Ben Stein is about to get raked or already is in some groups, his Documentary (Expelled) on Intelligent Design and Darwinism comes out this week. Getting a very wide release, looks well made from clips I've seen.

Anyway, fascinating Interview here in which Stein and Sproul make alot Philosophical points while examining the epistemology of atheistic science and naturalism, and by extension the "new atheism" out there today. The Philosophical Assumptions a Scientist has to have when conducting experiments, law of non-contradiction, Law of Inertia being ignored in the creator-less Big Bang theory, Reason, Logic......and alot more.




When Ben Stein compliments you on how smart you are, as he does here at the end, thats one heck of a compliment. Sproul should have gone on "Win Ben Stein's money"

oh yeah, website...link to Press kit with questions and positions:

http://www.expelledthemovie.com/freedownloads.php

Trailer is out there but I like this clip on The Cell, pretty cool

He is already getting raked because of tactics he used in getting interviews with scientists they interviewed, preventing pro-science advocates from entering the screening when they had recieved tickets, sending emails to proscience advocates saying that screenings had been cancelled, and for being historically inaccurate. It is interesting that neither intelligent design nor evolution is defined at all in the movie.

Of course the science community has given it horrible reviews and the intelligent design community has praised it.
Most of the reviews from those not associated from either side of the argument have been poor. It has been described as sloppy and inaccurate.

I am interested in seeing it, just to see what points he brings up.

Thanks for sharing this stuff, especially the discussion between Ben Stein and RC Sproul. It's really fascinating, to me at least.

GGniner Wrote:oh yeah, website...link to Press kit with questions and positions:

http://www.expelledthemovie.com/freedownloads.php

Trailer is out there but I like this clip on The Cell, pretty cool

Interesting that the producers were given a cease and desist letter for using that animation.

While watching the video, I came to the opinion that RC Sproul should not have people on his show. He would rather fill the time with his own voice.

subflea Wrote:He is already getting raked because of tactics he used in getting interviews with scientists they interviewed, preventing pro-science advocates from entering the screening when they had recieved tickets, sending emails to proscience advocates saying that screenings had been cancelled, and for being historically inaccurate. It is interesting that neither intelligent design nor evolution is defined at all in the movie.

A couple of things. The "Pro-Science" advocates? Does that make anyone that thinks differently from the evolutionists Anti-Science?

Also, what are the historical inaccuracies that you are talking about?

subflea Wrote:I am interested in seeing it, just to see what points he brings up.

i suggest the interview above with Sproul over the Documentary for now.

I've yet to show that interview to someone who wasn't at the very least, very fascinated by what they talk about. couple weeks ago I emailed it to John Derbyshire at the Corner(national review) and he linked it on that blog.

as for Sproul, his real brilliance is he's easy to understand and avoids the "intellectual bullying" that many of these academia types engage in to silence the debate and declare themselves winners.

Does pro-life mean anyone who is for abortion rights is anti-life or does pro-choice mean anyone who is against abortion rights is anti-choice?

The movie apparently blames the theory of evolution for Stalinism and the Holocaust. From the expelled website:

In fact, Nazi Germany is the thread that ties everything in the movie together. Evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany.

subflea Wrote:Does pro-life mean anyone who is for abortion rights is anti-life or does pro-choice mean anyone who is against abortion rights is anti-choice?

The movie apparently blames the theory of evolution for Stalinism and the Holocaust. From the expelled website:

In fact, Nazi Germany is the thread that ties everything in the movie together. Evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany.

Ok, that's strain of "logic" is just ridiculous. Evolutionary theory led to the Holocaust? I could have sworn that had to do with fascism and belief in racial superiority.

Hitler also at one time said:

"I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.."

Great. "An Inconvenient Truth" for the thumpers. Did they feel left out that they couldn't get a mindless propoganda film of their own?

Zero Wrote:Great. "An Inconvenient Truth" for the thumpers. Did they feel left out that they couldn't get a mindless propoganda film of their own?

So, you're agreeing that "An Inconvenient Truth" was "mindless propaganda"?

Damn, Zero and I agree on something.

And these Hitler quotes:

"As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice."

"I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker."

Connecting evolutionary theory to the Holocaust is ridiculous. I expect better from such a learned man such as Ben Stein.

This is, more or less, the premise of Expelled.


All one needs to do is invoke Godwin's Law and let that be the end of it, but the National Center for Science Education put together this website challenging the claims that the movie puts forth. I don't think it is complete yet, as the website has just gone live. There you can read the true stories of the people that they claim were fired or removed from their jobs for opposing evolution.

Here is a funny little side story. PZ Myers, one of the scientists interviewed in the movie, went to a screening. He was asked to leave by the producer, and he was escorted by the police out of the theater.

The funny bit is that his guest was allowed to go in to watch the movie; his guest being Richard Dawkins.

