Thread: Expelled

Ben Stein is my hero. I can't wait to see this.

Originally Posted by 27

Ben Stein is my hero. I can't wait to see this.

How do I find a theater playing this in Utah?

The man who discovered DNA (and won a Nobel Prize for it) later wrote in a book that the odds of DNA randomly assembling it's self from from the primordial goop is about as likely as a fully functioning 747 jet assembling it's self in a junkyard during a hurricane.

If humans are the pinnacle of evolution, how come we have fewer genes than chimpanzees of even coral? The simplest life forms have a small number of genes, with more and more genes as life forms get more complex. That is until you reach humans. We have fewer genes, and use less of them as well.
We're also the only life forms on this planet with so called Junk DNA.

The odds of a universe forming that could support life has been estimated to be 1 out of 10,000,000,000^124

Originally Posted by 27

How do I find a theater playing this in Utah?

I thought it was a nationwide showing.

Originally Posted by The Cusp

The man who discovered DNA (and won a Nobel Prize for it) later wrote in a book that the odds of DNA randomly assembling it's self from from the primordial goop is about as likely as a fully functioning 747 jet assembling it's self in a junkyard during a hurricane.

If humans are the pinnacle of evolution, how come we have fewer genes than chimpanzees of even coral? The simplest life forms have a small number of genes, with more and more genes as life forms get more complex. That is until you reach humans. We have fewer genes, and use less of them as well.
We're also the only life forms on this planet with so called Junk DNA.

Fucking amazing! That little bit brought tears to my eyes and thus warrants a standing

Originally Posted by 27

The odds of a universe forming that could support life has been estimated to be 1 out of 10,000,000,000^124

First of all, link?
If it is actually true, why not think about it on a smaller scale. The lottery. For me, if I won a lottery, would it be sensical to say "this was rigged, because the chances are so low I would actually win." Well, out of millions of people taking part in it, it is eventually won.

A second, more direct argument against this is simply that if the universe is infinite, than the chance that anything happens comes to be 1 out of 1.

Originally Posted by The Cusp

The man who discovered DNA (and won a Nobel Prize for it) later wrote in a book that the odds of DNA randomly assembling it's self from from the primordial goop is about as likely as a fully functioning 747 jet assembling it's self in a junkyard during a hurricane.

Link?
Also, these are separate issues ENTIRELY. Human DNA randomly assembling does indeed have a nearly impossible chance. But DNA formed in first simple, unicellular organisms. If you read theories of the origin of life, you can find out very simple enzymes were created "randomly." Yes, the conditions had to be right, but it wasn't that much of a stretch. From the creation of life, evolution came into play and made it more complex.

If humans are the pinnacle of evolution, how come we have fewer genes than chimpanzees of even coral? The simplest life forms have a small number of genes, with more and more genes as life forms get more complex. That is until you reach humans. We have fewer genes, and use less of them as well.
We're also the only life forms on this planet with so called Junk DNA.

Refer to point "a." Humans are NOT the "pinnacle" of evolution. There IS no pinnacle of evolution. Evolution is not intellectually or physically "progressive," it simply changes a species to adapt better to the environment in which it is located. One species is not "more evolved" than another, it depends instead how they survive in their environment.

Secondly, you are not supporting your case very well. In fact, I believe you are supporting the case AGAINST Christianity and intelligent design. In fact, "junk DNA" and the like supports evolution. These things once had a point, but we evolved so that they are now useless. Similarly, this debunks intelligent design. If we are "perfect beings" who never evolved, what is the POINT of junk DNA? Why would an "intelligent designer" give us useless DNA and vestigial organs? (Did he flunk art class?) Why do we have the appendix? Why do we have the coccyx? Why do we have wisdom teeth, male nipples, esophagus located behind windpipe so food has to pass over windpipe to be swallowed, inside out eyes (causing blind spots), inability to produce vitamin C? The list goes on. Why would an "intelligent designer" make us so imperfect?

Intelligent design fails.

Originally Posted by Jeff777

I found this documentary fascinating...entitled "The Privileged Planet" How unique are we afterall? What are the odds of us or earth being how it is today? Watch the vids.

Stopped watching when they started calculating probabilities in the third video.

