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[JuntaJoe]

Has anyone seen the movie Expelled created by Ben Stein yet?

I was quite skeptical when I read about basics, but I've always been impressed by Ben Stein.

He is investigating how the scientific community is blocking Intelligent Design advocates from expressing themselves.


I'm definitely no Creationist and have little love for organized religion. But I do know a few things about Darwinism that would make anyone's hair curl. Hitler and Communism freely embraced the philosophy to further their own ends. There are also a few parts of the theory that are not theory. There are a few leaps of logic in it right at the beginning that are little more than basic supposition.


Stein did a masterful job with this film. Extremely thought provoking. Real scientists should be disturbed at the image Mr. Stein paints here. He shows how the ID scientists are branded as automatically wrong before they are allowed to bring the topic to the discussion in a scientific way.

I'm still not moved by this film to embrace ID even one bit. There was absolutely nothing presented to make the case of ID other than the fact we don't have many answers for the true first genesis of cellular organisms.

But he did eloquently point out that the Darwin side is pretty much in the same boat.

If both sides start with a simple leap of faith then both sides have the same validity at the outset. What follows after that is certainly an entirely different matter. But if the Darwin side is allowed that initial leap of faith to begin compiling evidence then so should the ID side be allowed to do the same.

Systematic blocking to stop the compiling of scientific data is wrong. It goes against the basic principles I accepted when I started my scientific and engineering studies. I'm more than willing to bash what ID delivers to the discussion table, but I would be wrong to block them from coming to the table in the first place.



I highly recommend everyone with an interest in science to watch the film and come here to debate what they saw in it. I believe the scientific community has finally overreached itself in the guise of maintaining scientific purity. The founding principle that learned men should be able to explore a hypothesis without stigma until they present the data to peer review.

[Maus]

Sigh. If you're interested in the real stories behind the claims of scientific intimidation and martyrdom, the National Center for Science Education has compiled the details of each case here.

There's also some interesting info here and here about the clumsy deceptions employed by Stein and the producer, e.g., tricking scientists into thinking they being "interviewed" for an entirely different type of film. One of the duped scientists writes about his experience here.

Loads of reviews available here. Amusingly, some of the most scathing are from bastions of political correctness such as the American Chemical Society, the Ayn Rand Center and National Review.

[JuntaJoe]

The National Review boldly admits he never even saw the movie. His biggest attacks of a factual nature come in the form of the theft of graphics and music. The Fair Use Doctrine of copyright law easily explains the basis of their use. Everything else is just an attack on Creationism's character.


The Ayn Rand response is better than most, but it misses a few very key points. The movie doesn't even bother much with trying to support ID. To attack ID is simply irrelevant if you saw the movie. They don't try to defend ID as fact or theory at all. They simply point out that ID isn't being given a chance to compete. The other key fact is this:

When scientists question facets of existing theories or propose new ones, they present the best evidence available and make the strongest arguments they can to their colleagues. Colleagues in turn challenge that evidence and reasoning.

Good on the face of it, but Darwin was given a few leaps of faith at the root of his theory. Fair is fair. ID should be allowed the same latitude. That line above clearly makes the point that new science has to establish a full case before competing with older and proven science. That would be fine if evolution could prove a very important point: How life began. Evolution theory is stumped there as much as astrophysicists are stumped about the few seconds before the Big Bang. Evolution has very strong evidence leading from the genesis moment, but fails utterly at the critical first point. ID should be allowed the same leap of faith that Darwin gets at that all important point. Judge them on the following data instead. Let them compile the mountain of evidence evolution theory has and put all that under scrutiny. But give them that first leap like Darwin is given.

It's called the hypothesis, as you well know. The supposition that must be proved with examples. But the statement itself isn't under scrutiny. It's the evidence supporting it that gets examined.


The ACS likely gave the best reasoning, but it suffers from the exact same thing they accuse the movie of. There's a lot of ad hominem attack in it. It also relies on the same things the others do.

-The questioning of the reasons those researchers were attacked.

-Many subjects for the other side were duped.


On the first matter, I can't go either way on this. It's entirely too subjective. I've seen lots of people fired for official reasons that weren't the real reason. I've even had it tried on me. Frankly, we will never know why those people were ejected. Sure, the institutions can drum up plausible reasoning. There's a whole industry devoted to teaching ways to dismiss people without repercussions. It's called Human Resources. All I can do is simply set all this aside as unknowable either way.

