Ben Stein's new movie about Intelligent Design (tm)

http://www.expelledthemovie.com/home.php

I listened to this guy on Armstrong and Getty this morning. It was astonishing. He was saying that gravity is part of Darwinism. He said that Darwinism is related to the origin of life (it's not; that's abiogenesis), thermodynamics, fluid motion, and the motion of planets.

Also, he says that no one has witnessed a species evolving. Why is this ever brought up by proponents of Intelligent Design? Isn't it quite accepted that species that we have today have evolved over very long periods of time? How can anyone say, "Aw no one witnessed that, so it didn't happen."

Ben Stein supposedly has worked in presidential administrations before as a speech writer, or something. I find it amazing that a guy with such a background can be so amazingly ignorant about something like this. Ben Stein has frequently taken stances akin to conservatives but for this one, he seems to have not bothered to do his research AT ALL.

He stated a few of the oft-repeated intelligent design things such as "Darwinism being a religion". His whole angle is a colossal strawman.

Ben Stein is coming from the victim angle and the rebel angle. Like he's the underdog and the big bad scientists are suppressing what he believes in.

I recorded Ben Stein's appearance on the radio show. Here is all 9 minutes of it. It's an 8MB mp3 file. There were two or more callers refuting some of what Stein said, but I'm not including their calls.

http://cctg.us/~alex/ben_stein_armgetty.mp3

Armstrong and Getty's radio show, which I listen to via internet on KSTE.
http://www.armstrongandgettyradio.com/

He was funny in Ferris Bueller, but from what I hear, he is even more gut-bustingly hilarious in Expelled.

Other then this utter crap I really like Stein. Hes a brilliant man. But years of brainwashing is hard to over come.

skadistic said:

Other then this utter crap I really like Stein. Hes a brilliant man. But years of brainwashing is hard to over come.

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After hearing him say "Darwinism" is related to the motion of planets, I think "brilliant" isn't a word to describe Stein.

It's sort of like the way that conservatives (people who call themselves that) use the word "liberal". A liberal is whatever they want it to be. That's the way Stein is using "Darwinism".

I can honestly say I like Tom Cruise more than this guy. He's mockable. This just makes me cry.

Yeah, down with all those intelligent scientists trying to make us dumb people believe in any wrong thing we want!
EDIT: and the trailer makes a disgusting reference to Nazi Germany, too. Can't go wrong with saying not taking ID seriously is akin to being a Nazi.

Can anyone explain to me what Intelligent Design is? Hopefully someone that believes in it? Like what scientific studies have been done to prove it?

Will [wiki]Fitna (film)[/wiki] have a competitor for the worst movie of 2008 award ?

woody60707 said:

Can anyone explain to me what Intelligent Design is? Hopefully someone that believes in it? Like what scientific studies have been done to prove it?

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Its repackaged christian creationism and no real science has been done on it.

My blood pressure goes through the roof whenever I see proponents of Intellegent Design do stuff like this. All it is is a botched Christian interpretation of Science, especially the whole 'lack of direct observation of evolving species disproves this theory.' According to that, God doesn't exist because we can't directly observe God. Sickening stuff, ID is.

It's the same wad of . .. .. .. . only with a bow on it.

Intelligent Design is what happens to the Creationist thought process when it evolves.

This movie is meant to be satire, right? Making fun of ID?

Phlegmak said:

Isn't it quite accepted that species that we have today have evolved over very long periods of time? How can anyone say, "Aw no one witnessed that, so it didn't happen."

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Not quite 'over very long periods of time', but 'over many generations', which, for most creatures on the planet is essentially the same thing.

Unfortunately, we have witnessed it in action with organisms with really short lifespans. In fact, IIRC, my roommate has done it with bacteria.

warpus said:

This movie is meant to be satire, right? Making fun of ID?

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Sadly, no. At least no one has said so.

mangxema said:

Not quite 'over very long periods of time', but 'over many generations', which, for most creatures on the planet is essentially the same thing.

Unfortunately, we have witnessed it in action with organisms with really short lifespans. In fact, IIRC, my roommate has done it with bacteria.

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ts bacteria... that proves nothing!!! show me a big animal!!! i dont even believe in bacteria, have you ever seen one?

mangxema said:

Sadly, no. At least no one has said so.

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You're right, I just looked this up.

I used to love this guy! Any sort of credibility (ok, there was a lot of it) that this guy had is just.. gone.

mangxema said:

Not quite 'over very long periods of time', but 'over many generations', which, for most creatures on the planet is essentially the same thing.

Unfortunately, we have witnessed it in action with organisms with really short lifespans. In fact, IIRC, my roommate has done it with bacteria.

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We have seen it with much bigger animals. Dogs have changed radically during the last 150 years. I know that canine evolution is driven and controlled by humans but evolution in the wild is also fairly selective. If it works in a lab for big animals and it works for small ones it should probably work for bigger animals.

This should make your day:



Yep, between creationism and intelligent design, some 60% of Americans believe that stuff, with only 30% "believing in" evolution. That survey was in The Economist recently. I've seen others that put the creation+ID number at 75%

Dubai Vol said:

This should make your day:

Yep, between creationism and intelligent design, some 60% of Americans believe that stuff, with only 30% "believing in" evolution. That survey was in The Economist recently. I've seen others that put the creation+ID number at 75%

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That is very scary, but.. I just expected more from Ben Stein