Tackling Ben Stein's "Expelled"

I managed to dig up a little more info on Dr. Caroline Crocker (aka Doc Croc). She now has her own website (looks to be designed by her Dad, who has apparently become her personal agent) which lists her speaking fees and topics. Nothing about biology...only the travails of a [tiny violin] persecuted scientist [/tiny violin] and evangelizing. Her talks go for $1000 and up, but I found a way to get her for only $75...and all to your self. See here.
 
More Lying in the Promotion of "Expelled"

It appears that the promoters of the film are starting to play fast and loose with whether or not various screenings are canceled. Apparently, some people signed up for a screening on April 3rd in Tempe, AZ were notified that it was "canceled", when in reality
the show went on. It seems this is a process to weed out "undesirables" from seeing the screening.

Despite the attempts to screen people from the screening, there were a few skeptical folks who managed to get into the Tempe, AZ event. Here's more on a recent Pandas Thumb entry:

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/04/telling-lies-fo.html

In light of this new information, if anyone on the forums was interested in going to see a screening, I would encourage you to contact the theater in question and ask them
whether or not the screening is on. If the answer is "yes", then I'd encourage you to go anyway, but do so "under the radar".

Yet more lies. These people are despicable. :mad:
 
Rather than put money into the pockets of Ben Stein and the Disco Institute by buying a ticket to "Expelled", instead consider buying a "Truth Ticket". Read more about it at this link via Pandas Thumb...

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/04/truth-tickets.html

My favorite from that link's comment section:

"Don’t pay to see Expelled. See it for free if you have to. This clunker will end up as free DVDs, free church basement showings, and on late night Xian Trinity Broadcasting TV soon enough. Or possibly as a triple feature with The Rocky Horror Picture Show and From Darwin to Hitler."

I'll be buying my "Truth Ticket" tonight! Pass it on. :D

ETA: Awesome! This was my 666th post! Ben Stein, if you're reading this... the Devil made me do it!!! :hypnotize
 
The other day I was driving in my car when I heard an ad for Expelled on Air America Radio, of all places.

I don't remember the whole ad, but one particularly idiotic line jumped out at me: "The film BIG SCIENCE doesn't want you to see!"

What the hell is "BIG SCIENCE"?
Am I "BIG SCIENCE"? After all, I work as a physicist at a "secret lab" for TEH GUBERMENT!1!1
 
Lol, Big Science. It's Science, for chrissakes. Calling something "BIG 'X'" works if it's something that makes money, like oil or pharmaceuticals, or agribuisness or something. Science takes money. Sure, there are often practical applications, but in some fields, like pure theoretical physics, It takes quite a bit of time for that to ever find its way into general commercial products.

Mainstream science is only around because people keep giving it's researchers and organizations money, and they only keep doing that because it works.
 
Big Science

Brings to mind Hermione Gingold's great role in The Music Man (the movie). She played the mayor's wife and was against Marian, Madame Librarian's library. A great line*, right up there with the fear of Dreaded Big Science...."And I don't care if you can quote Shakespeare and Balzac and all your other high-falutin' books."

But this was a parody of rural closed-minded America at the turn of the last century. These crocks are still right there. "Dontcha be coming in here quoting your Big Science to me! God tells me what to believe!"

*Even better line was her delivery ..... when she rolled the words so perfectly, condemning the library for carrying smut like ".... The Rubiyat of Omar Khay.. I... I... I .... am appalled!"

I'm sorry. I know that these jackelopes are a real threat, but I just can't take them seriously. I was raised as a free-thinking atheist skeptic and now nearing sixty years old, I just cannot fathom how these crackpots are gaining greater and greater hold in my homeland. I think I should stop taking them as broad comedy, but somehow cannot.
 
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Foolmewunz said:
Big Science

Brings to mind Hermione Gingold's great role in The Music Man (the movie). She played the mayor's wife and was against Marian, Madame Librarian's library. A great line*, right up there with the fear of Dreaded Big Science...."And I don't care if you can quote Shakespeare and Balzac and all your other high-falutin' books."
Click to expand...

I was always under the impression she was pattering "...and all your other high-falutin' Greeks." I think it's much funnier that way. You might also point out that she was Marian's mother.

Even better line was her delivery ..... when she rolled the words so perfectly, condemning the library for carrying smut like ".... The Rubiyat of Omar Khay.. I... I... I .... am appalled!"
Click to expand...

:D

I'm sorry. I know that these jackelopes are a real threat, but I just can't take them seriously. I was raised as a free-thinking atheist skeptic and now nearing sixty years old, I just cannot fathom how these crackpots are gaining greater and greater hold in my homeland. I think I should stop taking them as broad comedy, but somehow cannot.
Click to expand...

Have you ever danced with a jackalope? Heavenly, just heavenly.
 
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shadron said:
I was always under the impression she was pattering "...and all your other high-falutin' Greeks." I think it's much funnier that way. You might also point out that she was Marian's mother.



:D



Have you ever danced with a jackalope? Heavenly, just heavenly.
Click to expand...

Actually, you're right. I saw that film thirty times as a kid. It wasn't Uelele Shinn(the mayor's wife - Hermione Gingold) - it was the lady who played her mother(and to prove I'm not a google-oid, I'm not even looking her name up). My bad.... and even worse.... I don't know why I typed "books".... sheeesh! I know the line is "and all your other high-falutin' GREEKS!" It's not funny as "books".
 
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Apparently a big running theme in the film (and perhaps one of the reasons they wanted Jewish host for the film) is that Darwinism and atheism led to the atrocities in Nazi Germany and under Stalin.

Here are two counterpoints to that:

Hitler and his lieutenants were pretty much all Christians, and official Nazi library guidelines not only banned Darwin, but also banned any books that criticised Christianity:

Source: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA006_1.html

Stalin's government actually rejected Darwinian evolution in favor of Lamarckism.

Source: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA006_2.html
 
Based on what I am reading about the film, (I have not actually seen it, yet) it looks as though it focuses mostly on the Darwin-is-like-Hitler-like analogy.
It is not interested in science, at all, it seems.

So, while communicating the scientific issues is important. I think it would be tremendously more effective if that fallacy was addressed as the focus of debunking the movie.

You can begin by pointing out those examples where that counter the analogy:
* Secular Humanists are usually very tolerant, and very peaceful people, and yet they usually fully embrace Darwin and evolution.
* On the other hand, many neo-Nazis consider themselves to be "good Christians", and would have no truck with Darwin's theory.
* etc.
 
Darwinian heathens with jesus belt buckles...
 

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MattusMaximus said:
More Lying in the Promotion of "Expelled"

It appears that the promoters of the film are starting to play fast and loose with whether or not various screenings are canceled. Apparently, some people signed up for a screening on April 3rd in Tempe, AZ were notified that it was "canceled", when in reality the show went on. It seems this is a process to weed out "undesirables" from seeing the screening.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I signed up for that screening, and I got the email that said it was cancelled. Not that I was planning to drive to Tempe from Los Angeles to see it anyway.

MattusMaximus said:
Yet more lies. These people are despicable. :mad:
Click to expand...

Well, I can't really point fingers in this case. After all, I did sign up as "Peazee Myers"...

New news: XVIVO (Inner Life of the Cell) accuses "Expelled" of copyright infringement.
 
krelnik said:
Apparently a big running theme in the film (and perhaps one of the reasons they wanted Jewish host for the film) is that Darwinism and atheism led to the atrocities in Nazi Germany and under Stalin.

Here are two counterpoints to that:
Click to expand...
On top of that, Martin Luther wrote some scathing anti-Jewish diatribes a couple centuries before Darwin came along.
 
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