Through much investigation of our galaxy (276 exoplanets discovered so far) we have an estimate(that could be very wrong) of the probability of sun-like stars having planets for example, yet those guys claim to be able to calculate, for the entire universe, the probability of an earth like planet forming? Basically they pulled a bunch of numbers out of their asses and pretended something was calculated.

Originally Posted by 27

The odds of a universe forming that could support life has been estimated to be 1 out of 10,000,000,000^124

To know the chance of a life supporting universe appearing you would need to know the number of possible universes and the number of life-friendly universes.


Made up probabilities ftw.

Originally Posted by Scatterbrain

Stopped watching when they started calculating probabilities in the third video.

Through much investigation of our galaxy (276 exoplanets discovered so far) we have an estimate(that could be very wrong) of the probability of sun-like stars having planets for example, yet those guys claim to be able to calculate, for the entire universe, the probability of an earth like planet forming? Basically they pulled a bunch of numbers out of their asses and pretended something was calculated.

You should have kept watching. Those men have more credibility and status to their names then I think you're giving them credit for. I think you may be misinterpreting them or perhaps what they are saying doesn't sit well within your own pre-existing beliefs?

I would think Christians in particular would find this trailer and the movement behind it deeply offensive. First, Intelligent Design is a lie (what is that, commandment #3?). I'm not talking about the presence or absence of a Creator, but the morphing first of Genesis into "Creation Science" in an attempt to try to wedge it into science classrooms--okay, that's just a little shady. But THEN, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared "No guys, that's blatantly unconstitutional " (i.e. un-American), the same well-funded coalition made a cut-and-paste revision, inventing "Intelligent Design," and encouraged churchgoers nationwide not only to push it on school administrators, but if challenged to literally bear false witness, as in a courtroom, by denying the doctrine's origins in Creation Science and the book of Genesis. Is this what you want from your religious leaders, that they draft lay people into political maneuvering and borderline perjury? Does it promote your religious values?

Beyond the deceit at the core of the movement, the tactics are sleazy clear through, as evidenced in this trailer. Throughout his voiceover, Stein does everything in his power to twist fear into his audience, suggesting a vast conspiracy among media, courts, scientists and educators to silence the Discovery Institute and Co.'s well-funded, meticulously planned, propaganda producing actual conspiracy. He suggests "Darwinism" (attempting to personify the biological sciences as a cult of personality) is dangerous while showing pictures of Auschwitz, Godwining his argument in the trailer. He claims you could lose everything for looking into Creationism, suggesting there's something subversive about espousing the doctrine of the largest demographic in the U.S.A.

You are being manipulated.

If the argument is so true, obvious and righteous, why all the lies and fear tactics?

Originally Posted by Jeff777

You should have kept watching. Those men have more credibility and status to their names then I think you're giving them credit for. I think you may be misinterpreting them or perhaps what they are saying doesn't sit well within your own pre-existing beliefs?

Right now they just can't calculate the probability of the existence in the universe of a life-supporting planet. I'd also like to add that in our own solar system there are candidates for life bearing planets, like europa for example.

Those videos are typical creationist propaganda: explain how it's all improbable while appealing to emotion with dramatic music and pretty pictures and then concluding it has to be the work of a designer.

Originally Posted by wasup

Link?

No link, I can't even remember the guy's name. But here's another interesting fact about him which I have no link for: He admitted on his death bed that the first time he saw the DNA's double helix, he was on LSD.

Originally Posted by wasup

Refer to point "a." Humans are NOT the "pinnacle" of evolution. There IS no pinnacle of evolution. Evolution is not intellectually or physically "progressive," it simply changes a species to adapt better to the environment in which it is located. One species is not "more evolved" than another, it depends instead how they survive in their environment.

Ok, how about humans are the most complex animals on the planet?

Originally Posted by wasup

Secondly, you are not supporting your case very well. In fact, I believe you are supporting the case AGAINST Christianity and intelligent design. In fact, "junk DNA" and the like supports evolution. These things once had a point, but we evolved so that they are now useless. Similarly, this debunks intelligent design. If we are "perfect beings" who never evolved, what is the POINT of junk DNA? Why would an "intelligent designer" give us useless DNA and vestigial organs? (Did he flunk art class?) Why do we have the appendix? Why do we have the coccyx? Why do we have wisdom teeth, male nipples, esophagus located behind windpipe so food has to pass over windpipe to be swallowed, inside out eyes (causing blind spots), inability to produce vitamin C? The list goes on. Why would an "intelligent designer" make us so imperfect?

