What's new
By:
Filters
Christian Forums

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

[_ Old Earth _] Expelled

G

GojuBrian

Guest
Anyone see this?

[youtube:2aqau0yc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGCxbhGaVfE[/youtube:2aqau0yc]
 
Poor ol' Ben was rather offended when people started taking him to task for his misrepresentations, but this one probably was the one that did him in...

Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science  in my opinion, this is just an opinion  that’s where science leads you.

Crouch: That’s right.

Stein: …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

Crouch: Good word, good word.
(Interview on Trinity Broadcasting)

The Anti-Defamation League responded to Stein's revisionist history of the Holocaust:

New York, NY, April 29, 2008 ... The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today issued the following statement regarding the controversial film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

The film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed misappropriates the Holocaust and its imagery as a part of its political effort to discredit the scientific community which rejects so-called intelligent design theory.

Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people and Darwin and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler’s genocidal madness.

Using the Holocaust in order to tarnish those who promote the theory of evolution is outrageous and trivializes the complex factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry.

If Stein had bothered to read a little history, he would have discovered that about 90% of the Wannsee Protocol (Hitler's "Final Solution") was taken from Martin Luther's advice to princes on what to do with the Jews. And the Nazis openly gave him credit for it.
 
Is that all you have to say about it? What about all the accounts of intelligent scientists with views that questioned the validity of evolution loosing their jobs and tenure? Your post above does not negate any of that, which is really what the films true discussion is about.
 
Turns out, (for example), that Sternberg lied about being an employee of the Smithsonian, and being fired from his "job" (he wasn't fired, he didn't even lose his privileges) and he lied about being removed from the Journal. He resigned from the journal long before the article in question was published. He did file an EEOC complaint, but since the investigation immediately showed he wasn't an employee, that was the end of that.

Compare that to a staffer on the Texas Education Association, who was fired by a political appointee because she sent an email mentioning a certain scientist was giving a talk in Austin. (said scientist was a noted evolutionist) That kind of thing is done by ID/creationists regularly. But as you see, Stein's examples are mostly fabricated.

That sort of fast-and-lose with the truth is what brought Stein down. Even offering kickbacks to churches for steering kids to his film didn't help. Who wants to be associated with that kind of thing?
 
The Barbarian wrote:

Compare that to a staffer on the Texas Education Association, who was fired by a political appointee because she sent an email mentioning a certain scientist was giving a talk in Austin. (said scientist was a noted evolutionist) That kind of thing is done by ID/creationists regularly. But as you see, Stein's examples are mostly fabricated.
Click to expand...

Last fall, John West blogged about a press release from Texans for Better Science Education (TBSE) about Chris Comer's lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency (TEA), a lawsuit which has been highly touted by the NCSE and other evolution lobbyists as purported evidence of discrimination against evolutionists. They claimed that Comer was "expelled for real," and the national newsmedia uncritically bought the story hook, line and sinker. As TBSE's timeline of Chris Comer's disciplinary problems observed, "News reports of Comer’s departure have parroted the claim that Comer was 'fired' because she opposed teaching 'creationism' and 'intelligent design' and supported evolution." The reality is that Comer was not "fired" and her resignation came because (as West put it), "TEA documents ... show that Comer had a long history of disciplinary problems at her agency that had nothing to do with evolution." TBSE rightly observed that "f Darwinists want to create a scandal and invent a martyr for their cause, they appear to have picked the wrong case." This week Comer's lawsuit was dismissed, further showing the baselessness of her claims of discrimination.

When I first read the complaint in the Comer case, I was struck by how Comer equivocated over the meaning of the word "neutral." Comer claimed that the TEA illegally required her to remain "neutral" on creationism, when in reality the TEA's policy simply required its staff to remain "neutral" on unsettled curricular matters (regardless of the subject matter in question). The former type of "neutrality" is legal neutrality and is violated only when there is a lack of religious neutrality, whereas the latter type of neutrality simply means avoiding taking a position on an unsettled curricular policy. The latter type should be considered distinct, as far as the law is concerned, from questions about religious "neutrality." Thus Comer's entire lawsuit was based upon equivocating over the legal meaning of "neutrality," conflating the TEA's benign (and statutorily mandated) policy requiring staff "neutrality" on unsettled curricular questions, with the constitutional requirement of religious "neutrality."

