Ever since I saw the documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed last month, I’ve been waiting for some mainstream media coverage of the film. Other than surprisingly few reviews — some by reviewers who didn’t bother to actually watch the film — I haven’t really seen anything.
I have a huge problem with most documentaries of recent vintage. I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that I began eating fast food in earnest after watching Morgan Spurlock’s anti-fast food documentary SuperSize Me. I left the theater and ordered fries and a sandwich from Wendy’s. And they were really good. The point is, these propaganda films tend to have precisely the opposite effect on me than they are seeking.
While I enjoyed it and have recommended it, Expelled was done very much in the same heavyhanded vein as many recent documentaries that win Oscars and receive accolades. It has received some positive reviews, but generally not the same reception as the Michael Moore/Morgan Spurlock/Al Gore documentaries of recent years. I suspect it has something to do with its agenda.
The film, starring Ben Stein, argues that Intelligent Design should not be systematically excluded from academia. It doesn’t argue for Intelligent Design or against Darwinism so much as for academic freedom. Still, it engages some religious issues — even if it is for the purpose of pointing out that many academic proponents of Intelligent Design are either not Christian or not religious at all. The documentary also focuses a great deal on the atheism and anti-religious fervor of some prominent evolutionists such as Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Myers. In fact, this New York Post review thought the documentary was nothing more than pro-religion:
Unlike Moore, Stein doesn’t resort to (many) cheap shots. He gives the opposition - stoutly represented by “The God Delusion” author Richard Dawkins - ample opportunity to make its case. In getting Dawkins to concede that there might be some intelligent source to life, Stein scores big… .
Stein has a lot of fun cross-examining Darwinians about the origins of life, finding that their theories boil down to magic “crystals” or insemination from other worlds. (Cue ’50s sci-fi footage.)
To his credit, Stein doesn’t dodge the central question, as Moore would. Though individuals can say what they want, no university is obliged to employ people with absurd views. We wouldn’t want our professors teaching that the Holocaust didn’t happen. Is ID such a fringe theory?
Stein’s interviews prove that (at least some) ID backers are indeed scientists in pursuit of truth. They ask only to be heard.
That sounds fair, until it doesn’t. After all of his efforts to unhook the ID caboose from the creationism train, Stein makes it clear that his beef with Darwinism is that it weakens religion. He’s right, but his purpose is exposed: He’s trying to keep religion alive in science, where it doesn’t belong.
Religion, the combination of philosophy and myth handed down to us, is blind to science. Science ought to return the favor. In a long, greasy detour, Stein shows that the Nazis were Darwinists. So what? They also liked skiing. Having Nazi fans doesn’t make Darwin wrong.
There is no “should” in the theory of evolution. Eugenics is a philosophy, not a science, even if Darwin indulged in it. Religion is normative, all about that “should.” It does belong behind that wall, separated from the search for fact.
I didn’t get the same sense that this reviewer did, but clearly there are some hot-button issues here that would be delicious to explore.
I guess what I find so interesting is that when Michael Moore releases a documentary, you get tons of mainstream media coverage about, say, socialized health care or guns or Bush administration corruption. Al Gore’s documentary about global warming also elicited tons of media coverage. SuperSize Me brought out many stories about healthy eating and the fast food industry. A few scattered reviews of Expelled isn’t quite equivalent. And it’s a top ten movie. Just for comparison, by the way, Morgan Spurlock’s latest documentary Where in the World is Osama bin Laden came out the same day as Expelled. It has made $264,000 compared to Expelled’s $6.6 million. It has 76 reviews on the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes compared to Expelled’s 33.
I began writing about this because USA TODAY actually had a brief story about the movie. Written by the Associated Press’ Samantha Gross, the story is about how Yoko Ono is suing the makers of the film for using a snippet of the song “Imagine”:
Yoko Ono is suing the producers of a movie that challenges the concept of Darwinian evolution, saying they used the song Imagine without her permission and led the blogosphere to accuse her of “selling out.”
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, Ono accuses the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed of suggesting to viewers that those who guard John Lennon’s legacy somehow authorized or sponsored the film.
The producers of the film, which features Ben Stein challenging Darwinian theories that prevail in academic circles and suggesting that life could have emerged through intelligent design, said they used only “a very small portion of the song.”
I might point out again that the conceit of the film is academic freedom rather than a discussion of Darwinism, much less Intelligent Design. But the thing I found interesting about this article is that it doesn’t mention that The Fair Use Project of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society is serving as counsel for the producers of the movie:
In a statement Thursday, Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project, said that the case was a clear issue of free speech, given that the “Imagine” clip appears for less than 15-seconds and was used in a manner of artistic criticism to illustrate briefly a hypothetical world without religion.
“The right to quote from copyrighted works in order to criticize them and discuss the views they may represent lies at the heart of the fair use doctrine. These rights are under attack here, and we plan to defend them,” he said.
That context is missing from the AP story, and it shows. The movie has made enough of a splash to really anger some people who advocate the exclusive teaching of evolutionary theories about life. That in itself is a major story, but one that has really only been engaged by opinion media.
The lack of quality coverage of this movie or the issues it raises in the mainstream media is telling. Reporters on the religion, education, science and film beats all should have interesting stories here.
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Comments (70) |
May 6, 2008, at 11:52 am
There’s been approximately 11 billion blog posts if that helps?
May 6, 2008, at 12:20 pm
You should probably link to the actual reviews - Expelled’s are mostly negative, and WITWIOBL’s are somewhat better. You’d expect better movies to get more attention. (It’s also worth noting that Expelled isn’t a top ten movie anymore.)
It also makes a very poor case that ID is really “expelled”. The scientists interviewed didn’t really suffer terribly for their beliefs.
Worse, the attempt to tie evolution to Naziism (and, by interspersed video cuts, communisim) really is reprehensible. Hitler wasn’t an evolutionist. He sure wasn’t a traditional Christian, of course, but he was sort of a neo-Pagan crypto-Christian who explicitly rejected evolution and based his racism on the idea that the ‘races’ had been created separately. The Holocaust owed far more to the virulent strain of anti-Semitism that Martin Luther embraced and fostered. That was certainly the motivation for the majority who actually carried out the crimes in person.
