Here is an uncommon review by Mayer – who has the courage not to bow to Darwinian orthodoxy.
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Expelled – Ben Stein’s Brilliant And Subversive Documentary

By William Mayer
April 19, 2008 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org – Darwin…Darwin…Darwin…you can almost hear Ben Stein muttering to himself as this subversive little documentary, “Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed,” unfolds. Having opened only yesterday it has already left the piggies that feed at the trough of big science foaming at the mouth and staggering about in near apoplexia. Read More ›

“One of the reasons research is being stifled in the U.S. is the pressure from the left for conformity to their agenda. How many scientists have been threatened with the loss of their grants because their work questioned the left’s Global Warming mantra? The decline in science is directly related to its politicalization.” –James Barends

[Note: This article is an excerpt of what was originally published on Evolution News and Views as a 3-part series, linked as follows: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.  For the full article, see http://www.discovery.org/a/4689.] Scientific American has a long history of opposing intelligent design (ID), so it comes as no surprise that they have tasked their columnist Michael Shermer with the job of attacking Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Michael Shermer is the founder of Skeptic Magazine, who loves to boast about how evolution liberated him from belief in God. In fact, he does just that in his article attacking Expelled, opening it by saying: “In 1974 I matriculated at Pepperdine University as a born-again Christian who rejected Darwinism and Read More ›

I’m opening a thread for those who would like to report their impressions of seeing the movie Expelled as well the numbers of viewers and their reactions to the movie.

Here is my report:
Read More ›

Research often shows no apparent effect (phenotype) of deleting most genes. Hillenmeyer et al now find that 97% of yeast genes have an important biological function. Optimal growth requires nearly all genes in absence of “rich” medium in the lab. Sounds like robust design. Read More ›

It a newly issued study in the PNAS, a species of lizard was transplanted 36 years ago from one island in the Adriatic to another. Tremendous phenotypic changes have occurred, the most dramatic, in my estimation, being the development of ‘cecal valves’ in the digestive tract to be able to digest the plant food that the transplanted species of lizards has taken to eating. Cecal valves occur in only 1% of all lizard populations, yet it developed in only 36 years—along with changes in head size, jaw size, and bite strength (needed to chew the cellulose found in plants)!

There seems to be two ways of looking at this: (1) that NS has brought all of these changes about; or (2) the environment, specifically the proteins/enzymes/chemicals of the plant life on the new Adriatic island has interacted with the genome to quickly bring about these changes. Considering Haldane’s Dilemna–much discussed here at UD–there have been simply too many changes that have occurred to the physiology of these lizards for NS to be invoked as the cause. Additionally, if NS “can” work this fast, then why aren’t we seeing the development of higher taxa of animals and plants right now? The old argument is that NS works too slowly to be seen, and that’s why we don’t see these higher taxa—nor the intermediate forms which would be required—in present day flora and fauna.

What we seem to be seeing isn’t exactly Lamarckism, but a kind of form of it: i.e., the environment produces changes in the phenotype of the lizards which is inheritable, but is doing so via genetic regulatory mechanisms; IOW, epigenetics.

The more we learn, the harder it is for RM+NS to keep up.

Read More ›

With the Expelled movie set to open across the United States in less than 24 hours, the latest uproar is a claim?/revelation? that the film used John Lennon’s Imagine without permission. Also, some stuff from The Killers.

Here’s the Wall Street Journal (but you must pay for most of it). Update: Here it is on Richard Dawkins’s site in full. Hat tip to Ethan below.

Huff Post columnist James Boyce holds forth here. And here’s a wealth of what may be information. (“Have some potato chips with your salt, for goodness sakes …”)

Tomorrow I will be in a blogger’s teleconference with Ben Stein and have written to ask that he address the accusation and the producers’ response that they only used a little bit of the music.

[(2008 04 18 1:43 EST) Update from the “Oh for Pete’s sake” department: The press conference has been cancelled.  I phoned the agency, where the person at the desk knows nothing, except that she hasn’t heard that the film won’t open tonight. So for now I suppose it will.  Legal action  from the Yoko Own-o empire later, perhaps.  

Quite honestly, at this point, I think the only important question re Expelled is whether the people it is intended to reach will go see it.  That’s all any documentary can ever do.  Later, I will write about the curious reviews appearing in legacy media, designed to reassure the materialist faithful that it is lies, all lies.  Also, scattered handsful of people will apparently turn out to protest. 

If I get time, I would like to write a cultural document about the sort of person who rousts himself out on a Friday night, wearing a tee shirt that demands, “On what day did God make the fossils?” (The day before yesterday,  Pootsie, and if you are not buying a ticket, could we stand a  little ways away from the booth? ) ]

For now I am wondering whether it was a publicity stunt to force the left blogosphere to write about the film.

You know, the old ad gimmick that if you hear something mentioned often enough, you end up buying it ….

Update April 18, 2008: I just received an e-mail from a correspondent, advising 

I saw you discussing this on the article about “Expelled”, so here is what the head administrator over at the official Killers forum has just posted:

“I just spoke to the band’s manager, and adding to the confusion was the fact that they did authorize a project months ago with this request:
Quote:

“The film is a satirical documentary with an estimated running time of 1 hour and 50 minutes, exploring academic freedom in public schools and government institutions with actor, comedian, economist, Ben Stein as the spokesperson.”

