Posted on 04/17/2008 10:54:25 AM PDT by Boxen
...about intelligent design and evolution
In the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, narrator Ben Stein poses as a "rebel" willing to stand up to the scientific establishment in defense of freedom and honest, open discussion of controversial ideas like intelligent design (ID). But Expelled has some problems of its own with honest, open presentations of the facts about evolution, ID—and with its own agenda. Here are a few examples—add your own with a comment, and we may add it to another draft of this story. For our complete coverage, see "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed—Scientific American's Take.
1) Expelled quotes Charles Darwin selectively to connect his ideas to eugenics and the Holocaust. When the film is building its case that Darwin and the theory of evolution bear some responsibility for the Holocaust, Ben Stein's narration quotes from Darwin's The Descent of Man thusly:
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
This is how the original passage in The Descent of Man reads (unquoted sections emphasized in italics):
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The producers of the film did not mention the very next sentences in the book (emphasis added in italics):
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.
Darwin explicitly rejected the idea of eliminating the "weak" as dehumanizing and evil. Those words falsify Expelled's argument. The filmmakers had to be aware of the full Darwin passage, but they chose to quote only the sections that suited their purposes.
2) Ben Stein's speech to a crowded auditorium in the film was a setup. Viewers of Expelled might think that Ben Stein has been giving speeches on college campuses and at other public venues in support of ID and against "big science." But if he has, the producers did not include one. The speech shown at the beginning and end was staged solely for the sake of the movie. Michael Shermer learned as much by speaking to officials at Pepperdine University, where those scenes were filmed. Only a few of the audience members were students; most were extras brought in by the producers. Judge the ovation Ben Stein receives accordingly.
3) Scientists in the film thought they were being interviewed for a different movie. As Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Eugenie Scott, Michael Shermer and other proponents of evolution appearing in Expelled have publicly remarked, the producers first arranged to interview them for a film that was to be called Crossroads, which was allegedly a documentary on "the intersection of science and religion." They were subsequently surprised to learn that they were appearing in Expelled, which "exposes the widespread persecution of scientists and educators who are pursuing legitimate, opposing scientific views to the reigning orthodoxy," to quote from the film's press kit.
When exactly did Crossroads become Expelled? The producers have said that the shift in the film's title and message occurred after the interviews with the scientists, as the accumulating evidence gradually persuaded them that ID believers were oppressed. Yet as blogger Wesley Elsberry discovered when he searched domain registrations, the producers registered the URL "expelledthemovie.com" on March 1, 2007—more than a month (and in some cases, several months) before the scientists were interviewed. The producers never registered the URL "crossroadsthemovie.com". Those facts raise doubt that Crossroads was still the working title for the movie when the scientists were interviewed.
4) The ID-sympathetic researcher whom the film paints as having lost his job at the Smithsonian Institution was never an employee there. One section of Expelled relates the case of Richard Sternberg, who was a researcher at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and editor of the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. According to the film, after Sternberg approved the publication of a pro-ID paper by Stephen C. Meyer of the Discovery Institute, he lost his editorship, was demoted at the Smithsonian, was moved to a more remote office, and suffered other professional setbacks. The film mentions a 2006 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report prepared for Rep. Mark Souder (R–Ind.), "Intolerance and the Politicization of Science at the Smithsonian," that denounced Sternberg's mistreatment.
This selective retelling of the Sternberg affair omits details that are awkward for the movie's case, however. Sternberg was never an employee of the Smithsonian: his term as a research associate always had a limited duration, and when it ended he was offered a new position as a research collaborator. As editor, Sternberg's decision to "peer-review" and approve Meyer's paper by himself was highly questionable on several grounds, which was why the scientific society that published the journal later repudiated it. Sternberg had always been planning to step down as the journal's editor—the issue in which he published the paper was already scheduled to be his last.
The report prepared by Rep. Souder, who had previously expressed pro-ID views, was never officially accepted into the Congressional Record. Notwithstanding the report's conclusions, its appendix contains copies of e-mails and other documents in which Sternberg's superiors and others specifically argued against penalizing him for his ID views. (More detailed descriptions of the Sternberg case can be found on Ed Brayton's blog Dispatches from the Culture Wars and on Wikipedia.)
5) Science does not reject religious or "design-based" explanations because of dogmatic atheism. Expelled frequently repeats that design-based explanations (not to mention religious ones) are "forbidden" by "big science." It never explains why, however. Evolution and the rest of "big science" are just described as having an atheistic preference.