As to the Communist states under Stalin and Mao - they also explicitly rejected neo-Darwinian evolution and embraced (and enforced) Lysenkoism instead. The resulting crop failures when reality failed to match up to “worker’s science” killed millions, accounting for a substantial chunk - possibly a majority - of the death toll from those regimes. Ironically, the people under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao would have been better off if those ‘leaders’ had accepted neo-Darwinian evolution.
Given the fact that the film makes such a poor case, I I cna’t see how it’s surprising that it hasn’t attracted more attention.
May 6, 2008, at 12:28 pm
I’ll assume this was sarcasm. Because obviously it has everything to do with its agenda.
May 6, 2008, at 12:46 pm
Hey I had Wendy’s after seeing SuperSize Me.
May 6, 2008, at 12:49 pm
Much like creationism (aka ID) in general, I think the media had a hard time determining if they were to actually take Stein’s movie seriously…
May 6, 2008, at 12:51 pm
Expelled is getting little media attention for at least two good reasons. When film critics wanted to attend screenings, they were not allowed. Or in the worst cases, invited and then disinvited.
If you won’t let critics screen your movie, you shouldn’t expect free publicity.
Also, the media probably didn’t want to get involved in a smear campaign either. If a crackpot movie came out blaming the Holocaust on Martin Luther and the Reformation, I bet most would steer clear of that one as well.
Notably, the Anti-Defamation League came out against Expelled:
May 6, 2008, at 12:53 pm
It takes more faith to believe in man-made global warming than it does to believe in God; and yet the grossly inaccurate “An Inconvenient Truth” can be shown in schools, but “The Ten Commandments” can’t. And I imagine “Expelled” won’t be allowed, either.
There’s so much irony here, it’s making my head spin just thinking about it.
May 6, 2008, at 12:57 pm
Well, Mollie and Doug, fast food once in a while is fine, but the whole point of such documentaries is that a diet high in such fare is not healthy. For example, some years ago, while working a normal job, I was eating fast food, including fries, every day for lunch over a period of about a year. During that time, I put on twenty pounds, which I lost when I stopped eating fries on a regular basis. Correlated with this weight loss was an improvement in my cholesterol and my blood pressure. But hey, your mileage may differ. Try it for yourself. Eat fast food, including those fries, every day for thirty days and see what happens.
May 6, 2008, at 1:04 pm
Having seen the film, I see absolutely no legitimate reason for a media blackout of it or the topics it discusses.
It is less hystrionic or propogandistic than the best Michael Moore film. If Michael Moore can receive accolades from the media, Oscars, and tons of coverage of the issues he discusses, I think we could get an honest discussion about academic freedom as it relates to the discussions of the origin of species.
May 6, 2008, at 1:09 pm
Mollie,
I haven’t seen it but from what I’ve read “an honest discussion” could have been possible if the movie had been more honest. I mean, do you expect a rational discussion to come from equating scientists with Nazism?
May 6, 2008, at 1:19 pm
William wrote:
I saw it. And, as I wrote, it uses the same heavyhanded tactics as all the recent Oscar-winning documentaries. I bristle against these methods, but the vast majority of reviewers do not. They love this style of documentary film making when it supports their agenda. This is politics, pure and simple.
For instance, the film doesn’t equate scientists with Nazism — not by a long shot. The good guys and the bad guys in the film are all scientists.
It does show that Nazis and the larger eugenics movement, including Planned Parenthood’s founder, were motivated by their Darwinian beliefs in selection and survival of the fittest. That’s not really disputed. The film’s point, as I took it, was a warning that the exclusive teaching of Darwinism could have negative effects on society’s views of how to treat human life.
One can disagree with all sorts of things about that argument, but it is certainly not beyond the pale for mainstream media discussion. Reporters don’t have to — and shouldn’t, of course — use the same methods as the film makers do when discussing these issues. But they can, and should, discuss them.
May 6, 2008, at 1:24 pm
Most MSM reporters won’t write about the film because most MSM reporters don’t agree with the message and believe that those who do are beneath them.
May 6, 2008, at 1:25 pm
Mollie:
Journalist have agendas. That’s been known for some time, and re-emerges when coverages of Expelled and Sicko are compared.
But is this really a GetReligion topic? You’ve been properly impatient when a discussion becomes tangential, but it seems to me that this whole post was born tangential.
May 6, 2008, at 1:26 pm
hmmm…precisely the problem. There was nothing HONEST in Stein’s delusional message. He was merely trying to exploit a controversial topic for cheap publicity and (albeit quite meager in the end) financial gain. Such motives rarely produce a legitimate documentary…and this case was CERTAINLY no exception.
May 6, 2008, at 1:30 pm
Au contrere.
It IS strongly suggested in the film. And it is HEAVILY disputed. Hitler mentions Darwin and Darwinism a total of zero times in any of his writings, works or speeches. If Darwin was such an inspiration, surely Hitler would have given him props (or at least one prop!).
Additionally, Darwin advances the theory of ‘natural selection’; Hitler’s agenda, in ‘Mein Kampf’, advances the theory that Jews, not having their own country, lived off other cultures.
May 6, 2008, at 1:30 pm
Dave,
It’s funny you raise that issue since I actually wondered about it before I broached the topic.
The movie really engages religion — not on the Intelligent Design side so much as the “evangelical atheist” side. In interviews with prominent evolutionists, many of them say the world would be better off without religion of any kind. The documentary discusses a world without religion.
The movie’s fans and foes are also largely engaged by the topic — either for a world with religion or against a world with religion.
The larger issue of divorcing revealed truth from scientific truth and whether that’s working out so well is also a religious question.
But I like your question because I think that the truth is that many of the issues raised by the film should be handled by reporters on the academic and science beats — with assists from religion beat reporters — rather than the other way around.
