Re: Expelled...not bad....anyone?

On Apr 20, 4:06=A0pm, Weirdwolf <h...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Ken McElhaney <mcelha...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in news:f944cba5-6920-41c9-
> 8260-a8624d1ad...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
>
>
> > Just saw it this morning, pretty decent stuff though it's more serious
> > than "funny" as the ads for it suggest. The most interesting aspect
> > was watching hardcore Darwinian scientists admit that they know
> > absolutely nothing about how life (i.e. the first single cell
> > organism) was formed on Earth and yet in the same breath rule out
> > "Intelligent Design". =A0Gee guys...if you admit you don't know...And
> > yet the theories they propose (such as the combination of the
> > necessary elements forming on the back of a crystal...I'm not making
> > this up) make "Intelligent Design" look pretty darn sane.
>
> > The ending of the film is even more astounding as one simple question
> > gets the most unlikely answer from one of the most visable Darwinian
> > proponent/athiests/whatever in today's media.
>
> > Good job, Ben Stein...anyone?
>
> =A0Before you praise this movie Ken you may wish to see the special that
> Scientific American put together, basically this is about as much a
> documentary on evolution as "Bowling for Colombine" is on gun control.

At least you admit that you haven't seen the movie.

> =A0They actually put out several stories in a special email, including
one=
 on
> the main misrepresentations in the film.this might be a good place to
star=
t
> as a basic
rebuttal.http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=3Dsciam-reviews-ex=
pelled

Let's take it one at a time;

1) ) Expelled quotes Charles Darwin selectively to connect his ideas
to eugenics and the Holocaust.

Uhm, no. What the film does do is connect how the "science" of
eugenics was warped and modified by Hitler in order to justify his
treatment of "lesser" peoples.

2) Ben Stein's speech to a crowded auditorium in the film was a setup.

Yes, that was pretty obvious although the amount of time on the
"speech" in the film was less than a minute. I suppose the rant was
against the standing ovation he got which also looked staged, but big
whoop as the most powerful moments of the film were already
presented.

3) Scientists in the film thought they were being interviewed for a
different movie.

Of that I have no doubt, otherwise they wouldn't have agreed to be
interviewed. After all, the main thrust of the film was how some
scientists have been either expelled or punished for mearly bringing
up the subject of Intelligent Design even if they took no position on
it. So knowing that, why would any scientist get within a mile of this
film?

4) The ID-sympathetic researcher whom the film paints as having lost
his job at the Smithsonian Institution was never an employee there.

I'd say that's sorta right even if the film didn't quite state exactly
his "employed" status. It does state that reps from the Smithsonian
declined any interviews which if true didn't help their case.

5) Science does not reject religious or "design-based" explanations
because of dogmatic atheism.

No, it's just the ones who bring it up that get slapped down.

6) Many evolutionary biologists are religious and many religious
people accept evolution.

It presents the personal viewpoints of some scientists who reject
religion and propose their "fantasy" future where it all goes the way
of the Greek myths. The film does not state that this is true of all
Darwinian scientists.

> =A0I'm not sure if you know this but I studied biochemistry at
university =
and
> so this subject is of interest to me even though I admit that my
knowledge=

> now is limited to reading the less technical papers and I am a little
out
> of date.

So you haven't seen the film and you haven't kept up with
biochemistry...and this makes you qualified to judge the film on what
basis?

> =A0I.D. gives us NO answers, it obscures the work done by scientists and
> pretends to be scientific but has none of the rigor.

Wow, you have certainly jumped to a conclusion that's not in the
film.

> It replaces a I don't
> know but I am going to explore,to ponder,to experiment,to sift through
the=

> data with, my choice of deity did it no matter the evidence may show. It
i=
s
> a dead-end, and intellectual cul-de-sac.

Which is stated by one scientist in the film. You see, both sides were
presented.

Yet the scientific community has no explaination of the origins of
life on Earth, that is certainly without dispute, only some theories
that as of yet cannot be proven.  Which gets to the heart of the film,
not that Intelligent Design is the answer or even that strong a
possibility, but the intentional quashing of any debate that can
include it.  When the odds of how the right elements could've combined
by accident to form the first living cell are calculated, the
effective answer is "zero". Especially since such a "simple"
experiment of combining these elements has failed to happen in any
labratory exercise.  So it comes down not so much to the "religious"
origins of I.D., but the inherent weakness of using Darwinian theories
to explain the first living cell causes some to cover this "weakness"
by attacking anyone who seeks to question it.

> =A0A couple of months ago I stood with my daughter in the natural
history
> museum cafe and showed my daughter the statue of Charles Darwin,(and yes
I=

> do agree he should have a more prominant position,) explaining that this
> man was the most important biologist in the world. Everything that
anybody=

> in the biological sciences studies directly relates to his work.

As the film also states, anything after the first cell was formed is
certainly Darwin territory and no one claims otherwise. It's the
origins of that first living cell that should be up for debate.

Ken