First of all, I'm not trying to make a case for christianity, or even intelligent design. I'm just trying to point out that evolution doesn't explain everything. I don't know why people assume the only alternative to evolution is creationism.

Second, your assumptions on what Junk DNA is have no basis. If this junk DNA had a purpose we've outgrown, then we would find some of these DNA sequences in lower animals who are still using them, and be able to figure out what they're were once for. But the truth of the matter is that nobody knows what purpose junk DNA has. It may still turn out to play a vital role. Many organs have been thought to be vestigial like the appendix, the thymus and the pineal gland. But these so called useless organs all turned out to to play vital roles.

How can we say for sure that we've evolved when we don't even know what 97% of our DNA does?

Originally Posted by Scatterbrain

Made up probabilities ftw.

Hehe, 50% of statistics are made up.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

Hehe, 50% of statistics are made up.

90% of statistics are made up on the spot.

I've been getting news updates on this film for a while.

Originally Posted by Expelled Newsletter

By Jack Cashill
Executive Editor of Ingram’s Magazine
A rousing SRO preview on Tuesday of the new Ben Stein documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, brought a Kansas City audience to its feet.

And with good cause. Stein’s often funny, always engaging frontal assault on the oppressive neo-Darwinist establishment is arguably the smartest and most sophisticated documentary ever produced on the right side of the cultural divide, on any subject, ever.

As such, Expelled represents still another blow to the progressive orthodoxy of government-issued science in its winter of discontent.

The winter started early when in November two separate labs, one in Wisconsin, one in Japan, announced the breakthrough discovery that adult skin cells can be reprogrammed to mimic embryonic stem cells.

Just two years earlier, the elfin journalist Chris Mooney had likened adult stem cell research to creationism and assured the readers of his best seller, The Republican War on Science, that this “dogma” had been "resoundingly rejected by researchers actually working in the field."

As the winter rolled on, and as all four major global temperature tracking outlets showed a precipitous drop in annual global temperature, and as snow fell in Baghdad for the first time in recorded history, only Al Gore remained in meltdown.

Meanwhile, on a seemingly daily basis, the neo-Luddites from the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front have been putting a distinctly left wing face on the “war on science,” in this case a real war on real scientists.

And into this breach, armed with his trademark tennies and bemused grin, marches Ben Stein, America’s only economist/ presidential speechwriter turned comic actor. The producers at Premise Media could not have recruited a better on-screen presence.

Although the role Stein plays has been compared to the one Michael Moore plays in his film, the Stein persona is conspicuously brighter and more benign.

Nor do Stein and his producers resort to the kind of editing that make Moore movies something other than documentaries.

In Bowling For Columbine , for instance, Moore cobbles together five different parts of NRA honcho Charlton Heston’s Denver speech a week after Columbine.

Moore then inserts into the mix a “cold, dead hands” remark from a speech Heston gave a year later. In the process Moore turn Heston’s conciliatory Denver address into a provocative call to arms.

This isn’t film making. This is fraud.

Stein resorts to no such tricks. He gives certain interview subjects all the time and all the rope they need to hang themselves, unedited.

One highlight among many is Stein’s one-on-one interview with Richard Dawkins, the dashing Brit who has made a small fortune as the world’s most visible neo-Darwinist.

To his credit, and to the utter discomfort of the public education establishment, Dawkins does not shy from discussing the atheistic implications of Darwinism.

Indeed, Dawkin’s anti-deity call to arms, The God Delusion, has sold more than a million copies worldwide. Where Dawkins wanders into a black hole of his own making is in his discussion of the origins of life on earth.

To Stein’s astonishment, Dawkins concedes that life might indeed have a designer but that designer almost assuredly was a more highly evolved being from another planet, not “God.”

Stein does not respond. He does not need to. For the past hour of the film, the audience has met one scientist after another whose academic careers have been derailed for daring to suggest the possibility of intelligent design.

If only they had thought to put the designer on another planet!

