(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. Moreover, Harold writes that the various components of the cell do not function like random widgets; rather, they work purposefully together, as if cooperating in a planned organized venture. Dawkins himself has described the cell as the kind of supercomputer, noting that it functions through an information system that resembles the software code. Is it possible that living cells somehow assembled themselves from nonliving things by chance? The probabilities here are so infinitesimal that they approach zero. . . .Is it reasonable to posit that a chance combination of atoms and molecules, under those conditions, somehow generated a living thing? Could the random collision of molecules somehow produce a computer? It is ridiculously implausible to think so. . . . Unwilling to consider the possibility of divine or supernatural creation, Crick suggested that maybe aliens brought life to earth from another planet. And this is precisely the suggestion that Richard Dawkins makes in his response to Ben Stein. Perhaps, he notes, life was delivered to our planet by highly-evolved aliens. Let’s call this the “ET” explanation.
Stein brilliantly responds that he had no idea Richard Dawkins believes in intelligent design! And indeed Dawkins does seem to be saying that alien intelligence is responsible for life arriving on earth. What are we to make of this? Basically Dawkins is surrendering on the claim that evolution can account for the origins of life. It can’t. The issue now is simply whether a natural intelligence (ET) or a supernatural intelligence (God) created life. . . .
See full article
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Ben Stein Vs. Sputtering Atheists
By Brent Bozell III, (Founder and President of the Media Research Center, ) Friday, April 18, 2008
Stein insists that he isn’t accusing today’s Darwinists of Nazism. He points out, however, that Hitler’s mad science was inspired by Darwinism. . . .
. . .Ben Stein’s extraordinary presentation documents how the worlds of science and academia not only crush debate on the origins of life, but also crush the careers of professors who dare to question the Darwinian hypothesis of evolution and natural selection.
Stein asks a simple question: What if the universe began with an intelligent designer, a designer named God? He assembles a stable of academics — experts all — who dared to question Darwinist assumptions and found themselves “expelled” from intellectual discourse as a result. . . . That’s disturbing enough, but what Stein does next is truly shocking. He allows the principal advocates of Darwinism to speak their minds. . . .Stein engages them in conversation. They speak their minds. They become sputtering ranters, openly championing their sheer hatred of religion. . . .
Everyone should take the opportunity to see “Expelled” — if nothing else, as a bracing antidote to the atheism-friendly culture of PC liberalism. But it’s far more than that. It’s a spotlight on the arrogance of this movement and its leaders, a spotlight on the choking intolerance of academia, and a spotlight on the ignorance of so many who say so much, yet know so very little.
See Full Article
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FIRST-PERSON: The difference ‘Expelled’ will make
William A. Dembski Posted on Apr 18, 2008
Who’s right? That’s the wrong question. Anyone who has studied the history of science knows about “the pessimistic induction.” The pessimistic induction says that all scientific theories of the past have to varying degrees been wrong and required modification (some were so wrong that they had to be abandoned outright). No scientific theory is written in stone. No scientific theory should be venerated. Every scientific theory should now and again be subjected to severe scrutiny. This is healthy for science. . . .
The unwashed masses, in which I place myself, will love the film. Ordinary people, who often pay the Darwinists’ salaries through their tax dollars, will rightly be incensed. They’ll see that enough is enough: . . . Expelled’s impact will be felt immediately. But its long-term impact will be even greater. The film opens with documentary footage of the Berlin Wall going up and closes with it coming down. The day Darwinism and Intelligent Design can be fairly discussed without fear of reprisal represents the removal of a barrier even greater than the Berlin Wall.
See Full Article
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I encourage readers post links to further quality reviews
Ben Stein is being reviewed on TBN 8:15 pm EST
See also http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24239755/
This is going to get ugly. REALLY ugly. Now we are back to “its SO unfair to make the NAZI-Darwin link when so much is left out from the Darwinian opinions of the Robber Barons, which some of us apparently like” as well as the usual “ID cannot be falsified” and then not to be left out “nothing Darwin said can really be used to diss faith–that’s a conspiratorial nut idea that comes from Bible thump fruitcakes in the Deep South only” and not “real theologians” and then “Dawkins is made to look like a frizzled grump” and “does not speak for Darwin after all”….etc….