On the second matter I have no issue at all with duping opponents to your position into expounding on their platforms. None whatsoever. Investigative journalism has established the legitimacy of the tactic. If you want the unvarnished truth sometimes you have to fool your subject enough that he doesn't throw up his security barriers and feed you safe material. Yeah, it's underhanded, but it works.


Again, I refuse to let anyone see this response of mine to mean I favor ID. Imo, ID is at square one while evolution theory is at square 1000. ID has a long ass slog to even begin proving their supposition to me. They likely won't ever even get close in my lifetime. I'm in the Darwin camp for the foreseeable future.

I'm simply wanting the Darwin crowd to give the same scientific leeway that Darwin got. Darwin faced serious opposition in a time of thriving agnosticism. Even to a receptive audience he still was slammed as a crank by many.

We need to let ID sink or swim on the science they put forward to us and not poke holes in the bottom of the boat before they even leave the dock. Give them the genesis moment like Darwin got.


I have to ask this too, Maus. Did you even see the movie?

[Maus]

In my lifetime I've seen Expelled a thousand times, in various guises. For this iteration, the most I could endure was sitting through the trailer at a movie theater last winter and realizing it's the same old weary laundry list, extra-heavy on the Evil and with a double-helping of Sinister Conspiracy Theory. I'd be heartened if -- just once! -- someone would notice that Stalinists explicitly rejected Darwin.

A nitpicky detail: Darwin's ideas have nothing to do with the origin of life. Evolution theory is about how species alter via mutation and natural selection. that's why the title of his main publication says "On the Origin of Species", not "On the Origin of Life". If the topic is how life began, google "Abiogenesis Theory" -- last time I looked there were about six competing hypotheses based upon environmental conditions plausible for a generic earth-type planet.

Readers of the links provided above can judge for themselves the veracity of the tales of victimization and savage persecution for holding pro-ID views -- Sternberg's bizarre claims of being stripped of keys, booted from his office, fired and denied access to the Smithsonian are especially hilarious.

Intelligent Design proponents are not being denied any opportunities to conduct research, collect data, perform experiments, build models and submit results to peer-review. The scientific community has been waiting decades for creationists to do that very thing and it just plain never happens. Nary a datum, experiment, model or hypothesis beyond the 'ol Argument From Incredulity. And no, it isn't because of some vast, deep conspiracy to crush ID research, suppress its evidence and destroy all who question Darwin.

As Shermer noted in his article (condensed snippets):

Quote: Anyone who thinks that scientists do not question Darwinism has never been to an evolutionary conference. At the World Summit on Evolution held in the Galapagos Islands during June 2005, for example, I witnessed a scientific theory rich in controversy and disputation.

Paleontologist William Schopf of the University of California, Los Angeles (...) openly admitted... "We do not know the precise environments ... we do not know the exact chemistry ... and we do not have any knowledge of life in a pre-RNA world."

Stanford University biologist Joan Roughgarden declared that Darwin's theory of sexual selection ... is wrong in its claim that females choose mates who are more attractive and well-armed.

Calling neo-Darwinians "bullies," the University of Massachusetts Amherst biologist Lynn Margulis pronounced that "neo-Darwinism is dead ..."

Finally, Cornell University evolutionary theorist William Provine (featured in Expelled) presented 11 problems with evolutionary theory ... "Natural selection is the result of these causes, not a cause that is by itself. It is not a mechanism."

Despite this public questioning of Darwinism (and neo-Darwinism), which I reported on in Scientific American, Schopf, Roughgarden, Margulis and Provine have not been persecuted, shunned, fired or even Expelled. Why? Because they are doing science, not religion. It is perfectly okay to question Darwinism (or any other "-ism" in science), as long as there is a way to test your challenge. Design creationists, by contrast, have no interest in doing science at all.

And there's the problem -- ID demands to be accorded scientific respect, yet refuses to play by the rules of science. Indeed, it openly admits that it can't and won't play by the rules.

In 2005, the Dover, PA school district was sued over a school board decision that the ID "controversy" should be taught as part of the science curriculum. Over a six-week trial, the court consulted experts of every stripe in a futile attempt to find any scrap of data, evidence, hypotheses, research, whatever, published in support of ID. You can wade through the 140 pages of court transcripts here.

Below is a rather lengthy collection of excerpts from the Judge's decision (bold added). The emphasis is not that ID proponents are being prevented from doing science, it's that, by definition, there's no science to perform and no intent to do it if there was.

