Intelligent Design

A star of Expelled, biologist Caroline Crocker, will be making an appearance at:

McLean Bible Church
8925 Leesburg Pike
Vienna, Virginia
12:30 PM
Sunday, April 27, 2008

I hope to meet some of you at Dr. Crocker’s talk!

Caroline Crocker is the Executive Director of the IDEA Center, an organization devoted to supporting pro-ID students and faculty at universities, high schools, and various other locations.

In 1999, there was only one IDEA club. By 2006, there were 30 IDEA clubs throughout the world and a central headquarters in San Diego known as the IDEA Center.

With the appointment of Caroline Crocker as Executive Director in 2008 and her appearance in the movie Expelled, the IDEA Center is now poised to recognize as many as 1000 IDEA clubs!!!
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On Saturday, 19 April 2008, philosopher of psychology Angus Menuge debated blogger and biologist P.Z. Myers at the University of Minnesota-Morris. What follows is Menuge’s summary of their interaction; his slides are available here.

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Like the choice between competing political institutions, that between competing paradigms proves to be a choice between incompatible modes of community life. Because it has that character, the choice is not and cannot be determined merely by the evaluative procedures characteristic of normal science, for these depend in part upon a particular paradigm, and that paradigm is at issue. When paradigms enter, as they must, into a debate about paradigm choice, their role is necessarily circular. Each group uses its own paradigm to argue in that paradigm’s defense. — T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part Read More ›

Win Ben Stein’s Monkey By Chuck Norris Tuesday, April 22, 2008 Evolution. Intelligent design. These are terms that can cause great consternation in the minds and hearts of many, particularly opponents of each view. Now, that anxiety and debate have resurfaced in theaters everywhere with Ben Stein’s new documentary, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” The press kit says, “(‘Expelled’) exposes the widespread persecution of scientists and educators who are pursuing legitimate, opposing scientific views to the reigning orthodoxy.” (To see a trailer of the movie or access its free resources, go to www.getexpelled.com.) I like Ben Stein. I think he’s funny, creative and an insightful commentator on a host of issues. I’m not bent on defending him or “Expelled,” but I’m Read More ›

Details here. I wish their ship of inquiry calm seas and a prosperous voyage. To invoke the University of Chicago’s motto, which has never failed to inspire me: “Crescat scientia, vita excolatur” — “let knowledge grow from more to more, and so be human life enriched.”

Chris Mooney writes: I am Labeled a “Creationist Apologist” …by Greg Laden. Or as one of my own commenters put it, “Either you really are just [bleep]ing stupid, or you’re a closet creationist in this blog group. Pick one.” I won’t be deleting that comment despite the profanity, because I want to have it all on the record–the record of what now happens at ScienceBlogs if you say certain thing that people don’t want to hear. All this happened, I suppose, because I dared to point out the obvious: Expelled is a success. I mean, it’s the eighth highest grossing political documentary of all time…after its first week. Randy Olson of course knows this, because he’s, like, a filmmaker. But Read More ›

ROFLMAO – to the Church Burnin’ Ebola Boys, their mothers, their fathers, and their professors – I TOLD YOU SO!!!! What a bunch of maroons.

(In his review of Expelled, Dinesh D’Souza appears to be using arguments from Intelligent Design – despite his previous apparent opposition.)—————-

Ben Stein Exposes Richard Dawkins
By Dinesh D’Souza, Monday, April 21, 2008

. . .So Stein puts to Dawkins a simple question, “How did life begin?” One would think that this is a question that could be easily answered. Dawkins, however, frankly admits that he has no idea. . . . Franklin Harold writes in The Way of the Cell that even the simplest cells are more ingeniously complicated than man’s most elaborate inventions: the factory system or the computer. Read More ›

You think the following statement from the AAAS is going to help heal the chasm in our society over evolution and ID? New AAAS Statement Decries “Profound Dishonesty” of Intelligent Design Movie A new movie released in support of the intelligent design campaign needlessly drives a wedge between science and religion and insults the life-affirming work of millions of scientists worldwide, AAAS said in a statement issued today. . . . NEWS RELEASE FULL STATEMENT

“The average rating was three out of five stars,” says Finch. “But then again, the average American has one breast and one testicle.” The review review is at TheBRITES.org. .

Box Office Prophets, in the weekend wrapup: Eighth spot goes to Horton Hears a Who!, the six-week-old kids flick from Dr. Seuss. Horton earned another $3.5 million, and drops 41%. The CGI animated blockbuster has now earned $144.4 million, and is Jim Carrey’s seventh film to gross more than $125 million at the domestic box office. It recently crossed the $100 million mark at overseas cinemas as well. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a film that I am going to decline comment on. It earned $3.2 million from 1,052 venues. Finishing tenth is George Clooney’s Leatherheads, a gamble that didn’t pay off. Leatherheads earned $3 million in its third weekend, and falls 52% after losing 51% last weekend. It has Read More ›

Taken from Darwin’s “Descent of Man” We civilised 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 civilised 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 Read More ›

Expelled easily ranks as having the second largest gross box office receipts on opening weekend of any political documentary ever. It is bested only by Fahrenheit 9/11. As of Sunday morning it has an estimated $3.2 million gross. Even better, in just the first two days of ticket sales it ranks as the 8th highest political documentary by lifetime total receipts. I wonder if Judge Jones has seen it yet? Will he pay for a different movie and sneak in to Expelled? Or will he download a pirated version? Inquiring minds want to know! LOL

Comment written by a moderator of Darwin Central: Someone desparately need to blog an exclusive pirated copy of Ben Stein’s Expelled.

According to Box Office Prophets the projected total weekend box office sales for Expelled is $3.7 million. According to Box Office Mojo on Friday alone ticket sales were $1.2 million. Just for fun compare to what Flock of Dodos did on opening weekend.