I don’t think we need to worry about Expelled. Ben Stein is doing a perfectly fine job of destroying its credibility all by himself.

Stein was on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson last Friday. This is what he said (minus the unfunny banter with Ferguson):

Darwinism doesn’t explain the laws of gravity. Darwinism doesn’t explain the laws of thermodynamics. …And we don’t want people to be fired if they say that the planets stay in their orbits maybe by something other than Darwinism. …His followers claim it explains everything including astronomy.

Update 4/29/08

It occurred to me that the above transcript is so absurd that many of you will doubt its veracity. Fortunately for us, we have YouTube! One quick look found the segment, which I have embedded here. You also might want to go by the actual YouTube page and read the comments. It’s about an eight-minute video, and I’ve given you the transcript of most of the relevant content. It’s amazing how little information is conveyed in a modern American entertainment program (if you can call Craig Ferguson entertaining). Anyway, enjoy! (The drug references add a surreal irony to this whole embarrassment.)

I found a good blog called Playing Chess with Pigeons, by Troy Britain. He mostly focusses on evolution and creationism. He has a lot of good articles. You should check it out.

What really caught my fancy was his explanation of the blog’s title. I’m going to reprint most of it here, with my comments:

The title comes (apparently) from a very amusing description of what it is like to debate creationists about evolution Scott D. Weitzenhoffer made in a comment on Amazon.com regarding Eugenie Scott’s book Evolution Vs. Creationism: An introduction (2004):

Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon — it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.

I love it! That’s a great description. My blog has received its share of creationists, and the metaphor is pretty accurate. Troy continues:

Man, have I been there. It’s not just that antievolutionists are often completely ignorant of evolutionary theory, the state of the evidence, and the history of science. There have also been numerous times where I have been debating an antievolutionist or responding to their claims that I would have to take time to explain their own arguments to them. [emphasis added]

“No, you meant to say ‘Piltdown Man’ was based on a human skull and an orangutan jaw, not on a pig’s tooth. That was ‘Nebraska Man’ and it was based on a peccary tooth.”

That sure sounds familiar! Not only do they get it wrong, but they all seem to get it wrong in the same way!

Troy finishes with:

Add to this their constantly moving goal-posts, their tendency towards scatter-shot (keep throwing stuff against the wall and hope that something sticks) mode of argument, their constant digressions to irrelevancies, non sequiturs and other logical fallacies, and it gets pretty breathtaking.

I was going to flag a few examples of that from my blog, but that pretty much covers every creationist who visits us.

The latest Skeptics’ Circle is up over at Andrea’s Buzzing About. There are a lot of good articles on a variety of topics.

One that I found enlightening was Seth Manapio’s analysis of Mein Kampf, in which he looks for evidence that Hitler was taking his marching orders directly from Darwin. Scandalous!

(YouTube page is here)

…Earth. He’s down on the whole Earth Day thing. Here’s what Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council wrote about Earth Day:

An estimated billion people are celebrating Earth Day around the world, but few seem to understand its true motivation. Today isn’t just another reminder to use recycled paper or drive energy-efficient cars.

That’s right. A billion people are wrong! Only wise Tony Perkins knows the true agenda. And what is that, Tony?

It’s a calculated attack on the sanctity of human life.

Holy crap! Here he goes again! Everything Tony doesn’t like somehow always comes back to abortion. In fact, let’s see far Tony can get before using the A-word:

Population¹ control² is³ inextricably⁴ linked⁵ to⁶ the⁷ environmental⁸ and⁹ abortion¹⁰ movements.

Ten words!! Woo Hoo!! Tony made it into double digits! The man’s a stud! Now let’s see how long he can go before calling somebody a radical or an extremist:

For¹ years², the³ Sierra⁴ Club⁵ and⁶ other⁷ green⁸ militants⁹ have said that the best way to consume fewer resources is to have fewer children.

Only nine this time. Poor Tony’s staying power isn’t what it once was. Let’s see what other thoughts Tony is spooging at us:

Their own website says, “Talk to your decision-makers and demand an increase of funding for voluntary family planning programs and access to comprehensive sex education for young people.”

And this is bad how? Let’s try not doing those things and see what happens to the abortion rate.

Last year, Optimum Population Trust released a paper that was even less subtle. It claimed that children are “bad for the planet”…

That’s because they are. The amount of resources one member of the developed world consumes in his lifetime is staggering. Does Tony deny this? Does Tony even think about sustainability? Or is he too busy thinking that God created this world just for him and his fundie buddies to despoil any way they can?

…and called on nations to reduce the global population by five billion—which would only be possible by forced abortion and sterilization.