Excerpts follow:
========================================

Expert testimony reveals that since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena. This revolution entailed the rejection of the appeal to authority, and by extension, revelation, in favor of empirical evidence.

Methodological naturalism is a "ground rule" of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify.

We are in agreement with Plaintiffs' lead expert Dr. Miller, that from a practical perspective, attributing unsolved problems about nature to causes and forces that lie outside the natural world is a "science stopper." As Dr. Miller explained, once you attribute a cause to an untestable supernatural force, a proposition that cannot be disproven, there is no reason to continue seeking natural explanations as we have our answer.

ID is predicated on supernatural causation, as we previously explained and as various expert testimony revealed. ID takes a natural phenomenon and, instead of accepting or seeking a natural explanation, argues that the explanation is supernatural.

It is notable that defense experts' own mission ... is to change the ground rules of science to allow supernatural causation of the natural world (...) First, defense expert Professor Fuller agreed that ID aspires to "change the ground rules" of science and lead defense expert Professor Behe admitted that his broadened definition of science, which encompasses ID, would also embrace astrology. Moreover, defense expert Professor Minnich acknowledged that for ID to be considered science, the ground rules of science have to be broadened to allow consideration of supernatural forces.

Prominent IDM leaders are in agreement with the opinions expressed by defense expert witnesses that the ground rules of science must be changed for ID to take hold and prosper. William Dembski, for instance, an IDM leader, proclaims that science is ruled by methodological naturalism and argues that this rule must be overturned if ID is to prosper.

Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science. These claims subordinate observed data to statements based on authority, revelation, or religious belief. (...) These publications do not offer hypotheses subject to change in light of new data, new interpretations, or demonstration of error. This contrasts with science, where any hypothesis or theory always remains subject to the possibility of rejection or modification in the light of new knowledge.

Accordingly, the purported positive argument for ID does not satisfy the ground rules of science which require testable hypotheses based upon natural explanations. ID is reliant upon forces acting outside of the natural world, forces that we cannot see, replicate, control or test, which have produced changes in this world. While we take no position on whether such forces exist, they are simply not testable by scientific means and therefore cannot qualify as part of the scientific process or as a scientific theory.

A final indicator of how ID has failed to demonstrate scientific warrant is the complete absence of peer-reviewed publications supporting the theory. Expert testimony revealed that the peer review process is "exquisitely important" in the scientific process. It is a way for scientists to write up their empirical research and to share the work with fellow experts in the field, opening up the hypotheses to study, testing, and criticism. Peer review helps to ensure that research papers are scientifically accurately, meet the standards of the scientific method, and are relevant to other scientists in the field. Moreover, peer review involves scientists submitting a manuscript to a scientific journal in the field, journal editors soliciting critical reviews from other experts in the field and deciding whether the scientist has followed proper research procedures, employed up-to-date methods, considered and cited relevant literature and generally, whether the researcher has employed sound science.

The evidence presented in this case demonstrates that ID is not supported by any peer-reviewed research, data or publications. Both Drs. Padian and Forrest testified that recent literature reviews of scientific and medical-electronic databases disclosed no studies supporting a biological concept of ID. On cross-examination, Professor Behe admitted that: "There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred." Additionally, Professor Behe conceded that there are no peer-reviewed papers supporting his claims that complex molecular systems, like the bacterial flagellum, the blood-clotting cascade, and the immune system, were intelligently designed. (...). In addition to failing to produce papers in peer-reviewed journals, ID also features no scientific research or testing.

After this searching and careful review of ID as espoused by its proponents, as elaborated upon in submissions to the Court, and as scrutinized over a six week trial, we find that ID is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, and gain acceptance in the scientific community. ID, as noted, is grounded in theology, not science. Accepting for the sake of argument its proponents', as well as Defendants' argument that to introduce ID to students will encourage critical thinking, it still has utterly no place in a science curriculum. Moreover, ID's backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID.

[JuntaJoe]

But you didn't see it......



How can we debate the merits or faults of something you haven't experienced?


Sure, it's not hard to fill the screen with datum and links. If I was actually a fan of ID then I'm sure I could do the same. But I'm not a banner carrier for ID and don't feel obligated to defend their hypothesis. That's their job, imo.

Don't try to convince me ID is poor science. It likely is. I'm already in the evolution camp.

