Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: expelled

  • Ken Miller on Expelled

    Dr. Kenneth Miller has a review of Expelled! in the Boston Globe, and it’s a good one. It’s short and to the point. (Hat tip to Dispatches where I also commented.)

    Dr. Miller goes directly to the issue of associating the theory of evolution with atheism, a piece of propaganda work that the movie accomplishes by failing to interview key theistic evolutionists.

    Puzzled, the editors of Scientific American asked Mark Mathis, the film’s co-producer, why he and Stein didn’t interview such people, like Francis Collins (head of the Human Genome Project), Francisco Ayala, or myself. Mathis cited me by name, saying “Ken Miller would have confused the film unnecessarily.” In other words, showing a scientist who accepts both God and evolution would have confused their story line. [emphasis mine]

    To translate the bolded portion: The truth would have gotten in the way of our lies.

    I want to emphasize again that the reason I work to dissociate the theory of evolution from atheism is not that I believe atheists to be immoral, nor do I believe thoughts that atheists think are somehow inferior. The theory of evolution is science. It should be judged be scientific methods. Whether it works best with the theological systems of theists or with atheists is quite irrelevant. The only relevant thing is how well confirmed it is as a scientific theory.

  • How it Happened vs. Probabilities

    I may be hopelessly naive in the matter of probability, though it is the one area of math that I have actually studied, but I am simply not terribly impressed with probability arguments. That’s probably (!) a major reason why I’m not impressed with intelligent design (ID). I’m particularly not impressed with probabilities calculated for processes that are not yet understood. If you don’t know all the factors, how can you calculate a probability?

    On the other hand, it appears that many creationists are much more impressed with probabilities that are largely guessed, while they are not terribly impressed with extrapolation in historical studies. For them, it often doesn’t matter how much detail you get for the development of various structures in the past, it’s not enough, because it would only be testable if we could see every stage and explain everything.

    Thus when an ID writer claims something is highly improbable, even though he hasn’t a clue how it actually happened, it impresses his fellow creationists, while when a scientist extrapolates development between existing specimens, the same creationists are totally unimpressed. Yet which of these is operating on the greater level of evidence?

    If anyone is wondering why I see strong evidence for evolution, here’s the answer. I’m used to and respect historical methods. If you find a pottery type developing, and then you find several examples of stages, sequentially arranged by date, you can extrapolate a path from one style to the next. You don’t need an example of every pot. If you see writing develop from one style to the next, you don’t need every stage. You can extrapolate.

    For me, the simple fact of large numbers of sequences in the development of complex structures suggests that such things have developed naturally. Extrapolating the intermediate steps is not terribly difficult for those who study these things, and it is a quite proper procedure. Challenging the observed sequence by indicating that it is improbable strikes me as absurd. The only proper challenge would be to say, “Here! This is where the intelligent designer intervened.” But of course, ID advocates do no such thing.

    NCSE has produced a video, which I will embed below, that shows such a sequence on the development of the eye. It’s very clear, but it lacks some steps. I don’t know whether the video produced all the steps we know of, or just a sampling, but if these were the sum total of examples we have in a sequence of eye development, we would have good cause to believe that the eye evolved.

    This video comes from the truly excellent site Expelled Exposed, sponsored by NCSE. Hat tip goes to The Panda’s Thumb.

  • Another Good Review of Expelled!

    . . . from someone who has seen it, no less! It’s on The Creation of an Evolutionist, which blog also goes on my blogroll. (From a comment on an earlier post.)

  • Good Sermon Science Comments

    Today I attended Pensacola’s First United Methodist Church where Dr. Wesley Wachob is pastor. He recently saw the movie Expelled!, and though he said he recommended people see it, he proceeded to dump pretty heavily on the movie’s content. He encouraged the church’s young people to become “brilliant scientists” and noted that there is no contradiction between good theology and good science, and that creationism is not science, no matter how you dress it up.

    Some of the wording may differ in the audio I’m linking, because he preaches three times, and the audio is not of the same service I attended (9:45 am), but I listened to sections, and it sounds like the goal was much the same.

    More pastors need to speak boldly like this to their congregations so that people will realize that creationism isn’t the only Christian option. It’s good when Christians who are scientists speak out; we need more theologians, and specifically more pastors to do so.

    You can find the audio on this page. Click on the little speaker by “The Unknown God.” (Update: Comments on science start at about 14:30.)

  • Good Review of Expelled

    … at Higgaion.

  • Missing the Point on Darwin and Hitler

    Supposing some scientist goes out into some wilderness area and observes the behavior of predators with a species of herd animals. He observes that the slowest and weakest of the herd animals tend to fall prey to the predators while the stronger or faster ones survive. This scientist comes back and and reports on this behavior and its effects.

