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

Not responding to a specific post, but wanted to jump in.

Regarding the Stein movie -- someone mentioned the link below.  I'd
highly recommend it.   It's well-researched.  Also discusses each
person who supposedly lost tenure, jobs, etc. due to a belief in
Intelligent Design.

http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.php/the-truth

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Regarding the Hitler discussion - see this page on that same website.
Scroll down to see what Stein cut from Darwin's position:

http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.php/the-truth/hitler-eugenics

Also, Stein knows that even the most atheistic believers in evolution
(i.e., Dawkins) don't support "Social Darwinism"  (i.e., the misuse of
"survival of the fittest" as a rationale for public policy).   These
scientists' views are the exact opposite (they support assistance for
the poor, health insurance for all, etc.).  Darwin himself would not
have supported "Social Darwinism."   So saying that Darwin contributed
to Hitler's beliefs is equivalent to saying that belief in God
contributed to 9/11.

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Just as an FYI -- here's another excellent website explaining myths
surrounding evolution, etc.

http://tinyurl.com/4hss6d

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Back to Stein -- one has to question his agenda.  The fact that he was
given the names of evolutionary biologists who strongly believe in God
but decided not to include them in the movie says it all.

A response to one of Ken's paragraphs:

>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.

By definition science does not and will not ever deal with supernatural
phenomenon.  It deals only with the natural world and will not touch
anything that is not testable (i.e., cannot be disproven).

For example, high school science classes cannot teach ID because it is
*not* science.   I'm fully in support of creating high school
comparative religion classes that discuss Creationism and ID (along
with every religion's views on creation including those that have no
conflict with evolution).  But there is no room in science for
researchers who insert the supernatural into current scientific
unknowns, because as soon as they do that, they are no longer doing
science.

I had a wise biology teacher in college who taught why one must never
use science to either prove or disprove the existence God.  Which is
why at times I disagree with Dawkins (when he says that an
understanding of science leads to atheism) as much as I disagree with
ID.

As Tyler's link shows, there will always be gaps in science, which over
time *always* get filled in, creating a new gap.   If your concept of
God depends on the gaps in science, God will be a moving target. You'll
have to keep altering your  belief/changing your concept of God
everytime science fills in the next tiny piece.  Scientists who believe
in God (and many do) have a concept that of God that is far above and
beyond the minutiae of science.

The ID people are trying to push their particular concept of God (based
originally on Creationism and a literal interpretation of the Bible)
via two falsehoods:  The first is by claiming it is science-based when
it is not.   The second is by setting up a false dichotomy -- they
ignore biologists who believe in God and evolution, and
instead trot out only those who happen to be atheists. Then,
despicably, they take it one step further, implying that those Godless
scientists could put us on the road to Nazi-like beliefs.

So how do scientists reconcile God and evolution?

- they might believe that God created evolution (complete with random
genetic mutations, etc.) to insure survival in a changing environment

- OR they might believe that God jumps in from time to time to tweak
evolution, but given the way gaps are always filled in via science,
we'll never know God's exact role.

- OR that God is so far beyond our brain's ability to conceptualize
him, we cannot possibly discern his exact role in our world.

I'm sure there are many other ways scientists reconcile God and
evolution, but we aren't going to learn about them from Ben Stein.
Giving the public the full picture would spoil his agenda, which is to
set up a false "us versus them" polarization that can be later called
upon for political purposes.