May 6, 2008, at 1:36 pm
There’s a really important story that needs to be told about the way in which ID has been opposed. As seen in at least one comment above, it is often equated with creationism, when the two are fundamentally different things. But most strangely, we’ve seen alleged proponents of science asking a judge to define what science is. Is that really a smart idea, guys? I don’t think so. I think it’s playing with fire and a recipe for future disaster.
It seems clear from all reviews of the movie that this is not that movie.
May 6, 2008, at 1:37 pm
The very first comment on this thread was about the eleventy billion blog posts that this movie had birthed.
This is our first post on the topic here at GetReligion but the fact that it so immediately gets people all juiced up kind of proves my point. Why would, say, the dying newspaper biz avoid coverage of an issue that gets people all fueled up? Is it a deathwish?
People love talking about big issues like the ones raised — fairly or unfairly — in this film. It’s just bad business not to give some coverage to the debate.
May 6, 2008, at 1:52 pm
Mollie:
“many of the issues raised by the film should be handled by reporters on the academic and science beats”
Science reporters should know what IS and Isn’t science - but that means they’re going to see through the whole ID thing. Academic freedom is great, yeah, but something isn’t science, it doesn’t go in the science classroom. Irrespective of whether anyone believes it to be true or not!
May 6, 2008, at 1:58 pm
Folks,
I’m deleting comments that stray from the focus of GetReligion.
May 6, 2008, at 2:54 pm
I am amazed at how quickly some folks assume that there can be no discussion at all between religion and science, especially in a university!
I am also amazed at the fact that in Expelled! Dawkins actually plays around with the possibility that alien life forms could have seeded life on earth, but not a deity. Is that science, or Scientology?
The fact is that the secularists want to muzzle religion wherever and whenever they can.
Incidentally, the notion that all supporters or ID are six-day creationists who are simply trying to force religion down the throats of others is ludicrous. Ironically, however, the critics of Expelled! often make this association, even as they decry the associations Stein makes between evolution and eugenics. The critics of Stein are not as reasonable as they make themselves out to be.
May 6, 2008, at 4:02 pm
I have to agree with your assertion that the mainstream coverage of Expelled has been at best uneven. Even the movie critics have shied away from this one. Comments like “Unlike Moore, Stein doesn’t resort to (many) cheap shots.” If this doesn’t sound like a cheap shot then I don’t know what a cheap shot is:
“It’s also true that the theory (evolution) lends itself to justify atheism, abortion, euthanasia, and eugenics†–as Stein points out. Here is another quote from Mr. Stein, “Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.
The traditional media may not want to cover this topic but proponents of both sides certainly want to have the debate, just check the blogs. I just think they are hopelessly out of touch with mainstream America.
Erik John Bertel
Author of Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot and the MillenniumWriting.com Blog
May 6, 2008, at 4:46 pm
It is worth mentioning that many of the scientists interviewed in the documentary, including Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers, were misled by the filmmakers into believing that the film would be about the intersection of science and religion, not simply an anti-evolution screed. The promotional showings of the film were manipulated so that only those already sympathetic to creationism. In fact, PZ Myers was invited to a screening - and was accompanied by Mr. Dawkins - but was not allowed to enter the theatre even after having been invited and having participated in the film.
The creators of “Expelled”, along with Ben Stein, have done a great disservice to themselves and to their cause. This film only makes it more and more evident why creationism or “intelligent design” are not science and have no place in the classroom or the laboratory.
May 6, 2008, at 5:00 pm
Got to http://www.rottentomatoes.com and you’ll find 33 mainstream reviews, 30 of those rated Expelled as “rotten”.
May 6, 2008, at 5:06 pm
As a member of the much-maligned MSM, I probably should have reviewed Expelled. But as a religion writer, I kind of had my hands full at the time, with Easter, Pope Benedict XVI, Passover and (of special interest to TMatt) Eastern Orthodox Easter.
But yeah, I did see Expelled for fun, and I agree with other posts here. It was done in the spirit of other modern documentaries — i.e., manipulative and only partly honest.
For one, the film makes a false division between evolution and intelligent design. It thereby ignores theistic evolutionists, like the late C.S. Lewis and the live Francis Collins. Worse, the film actually quotes at least two theistic evolutionists — Gerald Schroeder and John Polkinghorne — without acknowledging what they believe.
For another, Expelled makes the mirror mistake of guilt-by-association that atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens make. They say that religious people have committed evil deeds; therefore, religion is inherently evil. Ben Stein says that communists and Nazis believed in evolution; therefore, evolution necessarily leads to totalitarianism. Each side demonizes.
Conclusion: Cherry-picking facts and logic doesn’t make a good documentary.
May 6, 2008, at 5:12 pm
One reason for sparse coverage might be that, while most documentaries eagerly invite reviewers to previews, “Expelled” actively kept them out until the public release, while showing the film in mega-churches and closed door sessions of legislatures.
Stein’s grab for attention works as such. But his name is unlikely to join the thousands of researchers who have been trying for hundreds of years to find an actual crack in the basic theory of evolution, and therefore make a name for themselves.
Intelligent Design makes no falsifiable predictions, presents no new evidence, has no mathematical rigor, and explains nothing that may further our understanding of nature. Therefore it is not a “theory” in the scientific sense. Therefore it is ignored by “mainstream” science and by qualified educators.
May 6, 2008, at 5:34 pm
Brian wrote:
The “two” are not in fact two at all. There are many flavors of creationism, the two main ones being Young Earth (very close to Genesis) and Old Earth (admitting the ages of rocks as much as the Rock of Ages). But that only begins to cover the field.
When viewed as a spectrum with one notion in common — that the world is the product of a supernatural creator, that is one whose actions are not fully explained by naturalistic science — Intelligent Design can be seen to fall into the far edge of the creationism spectrum.
That’s viewing ID as a philosophy. As a political invention it is clearly aimed at circumventing the previous round of Supreme Court findings that the earlier flavor called Creation Science violates the Establishment Clause when taught as science in public schools.
Asking a judge to declare what science is may be risky but asking a judge to distinguish science from religion is what judges do for a living, among other things.