OPT said nothing of the sort. Their web site calls for a gradual decline to a world population between 2.7 and 5.1 billion people. This does not require, and nowhere do they suggest, “forced abortion and sterilization”. Tony is just making stuff up, and his followers are too stupid to know they’re being manipulated by this devious slimeball.

The slimeball continues:

And how could we forget Barry Walters? The Australian professor published an article last year advocating a “baby tax” for every couple with more than two children.

That’s exactly the sort of thing that governments should be doing, especially if you don’t want “forced abortion and sterilization”! It’s the government’s job to look out for the common welfare. Global population growth is out of control. Populations are already on the hairy edge of being unable to feed themselves. Add in the environmental degradation caused by decades of non-sustainable resource exploitation, plus the expected changes in rainfall and growing regions caused by global warming, and it would be suicidal for any government not to try to curb population growth. Just how suicidal is Tony Perkins? I thought this guy was “pro-life”.

The crisis du jour is global warming, but even that is just another excuse to fund “Planet” Parenthood and similar groups.

Har har. Tony sure is funny with the puns! No, Tony. Global warming isn’t “just another excuse to fund” Planned Parenthood or “murder babies”. Global warming is a real problem today, and an even bigger problem tomorrow. We have to take serious steps yesterday if we want to prevent some serious catastrophes.

Stewardship of God’s creation is the responsibility of every Christian.

So then why are you such a colossally piss-poor steward, Tony? You’re breaking God’s heart!

But we must realize that there’s a greater threat to the environment than climate change or scarce resources—and that’s the threat of environmental extremism that elevates the planet above people.

Guess what, Tony? We aren’t valuing the planet over people (well, most of us aren’t, anyway. There are extremists in all movements.). The concern over global warming is based on our concern for every other human being on this planet, and their ability to survive into the future. You only care about people between conception and birth. For once, why don’t you think about the people who have already been born?

The Coral Ridge Hour is the TV show of the late D. James Kennedy. The episode they aired last Sunday was devoted to Expelled. Apparently they were expelled from math class as well. This “hour” was only 30 minutes long. Maybe they call it that, because when you watch it, it feels like an hour.

I decided to watch this program to see what they’re telling people. It isn’t pretty. Remember that DJK was one of the first people to try to link Hitler’s atrocities to Darwin. He produced a film called Darwin’s Deadly Legacy, which made that claim.

The second half of the program was various promotional segments for Expelled. There’s nothing new there, so instead I want to comment on the first half of the program, which consisted of a rerun of a sermon by DJK. The sermon was called “The Christian View of Science”.

My first reaction is to object to his claim that what he is presenting is “The Christian View of Science”. Not all Christians reject science. He is unfairly tarring all Christians with his science-hating brush.

He started off by reading from Genesis 1:1, as if that proves anything. He also read Genesis 1:26, which has always disturbed me:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness….

“We”? “Our”? So God has MPD?

DJK then said this:

There has been the introduction of an alien philosophy into science. This has been done surreptitiously and unnoticed by many, but the mask has been ripped off by Dr. Phillip Johnson, professor of law at U.C. Berkeley.

Phillip Johnson is one of the early creators of Intelligent Design creationism, so you can tell already where this is going. But what is this “alien philosophy”?

DJK says that the philosophy of Naturalism was never a part of science, but now it dominates. He claims that naturalism is totally different from science. Naturalism refers to nature, and it rules out the supernatural. By definition, it rules out God.

My reply is that it’s more accurate to say that naturalism is only concerned with what is natural and measurable, and it is not concerned with (nor can it measure) the supernatural. Yes, it rules out God, but only as an actor in the drama. It says nothing about whether God is backstage or in the audience.

DJK then went on to say that the greatest damage Darwin has done was to separate science from God. And:

…not only has it done that, but it has separated innumerable millions of young people from God. It’s probably the most devastating broadside against religion and Christianity and theism that has ever come down the pike.

This is probably one reason the Christians always think they’re being persecuted, even though they’re in the majority. They invent themselves out of the majority. They convince themselves that science is anti-Christian. Because we are living in a scientific age, then ipso facto, we are living in an anti-Christian age.

He continues:

Virtually every kind of anti-Christian “-ism” that’s come down the pike in the past 100 or more years finds at least a pseudo-scientific foundation in evolution.

This is why they hate evolution so much. It isn’t merely because it contradicts their Bible. It’s because evolution somehow is responsible for everything (real or imagined) that now opposes Christianity.

Evolution, therefore, has given rise to things like Nazi-ism.

