Just watched an extremely compelling trailer for a documentary called Expelled.
You can watch additional trailers here.
It seems he’s not trying to prove a point either way about origin issues, but rather drawing attention to the lack of free speech in scientific academia.
Interested in seeing it? I know I am. Has anyone in academia experienced flat-out resistance to an idea merely because of religion?
On a personal note, I stopped having creation v. evolution debates a few years ago. Most discussions started with angry people and ended with accusations of blind ignorance or questioning someone’s salvation. That sort of discourse did far more harm than good. Do you think this film will be helpful to the discussion or incite people?
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January 8, 2008 at 13:56
Debates are too much like prize fights, in my opinion. We live in a culture where sound bites and video clips have become waypoints for the masses. A debate might provoke some to think and read about the subject at hand, but it is just entertainment for most. A debate might provoke some to think and read about the subject at hand, but it is just entertainment for most.
We have a professor of physics, at one of our state colleges, who is being denied tenure because of his extracurricular support of intelligent design. The president of the university denies that was a factor in the denial, but the professor claims to have documents that show a campaign of bias against him for tenure on those grounds.
The so-called free thinkers hate certain ideas and prefer to censor them.
People crave incitement theses days.
January 8, 2008 at 14:47
I’m one of those people who crave incitement, and let me tell you, REB, you just started one heck of a fight. Haha
No, I really love the “Mannish Boy” depiction of Ben Stein, for surly he is the vision of what Muddy Waters had when he wrote that song. And the topic to true enough. I mean, movies about the environment as super-important when we can’t even civilly talk or teach about where that environment me have come from.
I’m a creationist, and I don’t care who knows it, but I do care how they know it.
Yes, the authorities in science and education to stanch any discussion of intelligent design, but we must also watch ourselves for over reacting to Darwinists. First, we must be mindful of what the actual theories claim, and then we just have to be level-headed people to talk to.
January 8, 2008 at 15:13
Hmmmm, looks good . . .
January 8, 2008 at 20:50
The movie looks very interesting. It may be a good way to get people looking at it logically instead of emotionally (on both sides).
Check out http://rsvp.getexpelled.com/events/movies/expelled to see if their tour bus is coming near you.
January 9, 2008 at 06:44
I live in the Dover, PA school district, where intelligent design became a big issue a few years ago. The school board was ousted, and one of the new directors had been a parent who had sued the district over what the national media called “teaching intelligent design in the public schools.”
Sadly, the earlier school board never proposed to teach intelligent design—it simply said that students should hear a statement to the effect that not everyone believes in Darwinism, and if they want to learn about another theory, they can find a book on intelligent design in the library.
I took this furor as a personal insult. My own school district finds people like me so offensive that they don’t even want the students to know that I exist! I felt like I was denying the holocaust instead of Darwinism.
Debate over the issue seems to have become impossible anymore—there’s too much derision for anyone who doesn’t follow the party line.
January 9, 2008 at 18:37
Science is not about what anyone believes, it is about what we can find evidence for. By definition, God is not subject to scientific proof. That is why I am not a creationist, nor do I support the so-called intelligent design curriculum. It is demeaning to God. As long as scientists go beyond their field of competence to comment on whether there is a God or not, and as long as people of any faith play God by talking about whether they “believe” this or that scientific theory, we will have a very silly debate on our hands.
I would not grant tenure to a physics professor who takes “intelligent design” seriously, because it calls into question whether he can teach physics. If he said “I believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” that says nothing about his competence to teach physics. I personally believe that statement to be true, but whether I agree or disagree, it says nothing about his competence to teach physics. Intelligent Design was concocted by people who can’t maintain their faith in God without denying or twisting obvious scientific evidence. Oh ye of little faith! (And its not very good science either.)
January 9, 2008 at 23:34
First, I want to echo everything that Siarlys Jenkins already said!
I look forward to seeing this film, I just hope it isn’t another rehashing of the same tired arguments.
January 11, 2008 at 08:50
“I took this furor as a personal insult. My own school district finds people like me so offensive that they don’t even want the students to know that I exist!”
Shannon, not only you but the many scientists out there have concluded that this universe is definitely designed (Einstien comes immediately to mind). But not only are those who come to this conclusion excluded, they are ridiculed and kept from tenured positions even though there is not one shred of proof that macro-evolution has ever occured.
January 12, 2008 at 17:52
Dear Christiane, I love the way your heartfelt expressions of sincere belief challenge my own, but there is a mountain of evidence for biological evolution, and it begins with the first two chapters of Genesis. What I find miraculous is that Moses somehow got an understanding of the whole miraculous process (and evolution of life IS a miracle, although neither Richard Dawkins nor Jerry Falwell could understand that) when it took human scientists until 1850 to have the slightest clue! Who but an omnipotent God would have the patience to grow life this way, ultimately arriving at something that could, with a little tweaking (rabbis call it neshama, loosely translated soul) be made in his own image?