Dan wrote:
Pay attention to this paragraph, folks. It expresses what’s wrong with ID as science in the most condensed form I’ve ever seen it (and I’ve seen a lot). It’s worth hitting the books if required, to unpackage what Dan means by “falsifiable predictions” or any other jawbreakers, because you’re not going to get a better summary for a long time.
May 6, 2008, at 6:08 pm
Dave: You define creationism as being equivalent to religion, which is absurd. Words have meaning, and this is just sloppy. Plus, it is dismissive of and contemptuous to the vast majority of people who are religious AND value science (even practice it for a living, perhaps), which is dangerous and short-sighted. Similar to asking courts to be the final arbiter in these matters, of course…
Intelligent Design as I understand it is the notion that the fossil record and our modern biological understanding PROVES the existence of God (or at least some higher intelligence, a la the theories of Fred Hoyle and others, but we’re talking about those who talk about God here). I find this entirely unconvincing for all sorts of reasons and have no affinity for the motivations or tactics of its proponents, nor do I think it an appropriate matter for science class in any school, whether secular or religious. But to equate it with the commonly used definition of Creationism (Young Earth), which explicitly rejects observation of the natural world as a means for determining truth about the universe, is just wrong (I think you are more on the right track talking about predictions, but here you risk undermining many other areas of widely accepted science).
The notion that “asking a judge to distinguish science from religion is what judges do for a living” is preposterous. I wasn’t aware that law school involves any of the theological, scientific, philosophical, historical, or technical training that would be necessary to do so.
May 6, 2008, at 6:08 pm
Dave: You define creationism as being equivalent to religion, which is absurd. Words have meaning, and this is just sloppy. Plus, it is dismissive of and contemptuous to the vast majority of people who are religious AND value science (even practice it for a living, perhaps), which is dangerous and short-sighted. Similar to asking courts to be the final arbiter in these matters, of course…
Intelligent Design as I understand it is the notion that the fossil record and our modern biological understanding PROVES the existence of God (or at least some higher intelligence, a la the theories of Fred Hoyle and others, but we’re talking about those who talk about God here). I find this entirely unconvincing for all sorts of reasons and have no affinity for the motivations or tactics of its proponents, nor do I think it an appropriate matter for science class in any school, whether secular or religious. But to equate it with the commonly used definition of Creationism (Young Earth), which explicitly rejects observation of the natural world as a means for determining truth about the universe, is just wrong (I think you are more on the right track talking about predictions, but here you risk undermining many other areas of widely accepted science).
The notion that “asking a judge to distinguish science from religion is what judges do for a living” is preposterous. I wasn’t aware that law school involves any of the theological, scientific, philosophical, historical, or technical training that would be necessary to do so.
May 6, 2008, at 7:59 pm
Brian writes:
I do no such thing. Religion is that which connects one, at the deepest level, to the larger universe of which one is a small part. It need not be supernaturalistic. (Richard Dawkins disagrees, one of several points he and I disagree on.) Creationism is a supernaturalistic view of where the world came from. If that’s what connects you to the larger universe, then the two terms are equivalent for you, but not everyone has the same religion.
Now that is absurd; I am one of those people.
Then you don’t understand ID. First, the existence of God cannot be proven from facts; it is a matter of faith.
ID proposes that some things cannot be explained other than by some kind of overarching, conscious designer. Every one of the straw men that the ID folk have put up to “prove” this has been knocked down. Scientists did exactly what the ID folks claim they don’t: Investigate their claims seriously (and show them empty).
Please read my words as I wrote them I do not equate ID with Young Earth creationism. I put it on a spectrum that includes YEC, Old Earth creationism, and the Native American story about how people entered this world from a hold in the ground that was a hole in the sky of their previous world.
Judges have to pass judgement on whether scientific testimony is acceptable as a matter of course.
May 6, 2008, at 8:03 pm
JIM DAVIS:
How are you defining “theistic evolution”? The crucial question, is the gradual change over time, from common origins, the result of changes that are random and meaningless?
There is no way that CS Lewis believed in creation as a random and meaningless process. Ditto for Pope John Paul II, who accepted some parts of evolutionary theory and rejected others. He opposed materialistic naturalism, which is the core issue at the heart of Expelled!
Also, when a scientist rethinks his own textbook on evolutionary biology, that person remains a scientist. He was a scientist when he co-wrote it. He remains a scientist when he rethinks it. I refer to the case of Dean Kenyon and his “Biochemical Predestination” text.
A short glance at that case.
http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9401/scopes.html
May 6, 2008, at 10:28 pm
I went to the Dean Kenyon link and read it. I would agree that Kenyon’s academic freedom was violated, that he was denied due process and that the people who did it probably have not learned their lesson.
That does not make Kenyon’s conclusion of necessary guidance of life’s emergence correct. It doesn’t even make it science. What we have in Kenyon’s experiments is the failure of the scientific method to provide a full explanation yet of what we’d like it to.
Invoking divine guidance instead of pondering more experiments is throwing in the towel. The divine-guidance notion doesn’t point to way to tests of itself, so it’s not a scientific theory. (Note that the word “naturalistic” does not appear in that sentence.) Scientific progress in any field could have been truncated at any time by throwing in the towel in this manner. I therefore cannot fully agree with Terry’s assertion that Kenyon “remains a scientist.”
Let me give an example. For a long time it was a major puzzle — bordering on an embarassment — that of all the twenty-odd simple organic chemicals supposedly produced by nonbiological processes in the soup of the early earth, only four of them make up DNA. The odds against a chance assembly of millions of units that only include those four types to produce the first self-replicating and therefore living molecule, are so huge as to be preposterous.
Then it was found that if a solution of those ingredients of the early ocean were suffused through clay, only four survived the process — the four that make up DNA. We will probably never know exactly what happened, but we have a good theory of the agent of selection of the contents of DNA. We didn’t throw in the towel, we kept on pursuing scientific explanations, and it finally paid off. That is how science develops.