Regarding the film, I may know too much to give the film a high rating.
But the interview with Dawkins was brilliant. Ben Stein outsmarted the Dick to the Dawk.
Does Ben have a science degree? A Ph.D.?
In general, Expelled performs an important function of illustrating the perniciousness, arrogance, ignorance, and ridiculous confusion of the evolander leadership.
Just in case anybody cares, Michael Edmondson has admitted to being the animator of the Age of the Machine Video.
Animation: Michael Edmondson
Written By: Matt Chandler
Produced by: John Sullivan; Walt Ruloff; and Logan Craft
The evolanders are still trying to spin this to mean that the video was on their side.
In Vitro Veritas.
Just though DaveScot would get a kick out of this. Check out my blog for more information, the evolanders confess.
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/.....90c3bfae24
Repost (false positive?)
Regarding the film, I may know too much to give the film a high rating.
But the interview with Dawkins was brilliant. Ben Stein outsmarted the Dick to the Dawk.
Does Ben have a science degree? A Ph.D.?
In general, Expelled performs an important function of illustrating the perniciousness, arrogance, ignorance, and ridiculous confusion of the evolander leadership.
Just in case anybody cares, Michael Edmondson has admitted to being the animator of the Age of the Machine Video.
Animation: Michael Edmondson
Written By: Matt Chandler
Produced by: John Sullivan; Walt Ruloff; and Logan Craft
The evolanders are still trying to spin this to mean that the video was on their side.
In Vitro Veritas.
Just though DaveScot would get a kick out of this. Check out my blog for more information, the evolanders confess.
[Yes, it’s quite entertaining and I thank you for blogging it so well. -ds]
I think the Berlin wall analogy is an excellent one. Hopefully now that the movie has hit the mainstream people will stand up and protest not the theory of Darwinian Evolution per se but the bigotry of those who [“seek to keep science in a little box”} as Ben Stein so ably put it. Materialism is a belief but logically not a necessity of science. People have the right to look for inferences of Design in biology (especially since they are easy to find) and use them to spur scientific understanding and discovery. ID is a hypothesis like any other that can be tested and debated based upon the scientific evidence. Its about time the public has been awakened and informed about reality.
Bruce Gordon reviews Dawkins efforts to explain his Expelled comments:
The Divine Comedy: Dawkins’ Disco Inferno By: Bruce L. Gordon, Ph.D., Discovery Institute, April 21, 2008
Is the “Science” of Richard Dawkins Science Fiction?
By: Jonathan Wells, Discovery Institute, April 21, 2008
Expelled Resources at ARN.org
Connecting Hitler and Darwin
By: David Berlinski
Human Events, April 18, 2008
See Full article at Discovery.org
Connecting Hitler and Darwin
by David Berlinski, Posted: 04/18/2008 Human Events
Don’t Doubt It – An important historic sidebar on Hitler and Darwin
By: David Klinghoffer
National Review Online
April 18, 2008″
See Full Article at the National Review
DLH
It also happens to be based on impeccable scholarship.
It’s based on poor scholarship. Simply pointing out that anti-miscegenation laws were on the books in colonial America 200 years before Darwin was born shoots down that “impeccable” scholarship. It’s no more than a pathetic attempt to bolster an argument against Darwinian evolution with a cheap, poorly thought out connection to Hitler.
Godwin’s Law states that as discussion proceeds in controversial subjects the chance that one side will link the other side to Hitler approaches one.
Then of course the rebuttal is that there are still valid connections to Hitler. There are exceptions to the law.
I have come up with a corollary to Godwin’s Law: Everyone thinks their connection to Hitler is one of the valid exceptions to Godwin’s Law.
