“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” is one of the funniest films of the year. A real romp!


I had a lot of fun at this flick, Ben Stein’s cold-hard facts vs. the stupid Darwinian’s fascist policies really brought the whole issue into an objective light.*

* denotes sarcasm. Although I did have a lot of fun. Laughing aloud and all. The gross use of stock footage from propaganda films, extreme editing and ridiculous claims that Darwin caused the Holocaust [yes, that's an actual line of reasoning from the film] make this film hard to take seriously. The whole time, I was wondering. What really are the claims about Intelligent Design? But they never brought those to the table, not point by point. In the end, a documentary about Intelligent Design should probably make some statements [with evidence] about why ID should be a viable hypothesis in the scientific community, so the scientific community doesn’t consider it to be mere heresay. But instead, it’s probably a better idea to just whine about how science is against them and pander to the heart-strings of people and paint science as a big bully with a closed mind.*

Science doesn’t have a mind. It has a process. If you don’t meet the requirements for passing the steps in that process, you get rejected. ID was finished the momenth it couldn’t provide any evidence to backup any of its claims. I don’t care how many black-and-white stock footage clips you throw at us in a vain attempt to equate the expelled IDers with the millions of persecuted and silenced voices throughout our history. They do have a voice, that voice’s basis belongs in philosophy, not science. And that is that.

Even Richard Dawkins entertained the possibility that Intelligent Design may be true, but it also may be true that every living thing is actually posing as something else, and in actuality they are all blue yaks hiding from me and this is just one big dream world thought up by a pink carnation flower. Yes, that is a possibility. Now hold your breath while I gather evidence to support that hypothesis.

07/21

INFO

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COMMENTS

07/25

torncanvas

So wait. Isn’t the movie about how Ben Stein actually supports the scientists who are against ID, so he set out to make a movie that kind of makes fun of people who support ID? Maybe I have it wrong, though.

I have sat in on a lecture that explains what ID is about, and there is quite a bit of evidence to support ID as a valid attempt for providing evidence for a theistic being’s existence. It’s a complicated issue, though. I just wanted to point out that there are people out there that can actually provide reasonable cases for such a thing. :P

08/26

Dan

No, Ben Stein is Jewish and he believes in God
He is not necessarily out to say either side is correct, because let’s all be honest, no one knows for sure.
Instead, he is trying to show people that the scientific community is not as open as it should be. All scenarios, all evidence, all debates should be open for discussion, and if evolution is right, it should win out in the end if we are able to have completely open discourse and discussion.

08/27

mile222

Yea, that’s the ‘get-your-foot-in-the-door’ way of putting Ben Stein’s case. But there’s no evidence, otherwise the scientific community would “be open” to these claims of having an intelligent designer. Just because something is plausible, doesn’t mean it can be scientifically proven. That’s the difference. There must be a testable hypothesis. I.D. does not have one. Just like if I were to tell you my reality lives on entirely within my own head run by blue warthogs controlled by alien nano-machines. You wouldn’t be able to dispute any of it since it’s my head, not yours. I would make the rules. It’s how schizophrenia works, with circle logic. And that’s all well and good, I leave it up to anyone to believe whatever they want, even I have some wild beliefs, and even scientists do… such as string theorists. But the string theorists wait patiently looking for WAYS to test their theory, understanding that their claims may be outrageous and remain untestable. I.D. seems to champion slanderous documentaries in favor of any scientific practice, and by all means do as the string theorists do and work to find ways to test I.D. theories, but you can’t be surprised in the least when science doesn’t give this the time of day.

09/26

torncanvas

Good discussion going here. Here’s where I’m coming from:

Truth is what corresponds with reality, and science obviously tries to find truth through studying reality. But reality is a shared experience – it’s always “our reality.” We know this because multiple people can do the same test and get the same result. The consistency of these results provide enough evidence that we can base the truth of our existence on it. The fact that something cannot “be” and “not be” at the same time AND in the same sense has not yet been disproven in all of history. The foundation of all of mathematics, logic, science, and communication relies on it. Therefore, there is enough evidence that we can be fully confident in absolute truths with regards to existence.

Because of this, we can confidently search for the truth of our existence and not resort to relativism. This is where ID comes in.

The whole point of ID is that you can use a straight-forward, testable method to provide evidence that something was designed by an intelligent being. You then use this method on a cosmic scale to provide evidence that the universe was created by an intelligent being. Now obviously, it’s hard to be conclusive, and the details are complex with ID – that’s a legitimate reason to not support it. However, conceptually-speaking, you can simplify ID down to a flowchart you follow when looking at nature. How is that not scientific? How is that not logical?

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