'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed' (Ben Stein monkeys with evo...

Droning funnyman Ben Stein monkeys around with evolution with the new documentary, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," a cynical attempt to sucker Christian conservatives into thinking they're losing the ...

[Paul Burnett]

"Expelled" is anti-science / pro-religious propaganda, pure and simple. Please go to http://www.expelledexposed.com to see the many ways in which Expelled is wrong.

Similarly, see http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/04/richa... to see one of many articles on Panda's Thumb explaining the lies behind Expelled and the blatant lies its supporters and defenders continue to tell.

On the other hand, Expelled comes out tomorrow. Go see it for yourself. If it convinces you that Darwin was more responsible for Hitler than was Martin Luther…I'm sorry.(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Jews_and_... )

[Quentin L F Patch]

The review of "Expelled" is very thin propaganda and a misrepresentation of those being discriminated against. The whole matter concerns the use of trick definitions for science to exclude any consideration of evidence that might initially lead to support a conclusion of intelligent causation for living systems.
Actually that is a very good hypothesis in the age of DNA and computer or information science. Information content is central to analysis in many fields of science today. Should these all move to church basements and give up funding to depend on the collection plate just to protect Darwinism for another 50 years or whatever?
Evolutionism is a faith position purely and cannot be defended beyond its atheistic presupposition. There is no God, we are here, and therefore made ourselves. But no-God atheism is just as religious a position as Christianity. And The Bible at least supposes a sufficient cause for the total phenomenon observed. Intructions encoded on DNA represents language, and that requires intelligence. Because rocks can't write (lacking IQ as well as volition), Darwinism fails the basic test of real science.

[Darron S]

I can't believe this movie is considered a documentary. Shouldn't it be fiction? The National Center for Science Education put up a nice website, ExpelledExposed.com , giving full details about the shenanigans the producures of this movie pulled.

[Nathan]

So where did life begin--when did the smallest cell form, changing from inorganic to organic? This seems like a legitimate question that you ignore, just as scientists "cast" in the film ignored it. You weren't "cast." Why not acknowledge this legitimate question, and the troubling lack of attention to the fact that there is no likely answer other than intelligent design? I guess your preaching to the choir in disparaging the films other faults, just as Ben is preaching to his choir. Great, thanks guys.

[BobC]

"Premise Media and its marketers have engaged in deception from the beginning of the production of Expelled to the opening weekend. The makers were dishonest with their interviewees, dishonest about allowing (and then disallowing) people to view the film, and dishonest in promoting the film. Dishonesty permeates the content of the film as well: quote-mining, selective editing, and misinterpretations permeate the movie from start to finish, as discussed in The Truth behind the Fiction."

http://www.expelledexposed.com/

[Dave Thomas]

Wow the author of this seems quite bitter. I have not seen it yet but it would seem that the author wants me to believe something even before I see it. Sounds like the very closed minded thinking Stein is trying to combat. I hope that people will be willing to think for themselves and at least see the movie for themselves. I know I am.

[Tom]

@Nathan
The field of abiogenesis studies the change from non-biological to biological material. There are multiple hypotheses in the literature and it is an active area of research (usually a fair mix of chemists and biologists). None of these hypotheses require intelligent design. Abiogenesis is not part of the theory of evolution.
The theory of evolution explains changes in populations of imperfect replicators over time. It is not surprising that the evolutionary biologists in the movie would not explain abiogenesis. It is not their field.
As an aside, "Inorganic" and "Organic" are typically used to describe two branches of chemistry. To a chemist researching abiogenesis, the non-biological molecule will likely be an organic molecule.

[Joe]

Nathan wrote:

So where did life begin--when did the smallest cell form, changing from inorganic to organic? This seems like a legitimate question that you ignore, just as scientists "cast" in the film ignored it. You weren't "cast." Why not acknowledge this legitimate question, and the troubling lack of attention to the fact that there is no likely answer other than intelligent design? I guess your preaching to the choir in disparaging the films other faults, just as Ben is preaching to his choir. Great, thanks guys.

You are using extremely flawed logic. Just because we don't have all the answers doesn't mean proposed ideas with no evidence to support them must be correct. All "evidence" that is used to support intelligent design isn't scientific. It basically says "look how complex these things are, someone must have designed it". Asking rhetorical questions isn't scientific evidence.

Intelligent design also doesn't seek to identify what this intelligent being is, just that something designed life. Nor does it acknowledge the circular logic, of who designed the designer, who designed the designer of the designer etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does...
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burd...
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ques...
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appe...
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appe...
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/gene...

Read some of these, you might learn something

[Max Power]

"The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority.
The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority.
The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking."
-A. A. MILNE:

[M Haigler]

Just what I expected from the liberal left media, maybe now you know why it wasn't widely distributed to them. Let people make up their own minds. If evolution is so "rock" solid then there should be no problem stacking it up against ID or Creationism. Let the students ask the questions and determine what makes sense and what is (primordial) mudd.

[Darwins Stepchild]

Quentin L F Patch wrote:

The review of "Expelled" is very thin propaganda and a misrepresentation of those being discriminated against. The whole matter concerns the use of trick definitions for science to exclude any consideration of evidence that might initially lead to support a conclusion of intelligent causation for living systems.
Actually that is a very good hypothesis in the age of DNA and computer or information science. Information content is central to analysis in many fields of science today. Should these all move to church basements and give up funding to depend on the collection plate just to protect Darwinism for another 50 years or whatever?
Evolutionism is a faith position purely and cannot be defended beyond its atheistic presupposition. There is no God, we are here, and therefore made ourselves. But no-God atheism is just as religious a position as Christianity. And The Bible at least supposes a sufficient cause for the total phenomenon observed. Intructions encoded on DNA represents language, and that requires intelligence. Because rocks can't write (lacking IQ as well as volition), Darwinism fails the basic test of real science.

