Atheist Scientists in Uproar over Movie Showing Intolerance of Evidence for Intelligent Design

LifeSiteNews.com ^ | October 5, 2007

[monomaniac]

Atheist Scientists in Uproar over Movie Showing Intolerance of Evidence for Intelligent Design

EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed Coming to Theatres in February 2008

LOS ANGELES, October 5, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) -  Atheist scientists who have become famous for attacking those who disagree with them are now loudly complaining about supposedly being mistreated in a film they haven't seen.

Oxford zoologist, Richard Dawkins, has made a lot of money and fame calling people who believe in God "delusional." Yet he is now grumbling that the producers of EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed "tricked" him into doing an interview. EXPELLED exposes the intimidation, persecution and career destruction that takes place when any scientist dares dissent from the view that all life on earth is the mere result of random mutation and natural selection.

"Some of these people -- especially Mr. Dawkins -- spend a lot of time insulting the millions of folks who disagree with them, so you would think they would have a little tougher skin," said Mark Mathis, one of the film's producers. "The funny thing is they are whining about the fact that the film is going to allow them to insult people on a much larger stage."

Other notable scientists who claim they were "deceived" by the producers of EXPELLED include Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education and PZ Myers, a biologist at the University of Minnesota, Morris, who devotes much of his time to his popular science blog.

Myers has attacked the film several times on his blog since EXPELLED announced its arrival in theaters in February 2008.

EXPELLED's producers say they aren't surprised by the academic uproar over the film because it is consistent with what happens on university campuses when students or professors question atheistic materialism.

"There is some serious mistreatment and downright reprehensible behavior going on here, but I can assure you it's not coming from us -- we're just the ones exposing it," said Executive Producer, Walt Ruloff. "When our audience sees the stories of the real victims of scientific malpractice they're going to be outraged."

The producers of EXPELLED are particularly amused by Dawkins's complaint that the name of the film was changed from "Crossroads" to "EXPELLED" suggesting that this re-naming was a deception. Dawkins is well aware of the fact that movie titles change. When he was interviewed for EXPELLED he made the comment that the title of his anti-religion documentary, "Root of all Evil?" was chosen as a replacement for the original title late in the process.

Additionally, Dawkins participates in the documentary "A War on Science," which is an attack on Intelligent Design (ID). Producers of that film presented themselves to the Discovery Institute as objective filmmakers and then portrayed the organization as religiously-motivated and anti- scientific.

"I've never seen a bigger bunch of hypocrites in my life," said Mathis, who set up the interviews for EXPELLED. "I went over all of the questions with these folks before the interviews and I e-mailed the questions to many of them days in advance. The lady (and gentleman) doth protest too much, methinks."

"Both Myers and Scott say they would have agreed to be interviewed under any circumstances, so why are they complaining?" said Ruloff. "In fact we had a second interview set up with Eugenie Scott, which she cancelled once rumors about EXPELLED began to circulate."

The legal releases all of the interviewees signed were quite explicit in regards to editorial control and transferability, something that is standard in the film business. Dawkins, Myers, Scott and many other scientists were paid for their interviews (Scott's check went to her organization, the National Center for Science Education).

EXPELLED's producers have made it clear the film will portray the scientists interviewed in a way that is consistent with their actual viewpoints or other public statements.

EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed is scheduled for release in February 2008. For more information on Ben Stein's journey visit http://www.expelledthemovie.com/

[Caesar Soze]

Superb. We have something like 200,000,000 dead bodies lying around from this idea of a man’s neighbor being a meat byproduct of random events rather than a fellow child of God, and it’s way past time somebody called the idiots on it.

Somebody has definitely called the idiots.

[kbingham]

I agree...it is frightening. I think many ID people are confused. They think the lack of specific details in something like Evolution by Natural Selection means that anything goes and people can drop anything they want into the suggestion box: giant turtles, indivisible spiritual entities etc. But the whole ID premise is: We can’t understand anything so don’t try.

I’ve yet to see any ID theory. A theory lays out specifics details for a process and makes predictions. It will replace Evolution at each juncture. It will be a very detailed set of books on exactly how God designed/created each part and why. Animal by animal. IDers want to jump in and say God did it in an intangible way, and that’s it, let’s go home. The world’s shortest science book.

