Expelled...no intelligence allowed in this movie

[Whitney]

I guess by now you have heard about Ben Stein's movie Expelled.  Personally, I have decided not to watch the movie until I am able to do so for free since I don't want to give Stein my money for him making Americans even more stupid.  That said, from what I've read it seems to be the same old bullshit, not even repackaged, and made into a big screen movie.  The following are links you may want to keep handy if a lot of people think the movie has any merit and you would like to provide them with a refutation without having to waste your valuable time refuting it yourself.

http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2008/04/ben ... llowed.php

http://www.expelledexposed.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiNGK3y5Ypg

[LARA]

Thnaks for the links. I've decided not to contribute financially to Expelled's stupidity, too, but I haven't escaped the trailers that are playing on the Discovery Cahnnel as of late. Even these have ticked me off. First off, they portray an instructor as stating something to the effect that evolution works in a completely randomn and undirected way.  Never in my college bio courses did I ever have the experience of having a professor state anything in this way and it's extremely misleading and uninformed about evolution in general I would say.  Most of the time, my professors presented a lot of plain evidence and cladistics diagrams to explain things and didn't get on a soapbox about randomness. I didn't get into a lot of evolutionary theory since I majored in Cell Bio, so I'm actually pretty weak on it, but I certainly got enough to see that Expelled is, simply put, a load of horseshit.

[joeactor]

Thanks - expelledexposed is a good site.

The movie's getting terrible reviews on RottenTomatoes.com  (as well it should)

Ben, I have lost all respect for you - what a terrible waste of a good mind...

JoeActor

[SteveS]

 

This was my take on it, exactly:

Personally, I have decided not to watch the movie until I am able to do so for free since I don't want to give Stein my money for him making Americans even more stupid.

For me, "free" means "comes out on cable", although I guess its not really free since I'm paying for the cable service....  Oh well.  Maybe I won't watch it afterall --- but curiosity is strong, and its hard to avert your eyes from a train wreck!

[jamesatracy]

I haven't forked over any of my money to see this film either. No need to add a few extra dollars to these people's pockets. Has anyone on here paid to see this movie yet?

[Promethium147]

Here's a better way I would suggest - and might just jolly well do.

It's on Netflix, I see. You can get it, crack and copy it in minutes, and drop it right back in the mailbox (after microwaving it, perhaps.)

Re-encode in DivX, and post it as a torrent - packaged with rebuttals. It'll be all over the world for free within hours.

This both contradicts the "piece" and damages its market, badabingbang.

Lies are not entitled to copyrights anyway.  

[afreethinker30]

How sad.I always thought he was smart but now he's just another fool.

[drwillie]

How sad.I always thought he was smart but now he's just another fool.

I was also very disappointed. I really used to love watching him on "Win Ben Stein's Money"

Guess he isn't so smart.

Will

[Poetic_Absences]

I don't know if any of you realize this but the reality is that your disbelief in God has nothing to do with science. At least not true science because if you believe in evolution it is a religious view in it's self. I believe that 6,000 years ago or so God created the heavens and the earth. You believe that many billions of years ago nothing exploded and created everything, ect. The thing is though that none of you can tell me where this nothing came from or what was before it. Also you ignore many of the laws of physics in order to make this claim. So really this view is religious. My view says God and I will be honest I have no clue where He came from. So really evolution is RELIGION just as much as creation. So admit reality for once even though we all know the reason you push the evolution religion is really because you do not want anyone telling you what to do or not to do. That's really all I have to say. I will be praying for all of you and I sincerely hope that God opens your eyes.

[curiosityandthecat]

I don't know if any of you realize this but the reality is that your disbelief in God has nothing to do with science. At least not true science because if you believe in evolution it is a religious view in it's self. I believe that 6,000 years ago or so God created the heavens and the earth. You believe that many billions of years ago nothing exploded and created everything, ect. The thing is though that none of you can tell me where this nothing came from or what was before it. Also you ignore many of the laws of physics in order to make this claim. So really this view is religious. My view says God and I will be honest I have no clue where He came from. So really evolution is RELIGION just as much as creation. So admit reality for once even though we all know the reason you push the evolution religion is really because you do not want anyone telling you what to do or not to do. That's really all I have to say. I will be praying for all of you and I sincerely hope that God opens your eyes.