May 7, 2008, at 1:31 am
The same has been said of Michael Moore, and that by some of his friends. Google “Michael Moore Exposed” for more information.
May 7, 2008, at 2:29 am
My wife changed her eating habits drastically and we now eat a lot healthier than before. So since our eating habits are intelligently designed, I guess we’ll out evolve you.
Actually the whole ID mess reminds me of someone refusing to make their best point insisting on using a weak argument. ID is an attempt to make a teleological argument but it misses the point. The strong argument is “God is why, evolution is how”. When I see stories about ID versus science, I typically find the “God is why…” ghost missing from the story. It seems that having two and only two sides satisfies a deep inner need for a right/wrong dichotomy.
May 7, 2008, at 9:42 am
I have a couple of blogs about how mainstream America is afraid to ask questions because — gasp — the answer might be God!
Check out this:
and this:
May 7, 2008, at 11:43 am
Something perhaps overlooked in this entire debate over the film is that Stein himself does NOT entirely buy into the ID movement, nor does he entirely reject evolution, which he nonetheless calls “shaky” in some key areas. The term “Theistic Evolution” which was mentioned above seems to fit what he believes.
If we’re to take him at his word, Stein simply wants the issues behind ID fully vetted and, more to the core of the argument, wants scientists to admit that over and above ALL science lies the *possibility* of some kind of intelligence. (The Dawkins statement is shocking in that regard.) I would also note that Stein, who is in fact Jewish, has never ever implied that the scientific community should embrace, en masse, the god-man of Gallilee as their concept of that Intelligence.
As for trickery, exaggeration and drama taking precedence over fact, been there done that. Michael Moore’s gun movie is the finest/worst example of those techniques, but he was not the first nor will he be the last.
I note with some dark amusement that so-called liberals are trashing this film and defending Moore, when Stein is advocating MORE free speech and MORE freedom to advocate unpopular views (ACLU, anyone?), while Michael Moore’s film is embraced by the Left as a trendy way to trash America, overlooking the fact that it focuses on ostensibly superior Cuban doctors living in what amounts to an island concentration camp - lacking freedom to even discuss ‘dangerous’ concepts like alternative views in science, politics or even religion. Some liberals.
I also find the near-blackout of this film in the media troubling, but that’s mitigated somewhat by the mishandling of the preview process. Denying access may or may not be a great strategy here. It could very well have led to early, devastating reviews from anti-ID and anti-religion critics that could have damaged the film’s release. Then again, maybe not.
May 7, 2008, at 1:06 pm
Dave: You absolutely equated creationism with religion when you said this: “When viewed as a spectrum with one notion in common — that the world is the product of a supernatural creator, that is one whose actions are not fully explained by naturalistic science — Intelligent Design can be seen to fall into the far edge of the creationism spectrum.”
Therefore your definition of “creationism” includes all of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, paganism, etc. I can’t think of any religion which it excludes.
I stand by my definition of ID. The fact that you and I both disagree with the claims of its proponents doesn’t change the fact that that’s what they’re claiming.
May 7, 2008, at 2:15 pm
Argh,
Comments have gotten a bit out of hand, again. This is NOT the forum to debate evolution/Intelligent Design. Keep focused on media coverage, please.
May 7, 2008, at 6:36 pm
Here is a copy of some children’s perspective on “Expelled:”
In the new movie EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED, the writer Ben Stein traveled to all sorts of places to meet with scientists and asked a lot of questions. He wanted to know if there is a lack of freedom to research and write about certain topics in science. We have the freedom in America to write and speak anything we want, but Ben Stein found that some scientists and a reporter were fired from their jobs simply because they wrote about “intelligent design†- even though they followed all the rules!
Before you see this movie you should know about Darwinism (evolution), intelligent design, and creationism. El—— (who is 12) liked that we learned something from the movie, but didn’t like that she had to guess what some things meant. Ei—- (who is 10) didn’t really understand this movie. She says that it will take a lot of explaining to young kids.
We struggled with these subjects, so here are some definitions: “Intelligent design†(ID) is the idea that life on Earth was made by a more intelligent being. “Darwinism†(evolution) says that all life evolved from one simple lifeform. “Creationism†is the belief that life was created exactly the way the Bible tells it. Since seeing this movie, Elana realized that she needs to study more history of science!
It was very interesting to see what different scientists thought about how life on Earth came to be, but we would have understood more if Ben Stein had talked about what Darwinism and intelligent design are at the beginning of the movie.
On a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best) sodas, we give this movie a rating of 3 sodas for kids. We think adults and older teens might enjoy it.
May 7, 2008, at 7:09 pm
And you dont seem to mention that despite this council, the judge presiding over this case has sided with Ms. Ono, and there has been an injunction placed on EXPELLED.
You also appear to have missed the fact that the EXPELLED producers and fine Christians at the Discovery Institute stole property that was not theirs for prescreenings and promotional materials (‘Inner Life of a Cell’, by Harvard and XVIVO).
The EXPELLED producers have a long history of theft.
May 7, 2008, at 7:26 pm
Mollie (#39):
We’re not just having a discussion of ID. Brian and I are having a quite serious discussion of religion. He’s a lumper; I’m a splitter — he regards any belief in the supernatural as religion, while I see them as separable but overlapping categories. When we talk about creationism, he denies the breadth of creationisms (plural), though I think he is a creationist, while I appreciate the wide spectrum of creationist ideas, though I don’t think any of them are valid. ID is the trigger, but it’s not the whole picture.
May 7, 2008, at 7:39 pm
What part of “Keep focused on media coverage, please” confused you?
May 7, 2008, at 8:39 pm
Mollie,
Your premise that mainstream media mostly avoided Expelled seems mostly true. However, the media for religion lit up the tree. Many science organizations demurred since (1)they did not want to ‘advertise’ the movie and (2)they rightfully knew that criticizing the movie would only reinforce the spurious message of a BIG SCIENCE CONSPIRACY.