Thankfully, the judge in this lawsuit saw through Comer's fallacious arguments. Here are some excerpts from the ruling dismissing Comer's case:

The Agency's neutrality policy has different origins and effects from the balanced-treatment approach struck down in Aguillard. Agency staff must remain neutral on contested curriculum issues, not only creationism and evolution. The policy is reasonable, given the elected body the Agency supports. The Agency supports 15 elected Board members who often disagree among themselves regarding curriculum issues and who make final decisions regarding such disputed issues. Agency staff, by virtue of their job description, must avoid acting in ways that favor any particular Board member's position. (p. 15)

[...]

Comer repeatedly asserts that the neutrality policy treats creationism like science, but it only treats creationism as science to the extent that Agency staff may not take a public position on it. Given the reasons for the Agency's neutrality policy, Agency staff must remain neutral on disputed curriculum issues regardless of a particular position's merit or constitutionality. The State "readily agree that if the Board chooses to consider including some kind of recognition of alternatives to evolutionary theory in the biology curriculum, it will be entering perilous waters", but that is the Board's voyage to weather. (p. 16)

[...]

In sum, Comer provides no summary-judgment proof raising an issue of material fact regarding whether the Agency's neutrality policy has a primary effect of advancing or endorsing religion. As a matter of law, the Agency's neutrality policy, if it advances religion at all, only does so incidentally. Further, a reasonable observer of the neutrality policy would not believe the Agency endorses religion through the policy. Because the neutrality policy does not violate the Establishment Clause, all of Comer's claims fail, and the Court will grant summary judgment in favor of the Agency. (p. 18)

And since the TSBOE did not choose to include any alternatives to evolution (like creationism) into the new Texas Science Standards, it's clear that it did not enter those "perilous waters" that the court spoke of.

The truth of the matter is that the Texas Education Agency had very good reasons for being upset at Comer's violation of its neutrality policy on unsettled curriculum questions: TBSE's timeline shows that Comer had violated this policy multiple times during her tenure at the TEA, and some of those instances had nothing to do with evolution. According to TBSE, some of Comer's troubles at the TEA included:

Multiple findings of “insubordination†and “misconduct,â€Â

Reference to possible violation of the Texas Penal Code over payments made to Comer from entities receiving TEA money under contracts she administered.

Comer received three separate disciplinary letters spanning at least eight separate incidents. Seven of these eight incidents had nothing to do with evolution.

Comer had been disciplined and charged with “insubordination†because she repeatedly disregarded the TEA’s strict rule that staff must remain neutral and silent regarding unsettled curricular questions. Comer was charged with insubordination for violating this rule on issues that had nothing to do with evolution. In her last year alone at the TEA, Comer was found by superiors to be guilty of “insubordination†or “misconduct†on three separate occasions, including one incident where she disparaged the TEA leadership publicly.

(TBSE Press Release on Chris Comer case)

The final incident regarding Comer's TEA-sent e-mail endorsing a lecture by Barbara Forrest on evolution appears to have merely been the straw that broke the camel's back.

What do we call a lawsuit from an ousted employee with a history of disciplinary problems, which is then touted to the national media as evidence of discrimination, when the entire lawsuit is based upon equivocation, misrepresentation, and a stifling of the employee's less-than-exemplary history of disciplinary problems? We call it a publicity stunt. (In this case, a publicity stunt that was carefully timed to distract from all the bona fide discrimination against Darwin-skeptics that was being revealed via the release of the Expelled documentary.) Thankfully, a clear-thinking judge has now tossed this publicity stunt from court.


http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/04/te ... t_ano.html
 
In short, Comer had more than once advocated a position consistent with science, and this was considered "insubordination" by her creationist boss.