 

[myleviathan]

You believe that many billions of years ago nothing exploded and created everything, ect. The thing is though that none of you can tell me where this nothing came from or what was before it.

Nobody was there, so at least some of us are trying to make sense of things as opposed to conveniently accepting the mythology of our ancestors. We're all attempting to reconcile the fractured picture of reality our senses grant us. Some of us do this by employing reason, and others use ancient mythological sources. I would rather employ reason especially considering no God has ever introduced himself to me.

[rlrose328]

I don't know if any of you realize this but the reality is that your disbelief in God has nothing to do with science. At least not true science because if you believe in evolution it is a religious view in it's self. I believe that 6,000 years ago or so God created the heavens and the earth. You believe that many billions of years ago nothing exploded and created everything, ect. The thing is though that none of you can tell me where this nothing came from or what was before it. Also you ignore many of the laws of physics in order to make this claim. So really this view is religious. My view says God and I will be honest I have no clue where He came from. So really evolution is RELIGION just as much as creation. So admit reality for once even though we all know the reason you push the evolution religion is really because you do not want anyone telling you what to do or not to do. That's really all I have to say. I will be praying for all of you and I sincerely hope that God opens your eyes.

 

[Kyuuketsuki]

OTOH, Bill Maher's new film "Religulous" looks to be great fun.

Kyu

[rlrose328]

Yup, we can't wait to see it...... it was reviewed in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, by a believer, no less... and he gave it an A-.  So it must be good.  

[Squid]

PA, it helps to really understand what you’re talking about before you run out and make such proclamations.  You are incorrect in your argument.  I will show you why but it is up to you if you wish to side with convenient ignorance and ignore it or if you actually do want to learn something and read, comprehend and think.

I don't know if any of you realize this but the reality is that your disbelief in God has nothing to do with science.

We do realize that and no one in this thread has mention this until you brought it up.  Science and religion are not necessarily mutually exclusive, however, literal interpretations of the bible are at odds with currently understood scientific facts.

At least not true science because if you believe in evolution it is a religious view in it's self.

The irony here is you say “true science” and then call evolution a “religious view” â€" do you not see how this is absurd?  In a most generic sense, something is religious when it is connected to the supernatural and usually based upon faith and devotion to some supernatural entity.  Evolutionary theory has none of those aspects no matter how much you’d like to think so.  Belief is belief and I can believe in evolution but that has no bearing of its veracity â€" the theory stands upon a mountain of empirical data which speaks for itself â€" you should try reading a peer reviewed journal sometime.

I believe that 6,000 years ago or so God created the heavens and the earth.

Why do you believe this?  It is obviously utter non-sense.  The only support for this is a book created from collected stories from the early iron age.  Yet this is somehow more accurate than decades of empirical data which has been verified independently time and time again?

You believe that many billions of years ago nothing exploded and created everything, ect.

It’s much more complicated than that but that’s beside the point because the big bang has nothing to do with evolutionary theory â€" if you as scientifically literate as you’d want us to believe, you’d know this.

The thing is though that none of you can tell me where this nothing came from or what was before it.

I could explain the current hypothesis to you but I doubt you’d  1) understand it and 2) even consider the information because you’ve already made up your mind and don’t care how wrong or ridiculous it is.

 

Also you ignore many of the laws of physics in order to make this claim.

What laws?  Are you still talking about the big bang?  Listen carefully â€" THE BIG BANG HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH EVOLUTIONARY THEORY!  Understand?

So really this view is religious.

I just went over this earlier and no it isn’t - you really don't want me to start pulling out the references...

My view says God and I will be honest I have no clue where He came from. So really evolution is RELIGION just as much as creation. So admit reality for once even though we all know the reason you push the evolution religion is really because you do not want anyone telling you what to do or not to do.

Do you just sit at home all day and think this crap up?  Please at least take a basic logic and intro philosophy course before attempting such mental acrobatics.

That's really all I have to say. I will be praying for all of you and I sincerely hope that God opens your eyes.

Do what ya gotta do.  But if you want to play in the realm of science, it helps to know what the hell your talking about otherwise you just look foolish.