Actually, science avoids design explanations for natural phenomena out of logical necessity. The scientific method involves rigorously observing and experimenting on the material world. It accepts as evidence only what can be measured or otherwise empirically validated (a requirement called methodological naturalism). That requirement prevents scientific theories from becoming untestable and overcomplicated.
By those standards, design-based explanations rapidly lose their rigor without independent scientific proof that validates and defines the nature of the designer. Without it, design-based explanations rapidly become unhelpful and tautological: "This looks like it was designed, so there must be a designer; we know there is a designer because this looks designed."
A major scientific problem with proposed ID explanations for life is that their proponents cannot suggest any good way to disprove them. ID "theories" are so vague that even if specific explanations are disproved, believers can simply search for new signs of design. Consequently, investigators do not generally consider ID to be a productive or useful approach to science.
6) Many evolutionary biologists are religious and many religious people accept evolution. Expelled includes many clips of scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, William Provine and PZ Myers who are also well known as atheists. They talk about how their knowledge of science confirms their convictions and how in some cases science led them to atheism. And indeed, surveys do indicate that atheism is more common among scientists than in the general population.
Nevertheless, the film is wrong to imply that understanding of evolution inevitably or necessarily leads to a rejection of religious belief. Francisco Ayala of the University of California, Irvine, a leading neuroscientist who used to be a Dominican priest, continues to be a devout Catholic, as does the evolutionary biologist Ken Miller of Brown University. Thousands of other biologists across the U.S. who all know evolution to be true are also still religious. Moreover, billions of other people around the world simultaneously accept evolution and keep faith with their religion. The late Pope John Paul II said that evolution was compatible with Roman Catholicism as an explanation for mankind's physical origins.
During Scientific American's post-screening conversation with Expelled associate producer Mark Mathis, we asked him why Ken Miller was not included in the film. Mathis explained that his presence would have "confused" viewers. But the reality is that showing Miller would have invalidated the film's major premise that evolutionary biologists all reject God.
Inside and outside the scientific community, people will no doubt continue to debate rationalism and religion and disagree about who has the better part of that argument. Evidence from evolution will probably remain at most a small part of that conflict, however.
No. It started out on this thread that the people at SciAm who wrote this piece on the Expelled movie, also have embraced gobul warming.
I find it odd that those who wish to treat a group of people, believers, as idiots and yet point to a magazine that is not scientific in the various positions it holds to.
To say that all evo’s are also environuts is not valid. But for those who wish to hold this article up, written by a recognized science magazine as some sort of proof of scientific validity, well, that’s sad.
It was more of a comparison.
I also find it odd that in general, the attitude of evo’s tends to be that the creationists are the problem when it comes to science education. I feel that the environuts are the real problem. There policies will kill people. The debate about origins does not. Nor does the debate about origins lead to policies that hurt our economy, or starve people. Gobul warming is a very dangerous creed that kills.
Yet it's said about how you will not see that the article has none of the "rage" or dis-proportionality you pretend it contains. Just like with the video, if you had the evidence you wouldn't need the deception. Keep it up, it only works against you.
Workin fine for me. It seems the so-called “scientists” who are the ones who don’t like a challenge. As for deception, hmmm. Freedom of information is the first way to challenge deception. Looks like Sci. Am. is trying to shut down freedom of information, unless it’s their view.
"That's fine, but the people who were and are in favor of eugenics and the Holocaust definitely pointed back to Darwinism as part of the justification of their ideas."
As far as Matthew 7:21 - I was not making a case that Hitler was or was not a true Christian. It was to show that if someone tries to assign blame to Darwinism for Hitler's atrocities, then it is equally valid to assign blame to Christianity.
LS said: “Workin fine for me…”
I’ll take that as your second admission of dishonesty, and still "workin fine".
LOL. Pretty funny. The only “dishonesty” here is on the other side. But, repeat a lie often enough and maybe you’ll believe it.
Evolution proponents generally don't have a quarrel with creationists. We only have a problem with ID proponents attempting to distort the methods of science in order to force it to accommodate something distinctly non-scientific. That’s explained pretty well in the Talk Design FAQ, starting with the 3rd one down.
I don’t know which is worse, global warming activists politicising scientific results or of ID activists distorting scientific methods, but one does not negate the effects of the other.
Maybe you have that taped to the top of your monitor, I don't know, but it's the core of your MO here LS. Keep thining you're escaping, keep "workn fine".