Reference to possible violation of the Texas Penal Code over payments made to Comer from entities receiving TEA money under contracts she administered.
Click to expand...

If such existed, her boss had the legal responsibility to either:
a. establish that she had not done it.
b. remove her from her position

Failure to do so would be a criminal offense under the Texas Code. Since he did neither, but did fire her later for publicizing the advocate of an established scientific theory, I suspect that "possible" was a rather flexible term in this case. At any rate we see that creationists screamed about a "firing" at the Smithsonian that didn't even exist, and then fully supported a firing of a real employee for ideological reasons.

Her boss is not long for his job, either. He's a political appointee, and the froot loop governor who appointed him was re-elected only because he had several opponents and there's no run-off in Texas. Senator Hutchison will be challenging him in the next republican primary, and he'll be gone, his autocratic appointee with him.
 
The Barbarian said:
In short, Comer had more than once advocated a position consistent with science, and this was considered "insubordination" by her creationist boss.
Click to expand...

And the judge.

He "must" be a creationist, and against science. ;)

It's a conspiracy. ;)

Comer's boss and the judge probably slapped each other on the back after the case and went out for a

drink and cigar.
 
And the judge.

He "must" be a creationist, and against science. ;)
Click to expand...

Or the law permits that kind of thing to happen. Not everything legal is just.

It's a conspiracy. ;)
Click to expand...

No, that's creationist thinking,the sort of paranoid foolishness seen in "Expelled". That's why "Expelled" crashed and burned. Not everything you dislike, not even every injustice, is a "conspiracy." BTW, Stein did purposely exclude any scientist who accepted evolution, if that scientist was a Christian. "No intelligence allowed." You betcha.

It just shows that ID/creationists engage in the very sort of oppression that Stein falsely accused scientists of doing.

That's all there is to say about it.
 
When speaking to the public, evolutionists are infamous for overstating the evidence for universal common ancestry. For example, when speaking before the Texas State Board of Education in January, 2009, University of Texas evolutionist biologist David Hillis cited himself as one of the “world’s leading experts on the tree of life†and later told the Board that there is “overwhelming agreement correspondence as you go from protein to protein, DNA sequence to DNA sequence†when reconstructing evolutionary history using biological molecules. But this is not accurate. Indeed, in the technical scientific literature, one finds a vast swath of scientific papers that have found contradictions, inconsistencies, and flat out failures of the molecular data to provide a clear picture of phylogenetic history and common descent.
Click to expand...

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/05/a_ ... .html#more
 
Sounds interesting. Where has the DNA evidence been shown to be faulty? I note that this comes from the Discovery Institute, whose founder says that life on Earth might have been invented by a "space alien", so perhaps it's understandable that science is objectionable to him.

I think we certainly can show errors in any science, but it would be absurd to deny that the evidence for common descent by DNA analysis is not overwhelming.

Show us. The of your sources I checked was about horizontal gene transfer in prokaryotes. Can you show that there is significant gene transfer in any vertebrate? How about flowering plants? Is enough DNA transferred to make DNA analysis wrong? Let's see what you have.
 
Crying rock quoted:

When speaking to the public, evolutionists are infamous for overstating the evidence for universal common ancestry. For example, when speaking before the Texas State Board of Education in January, 2009, University of Texas evolutionist biologist David Hillis cited himself as one of the “world’s leading experts on the tree of life†and later told the Board that there is “overwhelming agreement correspondence as you go from protein to protein, DNA sequence to DNA sequence†when reconstructing evolutionary history using biological molecules. But this is not accurate. Indeed, in the technical scientific literature, one finds a vast swath of scientific papers that have found contradictions, inconsistencies, and flat out failures of the molecular data to provide a clear picture of phylogenetic history and common descent.

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/05/a_ ... .html#more
Click to expand...


The Barbarian said:
Sounds interesting. Where has the DNA evidence been shown to be faulty? I note that this comes from the Discovery Institute, whose founder says that life on Earth might have been invented by a "space alien", so perhaps it's understandable that science is objectionable to him.