Here they are discussing their good time:


Postscript
Oh well, Ben Stein seemed like a cool guy, but he needs to do more research on what he is talking about.

anyone can play the quote game, paticularly with a politician, example:

Quote:the dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science… All that is left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic... When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light, but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, the the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity. “

--Hitler, "Hitler's Table Talk"

Book quoting speech

Quote:My young comrades! A deeply serious sentence of a great military philosopher enunciates that struggle, and thereby war, is the father of all things. Whoever casts an eye on nature, as it is, will find this sentence confirmed as valid for all living things and for all events, not only on this earth, but far beyond it. The entire universe seems to be ruled by just one idea, that an eternal selection takes place in which the stronger in the end maintains life and the right to live, and the weaker falls. One will say that nature is therefore cruel and merciless, but the other will grasp that nature is thus only obeying an iron law of logic…”

Hitler and the Germans
Eric Voegelin
Translated, Edited, and with an Introduction
by Detlev Clemens
and Brendan Purcell

That said, if you watch Ben Stein above he states that Darwin was very intelligent and smart. His issue is "Darwinism" and its adherents have made it into and silencing of Science itself, how it leads to Social Darwinism and the ideological link the Eugenics movement and devaluing of the Human Race in the West. They are talking about ideological links....they didn't have to talk about the Holocaust though, could've just discussed the Columbine mascre while using examples and the famous basement tapes.

They are also pointing out the Irrationality, Illogic and Denying of Science itself to try and prove macro-evolution(not micro, but Macro..."orgin of species" theory, Creator-less existence, etc). Something Darwin himself wasn't even sure of and didn't want the debate to end on.


However, if you actually truly beleive in Darwinism and a Creator-Less, impersonal reality, which means you have a Purposeless life with no meaning or value. Everything is a "material impulse"...your Destination is Nothingness, etc.....

Then why on earth do you care? Why are you taking the time to respond to this thread and attempt to smear the movie and the idea of a Designer? What difference does it make? There isn't any meaning to life or hope to begin with, under this Ideology, so who cares? Why do you care? Why not just go out, get drunk or high, kill whoever looks at you funny because afterall they are just atoms bumping up against each other in a material world....


University has the prefix "Uni"....all areas of Knowledge are connected. and as the brilliant Greek thinkers of millenia ago proved, you must start with an absolute adherence to Reason, Rationality and Logic. They ran into the problem known as the "one among many" and never knew the answer to that dilemma however, but there is a really interesting answer to that. Ideas have consequences....bad science will lead to bad philosophy, which leads to an ugly world if mainstreamed.

I'll try to stay on topic even though there are many tantalizing tangents.

GGniner Wrote:They are also pointing out the Irrationality, Illogic and Denying of Science itself to try and prove macro-evolution(not micro, but Macro..."orgin of species" theory, Creator-less existence, etc). Something Darwin himself wasn't even sure of and didn't want the debate to end on.

Really? These folks are going to talk about the denial of science? There is an abundance of evidence connecting species over time scales; physiological, behavioral, genetic. There have even been found species which seem a cross between species; showing evolutionary bridges. Yet there is no evidence, and no experimentation that shows a seperate creation for all species and beings.

GGniner Wrote:However, if you actually truly beleive in Darwinism and a Creator-Less, impersonal reality, which means you have a Purposeless life with no meaning or value. Everything is a "material impulse"...your Destination is Nothingness, etc.....

Then why on earth do you care? Why are you taking the time to respond to this thread and attempt to smear the movie and the idea of a Designer? What difference does it make? There isn't any meaning to life or hope to begin with, under this Ideology, so who cares? Why do you care? Why not just go out, get drunk or high, kill whoever looks at you funny because afterall they are just atoms bumping up against each other in a material world....

So you need a magical sky fairy for which there is absolutely no evidence in order to be a decent human being? Sad and pathetic way of going through life if you ask me.

subflea Wrote:

GGniner Wrote:However, if you actually truly beleive in Darwinism and a Creator-Less, impersonal reality, which means you have a Purposeless life with no meaning or value. Everything is a "material impulse"...your Destination is Nothingness, etc.....

Then why on earth do you care? Why are you taking the time to respond to this thread and attempt to smear the movie and the idea of a Designer? What difference does it make? There isn't any meaning to life or hope to begin with, under this Ideology, so who cares? Why do you care? Why not just go out, get drunk or high, kill whoever looks at you funny because afterall they are just atoms bumping up against each other in a material world....

So you need a magical sky fairy for which there is absolutely no evidence in order to be a decent human being? Sad and pathetic way of going through life if you ask me.

That's also something that bothered me. Why would believing in a creator-less universe remove all purpose to life? Why would it disintegrate all moral fiber?

They really should stick to the scientific problems like "how did the universe become so structured and so complex with no design?" and "how did something come of nothing?"