This just in from those ever so clever Internet Infidels: “So I went and saw it [EXPELLED] today. No, I didn’t give Ben Stein any of my money — I bought a ticket to a different movie starting at the same time.” It makes one wonder how much larger EXPELLED’s take would be if Darwinists pulling this trick were factored in.
“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
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 ›
The following statement is from the Executive Producers of EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed. Since we began working on this very interesting project, the producers have been the subject of any number of groundless accusations, most of which we found amusing. The vast majority of these accusations we chose to ignore given that agitation is typical with any provocative documentary. We also recognized that as the film took form, it would specifically disturb a vocal minority of academic elites, and tread on what some people involved with science and academia consider sacred ground. We therefore expected a high level of criticism against the film from this particular group, who view themselves as self appointed gatekeepers. We accepted in good humor many Read More ›
[[This blast from the past was originally published here at UD 25oct06. With EXPELLED coming out so soon and given Dawkins’s prominent role in it, I thought it worth moving to the top of the stack (blogs have the data structure of a push-down stack). –WmAD]] Last night Richard Dawkins did a reading from his new book, The God Delusion, at a bookstore in DC. After the reading he fielded questions. A friend of mine was in the front and got to be the first to go. He asked Dawkins if he thought he was being inconsistent by being a determinist while taking credit for writing his book. The answer so shocked my questioner friend that he typed out a Read More ›
Jeffrey Kluger’s review of EXPELLED in TIME Magazine is on balance negative. Interestingly, though, he makes clear something of what is motivating EXPELLED: In fairness to Stein, his opponents have hardly covered themselves in glory. Evolutionary biologists and social commentators have lately taken to answering the claims of intelligent-design boosters not with clear-eyed scientific empiricism but with sneering, finger-in-the-eye atheism. Biologist P.Z. Myers, for example, tells Stein that religion ought to be seen as little more than a soothing pastime, a bit like knitting. Books such as Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great and Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion often read like pure taunting, as when Hitchens pettily and pointedly types God as lowercase god. Tautology as typography is not Read More ›
This thread is addressed to the animators of The Machine Video (where Dawkins does an Eminem routine) as well as any other talented flash/video animators. Perhaps you could put together a spoof of the PZ Myers’ “plagiarism” allegation (go here) that borrows from the Coca-Cola ads where the idiots from Coca-Cola are trying to get a lawyer to sue Coke Zero for “taste infringement.” It might play well on YouTube the week before the release. Who knows, maybe Coca-Cola will then sue EXPELLED — now that would really generate interest in the film!
With the big release of EXPELLED planned for next weekend, the interviews of Ben Stein keep coming: Mocked and Belittled By Megan Basham | WORLD Magazine Interview: Ben Stein’s new documentary may give macro-evolutionary theory a deserved hard time, and he plans to have fun with it along the way Though audiences probably know Ben Stein best as the economics teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the actor had a distinguished career preceding the classic ’80s movie—just not in the entertainment industry. Long before ad-libbing the world’s most famously boring free-market lecture, Stein was a Yale-trained trial lawyer, a professor at Pepperdine University, an economist, and a speechwriter for presidents Nixon and Ford. Even today, along with his acting, voice-over, Read More ›
I just received this announcement (I’ll be presenting at this seminar as well): On this episode of ID the Future, Anika Smith reports on Discovery Institute’s newly expanded summer seminars on intelligent design. In 2007, the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture launched its Summer Seminar on intelligent design — an intensive mentoring program for college students to gain exposure to the science of intelligent design first hand from researchers and scientists. The 2008 summer seminars on intelligent design will cultivate new leaders in the intelligent design movement among the next generation. Applications to the summer seminars will be accepted until April 30, 2008. For more information, or to apply, click here.