I'm just saying this film has given me pause to think the established Darwin camp could be using the powers of bureaucracy to stifle opposition.

Let the fools have their voice. They can damn themselves instead of the rest of us doing the damning to them.


Really, it's not all that bad to watch. Honest. Suffer it and I'll return the favor. Pick the film I have to suffer through as compensation. It need not even be something you support or like. If you need me to suffer 3 hours of Ron Popiel trying to sell me a toaster oven then I'll do it. A Richard Gere love story chick flick? I'll do it. A Martin Sheen manifesto? Done. You get the idea.

You name the equivalent suffering and I'll suffer it as compensation.

Then you can tell me in your own words what you saw.

Deal?

C'mon, you know you have a prime opportunity here to make me suffer to get my point across. How can that not tempt you? :P




Sorry folks, this deal only applies to Maus. I'm not watching dozens of hours of crap just to get a conversation going.

[Maus]

Okay, but I'm afraid you'll have to come up with links to YouTube or some other free compilation. There's no way I'll spend money, for the same reasons that I refuse to provide income to Oliver Stone and Michael Moore.

This whole matter seems to revolve on claims of a coordinated conspiracy to silence ID proponents and prevent them from performing research. Granted that the continuous recycling of conspiracy theories is a stock Hollywood moneymaker, but audiences don't need to sit through every laborious re-flogging of a known horse just because the lighting is different from last time. Recent rehashes from the above names include:

A Ben Stein movie which recycles allegations of a conspiracy to silence ID proponents.
An Oliver Stone movie which recycles allegations that Kennedy's assassination was a CIA conspiracy.
A Michael Moore movie which recycles allegations that the Bush administration is behind, well, just about every nefarious conspiracy in history.
An upcoming Maus movie which conclusively proves a conspiracy to deny Maus access to unlimited free beer.

Each of the above (except mine) presents us with a less-than-fresh biscuit in a shiny new wrapper marked "Improved! Don't chew, just swallow!" However, the ingredients of each enclosed biscuit -- the allegations -- are matters of long-standing public record. It's not necessary to "experience" the shininess of the new box in order to examine the ingredients and staleness of the biscuit.

If I get to choose how you spend a few hours of time, I don't have any movies to recommend. Rather, I'd ask that you spend a few hours chewing Stein's biscuit (no pun intended) before swallowing. First, investigate Stein's specific allegations about persecution of individuals. Second, investigate Stein's general allegations about persecution, i.e., look for evidence of legitimate research blocked, legitimate publications suppressed, etc. Unfortunately, you'll be knee-deep in crank websites from the get-go -- that's the curse of trying to validate conspiracy theories. I'll be happy to consider any useful information that you find.

Come to think of it, when you're done with the search I'd recommend viewing Second Hand Lions (Robert Duvall and Michael Caine) or The Dish (Sam Neill). By that point you'll probably be in dire need of a bit of heartwarming light comedy. :respect:

[JuntaJoe]

Hmmm, you've posed acceptable, but problematic hurdles.

I can fully understand not wanting to enrich the creators.

Your lack of interesting in viewing an expose movie I understand as well.


YouTube is out. Besides their unwillingness to host a full movie for fear of getting Hollywood after their ass, they also don't handle files that size. About 20 minutes is the longest I've ever seen them host of anything.

File sharing is no problem. Just about any file sharing site has every movie out there. Problem is you have to install file sharing software. While not difficult or long to do that installation might pose some ethical questions for you.

You would need these two programs to make it work:

http://www.bittorrent.com/
http://www.bittornado.com/

First is the peer-to-peer and the second is the client software. Yeah, don't ask me what all that means.

You can find the actual torrent file at Mininova:

http://www.mininova.org/tor/1906255


Or of a more dubious nature and more dubious content there is Limewire.

http://www.limewire.com/

Avoid the Pro software and the unending attempts to sell and install it that they try to pull.


Both routes will require you to familiarize yourself with the process. Unless you happen to have a handy teenager around to guide you through the process.


There is always your public library, however. Though that may take a few months to arrive. There is Redbox too. Sure, you pay, but it's only a buck. It's not like you are giving the creators more than a couple nickels there. A lot of people have to rent it from Redbox before the creators earn enough to buy a cheese pizza for their efforts.


Maybe one of the young people here has an easier idea, but that's all I've got.

[NibbyCat]

I'm waiting for it to come to cable.