By what method does God compute? Specifically, if God is intelligently designing everything, he must have astounding computing power. Is God a quantum computer the size of the Universe?

By what methods does God interact with the Universe without violating 1st and 2nd laws of TD (or is he integrated into our system?).

At some point a complex theory may be able to model how energy from the Sun cast to a place like Earth can lead, statistically, to the formation of complex bio system via the thermodynamic gradient. It may demonstrate how very complex systems can flourish, and with the help of something like Natural Selection, life can arise and grow.

But IDers don’t even want to bother. They just want to throw their hands up in the air and say “It’s too hard...no way it happened through Natural Selection...God did it. Let’s give up and go sing songs instead.”

We tried that folks. It’s called the way life was before the Renaissance. Medieval ID produced a big fat Zero in its efforts to stave of death and disease. Oh, right, keep science around to solve the real problems, but when it comes to answering the questions, we’ll ask St. Thomas Aquinas.

If you want to purport that an entity without parts can interact with this Universe (even design things in it), then lay out a theory for how this is done. I’m not saying it can’t be done. I’m saying lay your theory on the table in some mathematical formulation which will define how something without parts computes.

Another hint: a theory for how God interacts here without violating TD.

etc

[goldstategop]

The Left complains about censorship but then turns around to reject alternatives to the dominant Darwinist view of life on earth in science. Whatever happened to the free marketplace of ideas?

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[SuziQ]

Atheist scientists who have become famous for attacking those who disagree with them are now loudly complaining about supposedly being mistreated in a film they haven't seen.

Typical liberal response. They'll dish it out all day, but don't ever think about doing the same to them, or they'll squeal "unfair"!

[goldstategop]

The theory of evolution is based on naturalistic explanation of the origin of species. Atheist scientists have taken Charles Darwin's naturalism a step further by assuming life itself came into being through entirely natural (e.g, non-theistic causes). Even Darwin never went as far they have in assuming the very existence of life on the macro level rests on the notion we live in a universe devoid of Divine Intelligence. Now if that was true, evolutionary theory ought to be able to explain why we appear to be the sole sentient species on the planet, never mind the cosmos. The fact no other sentient species has emerged in millions of years of evolution on our planet reveals the weakness of naturalism as an explanation for the question of this macro level uniqueness in humanity.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[dschapin]

I don’t quite see your point with the wedge doctrine. An organization like the Discovery Institute may well want to promote a view of science that is more consistant with Theism but that hardly means that their scientiffic arguments are invalid.

Here are some of the arguments that I find to be the most persuasive. First, have you looked into any of Dr. Behe’s arguments for design - I think they make a very compelling case that many of the cellular biological mechanisms are very complex machines that could not have developed through a process of random mutation and natural selection. Second, Evolution has a huge problem explaining the development of new protein’s. Given the length of even a simple protein chain, statistically, you would need most of the supposed evolutionary time table to expect to randomly generate even one new simple protein. This is a huge problem for evolution since a partially coded protein produces no benefit to the organism and thus natural selection cannot solve this statistical problem.

[NicknamedBob]

"The fact no other sentient species has emerged in millions of years of evolution on our planet reveals the weakness of naturalism as an explanation for the question of this macro level uniqueness in humanity."

"Wait, what?"

Have you perhaps indelicately forgotten about the Neanderthals? And others?

[kbingham]

ID isn’t a theory. It was a theory, a long time ago. It was the only theory. I’d be prepared to accept the ID theory again on one condition: If that theory produced results.

But as I said in my last post, medieval theology produced zero results.
No cures. No end to pain and suffering. Cluelessness about everyting. That’s its legacy.

Here they had God himself in charge and couldn’t figure out the Earth wasn’t the center of the Universe.

They had the Great Designer himself in charge and couldn’t defeat Plague. After all, God designed plague or one of its ancestors. Surely God must have known something about how to stop it.

I just don’t see how people can take ID seriously.