Be Sure to Spend Your Money on Ben Stein’s New Movie: My Recent Conversation with Ben Stein
By Jerry Newcombe, 4/3/08
[From email sent to me by Coral Ridge Ministries]
At this time, Ben Stein is unleashing his excellent film on the issue of origins—EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed. This motion picture (an entertaining documentary with theatrical release) could cause a sea change on this issue. Ben Stein shows repeatedly that well-qualified scientists are losing their jobs because of their views on origins. If they teach creationism, gone! If they introduce students to the concept that some people believe in Intelligent Design, next! But even if they just believe in Intelligent Design or creation and this becomes known, then these scientists or science teachers get expelled from the Academy. Furthermore, even if they question Darwinism, they can lose their jobs. I have seen a director’s cut of the film (Release: April 18, 2008), and I think it is excellent!
I had the privilege of sitting down with Ben and having a conversation for Coral Ridge Ministries-television. Please, look for him on upcoming editions of the Coral Ridge Hour. Here are some of the highlights or our conversation:
Jerry: What’s a nice Jewish boy like you doing in a nice Christian film like this?
Ben: What’s a nice Jewish boy like me doing in a “Christian” film like this? It’s a film for people who believe in freedom of speech. It’s a film for people who believe that worship of God and the worship of God as the author and creator of the universe is a legitimate belief and legitimately able to be spoken about. It’s a film for Muslims who believe in that. It’s a film for Hindus who believe in that. It’s a film for people who believe in God or believe in freedom of speech or believe in the idea that academic discourse in America’s colleges and universities should not be shut down. It’s a film for people who believe in what Thomas Jefferson thought of as his vision of America. It’s not a proselytizing film for Christians or Muslims or Jews or Hindus. It’s a film for people who want to believe and who do believe that there is a God, an Intelligent Designer, and you know something, it’s even a film for people who don’t believe in that, but they believe in freedom of speech for everyone anyway.
Jerry: Why did you personally agree to participate in the film? Read More ›
Today’s front page story (above the fold) in the Waco Tribune refers to the recent rash of tenure denials at Baylor as a “massacre.” For today’s story and other press on it, go to the following links: * “Faculty ‘Massacre’” story in Waco Trib [4.3.08] * Chronicle of Higher Education [4.2.08] * Denyse O’Leary’s Analysis at UncommonDescent [3.31.08] * World Magazine Confirms BP Story [3.28.08] * Baylor Lariat Editorial [3.28.08] * Baptist Press Interprets Tenure Denials [3.25.08] * Waco Trib Breaks Story [3.24.08] * Baylor Tenure Stats for 2008, 2007, and 2006 (see below) With regard to today’s front page story, two small points deserve exposure. First, from the story: Baylor spokeswoman Lori Fogleman … wouldn’t discuss whether a form Read More ›
In reading Dinesh D’Souza’s WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT CHRISTIANITY, I was surprised at how uncritical and historically uninformed is his view of evolution. For instance, he lumped C. S. Lewis with other notable 20th century Christian intellectuals as accepting evolutionary theory, but in fact toward the end of his life, Lewis regretted his earlier support for evolution (go here). With even less apparent knowledge of his subject, D’Souza is now weighing in against intelligent design: The Failure of “Intelligent Design” Posted Mar 31st 2008 9:38AM by Dinesh D’Souza Filed under: Science, Christianity, Atheism . . . Today some Christians may be heading down the same path with their embrace of “intelligent design” or ID. This movement is based on the Read More ›
Here’s the conclusion of Jonathan Wells’s review of Francis Collins’s THE LANGUAGE OF GOD: Darwin of the gaps Recall Collins’s principal objection to ID: “ID is a ‘God of the gaps’ theory, inserting a supposition of the need for supernatural intervention in places that its proponents claim science cannot explain… But those theories have a dismal history. Advances in science ultimately fill in those gaps, to the dismay of those who had attached their faith to them. Ultimately a ‘God of the gaps’ religion runs a huge risk of simply discrediting faith. We must not repeat this mistake in the current era. Intelligent design fits into this discouraging tradition, and faces the same ultimate demise.” Except for the “supernatural” part, Read More ›