I’m sorry your school district isn’t mature enough to hear you out and respond respectfully. School administrators, whether of the stuffy 1950s variety that insisted on school prayer, or the liberal 1990s variety that presume to confiscate Bibles at the door, always seem to have some insecurities over their own authority.
You are correct about Einstein, although he too accepted biological evolution. My favorite Einstein quote is “The Lord God is subtle, but malicious he is not.” Einstein also said his work on the Theory of Relativity was motivated by a desire to know the mind of God.
January 14, 2008 at 16:52
”...[T]here is a mountain of evidence for biological evolution…”
Fair enough statement, Siarlys, and I very much appreciate your response; but please note I said there is no proof for MACRO evolution, which is the theory that our ancestors were “lesser” primates. I was specific in terminology for the express purpose of pointing out that there has never been evidence that a lower specie developed into a higher. Please share the scientific evidence proving mankind has evolved from a lower life form, or better yet, the scientific proof that shows life can develop from non-living substances?
January 19, 2008 at 20:18
There is a mountain of evidence for MACRO evolution, not limited to our own ancestors. Birds from dinosaurs for one, and the Cambrian explosion for another. What gets lost in biology textbooks is that most of the individuals in most of the hominid species found in rock layers from the past few million years are NOT our ancestors. Whole species do not “evolve” into new species. SOME individuals may over a long time depart from the characteristics that they shared in common with others, but more commonly, a small number of individuals are physically isolated from all others of their kind, or, 99% of a species is catastrophically destroyed, and the survivors are those with markedly different characteristics. Most ramapithicus went right on having ramapithicus children until they all became extinct. Their genes do not live on in us.
Current evidence is that homo sapiens sapiens emerged from a genetic bottleneck within the past 50,000 years. That coincides with physical evidence of a sudden profusion of art, tool-making, spoken language, that never appeared in millions of years of previous hominid existence. The physical evidence is actually coming closer and closet to the account in Genesis, without in the least contradicting evolution. (Note: souls do not leave evidence in the fossil record.)
Getting back to Stein, that “free speech” issue is a little dubious. True, there are professors who basically say, if you believe God created the heavens and the earth, you failed my class. That is arrogant nonsense. But, if someone who says “I don’t believe in evolution” applies for a job teaching biology, it is rather like a vegetarian applying for a waitress job at a steakhouse.
January 31, 2008 at 13:33
Sorry to insist there is no evidence for maco evolution, plus the birds did not evolve from dinosaurs or reptiles. Can you prove otherwise? I am a biologist.
It is known that this idea of the origin of birds conflicts with the sequence (or steps) of creation made by the Lord as told in Genesis.
“Current evidence is that homo sapiens sapiens emerged from a genetic bottleneck within the past 50,000 years. That coincides with physical evidence of a sudden profusion of art, tool-making, spoken language, that never appeared in millions of years of previous hominid existence.”
Current evidence, where and what is it?
homo sapiens sapiens, is this a relatively recently added variation of homo sapiens or a newer subspecies?
genetic bottleneck. What is the scientific proof, from the genetics perspective for this event, naming the genes involved and how the newly appearing genome ensured its continuation.
Lastly “sudden profusion of art, tool-making, spoken language, that never appeared in millions of years” is the concrete proof that the first man was specially created, soul and body, and received the breath of life. God gave him the gift of the know hows of everything you mention.
A colleague wanted to explain scientifically how bisexual species appeared and survived. He was helpless. To solve this problem he decided to speculate his theory: all bisexual species “must have” started as a hermaphrodite member, then in a further necessary intra-species evolution step to “differentiate” into male and female.
I commented it would have been a lot easier to devise and publish a better, brand new solution for biological origins and evolution, hopefully this time in a correct scientific package. Till this happens (if it does) Genesis is the truth and the best reference to hold on to.
February 2, 2008 at 16:40
Dear Nisk:
You took my point ALMOST exactly when you noted “Lastly ‘sudden profusion of art, tool-making, spoken language, that never appeared in millions of years’ is the concrete proof that the first man was specially created, soul and body, and received the breath of life. God gave him the gift of the know hows of everything you mention.”
Only, I have no problem with the notion that the physical body, even the capacity of the brain, evolved, as the Creator intended from the beginning. Yes, something profound was done attaching what Hebrew scholars of Genesis call the neshama to the organic body. There was a unique act of creation of something in the image of God, which required both female and male to express it.
I am not a biologist, but my local library is full of books by biologists who trace evolution in some detail. Space on this web site does not allow me to transcribe them, but you know they exist, as much as I know there is a Creation Science Museum in Kentucky. Right now I am reading a book called At Home in the Universe which does not reject natural selection, but puts it in a different perspective, pointing to a natural order which underlies biological evolution, suggesting that we are not a random accident at all, but were expected. The author, also a biologist, even hopes to restore a sense of the sacred, without committing science to any spiritual doctrine—that of course is outside of his competence, or yours as a biologist.