A few reviews you may have missed:
http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/reviews/Expelled-No-Intelligence-Allowed
http://news.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?a=339118&z=35
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080421/32048_‘Expelled’_Explodes_into_Top_10_Box_Office.htm
http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000007198.cfm
http://preview.gospelcom.net/rev.php3?3288
http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=38c958af-e3dd-4c92-b28b-f8db9ba4c172
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0508/0508stein.htm
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=61851
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/movies/2004356647_expelled18.html
http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/movies/17856474.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chez-pazienza/he-blinded-me-without-sci_b_97339.html
http://www.sltrib.com/themix/ci_8963668
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/bal-to.expelled18apr18,0,6294024.story
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-projector18apr18,1,4982009.story
http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/movies/18expe.html?ref=movies
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-expelled18apr18,0,5576513.story
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2008/0418expelled.shtml
Cheers,
David
May 7, 2008, at 11:03 pm
Chris Bolinger writes:
The part where Mollie herself admitted the interesting nature of the religious issues broached (#16).
May 7, 2008, at 11:06 pm
Dave,
We don’t care about religious issues here. We care about media coverage of religious issues.
We will discuss religious issues as it relates to media coverage.
This is not the venue for just general religious discussion.
May 8, 2008, at 12:37 am
Why exactly does the media need to “Get it”. That seems to be part of the problem. Just like ID needs to convert the school children, so they will “Get it” the press needs to be converted also so they can “Get it”. I am pretty sure we all get it, it’s the ones still inside that box labeled Religion that do not “Get it”.
World domination through schools, media, and mass propaganda. I mean really, 80% is not enough?
May 8, 2008, at 1:58 am
ERV wrote:
Do you have a link to a news article about this? I couldn’t find anything.
May 8, 2008, at 11:29 am
Mollie wrote:
Then this discussion was tapped out a long time ago. So far no one has exhibited a reviewer who praised Michael Moore’s [insert movie of choice here] and condemned “Expelled!” on exactly the same grounds. It’s the overall behavior of the herd that has raised the specter of hypocrisy, and we drove that into the ground early.
May 8, 2008, at 9:14 pm
Dave, the “herd” mentality is purely in the mass media, which salivates to praise a Leftist when he makes a docudrama, but recoils in horror, viciously attacks - or worse, yawns and supresses coverage of it - when an Rightwinger makes one. That’s the hypocrisy.
Ignoring your wiggle-room word “exactly,” Let me be the first: Claudia Puig of USA Today trashed it as “propaganda, a political rant disguised as a serious commentary” and yet, gave Moore’s Sicko three and half stars and called Gore’s film, “A thought-provoking cautionary tale that is also lively and entertaining” and, without irony, gushed about Gore’s “warmth.”
Clearly, her condemnation of a “political rant” fit the Moore and Gore films as well.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/reviews/2007-06-21-sicko_N.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/reviews/2006-05-23-inconvenient-truth_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/reviews/2008-04-17-also-opening_N.htm
In a similar vain, not that the famed Wikipedia is EVER a great standard of truth (as if the previously mentioned “Rotten Tomatoes” is?) but I have to mention that the article over there about this film is particularly, and almost humorously, slanted, biased and distasteful, and is perhaps the worst article ever written there. Hundreds of liberals have “gang edited” the article into the biggest smear-job ever accomplished on that site, and that’s saying a lot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expelled:_No_Intelligence_Allowed
Note the “category” the article is placed in: “American Propaganda Films” citing the above mentioned Ms. Puig as a “source” (see how it works?) Oddly, films like Jesus Camp or any of Michael Moore’s films failed to make the cut for that great honor, nor are they given even a half of the vicious treatment this film has been given.
Apparently, buttons were pushed over there. Big time. Just like in the ‘real’ media. Propaganda is SO easy to pull off when you have the mob behind you! Just ask Hugo Chavez.
May 8, 2008, at 10:48 pm
Stephen A:
“Exactly” was not meant as a wiggle-word. You have found what had not been present. Nice work.
May 9, 2008, at 2:46 am
QUOTE
“the “herd†mentality is purely in the mass media, which salivates to praise a Leftist when he makes a docudrama, but recoils in horror, viciously attacks - or worse, yawns and supresses coverage of it - when an Rightwinger makes one. That’s the hypocrisy.” ENDQUOTE
It doesn’t look like herd mentality to me. or even the American reflexive left/right split. The amount of coverage these rabble rousing documentaries get seems to be roughly proportional to the reality of the problem they purport to cover (however biased the coverage).
For example:
Supersize me - the issue is the harm done by overeating fast food and the obscene level of obesity in the USA. These are very real problems that affect millions of people and the film received real coverage.
Sicko. - the issue is the awful fact that millions of people in the richest society in the world cannot afford basic health care. Again - a real world issue that received real coverage because it directly affects millions.
An Inconvenient Truth. There is a huge amount of data that shows average world temperatures are rising and that this is affecting our climate. Whether you believe these changes are man made, completely natural, or some combination of both this is a real issue that lots of people are concerned about -hence lots of coverage.
Expelled: This is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. There is no real debate within the scientific community that evolution happens. There are a few fringe scientists who disagree - but they have yet to produce any real evidence to support their case. Instead they have banded together with a selection of the (mainly non scientific) religious community to make a lot of PR noise dressed up in scientific sounding language.
All the movies main arguments have been repeatedly discredited (ie the holocaust link, the suppression of dissenting ‘scientists’, and the claim that belief in evolution means you must be an atheist)
That’s why the movie has been largely ignored by the mainstream media, and what coverage it has received has been largely negative. Pure and simple - there is no real issue being addressed. It’s not a scientific dispute, it’s not a freedom of speech issue, it’s PR hype cashing in on the American culture wars.
May 9, 2008, at 12:24 pm
TMATT:
It sounds as if you’ve bought into the black-and-white thinking that assumes evolution necessarily leads to a belief in a random, meaningless process. True, that’s the way Ben Stein’s film sets it up — and, for that matter, opponents like Richard Dawkins. But with all due respect, you could have found out differently if you’d followed the links I provided for Schroeder and Polkinghorne.
