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Science Center sued for rejecting anti-evolution film

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7 pointsprat18 comments

I finished watching Ben Stein's "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" documentary. I thought the documentary was good, in that it talked about otherwise reputable scientists/teachers being expelled from their institutions because their name appeared in the context of ID where they did not vehemently reject it. Even if they didn't support or believe in ID, if they wrote an article merely wondering out loud about it, they were expelled. Interesting part is that in most cases authorities denied that that was the reason for the firing - eventhough their termination letter mentioned it.

These people deserve to be bashed. The next thing they'll say would contradict another established scientific theory and then they would ask to include it in curriculum.

That statement could be made about anyone contradicting any well established theory. I am not putting the ID guy on a pedestal with Galileo or some such sacrificed truth seeker. All I am saying is that beleif in ID is not like child molestation for which one should be expelled from job.

Would you fire someone for teaching that the earth is at the center of the universe? Because ID pretty much falls into the same category. What people should be doing is being upfront about the reasons for firing rather than trying to hide them.

Clarification: Firing is only relevant if they are actually teaching life sciences. If they aren't then it is a personal belief and doesn't really matter

Your clarification was actually my next point. Many of them were in fields not remotely connected with biology.

Ebert handled this film better than any of us can:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind....

(He's not a fan).

I agree with you that it's wrong to fire someone for believing in I-D, and I also find Ebert's take compelling.

I tried watching Expelled a week ago. I approached it with an open mind trying to be able to see an alternate perspective. Unfortunately, I found it to be nearly unwatchable. I didn't like it because the presentation made it impossible for the documentary to even present an argument. Cuts during interviews were so rapid that I could barely understand the context of any statement. Furthermore, the rapid cuts symbolize an intention to mislead or misinterpret what people say. I got to point where Ben Stein visits the concentration camps. I was so perplexed by this I just turned the movie off.

As for the information contained in Expelled. It was hard to interpret because it was filled with so much opinion. Nothing was hard fact enough for me to consider that the professors were fired for an invalid reason.

I hate the name "American Freedom Alliance" for an organization whose goal is to control people through religion. It should rename itself to the "American Brainwashing Alliance". Not quite as catchy, I guess...

I also think that the question is no longer about which theory is true.. Its about which side do you belong to and how stupid can you be to even raise the topic of ID.

here is an example.. The movie got 3.7 on IMDB - the lowest I have seen yet. I think the movie is not badly made - it been punished for being sympathetic towards (not ID but) people who believe in ID http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1091617/

The movie is well put together but, according to convincing descriptions from Roger Ebert (and many others), frequently dishonest.

I hate to weigh in here, cause it looks like one of those no-win conversations, but I don't understand.

Are you saying that Ebert called Ben Stein a liar? That's usually what the word "dishonest" means. (as opposed to "mistaken")

EDIT: The reason I ask is that I've seen a lot of adjectives applied to creationists (as opposed to true ID'ers) Words like "mistaken", "superstitious", "simple-minded", "pig-headed", "anti-academic", etc

But never liar. It just wouldn't fit in with the rest of the words commonly used.

I don't even understand what you're asking, Daniel. You should read the article. Like most of what he writes on his blog, it's excellent.

I just tried. Looks like a bunch of straw-man nonsense to me.

I like Ebert and have watched him for a long time on S&E (and later E&R). But I've always thought he was a bit too mushy-headed for me and for that reason have never been a fan of his blog. He was always the one to get caught up in the "feel" of a movie, even when the production values, acting, and directing stunk. In fact, Ebert is the person that turned me off to movie reviews in general. When I want reviews, I use an aggregation service like RottenTomatoes.

Like I said, no-win discussion. I'm certainly not a creationist, but calling them liars doesn't seem very productive. Make fun of them all you want, but calling a very religious person a liar seems completely counter-productive.

I am so confused. Where in that article does he call very religious people --- no, wait, anyone --- a "liar"? Did you read it? Read it again. It's good.

Here is the roger ebert article: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind....

One quote: This film is cheerfully ignorant, manipulative, slanted, cherry-picks quotations, draws unwarranted conclusions, makes outrageous juxtapositions (Soviet marching troops representing opponents of ID), pussy-foots around religion (not a single identified believer among the ID people), segues between quotes that are not about the same thing, tells bald-faced lies, and makes a completely baseless association between freedom of speech and freedom to teach religion in a university class that is not about religion.

you could make a great-looking documentary claiming the earth is flat, and it would likely do equally badly. The whole ID movement depends on manufacturing controversy by claiming that gaps in our knowledge constitute evidence for an alternative theory, which is fundamentally unscientific.

Universities dumping staff who put their names to publications which they know will discredit science is not a big deal to me. It would be different if ID advocates were presenting evidence that contradicted the findings of cladistics or so, but their arguments are metaphysical rather than evidence-based, and ID is not so much a theory as an objection to Drawinism. In the case of Expelled, things like the juxtaposition of Nazi concentration camps with discussions of Darwinism mean that the film ultimately amounts to a giant reductio ad Hitlerum argument, and the fact that it involved professional camerawork and editing doesn't alter that fact.

The only way the film belongs in a science museum or archive is if it's filed next to exhibits about the church burning Giordano Bruno at the stake for asserting that the sun goes around the earth...with Expelled being a depressing example of the burning mentality, rather than a heroic defense of the victims. Darwin himself was highly skeptical of eugenics, objected to slavery, and valued humanity's capacity for empathy and education which he viewed as part of evolution's outcome rather than as constraints upon it.

Bad example. I gave Expelled a 1 on IMDB for the sole reason I thought it was very badly made (for a documentary). Some votes might be because the movie is "being punished" but I seriously doubt all are. There certainly are enough ID advocates to cancel out the negative votes.

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