[goldstategop]

Apart from modern man, the existence of sentience for other species has not been established. Both Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett have written books to demonstrate the irrationality and absence of empirical support for religious belief. They posit reality is limited to the facts of Nature and what science can tell us about it. There is no Ultimate Reality and the belief in one is just human wishful thinking in an attempt to come to terms with the permanence of our demise. They argue man is just a more sophisticated kind of animal - an animal nonetheless - and if there is no heaven awaiting the lesser beasts, then it follows death is truly the end of us of all.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[BuckeyeForever]

You wrote: “The actual title of Darwin’s book regarding the Evolution Theory is: The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle For Life. It was used to justify slavery.”
________________________________
My response: So? It wasn’t used BY DARWIN to justify slavery. Besides, the Bible was used to justify slavery. If you’ve read the Bible, you know that God approves of slavery.

[NicknamedBob]

"Apart from modern man, the existence of sentience for other species has not been established."

Pretty much inarguable.

However, a reasonable conjecture is that Neanderthals were sentient. My hackles rose when it was suggested that no other species possessed sentience.

It is a matter of little difference. The argument that sentience must be produced if naturalism is true is a flawed argument anyway.

That dream of environmentalist whackos, an Earth without man, would not disprove or prove the existence of a creator. In fact, such a situation is a necessary precursor to the appearance of intelligence, both for creationists and naturalists.

[beefree]

It is my understanding that God recognizes the existence of slavery, not condones it, where can I find this in the bible?

[beefree]

I checked out the site and bookmarked, thanks for the link.

[NicknamedBob]

The Garden

God made the Garden for us,
And us, he made for it.
A lovely functionality,
Until we had to split.

We didn’t follow rules in there,
That’s why we had to roam.
Until we blew the job we had,
We were His Garden gnome.

NicknamedBob . . . . October 8, 2007

[BuckeyeForever]

You wrote:”It is my understanding that God recognizes the existence of slavery, not condones it, where can I find this in the bible?”
__________________________
My response: You can find it in Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. God doesn’t just recognize that slavery exists. God believes it is OK to enslave another human being, but note: It is a major sin to covet another man’s slave, so much so that it made its way into God’s list of major no-no’s. Think of it this way. God has many picayune rules and concerns himself with a lot of details you or I might consider unimportant. Don’t mix wool and linen, for example. You might say God is a micromanager. The “Top Ten” list of no-no’s, according to God, contains the biggies, however, delivered with burning bush. The Top Ten includes a rule against coveting your neighbor’s wife, or just as importantly, his donkey. Or his slave. Obviously, here was God’s golden opportunity to prohibit slavery, and all he could think of was how wrong it would be to want your neighbor’s slave for yourself.

[beefree]

I’ll check it out, thanks

[muawiyah]

Error and a half there ~ a firm, fixed, exclusionary belief in "evolution" is something that no rational person can differentiate from a religion ~ particularly the "old time religion" of the Greeks, Romans and so forth.

It even has one or more "demigods" ~ to wit, "natural selection".

You've got to wake up and smell the e coli being modified so we can test out all the millions of wild DNA molecules and RNA molecules in the oceans to see what they do (or are s'posed to do). Once that task is done, we can get back on this evolution thing and see if what we are looking at (in terms of life on Earth) is driven by spare parts cooked up elsewhere some time in the past by someone/something or mathematical determinism (whereupon we shall turn the whole business over to the math department), or yet some other process.

I seriously doubt the existence of the "demigods" hypothesized as controllers for biological change.

[muawiyah]

What we have so far is more along the lnes of "intelligent redesign" ~ they did not, after all, build their test bed genome up from raw materials ~ they just stripped out the "nasties" ~ which was very smart.

The main guy here simply wants to test wild DNA molecules found in the ocean (he's found more than 2 million of them himself).

Eventually I would imagine he'll start cutting and pasting "introns" from our own genome, and might even copy over our "cut and paste" routine into his test bed so he can get a more sophisticated result.

I see Godzilla in our future eh?!?!?!?!

[Coyoteman]

First, have you looked into any of Dr. Behe’s arguments for design

Behe's arguments have been largely refuted by the scientific community. Many of the arguments in his first book don't even show up in his most recent book.

Also, check out the reviews of his most recent book. They are pretty devastating.

[Aquinasfan]

EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed

Hit Michael Moore and the dogmatic evolutionists over the head with a 2 x 4. I love Ben's approach.

I usually go to the movies once or twice a year, and this will be one of them.