My definition, to answer your question: Theistic evolution is the belief that the universe, including life, developed slowly under the guidance of God. I also agree with this guy, who literally wrote the definitive Web site on the belief:
“Theistic evolution is the proposition that God is in charge of the biological process called evolution. God directs and guides the unfolding of life forms over millions of years.â€
After you challenged me on C.S. Lewis, I dug a little and found he did shift his viewpoint over the years. In the 1940s, he wrote that evolution “is a purely biological theorem. It takes over organic life on this planet as a going concern and tries to explain certain changes within that field. It makes no cosmic statements, no metaphysical statements, no eschatological statements.â€
In letters to his friend Captain Bernard Acworth in the 1950s, he gradually hardened against evolution, apparently because of the stridence of atheistic evolutionists.
But as I said, there’s a third way, expounded at length in a recent interview with Francis Collins (scroll down to his name). It’s interesting that Collins see himself as a born-again Christian in the C.S. Lewis mold — in fact, his spiritual quest was aided by reading Lewis’ Mere Christianity. And as the head of the Human Genome Project, Collins’ scientific credentials are beyond question.
Now, you can argue against such a position. But to pretend it doesn’t exist, as Ben Stein’s movie does, is dishonest and wounds his thesis.
May 9, 2008, at 7:38 pm
Only two options are allowed in Expelled: (1) belief in God; or (2) belief in a Godless, evolved universe. Ironically, this sort of limited choice is presented as the only option by both evangelical atheists and non-evolutionary biblicists alike. Kenneth Miller, famous Brown University biologist and practicing Catholic, commented on the reasons for the film’s exclusion of Christian scientists who-also-believe-in-evolution:
May 10, 2008, at 11:40 am
Malcolm, there are significant parts of America that think these other films you cite made mountains out of molehills, too - or worse.
Supersize Me was widely criticized for Spurlock’s diet of all high-fat food items, when he could have eaten a salad or other low-fat items at McDonald’s every day.
Moore’s Sicko ignored the fact that this medical paradise, Cuba, is an enslaved island on which free speech is punished by arrest and imprisonment, sometimes for decades. How great medicine, which requires free exchange of ideas and innovation, exists and thrives in that environment was not addressed.
An Inconvenient Truth was riddled with half-truths and misleading charts, graphs and grossly exaggerated statements about non-existent mass polar bear die-offs and immanent 20 foot sea level changes. Criticism in the mass media has been muted, to say the least.
Yes, America’s high-fat diet is an important issue, and yes, our healthcare system needs fixing and yes, we need treat our environment better, but just because these films deal with important issues doesn’t make them important in and of themselves (or more important to hear than any other viewpoints) despite the Hollywood glitterati showering films espousing these particular views with prizes.
An alternative to Gore’s film, “The Global Warming Swindle” received nearly zero coverage in the US (though it was on Channel 4 in the UK, for a while) and a film exposing Farenheit 9/11’s many misstatements got nearly no coverage, either. That’s media bias, or at least an anti-conservative mindset.
The core of the Expelled film, that religion is not allowed in academia, is a real concern for the Right, and frankly, the reaction to the film tends to prove its point. Honestly, I don’t know why science is so afraid to take on the ID proponents.
For the record, I don’t believe in Intelligent Design or Creationism (interestingly, neither does film narrator Ben Stein, completely) but do these ideas and their spokesmen deserve a hearing - alongside their critics? Or do they deserve to be stifled by the mainstream media simply because THIS TIME, it’s conservative Christians who are raising the issue?
May 10, 2008, at 2:07 pm
Stephen A. writes:
Science has vigorously taken on ID proponents, by investigating their claims (and finding them invalid). What the academy is unwilling to do is give ID a place in biology instruction when flat-earth theory is not offered in geography class, nor is the geocentric solar system taught to young astronomers.
You are mixing up two things here. Nobody is stifling “Expelled!” It promoters have mounted a vigorous campaign on its behalf. The fact that it gets ignored by reviewers is the fate of a lot of independent films, nothing unique to conservative Christians. ID gets “stifled” in science class for reasons I have already exceeded Mollie’s patience by explaining at length earlier in this board.
Clearly you and malcolm disagree about how these movies should be treated, but that’s just the clash of two opinions on this board. The GR-germane question is, what is it that informs journalists in their differential treatement? Is it from being a largely secular profession, or because they follow the news more closely by virtue of their job and know which argument has some meat and which is hollow? And do their reasons point to a failure to get religion, or to simple disagreement with some religious claims?
May 10, 2008, at 5:45 pm
Well, it’s actually more than just a disagreement on this board between two posters, and it’s actually even more than the film’s subject, Intelligent Design. I hinted at it a bit when I mentioned the ‘conservative’ element, but let me expand on that.
Editors of all stripes have no problem at all determining which subject NOT to cover, for fear of ridicule. They get it from their environment and their cultural mindset (note that I didn’t say “conpsiracy” because I don’t believe in them.)
They hear from their fellow newsmen at the local bar or around the waterooler that anyone giving airtime/newspaper coverage to THOSE people, be they anti-abortion protesters, ID-supporter or other “flat-earthers” - as you so cleverly inserted into the mix - they would seem “crazy” themselves, or worst, duped by the RightWing.
The stigma also goes to the coverage of religion, I believe. Although there are some excellent examples on this blog of great religion writing, we’ve also seen many stories that are slanted, biased and sometimes seemingly deliberately misleading.
While your points might be valid that this is an indie film that simply didn’t make it - like many others don’t - that doesn’t explain why indie films like Jesus Camp get rave reviews from the elitist media who almost transparently are promoting the film on the filmmakers’s behalf.
Despite the “Passion”-like promotion, and that is even the subject of some scorn in snooty circles, it will do well only with the reviews, and those reviews have been scorchingly hostile, when they’ve appeared at all.
Some of this is inevitable, and some may be attributed to serious flaws in the logic of, and the presentation of, the film. But some, I have to believe, comes down to a lack of conservative films getting any attention at all. While this one may be a bad example, I’d point to FahrenHYPE 9/11 as an example of a film virtually banned by theaters and ignored by critics.