    A while later some politician reads this article and decides to base a political philosophy on it. Obviously, based on that article, the best way to improve the human species is to subject them to such pressure from hunting. Only in this way, he says, can we ensure that the human species continues to improve.

    Which of the following behaviors would be reasonable:

    1. Criticizing the scientist for providing fodder for the politician
    2. Assuming that the scientist desired the outcome proposed by the politician
    3. Determining that the scientist must be wrong because immoral conclusions could be drawn from his work
    4. Deciding that the politician has misapplied the science
    5. Criticizing the politician on moral grounds irrespective of the science

    I suggest that the first three are obviously wrong, while the last two are possibilities, amongst many, for dealing with the situation. Yet people err in precisely this way with respect to evolution and its relation to Hitler and the Nazis.

    There’s a simple point here missed by such people as David Klinghoffer, who is (surprise!) a fellow of the (No-)Discovery Institute. He manages to point out that Hitler (gasp!) quoted Darwin. And then Joe Carter, over at evangelical outpost goes ahead and links to it as though it had intellectual content.

    Come on folks, this is a lousy argument. It’s not a sensitive one; it’s just plain lousy. As in it has no merit whatsoever.

    The theory of evolution is either a good scientific theory, or it’s not. Whether Hitler quoted the scientist who first proposed it is of no relevance one way or another. Even if it’s a bad theory, the fact that Hitler quoted it would add not one little bit of weight to the arguments against it. If it is a valid theory, being quoted by Hitler takes nothing from that.

    It’s a scientific theory; it stands or falls as such.

  • Expelled: No Mainstream Scientists Allowed

    Well, I got past my hardware problems, and then started to read my e-mail and some of my RSS feeds. First, I came across an e-mail from Christianity Today’s ChristianBibleStudies.com, from which I often get useful material. Today, they’re wanting me to pay $5.95 for a discussion of the movie that I can use in my Sunday School class.

    I am not encouraged by their link to an interview with Ben Stein that starts out:

    Ben Stein got his start as a lawyer and a speechwriter for Presidents Nixon and Ford, and in more recent years he has written books, offered investment advice, and hosted both a game show (Win Ben Stein’s Money) and a reality TV show (America’s Most Smartest Model). But he is probably still best known for playing the boring high-school economics teacher who took attendance in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

    Now Stein is tackling education of a different kind, as the star of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a documentary about the Intelligent Design movement—and the academic establishment’s efforts to stifle the debate over the limitations of evolutionary theory that many ID advocates have been calling for.

    I decided not to spend $5.95 and probably not to discuss Expelled! in any Sunday School classes either.

    The problem I have is that Expelled! is also squeezing some folks out, and they are making Christianity Today a co-conspirator in that process. The ones squeezed out? All those Christians, even evangelical Christians who would like much of what Christianity Today publishes, but who accept the theory of evolution.

    This is one of the many problems with this movie. It frames the controversy as one between theists and atheists, between moral people and immoral people, and thus leaves out Christian evolutionists, moral atheists, and many people who are not particularly religious or anti-religious, but are simply out there doing the best science they can. As one of those Christian evolutionists, I find this implication appalling. According to this movie and its promoters, I’m a co-conspirator with a bunch of Nazis to persecute Christians.

    I recall a student of mine who took my Creation-Evolution seminar–the short, four hour version–and then talked to one of his fellow students in biology class. This man was interested in Christianity, and attracted to it, but simply found the evidence for evolution overwhelming. My young student was able to explain to him that the theory of evolution was not contrary to all forms of Christianity, and soon he was involved in a local church.

    I was disappointed in Christianity Today, but I was pleased to note that Reasons to Believe, with whom I often disagree, has noticed the nature of the Expelled! propaganda piece as well. As reported on The Panda’s Thumb, they have asked folks associated with their ministry not to endorse the movie in a way that connects with their official business:

    Therefore, we ask all chapter members and volunteers to refrain from endorsing EXPELLED in any official way. This request does not extend to your personal interactions-only to any actions taken in association with or on behalf of Reasons to Believe. (The whole quote is here.)

    Through a comment on the Panda’s Thumb article, I found this post by Ken Ham on the Answers in Genesis blog, who, not surprisingly is excited by the film’s release and is encouraging all his supporters to view it. (Note that the Answers in Genesis blog doesn’t allow comments or trackbacks. Perhaps that is their demonstration of how much they value dialog.)