Notice he’s not even blaming Darwin here. I thought maybe the reason the fundies keep talking about “Darwinism” is because they’re trying to give the impression that Darwin is some sort of secular cult leader. DJK isn’t doing that here. He’s somehow linking the fact that species evolve to Hitler’s policies. So in the beginning, there was a primitive cell. It reproduced. Its descendants evolved into multi-cellular organisms, which became fish, which eventually crawled out of the ocean, which evolved into primates, which became the Third Reich. This sounds like I’m creating a straw man here, but that is the only way I can interpret what DJK is saying. Look at that quote again: “Evolution, therefore, has given rise to things like Nazi-ism.” That’s crazy talk.

The only real connection between evolution and Nazi-ism is that a few people misunderstood evolution, and they misapplied their distorted knowledge to the social sciences. Darwin is not responsible for the misunderstanding and misuse of his theory, but that’s not even what DJK is claiming. He’s claiming that the evolution itself is responsible for Nazi-ism.

Let’s just say that’s the case. That means that all societies would ultimately end up as something similar to the Third Reich. It would have to be the natural end-point of evolution. Since that hasn’t happened, and it’s showing no signs of happening, then that supposition must be false. The fundie claim that evolution = Nazi-ism is false.

The only way I can make sense of this is there must be the built-in assumption that evolution isn’t real. So that means what they’re really saying is that Darwin came up with this crazy unfounded idea. Other people took the idea and used it to justify killing. Darwin shouldn’t have been so irresponsible as to publish the idea.

An analogy would be that sometime before WWI, some German guy probably said “Hey, you know what would be a good weapon? Poison gas!” That guy would have to bear some responsibility for the devastating poison gas attacks during the war. If you’re coming from the perspective that evolution is fake, then maybe the argument that the guy who invented this fake idea is responsible for how it was used makes a bit of sense.

The reality is that evolution is real. Therefore, Darwin isn’t responsible for how a misunderstanding of evolution was misused (by Hitler or eugenicists or anybody else) any more than Henry Ford is responsible for cars being used as getaway vehicles by bank robbers.

DJK then went on to claim that communism and Marxism were the direct result of evolution. He must have gone to one of those unaccredited Bible colleges. That’s the only way I can explain his colossal ignorance. Communism and Marxism are the opposites of evolution. Unbridled capitalism is the closest equivalent to evolution in the social sciences. In fact, that is why Social Darwinism was embraced so heartily by many rich Americans. It allieviated any guilty feelings they might have had about all of the people they were exploiting.

DJK’s next pearl of wisdom was:

Science is a wonderful thing. Naturalistic science is a perversion of science, but it has succeeded in convincing many people that science and religion are enemies.

No, it is fundies who have convinced many people that science and religion are enemies. Why is it that non-fundies (i.e., Catholics and mainline Protestants) don’t have that belief?

DJK’s next whopper was:

Science is a contribution to this world by Jesus Christ.

Really? So nobody learned anything about the natural world prior to about 30 A.D.? The Egyptians, Greeks, and early Romans just lived in caves and ate the moss growing on the sides of trees? Nobody invented agriculture or irrigation or architecture or selective breeding or astronomy?

He then went on to claim that there was “proto-science” in Greece, but it didn’t lead to much. He claimed that science arose only in Christian Europe in the 16th century. Oh, you mean after the Dark Ages, when your Church oppressed all curiosity? And even once the Renaissance started, the Church opposed Copernicus, Kepler, Gallileo, and every other scientist who dared to find out how the world worked. Yes. That’s the religion that gave us science.

Finally, DJK added this to his pearl necklace of wisdom:

The most scientific statement ever made on the subject is this: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.”

My irony meter just imploded.

Fundie “news” site OneNewsNow allows readers to comment on their articles. Looking through those comments can be funny/scary.

Obama Hates Religion!

Brian Fitzpatrick wrote an opinion piece titled “Does Barack Obama disdain religion?” The article is about this widely-reported comment of Obama’s:

It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Fitzpatrick thinks Barack Obama hates religion and religious people. I find that hard to believe, because Obama is one of the more thump-happy Biblers of the three candidates. I agree that his quote seems to contradict his prior statements about how important his religion is to him. I’ll leave it to others to resolve this contradiction. It’s more fun to see what the readers of OneNewsNow have to think about the issue. Here are a few choice comments left by the readers (all are anonymous):

• Barry Obama seems to hate American and, as President, I can’t trust him not to destroy us or deliver us into the hands of foreign powers. With the exception of a few top traitors, we’ll be a nation of slaves.
• God help us if Obama gets elected. You can say good bye to this once great nation.
• This is just another sign that the Rapture [is] very near. Does anyone else see the path being prepared for the anti-christ’s arrival? By the time politicians and media leaders are finished feeding us their watered down versions of Christianity a one world religion will be welcomed with opened arms by those who don’t know the one true Christ.