Actually, the film is thinly veiled propaganda. It makes a number of claims that are not true. For example, Sternberg, one of the scientists supposedly hounded by "Big Science" for believing in intelligent design...

Quote

Sternberg, some of you might remember, orchestrated the publication of a pro-Intelligent Design paper near the end of his term as editor of Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.

As punishment for this heinous crime, Sternberg suffered the indignity of not getting fired from the unpaid editorship that he had quit months before the paper actually appeared. His punishment further included the cruel and unusual steps of not dismissing him from his unpaid position as a Smithsonian Research Associate, not declining to renew the unpaid position when the term expired, and not firing him from his paid job at NIH. The draconian nature of the consequences that he ultimately suffered - some of his colleagues said bad things about him - obviously makes him the ideal example of an open-thinking scientist railroaded by the Darwinian Inquisition.

End quote

Full article at...

http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2008/04/ric...

Gee...the poor b*st*rd was...CRITCIZED!!! How could they do that to someone?[/sarcasm]

For a full exploration of the distortions this film makes, go to...

http://www.expelledexposed.com/

[Darwins Stepchild]

M Haigler wrote:

Just what I expected from the liberal left media, maybe now you know why it wasn't widely distributed to them. Let people make up their own minds. If evolution is so "rock" solid then there should be no problem stacking it up against ID or Creationism. Let the students ask the questions and determine what makes sense and what is (primordial) mudd.

The problem, MH, is that the movie confronts very little of the science, and what it does have to say on the subject is highly distorted.

It uses a number of propaganda techniques to convince the audience of things which are not true. It plays heavily on the theme that Darwin lead to Hitler and the Holocaust. Hitler may have used a very bastardized form of the theory, but nothing he was doing is mentioned in the real theory at all. The relations the movie tries to make are so weak that one could more readily blame eating strudel for Hitler's atrocities.

The film is specifically designed to push emotional buttons and not confront the science.

[EADGBE]

M Haigler wrote:

Just what I expected from the liberal left media, maybe now you know why it wasn't widely distributed to them. Let people make up their own minds. If evolution is so "rock" solid then there should be no problem stacking it up against ID or Creationism. Let the students ask the questions and determine what makes sense and what is (primordial) mudd.

That's just the problem, ID/creationism has nothing to stack, just magic and no mechanisms. You might note that what makes "sense" is not a measure of validity. Plenty of things that made "sense" are now known falsehoods thanks to science and the rigorously repeated testing of mechanisms. Long time ago, it made "sense" that breathing "bad air" (mal aria) or the "influence" of the stars (influenza) could cause specific types of disease. Simply making "sense" doesn't stack up against physical evidence and testable mechanisms, kind of like ID/creationism and Evolutionary Theory.
Cheers!

[Joe]

M Haigler wrote:

Just what I expected from the liberal left media, maybe now you know why it wasn't widely distributed to them. Let people make up their own minds. If evolution is so "rock" solid then there should be no problem stacking it up against ID or Creationism. Let the students ask the questions and determine what makes sense and what is (primordial) mudd.

Science should only be compared with other competing science, not an empty hypothesis. If direct evidence does come out that a creator made life, then fine, until then it should be sidelined like any other unproven hypothesis.

Note that concepts like Irreducible Complexity are not science. All it does it ask rhetorical questions and concludes that something must have been designed based on a false dilemma. Science is based on knowledge, not the lack of knowledge. There have been cases like the bacterial flagellum that ID supporters claimed to be irreducibly complex that have been proven to be false. ID supporters did this based on their intuition, and this is not science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
http://tinyurl.com/5ro9r4

[To Objective Media]

I haven't seen the movie, and quite frankly I don't intend to. However, I find it ironic that you use propagandist language while judging the work of another to be propaganda. I must confess, I'm not surprised. After all, you're neither a scientist nor a theologian... you're a movie critic. Why is it that you feel the need to mock the intelligence of those who don't share your opinions, anyway? Or did I mistake your meaning? After all the implication you made does not simply apply to the methods of the movie's host, but to those who might agree with the general message as well. I bet you buy into the theoretical stink called relativism too. In which case, you might want to rethink your attitude in this article.

[Chris Stanton]

Ben Stein’s career is, ironically, going the way of the dodo. He is attempting to appeal to the religious right a-la Mel Gibson.

I'm not sure what is worse, Intelligent Design, or people getting taken by left wing holly wood types (who know full well this is a crock of horse manure ).

[Chris Stanton]

NO.... Wait Wait.

I stand corrected. But Intelligence isn't the only explanation to what we see. See, we are actually in a game, and hooked up to virtual reality. That is why we see the things we see. You game deniers have no evidence that there isn't a game. In fact, a VR game perfectly explains all the gaps.(The game designers forgot to program some things, like transitional fossils.)

NO wait... ITS MAGIC. Yes, magic explains all the gaps, and is reasonable to assume. See, you darwinist can't explain the origins of life. But a magic Globe can. though it didn't mean to cause life. It just expelled it's waste into a pool on earth.

No wait...

get the point yet?

[Rich Crowder]

Sounds like you are a little upset, Mr. Moore. Please calm down and have a banana.

[Bad journalism]

Regardless what the truth is about that movie/documentary/whatever you want to call it, this article is poor journalism. Where is the objective perspective? The author makes it clear what their position is on the topic from the very beginning. I am a journalist and this is poor work, regardless what the topic is.

[Frank Saenz]

Question is should we teach darwinism in school?I would think it would be fair if the same people would agree to be taught teachings from the bible give people a choice what they want to belive and respect that quit trying to make others belive what you belive? The whole deal is overwhelming just imagine god wow and think did we come from monkeys huh WOW also!!