    If we Christians are to welcome such mainstream scientists into our community, our family, we will have to learn to be reasonably respectful toward them. It would seem that not calling them Nazis would be a good start in that direction! If this is a battle about freedom of speech, then it should apply to all parties. If it is a battle in the culture war, then it’s unfortunate that a salvo such as this has been launched at so many devout Christians who accept the theory of evolution.

    I do not object to vigorous argument, as long as it is vigorous and honest. Expelled! fails to meet the standard.

    Hmm. That’s enough rambling at the end of a day spent largely taking my computer apart and putting it back together. If I said anything really weird, I’ll make that the excuse!

  • Integrity is more than Not Lying Outright

    People often think that legalism is about trying very hard to be right, and that the main problem with it is that people can’t succeed at it. I would suggest that there’s something more characteristic of legalism, and that it results from trying to paste on the narrow letter of some “right” things to oneself without really taking it in.

    A legalist reads the commandment about “bearing false witness against one’s neighbor” and construes it very narrowly, either as lying under oath or as lying outright. Then he tries not to lie outright. If he can deceive people in some way other than lying directly, he doesn’t care. Similarly the legalist looks at a list of sexual commands and tries not to do those specific things, or perhaps not get caught doing them (note that he’s not lying outright, just deceiving).

    The alternative, one taught by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is to take the right approach into one’s mind and heart and then live out that integrity. This person tries to live in a non-deceptive manner. If he finds he has deceived someone, that’s the time for confession and repentance. In sexual matters, he tries to live up to his promises and not to injure people through irresponsible activity. If he fails, he does his best to restore damaged relationships and to limit the hurt to others.

    Please note here that I’m not comparing Christianity and Judaism. If that were not inappropriately done so often I wouldn’t have to mention it. There’s no basic reason why a Jew must be a legalist and a Christian not. I personally know many examples of Christian legalists, and Jewish examples of a deeply internal faith and ethic. In fact, in speaking the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was teaching within the range of Judaism of his time.

    That’s how long it takes me to get to my point, which is this: Those who fuss over gluing moths to tree trunks (a place where they would naturally rest, but not when it was convenient to photograph them) in order to take their pictures, should perhaps not stage scenes themselves. I normally have no problem with staging scenes in order to take photographs, as long as the staging is either true to life or appropriate to the genre involved.

    But integrity involves a consistent viewpoint. If you believe staging a scene is inappropriate, you shouldn’t do it. If you think it’s OK, it should be OK for your enemies as well.

    This goes a step further if the scene was staged to suggest that an event occurred in which more Pepperdine students attended than actually did. (HT: The Panda’s Thumb) But the whole thing would be nitpicking if we were not dealing with a standard already set. I would suggest dropping both, but I eagerly await a clear repudiation of the claim of fraud in the peppered moth case.

    I doubt that will happen, but it should.

  • XVIVO Claims Copyright Violation in Expelled!

    As has been previously reported by a number of bloggers, XVIVO believes that Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed has infringed on their copyright by using portions of their video The Inner Life of a Cell.

    In a letter demanding that this material be removed prior to the movie’s release, and threatening legal action if it is not, David Bolinsky, XVIVO LLC partner and medical director, said:

    It has come to our intention that Premise Media and Rampant Films has produced a film entitled Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which is scheduled for commercial release and distribution on April 18, 2008. To our knowledge, this film includes a segment depicting biological cellular activity that was copied by computer-generated means from a video entitled The Inner Life of a Cell. XVIVO holds the copyright to all the models, processes, and depictions in this video, and has not authorized Premise Media or Rampant Films to make any use of this material.

    It looks like there is enough copying just in the promotional material that XVIVO believes it has grounds for this action.

    It is just too ironic that a movie produced to tell us about the moral problems of atheism and “Darwinism” includes plagiarized material. Just amazing.

    Stay tuned. Perhaps folks were expelled for plagiarism, and not for creative ideas!

    Note: As I was putting in the link to the earlier article from ERV above, I note that ERV also has the full letter posted. So if you want more than my snippet go there. Come to think of it, go there anyhow. It’s a great blog.

  • Also Richard Colling

    PZ Myers (yes, he who was expelled from Expelled!)* Pim van Meurs, has posted a couple of interesting cases on The Panda’s Thumb, and I want to make sure one name is also known: Dr. Richard Colling. I wrote about his situation in a number of posts, and also blogged through his book Random Designer.

    I experienced conservative Christian education myself. Many of my more conservative friends think I don’t understand the closed nature of academia because I didn’t attend a public university. But I experienced the closed minds that manifested themselves as soon as one deviated from the party line by too great a degree.

    The Expelled! producers aren’t concerned about academic freedom. They’re concerned about victory. They would like to be in control and be the ones expelling.

    *My sincere apologies. I plead posting too early in the morning.