I strongly suggest distancing ID as far as possible from Hitler. It’s a huge red flag to most thinking people that the person making the connection has lost the plot…
SEEING THROUGH THE HAYES: speaking heresy in a Darwinian culture
By Josh Hayes / jhayes@crossville-chronicle.com
Per Godwin’s law
“Godwin’s Law Faq
The critical issue is not the explicit connection with Hitler, but the critical frequent consequence that Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” results in a mentality of “Might makes Right” with the consequence of totalitarianism.
Expelled’s key message is the need to counter this totalitarianism. In this case, in science by the Darwinian elite.
DLH wrote:
Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin made the confession scientists “have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.” What’s more, he admits, “We cannot allow a divine foot in the door”
If one asserts a designing intelligence is not a mechanism, then there is no explanation for things he designed other than caprice. However, once you can derive a coherent explanation for an entity, whereby you can predict its behavior, you are explicating it (or the portion of it you can comprehend) as a mechanism. So any part of it that is not potentially explicable as a mechanism is RANDOM. Once you succeed in establishing that something is a result of a non-mechanism, you immediately cease any inquiry into the reasons why that thing exists or why it has the features it does. Science is all about identifiying mechanisms that account for observed features of the natural world. If you say, “this thing was not the result of a mechanism”, then what else is there for science to do? Answer: Nothing. So if its an open question whether something has a coherent explanation or not, why shouldn’t Science proceed on the assumption it does. If the only conceivable cause for something is inscrutable divine intelligence, then by definition there is no further explanation.
I think anyone of a sensitive mindset would agree without hesitation that a newborn baby is a creation of God. But what does that observation have to do with science? Nothing. The mechanism is all that is of concern to science. If detailing mechanisms whereby life emerged and developed unsettles the faithful or strengthens the resolve of those who would deny God’s existence, then I guess it does.
(DLH): Pearcy writes, “We distinguish readily between the products of nature and the products of intelligence. Walking on the beach, we may admire the lovely pattern of ripples running across the sand, but we know it is merely a product of the wind and the waves. If, however, we come across a sand castle with walls and turrets and a moat, do we assume it too was created by the wind and waves”
What if ripples on the sand were the tracks of a hermit crab. Is the hermit crab an inscrutable designing nonmaterial intelligence? What about the burrow it creates in the sand and retreats to – not the result of a mechanism (i.e. the hermit crab mechanism)? But a castle with a moat, no less, WELL… let’s all fall down and worship the creator of such a thing, because clearly such an entity who could create it must possess some godlike nonmaterial intelligence to accomplish such a feat. And if he doesn’t, if Man’s intelligence is also a mechanism, then why isn’t whatever created us a mechanism.
Supposing you succeeded in getting every biologist to sign a statement saying, “I believe that ultimately life would not exist if it were not for a divine nonmaterial intelligence which is directly analogous to human intelligence, which is itself also nonmaterial and nonmechanistic.” Would you also preclude them from further inquiry into mechanisms that would flesh out that process.
{DLH Deleted duplicate of this post. Please be patient with clearing the spamfilter. Note that those quotes are not what “DLH wrote”, but extracts from the relevant reviews.}
Hi Dave,
This is good practical advice. The Hitler connection is often used only for polemic value, says nothing about the truth of Darwin’s theory, and says nothing about the truth of ID.
Saying we should distance ourselves from the argument is one thing. Saying we should deny the historical and logical (not necessary) connection is another.
From The Lariat Online, Baylor University
‘Expelled’ encourages intelligent design discussion, Chen says April 22, 2008
ha!
what’s this insistence from people like D’Souza rthat the first unit of life had to be a fully functioning, modern cell? it’s as absurd as saying babies were the first to rise from the “primordial sludge” as it were.
D’souza has a poor understanding of both arguments, but he did sort of hand dawkins a pretty harsh blow with his response to the “God Delusion”, Not as bad as Mcgrath’s, but bad all the same.