Not That Global Warming Lie Again!

As I mentioned recently, fundies seem to embrace global warming denialism. Jim Brown wrote an opinion piece (that OneNewsNow presents as news) titled “Authors raise concerns about Bush’s new stance on ‘global warming’”. Note the scare quotes around “global warming”.

The article acts like global warming isn’t real, and it bemoans the fact that George W Bush has grudgingly set forth some weak guidelines to combat climate change. Here are a couple of reader comments:

• I can’t believe President Bush fell for this global warming baloney. I thought he was smarter than that. Sheesh. [emphasis added]
• Imagine trying to save the Earth from global warming. The same Earth that God is going to destroy in His own time.

Thank God for Captain Stubing!

Steve Gallagher’s column, “Could the apostasy be upon us?”, was inspired by a Gavin MacLeod movie. Gallagher tells us about the film Time Changer. He writes:

The storyline occurs in 1890 and revolves around Bible professor Russell Carlisle, who is unwittingly transported by a time machine into modern-day America. For five days, he finds himself trapped in a wicked world to which you and I have become shamefully accustomed.

The rest of the article pretty much follows that tone. Here’s what the OneNewsNow readers have to say about it:

• May God come quickly and put an end to the evil world filled with anti-God, anti-family homos and murdering Islamo-fascists.
• I beleive Gallagher is right on. I pray that God will begin a great revival in this country or we will see the end of it in short time!
• Praise GOD the end is very near.
• Don’t just make the end times excuse to sit and do nothing while the liberals take over.

The Government Must Stop Divorce!

Another Jim Brown article is “Deterioration of families now a ‘legitimate gov’t concern,’ says activist”. Brown writes:

A new report commissioned by four policy and research groups finds that high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births cost American taxpayers a minimum of $112 billion annually.

Divorce definitely has a social cost, and probably a cost to the taxpayer as well. I don’t know how reputable this particular study is. What I’m more interested in is the fundie response. Let’s see what the OneNewsNow readers have to say:

• As soon as God got pulled out of public schools it all went downhill from there. This is the consequence - if you take the light out darkness results.
• Making divorce illegal would go a long way in stopping this!!!
• Many “Christians” support the agenda of the Satanic left - an agenda that contributes to the problem of disentegrating families.
• Efforts to strengthen the family will go nowhere as long as American keeps distancing itself from God and allowing the homosexual agenda to move forward.

Cover Those Offensive Magazines!

Allie Martin’s article “Online petition drive asks Wal-Mart to cover offensive magazines” is about people who are offended by Cosmopolitan and other racy magazines being on display at the checkout counter. Most of the comments to this article are fairly reasonable. But there is one fundie jewel:

• I don’t want to see this trash myself. It is immoral for anyone to look at. When younger people look at this it awakens feelings that shouldn’t be awakened until a person is married.

Post-Modern Third-Graders Plot to Murder Teacher!

Pete Chagnon tells us “Christian educator blames post-modern mindset in plot to kill teacher”. He writes:

Christian educator Finn Laursen says the recent incident in which third-graders were caught conspiring to possibly kill their teacher highlights the need for educators to teach children the difference between right and wrong.

Here’s what the OneNewsNow readers think about that:

• Here’s a novel concept and the only legimate reform: ‘Returning the Bible and Wisdom principles to our public school children by exercising our First Amendment Rights.’
• I’d be interested in knowing how many of those girls were taking anti-depressant drugs, as most of the recent high-profile killers have been.
• As long as kids are taught they’re nothing more than animals…they’re gonna act like animals.
• The Ten Commandments belong back in the schools, along with prayers. Our children and some adult have no guideline anymore.

The Blue Collar Scientist has published a meta-analysis of reviews of that giant steaming turd that Ben Stein expelled from his rectum. BCS says:

In my searchings, I didn’t find any positive reviews that weren’t associated with religious or right-wing political publications — and then only two of those.

He then presents excerpts from a dozen reviews, every single one of which savages the film brutally.

The movie will do good box office this weekend, because the producers have done a good job promoting it to the folks whose logical reasoning capabilities are about as sophisticated as Wild Thing’s.

But after the first week, word of mouth from the few people who wandered into this film by mistake will kill this turkey dead.

In emails I’ve received from the promoters, they talked about how they wanted to get this film onto the list of top ten opening weekends for documentaries. I’ve lost that link, but aside from a very few high profile films (e.g., Fahrenheit 9/11), most documentaries have small opening-weekend box office. The main reason for this is that documentaries don’t start in too many theaters. Supposedly Expelled will be in 1000 theaters. They’ll be able to make their goal. The real question is how many theaters will it be in next week? Very few, I’m sure.