I think we certainly can show errors in any science, but it would be absurd to deny that the evidence for common descent by DNA analysis is not overwhelming.

...sources I checked was about horizontal gene transfer in prokaryotes...is significant gene transfer in any vertebrate? How about flowering plants? Is enough DNA transferred to make DNA analysis wrong?
Click to expand...

A list of references were provided:

[2.] Graham Lawton, "Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life," New Scientist (January 21, 2009) (emphasis added).

[3.] Graham Lawton, "Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life," New Scientist (January 21, 2009).

[4.] W. Ford Doolittle, "Phylogenetic Classification and the Universal Tree," Science, Vol. 284:2124-2128 (June 25, 1999).

[5.] Graham Lawton, "Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life," New Scientist (January 21, 2009).

[6.] Antonis Rokas, Dirk Krueger, Sean B. Carroll, "Animal Evolution and the Molecular Signature of Radiations Compressed in Time," Science, Vol. 310:1933-1938 (Dec. 23, 2005).

[7.] Carl Woese "The Universal Ancestor," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Vol. 95:6854-9859 (June, 1998) (emphasis added).

[8.] Lynn Margulis, “The Phylogenetic Tree Topples,†American Scientist, Vol 94 (3) (May-June, 2006).

[9.] Antonis Rokas & Sean B. Carroll, "Bushes in the Tree of Life," PLOS Biology, Vol 4(11): 1899-1904 (Nov., 2006) (internal citations and figures omitted).

[10.] Antonis Rokas & Sean B. Carroll, "Bushes in the Tree of Life," PLOS Biology, Vol 4(11): 1899-1904 (Nov., 2006) (internal citations and figures omitted).

[11.] Antonis Rokas & Sean B. Carroll, "Bushes in the Tree of Life," PLOS Biology, Vol 4(11): 1899-1904 (Nov., 2006) (internal citations and figures omitted).

Get to work falsifying the claims made by Casey Luskin.

"...note that this comes from the Discovery Institute, whose founder says that life on Earth might have been invented by a "space alien", so perhaps it's understandable that science is objectionable to him..."

Perhaps:

Crying Rock quoted:

Ben Stein Interviews Richard Dawkins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlZtEjtlirc
Click to expand...

;)
 
So you can't find any cases where DNA phylogenies were overturned? Don't you think that's a wake-up call?

I looked at your video. The first thing the creationist from the Discovery Institute claimed, was that Haeckel's drawings are being used in science textbooks to illustrate evolution. What has him infuriated, is that they don't use the drawings (and haven't for some time) They use photographs of embryos, which show the same things. Haeckel's theory of recapitulation hasn't been taught in schools for about a hundred years. It's not a total crock, however. The same bones that form the reptilian jaw, for example, first form in their reptilian place in the early mammalian fetus, and only later disarticulate and slowly form two bones of the mammalian middle ear. This doesn't mean that mammals are reptiles in utero, however; it just means that our development is constrained by our evolutionary history.

I'd be pleased to hear from you, of any textbooks in use in the last decade that use Haeckel's drawings as support for his theory. Maybe you could call Casey and ask him where he found his...

He says that textbooks "censor" creationism. They "censor" flat Earth ideas, too. For the same reason. The evidence won't support it.

Apparently, the rest of the tape is having some trouble, but starting out with two egregious untruths is not a good sign for the rest of it. How about telling us about more of them?

BTW, note the difference between early and late embryos:

embryo-stages1.jpg


If you know what to look for, you can tell the difference very early. But they do all go through the same stages, and they do look very similar in early development. There's a good reason for that, aside from common descent; read "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" (you linked to the author, but I wonder if you ever actually read anything he wrote)
 
Those aren't Haeckel's drawings. And they actually look like the embryos in question. I repeat, do you have any that use Haeckel's drawings?

I assume you do know that vertebrate embryos do look very much alike at the beginning, don't you?

And you were going to tell me about the phylogenies, based on DNA that had been disproven.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top