The choice of Stein as narrator is inspired for another reason. That reason becomes most apparent when he and two “creationist” allies, mathematician David Berlinski and nuclear physicist Gerald Schroeder, visit a remnant of the Berlin Wall, the central metaphor of the film.

At the wall, the three discuss the value of freedom, the central idea of the film, and the need for the same in science. The audience has already met Berlinski, an amusingly sophisticated American living in Paris.

The audience has seen less of Schroeder, but he is wearing a yarmulke. All three are Jewish.

Indeed, it would be hard to imagine any three individuals on the planet who less resemble the Inherit the Wind stereotype that Darwinists have been scaring soccer moms with for the last half century.

Expelled opens nationwide on April 18th. The neo-Darwinists and their allies in the major media will do their best to kill it.

Co-producer Mark Mathis tells me that two network news producers have already chosen not to cover the film because it was “biased,” unlike, say, the much-covered Fahrenheit 911.

The producers have contracted with the same firm that marketed Mel Gibson’s The Passion to get the word out. They will use much the same strategy.

Central to this strategy is the creation of a powerful buzz and a strong enough opening weekend to catch Hollywood’s attention and hold it.

Put April 18 on your calendars. Bring the kids. You won’t be disappointed.

Seriously, does anyone know a site or anything where I can find a theater showing this in Utah?

Originally Posted by 27

I've been getting news updates on this film for a while.

Seriously, does anyone know a site or anything where I can find a theater showing this in Utah?

That's pretty amazing 27, great post!

Indeed, Dawkin's anti-deity call to arms, The God Delusion, has sold more than a million copies worldwide. Where Dawkins wanders into a black hole of his own making is in his discussion of the origins of life on earth.

To Stein's astonishment, Dawkins concedes that life might indeed have a designer but that designer almost assuredly was a more highly evolved being from another planet, not God.

This struck me. It's fascinating because it's a thought that occured to me as well. Not only that, but it perfectly coincides with the Ancient Sumerian text. They believed that a race of "gods" (beings from a planet named Nibiru) came to Earth and lived in a place called the "e Den" (Eden). They looked almost exactly like humans except that they luminous. They created (from a vile) a slave race to till the Earth for it's natural resources. They called the first one "The Adamu" (Adam). Now I would have written the Sumerian tablets of text off as sci-fi and fiction...had it not been what I found out next. The Sumerians were a very very advanced civilization, they knew the mappings of our solar system, that our planets were round, the orbital paths of the planets, and that the sun was in the center. Their civilization dates back past the ancient Egyptians, the Mayans, and the Incans. They're the oldest guys that we know of.

Great newsletter, but one thing I wasn't clear about--did he want me to change the Constitution, invade Massachusetts, or buy his homeschooling program for six easy payments of $199.95?

I'm sure you're making a brilliant, sarcastic statement, but it went over my head.

Yerg--double post
I was on my phone on the train

Originally Posted by Taosaur

Great newsletter, but one thing I wasn't clear about--did he want me to change the Constitution, invade Massachusetts, or buy his homeschooling program for six easy payments of $199.95?

You've already said that...care to clarify to 27 exactly what you meant by that?

Ok, how about humans are the most complex animals on the planet?

OK, what does that have to do with ANYTHING?

First off, if humans are any more complex than Chimps, Dolphins, wales or any modern mammal, it isn't by much, and it is mainly the brain that is different.

Just like the physical appearance of Whales and dolphins differ from Chimpanzees.

Originally Posted by Jeff777

You've already said that...care to clarify to 27 exactly what you meant by that?

What I meant is that this newsletter, this movie, and all the messages of the Religious Right are blatant propaganda aimed at keeping a certain population

1. afraid of their neighbors
2. hostile to sources of information outside The Network
3. invested in The Movement

Why? Because the "foot soldiers" are keeping a steady stream of cash and power flowing into the pockets of the people who orchestrate these maneuvers.

The methods are crass and deceitful, and the goals antithetical to both our Constitution and Christianity's professed core values. By propagating these messages, you're eating shit and grinning while Megachurch clergy, think-tankers and politicians use you as a disposable battery for their power-hungry egos.

Is that a little clearer?

Amazing how all these people can judge the film without even seeing it.