What they authorized was a documentary about “academic freedom in schools”, not the film that the producers produced.

They contacted the producers of the film to ask that the song be removed but it is too late. Unfortunately it was misrepresented to them when the request came through to use it. Add this band to a long line of people who were misled by the producers of this film.“

 Absolutely fascinating!  It sounds as though our correspondent does not think that academic freedom applies to those who disagree with her about the evidence from nature  for the design of life. Thus the film really “isn’t” about academic freedom in the schools, you see.  Academic freedom is freedom to spout the party line at all times and in all places. Remember that, folks.

In any event, if the Expelled team got permission, they got permission, so they are legally in the clear.  (Note: Budget line item under expenses: Nuisance lawsuits – $???????)

Also, just up at Access Research Network: A look at Jewish physicist Gerald Schroeder’s The Science of God

For the most part Schroeder would get along quite well with the design theorists (and he is in the Expelled film): Here’s why: Read More ›

Per recommendations, here is a separate thread on:

Michael Le Page weighing in at New Scientist with:

Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions

18:00 16 April 2008
He provides the mother pie statement that:

Darwin presented compelling evidence for evolution in On the Origin and, since his time, the case has become overwhelming. . . . Evolution is as firmly established a scientific fact as the roundness of the Earth.

This might be tolerable if “evolution” is limited to microevolution defined as mutations and heritable variations in populations. e.g., to “fast-changing viruses such as HIV and H5N1 bird flu” — except that he gives equal weight to the controversial “pollution-matching pepper moth”. Read More ›

Bruce Chapman, president of Discovery Institute, published :

An Intelligent Discussion about Life

in The Seattle Times, April 17, 2008
Chapman posted the following extensively footnoted version of this article at www.discovery.org/a/4522.
“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” is a trenchant new film by actor/economist Ben Stein, the man first made famous in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” He’s now tackling with humorous dudgeon the classic example of ideological science, Darwinian evolution. Stein shows Darwinists insistently misrepresenting the scientific case against their theory. Where facts and reason might fail to persuade, personal attacks are employed, sometimes even by organizations supposedly committed to civil discourse. Read More ›

Richard Weikart summarizes his devastating research into the Darwinian foundations of Nazis – and the continuation of those themes by modern evolutionists.
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Darwin and the Nazis
By Richard Weikart Published 4/16/2008 12:07:03 AM American Spectator

Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, and some other Darwinists are horrified that the forthcoming documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, will promote Intelligent Design to a large audience when it opens at over a thousand theaters nationwide on April 18. Ironically, their campaign to discredit Ben Stein and the film confirms its main point, which is to expose the persecution meted out by Darwinists to those daring to criticize Darwinian theory.

One aspect of Expelled that troubles Dawkins and some of his colleagues is its treatment of the ethical implications of Darwinism, especially its discussion of the historical connections between Darwinism and Nazism. Isn’t this a bit over-the-top, suggesting that Darwinism has something to do with Nazism? After all, Darwinists today are not Nazis, and Darwinism has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Read More ›

I was watching the science channel last night, sort of in the background as I was combing gobs of winter fur out one of my dogs, and I saw or heard “Expelled” pop up on the screen. I saw a shot of Ben Stein walking out of a science classroom and going down the hall to sit on a bench outside the principle’s office. Another “kid” was sitting there too. The other kids says to Stein “So what did YOU do wrong?” Stein deadpans “I made a movie”. Premise is doing a GREAT job with this. Anyone who thinks they’re incompetents is in a state of denial. And here it is…

Today’s Human Events includes an article “Ben Stein’s ‘Expelled’: A Little Background” by me. I tried to include much more of the very interesting (old) New York Times News Service article here but it was too long for the editor’s taste.

I met John Rennie, the chief editor at Scientific American, back in 2002 at the American Museum of Natural History when Mike Behe and I debated Ken Miller and Rob Pennock. Following that debate, Rennie turned SCIAM increasingly against ID. With no more than a bachelor’s degree, Rennie expatiates on the nature of science and why ID doesn’t fit the bill. Here’s a clip from his recent review of Ben Stein’s EXPELLED (note that this passage is taken from the Google cache — he apparently has since modified the review at SCIAM): It speaks to their anti-intellectualism and fundamental misunderstanding of science that for the makers of Expelled (and ID advocates more generally) the answer “we don’t know yet” is Read More ›

Here’s an excerpt from a news story about EXPELLED. The excerpt describes one of a multitude of cases that didn’t make it into the movie. It will be interesting to see what happens when more and more people like this come forward: . . . These incidents do not count the number of other scientists and professors who feel the need to hide their convictions in order to survive in the academy. For example, David Klinghoffer, writing for Townhall Magazine on February 26, 2008, reveals the following true story: A biologist I know recently bleached his hair and changed his appearance in other ways so as to be almost unrecognizable. I’m being deliberately vague about his looks and identity because Read More ›