Ken McElhaney <mcelhaney@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
news:54de6f1e-3e04-4e29-a70a-475de7bc7f26@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Apr 20, 4:06 pm, 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". Gee 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?
>>
>> Before you praise this movie Ken you may wish to see the special
>> that Scientific American put together, basically this is about as
>> much a do***entary on evolution as "Bowling for Colombine" is on gun
>> control.
>
> At least you admit that you haven't seen the movie.
No but I intend to, it's that nasty little science training in me that
wants to examine all the evidence. However I have been reading about the
rise of the I.D. variation on creationism for many years now and are
familiar with their methods and arguements.
>> They 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=sciam-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.
Eugenics is not natural selection. You could make a better arguement that
the holocaust was influenced by the long scale religious persecution of
jews by the Christian church.Evolution is not "red in tooth and claw" it
selects for advantage, alturism is one method of gaining an advantage. In
fact it is through the knowledge of evolutionry theory that we understand
that homo sapians are not divided into sub-species but exhibit variation.
In words you may appreciate,we are all equal under god.
> 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.
I haven't seen the film but the view of several people I have read/heard
state that this is not how it was put forward.
> 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?
I'm currently reading one of Steven Jay Goulds books on natural history,
he quite willing went head to head in debates on the matter as have other
big name scientists. You do have to wonder about the motivations of the
films staff when they lie outright to several people at the onset.
> 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.
Did you listen to the podcast of the interview one of the associate
producers stated that they went to the Smithsonian with a camera crew and
without an appointment which is why they were thrown out. Why should the
Smithsonian comment on a story about a member of their staff, it would
hardly be professional of them.
> 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.
For which you have no evidence, the re****t about the chap at the
Smithsonian was produced by a pro-ID advocate and not read into the
congressional record. In fact in one of the appendices is a collection of
emails from his superiors at the Smithsonian which state that he is not
to be given any form of "punishement" for his ID beliefs.
What he did do however is subvert the peer review process by publi****ng
an article in a magazine reviewed only by himself, a definite no no in
scientific circles.
As you may have noticed I like to talk, I love to debate,explore ideas
learn new things.It's the scientist in me.
Ben Stein however has a differing viewpoint,
'What would you like to say to Darwin?
"You are a wealthy man, you married a wealthy woman, why don’t you just
live quietly out in the countryside and not torture us with your half-
baked suppositions, which have caused so much misery?"'
Truly a man who believes in intellectual debate it seems.
> 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.
The associate producer chap states in the interview that they did not
include religious scientists because it would confuse the issue. ID is
nothing more or less than an attempt to get creationism and Christian
religion taught in school. To show that some scientists are religious
would make this harder to do.
>> I'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?
So tell me Ken exactly what is your specialised knowledge of evolutionary
biology or any branch of biology? when was the last time that you took
cl***** on genetics and comparative anatomy for example? In fact when was
the last time you cracked a text book on the subject?
The chap being interviewed was an associate producer. He stated on more
than one occasion that he "was not a scientist" he claimed he had no
knowledge of the "wedge strategy" or on the findings of the judge in the
Dover case. It appears that I am more informed than him about the very
basics of the film.
I am no longer a scientist,just as I am no longer a martial artist. I
haven't trained in years, however I could still teach the basics of both.
The knowledge is still in my head and I take an interest in both
subjects, in fact the last thing I read before replying to you was a
paper on the lung capacity of maniraptorans. I still read New scientist
and scientific american as well as some of the more specialised
publications, I'm just not that up to date on the aspects of plant
biochemistry that interested me.
If you have any questions of the mechanics of evolution I would be more
than happy to try to explain them to you.
>> I.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.
No, I haven't jumped to conclusions it is what ID is and my years of
reading about the subject have helped form those views, there is no
science involved and cannot be because it takes a metaphysical viewpoint.
This is true of ALL science not just biology, as soon as you say that
god did it you remove the need for inqury, you have no cause and effect.
Anything could happen at anytime due to the action or inaction of a
deity. That is a very very basic part of scientific methodology, if they
didn't make that clear I do have to wonder just how techincial they got.
Various testable hypothesis have been suggested by ID proponents but
without fail they fail the simplest of basic tests, the very bedrock of
science.
>> 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.
One voice amongst how many? Given how much time to explain.
> 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 qua****ng 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.
>
>> A 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 im****tant 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.
And that is what scientists are doing, there are a few theories and they
are being worked on. Would you say that all physics is rubbish because
there is no as yet agreed upon cause for the big bang? Of course not,
however this is what the ID proponents suggest we do for biology.
Intelligent design is not just about the "first cell" it is about the
process of speciation of every living thing from the first cell to us.
IF you have questions ask me, I will do my best to answer or research
the answers. I am always willing to answer questions, it's a great way to
learn new things. Don't believe the dogma of these people without looking
at the evidence from both sides.To do so would be doing just what these
people accuse scientists to do.
--
Stare too long into the abyss and the abyss looks like a nifty place to
hide the bodies
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