘Expelled’ changed its title. This is important because critics of ID were interviewed for a different movie with a different theme, and yet it seems that the producers already knew that the movie was going to be about a very different theme. This would strengthen the claims by ID critics that they were misled.

Wesley Elsberry Wrote:

Remember how Mark Mathis, producer of “Expelled”, kept going on about how the “Crossroads”/Rampant Films thing was what they had in mind while interviewing Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Eugenie Scott, and others, then they decided to chuck all that and go with the “Expelled” concept? It seems that Mathis should have had a session with Ben Stein so that they could make their stories match. Stein was interviewed by the New York Sun and by the WORLD magazine, and there are several interesting things about the content of his responses.

Read the rest at The Austringer

Read all about how Expelled ‘Flunked’ at ExpelledExposed.com

Yet another scathing review, this time from the Huffington Post’s Valerie Tarico. The meme of a “Manufactroversy” combined with meme of ‘flunked’ seem to be catching on.

How long have creationists been talking about “Darwinism” as if no one but Darwin had noticed the fossil record or the DNA code in the last 100 years? It does get tiresome, responding to their ever evolving anti-evolutionary rhetoric. But we need to expose the bizarre supernaturalist agenda behind all the sudden whining about academic freedom. And somebody needs to gently remind Stein and his creationist cronies that they haven’t been expelled from school, they flunked.

But that is but a mild criticism compared to what else Valerie is telling us.

Read all about how Expelled ‘Flunked’ at ExpelledExposed.com