Up front Disclaimer: I'm not a fan of Creationism, Young Earth, any of the stars or staff of "EXPELLED", and certainly not PZ "Ridicule Works" Meyer, who hosts the Lord of the Flies blog called Pharyngula. I have not seen the movie. I have been to PZ's blog, a nasty affair pretending rationality, practicing chaotic cannibalism.
Now, the only known facts: EXPELLED was being shown to advance audiences. PZ and other Atheists showed up. PZ was asked to leave.
Apparently this movie is an attempt to document the discrimination of organized, ossified science against those who come in with theories going against the dogma. This type of discrimination within science is not new. No overturning or contradictory proposition ever seems to be met with gratitude for its discovery, and books have been written on this. The most vocal camp at the moment that espouses these types of things is of course the evolutionary camp.
Now that PZ, ardent atheist evolutionist, was himself expelled, the buzz has turned into screams of hypocrisy.
Questions not asked:
Is not being allowed into an advance screening the same as not being allowed to publish?
Why is it OK to disallow discussion of alternative theories, but not OK to disallow undesirables into advance screenings? (PZ is most certainly an undesirable in my book, a topic for another day).
The jackals of atheism were bound to howl after the screening, whether they were allowed in or not. It was their purpose, and they could not lose, howling about what they saw, or howling about what they did not see. The uproar here is perfectly predictable.
5 comments:
Sorry, Stan, but this criticism misses the mark. The question is not whether or not the film's producers had the right to exclude PZ. They certainly did. The question is how they could be so ham-fisted and clueless at public relations.
And the fact is, Stan, the guys who made that movie are a bunch of known liars. They collected their footage under false pretenses, as anyone who has researched the issue will tell you. Why should I believe their spin on the event, given that the way they put this thing together was rotten in the first place? Don't even get me started on the 'Darwin caused the Holocaust' trope. One might as well indict Christianityen toto for Auschwitz.
Yes, creationists and ID advocates often get the cold shoulder from fellow scientists and high-profile advocacy of creationism etc. can damage an academic career. That's true. So what? Science as practiced is not about 'fairness' or equal time for all ideas. It's a pretty brutal competition of ideas. Creationists and IDevotees haven't competed well in the arena of science so far, and so the response of some of them is to say 'we need to change the rules' in order to make their ideas competitive. They pitch their proposal as if they were widening the circle of discovery, but actually all they're advocating is lowering the basket, so that anyone can dunk:
"How to explain this observation in the natural world?"
"Easy! God did it!" (dunk)
Stan,
First, I appreciate your posts and am a regular reader. I like your logical, even-handed approach.
Regarding this post, I would want to refer readers to this link:
http://lookingcloser.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/richard-dawkins-crashes-the-party-at-a-screening-of-expelled/
It was interesting to me because it tells a little more of the story from a first-hand account from someone who wasn't PZ Myers.
Thanks for reading.
Scott, somehow I doubt that all the hoorah is due to concern over the rusty PR abilities of the movie producers. I'll stick with my opinion that the anti-movie hoorah and hype would have occurred either way, possibly even louder if the PR had been highly polished.
I also realize that science is not by vote. However there are a great many instances where science was impeded by decades - or more - due to entrenchment of dogmatic but powerful self-interests within the scientific community. This manifests itself not by rational debate but by ridicule and discrimination against the threatening interloper.
In this case, ID is defined out of the game, and is handled typically by ridicule and discrimination.
What would it hurt to insist on a prescience class on the philosophy of science? I certainly wish I had had that. At the end of the course the divergence of science into materialism could be juxaposed against the emergence of ID into metaphysics / philosophy.
It won't and can't happen that way in the current atmosphere of hate that emanates from such as PZ and his minions.
Brian,
Thanks very much!
The comments to Jeffrey's blog from PZ are revealingly typical: over the top and intolerant.
Scott,
Rereading your comment, I agree that the basket shouldn't be lowered. But why miss the opportunity to reveal the differences in types of evidences and the types of conclusions drawn and drawable from each?
What I see is total abject fear of ID. If it is that fearful a prospect to consider, why not attack it rationally and in the venue of its choice? The "ham-fistedness" is with the evolutionists' attempts, real and perceived, to censor the opposition and deny its voice, rather than to censure by demonstrating its own validity. This will always meet with opposition in the "Land of the Free".
The presence of a very high percentage of radical atheists in the censoring does not help the cause of evolution either. It is the atheists and the ACLU that radicalize these exclusionary policies. America is not atheist...yet.
The inability of the atheist influence on evolution to accept the philosophical conundrums of materialism as limitations will always bring skepticism from the public.
Scott, I know you teach these diverse things, or I suppose that you do. But that is beyond the intent of Meyers, Dawkins, and the others of kind. Their express intent is to make everyone believe as they do: in materialism. That is not an expression of rationalism, it is an expression of radical fundamentalism.
This is obvious to many citizens who will choose to fight back, as long as evolution is the dogma of atheism.
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