Paul Popenoe argues the opposite:
O.K. But I don't see how that opposes or gainsays anything I wrote about Nazi race theory.
Your quote suggests that Hitler was concerned with "racial hygene". I don't see how any of it relates particularly to evolutionary theory generally or darwinian evolution particularly.
In fact subsequent advances in evolutionary theory -- particularly the reconciliation of Mendelian genetics with classical darwinian selection in the "neo-darwinian synthesis" -- seriously undermined eugenics by showing that it's assumptions about heredity were simplistic and therefore it's program unrealistic.
It’s you who apparently think you are “escaping.” And THAT must be taped to your monitor.
a) Natural processes occuring entirely upon earth resulted in chains of self-replicating molecular strands that eventually became the first life forms.
b) Aliens from another planet and/or dimension travelled to this planet and -- deliberately or accidentally -- seeded the planet with the first life forms.
c) In the future, humans will develop a means to travel back in time. They will use this technology to plant the first life forms in Earth's past, making the existence of life a causality loop.
d) A divine agent of unspecified nature zap-poofed the first life forms into existence.
You can't be serious. This reads like the plotlines of some inane sci-fi movies like would be shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
I didn’t say the Nazis didn’t draw inspiration from the eugenics movement and Darwinian theory - clearly they did. I’m just pointing out that Charles Darwin shouldn’t be personally blamed for the misuse of his theories after his death.
Good. Sounds like you haven’t learned a lick then, still trying to argue with someone after not getting the answer you wanted FOUR YEARS AGO. Talk about stuck on stupid. LOL.
I don’t expect that either position would negate anything.
I only point out that the gobul warming is very dangerous, because it is killing people, and killing our economy.
Disagreements about scientific methods can be a valid argument. I am certain disputes about methodology has been with science from the beginning. It is how science got here in the first place. But the material view is a distortion of life, love and what makes us human. Any world view the ignores part of what life is about, is a distortion, and not complete.
Disagreements about the politicizing of hand picked facts, the way environuts do, has nothing to do with science at all. Keeping models that predictions are based on secret is not science either. There is not any science going on in gobul warming at all. That is what I find so amazing.
Science can not and will never explain human life as it is lived, experienced, felt and ends in death. Science does not answer all questions, all important questions that any reasonable person ponders. Materialists give the impression, and some endorse, that only material things matter, that anything outside of materials things become unscientific, and unimportant to the questions that people ask. The question of origins is central to that building of a worldview. And there is nothing scientific about it. But the materialists seek to discredit ANYTHING that is not material. That is disturbing.
John 5:26 For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; (King James version)
We can only partially comprehend the notion of God's existence. To do so, we must use human concepts to speak of God: "without beginning or end"; "eternal"; "infinite", etc. The Bible says that He has always existed: " . . . even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God" (Psalm 90:2). And, "Your throne is established from of old; Thou art from everlasting" (Psalm 93:2). Quite simply, God has no beginning and no end. So, where did God come from? He didn't. He always was.
To us, the notion of time is linear. One second follows the next, one minute is after another. We get older, not younger and we cannot repeat the minutes that have passed us by. We have all seen the time lines on charts: early time is on the left and later time is on the right. We see nations, people's lives, and plans mapped out on straight lines from left to right. We see a beginning and an end. But God is "beyond the chart." He has no beginning or end. He simply has always been.
Also, physics has shown that time is a property that is the result of the existence of matter. Time exists when matter exists. Time has even been called the fourth dimension. But God is not matter. In fact, God created matter. He created the universe. So, time began when God created the universe. Before that, God was simply existing and time had no meaning (except conceptually), no relation to Him. Therefore, to ask where God came from is to ask a question that cannot really be applied to God in the first place. Because time has no meaning with God in relation to who He is, eternity is also not something that can be absolutely related to God. God is even beyond eternity.
Eternity is a term that we finite creatures use to express the concept of something that has no end -- and/or no beginning. Since God has no beginning or end, He has no beginning. This is because He is outside of time.
{Unquote}
That doesn’t compute to someone with a completely materialist view of the existance.
The universe includes everything material.
It had a beginning, and the big bang still resonates to prove it.
Anything that has a beginning has a cause.
That cause must be external or transcendent to the caused.
I agree. That was really stupid. I saw the same pathetic pattern in this thread before attempting to engage you in reasonable discussion. I should have known better.
Scientist cannot get beyond what was before the big bang. I believe God is the Cosmic Singularity, which is why scientist have hit a brick wall when trying to discover what "WAS" before the big bang.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.