The bottom line is for reporters to approach news stories, even those about films, with a fairness in tone, evenhandedness, and balance that is lacking in many cases. That doesn’t mean to say one should claim that ID is normative, or that it’s anywhere near a majority opinion, or that reporters ignore the firestorm surrounding some of the more controversial claims made in films like this one. It means a dispassionate airing of the film’s points, and allowing critics to counter the points (and tactics) of the filmmakers, and allow proponents to lay out their case.
(Oh, and this goes for films by Gore, Spurlock and Moore, too. I somehow failed to see any balance in the coverage of many of these films. Wonder why?)
If the subject of a film is flawed, airing it, flaws and all, will allow readers to make up their own minds.
Novel idea, isn’t it?
May 10, 2008, at 5:54 pm
p.s. yes, I can spell watercooler and conspiracy.
Let me also preemptively address that there’s a huge difference between a hostile review and a negative review. The former results when a reviewer/reporter simply editorializes about the subject, and notes how illegitimate it is that it even get ANY coverage.
May 10, 2008, at 11:26 pm
That is a valid difference, but it’s hardly limited to films created and promoted by conservatives. The Cleveland Plain Dealer used to have a film critic who went on a rant over any film she deemed “pornographic.” I emailed her so many times that her opinion was secondary, that her job was to get out of the way and tell me what the film was about and maybe throw in an opinion after that, that I could almost have made a macro of it with a fill-in blank for the name of the movie.
Don’t feel picked out just because you’re picked on.
May 11, 2008, at 12:03 am
Dave, you were right to make the point you did with the critic, who seemed to be out of line. However, it’s not widespread that critics all over America are ranting about films being pornographic.
Critics are, however, for the most part noticably and measurably more hostile to films that don’t comport with the worldview the political and social Left endorses.
This particular film may be a not-that-great example of my point, since it advocates a view I doubt even a third of conservatives adhere to or even fully understand, (i.e. ID) But the core argument the filmmakers have latched onto - snobbery in academia - is one conservative can certainly relate to, and not because they’re imagining things. All they need to do is look at the fawning reception Mr. Gore’s film has received, and they have their proof that some films are scruitinized to death (literally) while others have their claims accepted by the media as Gospel.
The idea that God isn’t allowed in scientific discussions may not be “news,” exactly, and to the extent the ID people want God included may be out of proportion.
But the film’s viewers surely will understand the trend in academia and elsewhere that God and Godtalk is reflexively seen as hostile to education and learning. Conservatives have been saying that God has a right to be at the table when origins are discussed, and perhaps when values, culture and history are discussed, too.
We’ve often seen here that reporters either have never heard of this mindset, or have chosen to ignore it.
May 11, 2008, at 5:40 pm
Stephen A. writes:
Stipulating this, this is not necessarily an example of not getting religion. It does involve making choices on religious disputes, some of which are “hot,” but not necessarily out of ignorance.
Considering the level of conservative understanding of ID on this board before Mollie stepped on it, I have to agree with you on that one!
For reasons I would risk the wrath of Mollie to repeat again, God and Godtalk are extremely non grata in science education. IDiots deliberately picked a fight when they chose to intrude Godtalk into biology. “Expelled” is an attempt to pick the same fight all over again after they lost at the political level. Pardon me if I think that reporters who pay attention to the news ex officio understood that going in and reviewed accordingly.
May 12, 2008, at 11:12 am
@ Stephen A
thanks for the considered reply. I wasn’t defending Moore’s films, or Gore’s. My main point was that Stein’s Expelled is trying to make an issue where there isn’t really one.
I’m not an American, and my politics and opinions don’t fit neatly into the standard American liberal/conservative boxes - I’d probably be shunned by the hardcore of both camps(or learn to keep quiet).
But in this particular of your culture wars I’m definitely on the side of the evidence. Evolution happened and happens. The age of the universe is to be measured in billions, not thousands of years. If your (the general you, not you Stephen in particular
religion and cosmology can accommodate that then great. If not then you need to adjust it, or get out of the way because the evidence isn’t going anywhere.
Malcolm
May 13, 2008, at 9:19 pm
Malcolm, I understand and share your belief that science is science, and that the evidence points to evolution. I don’t believe in ID, Creationism or the Young Earth thesis.
I guess my point of talking about the other films was to note that it’s not INTELLIGENT DESIGN, per se, that is likely the most important issue to the film’s viewing target audience (and it obviously isn’t as big, important or clearly as popular an issue in the US as the other topics in the Moore and Gore films.) Rather, it’s the underlying idea that ANY role for God in creation is very much an important issue, one that is rightfully seen as under threat and under attack here in America. I guess those films aren’t as “sexy” to the Mainstream Media as attacking the Bush Administration, conservatives, gun owners, and consevative Christians can be.
That underlying issue of Science vs. God was exploited a bit by this film, and that’s why the inevitable overreaction by the Secularists and athiests plays right into the hands of the filmmakers.
I totally believe God or what others would call a First Cause was responsible for that first spark in the Big Bang 13-15 billion years ago, and I see nothing in what we’ve learned about what has happened since then to deny that a vast intelligence is behind the nature we experience, and tha is verified every time we discover new things through science, using our God-given Reason. I suppose if that’s all the IDers would stick to saying - that God and science are perfectly compatible and that science actually proves God - then the issue wouldn’t be so controversial. Of course that’s not all they’re saying though.
And it makes me wonder why some reporters haven’t gone out there and found the many, many scientists who likely believe as I do. Because I bet they’re out there.
I’ll also say again, for the record, that Ben Stein is an admitted evolutionist. He simply sees “holes” in this scientific theory, and wants science to openly admit it and say that scientists don’t have all the answers about our ultimate origins. I also suspect he isn’t even 50% on board with the ID view, and if you listen to the O’Reilly interview, he says as much.
May 13, 2008, at 11:57 pm
Stephen said:
It seem I come from the diametrically opposed direction. I’m happy to concede that it is at least possible that a conscious being (= a god) was the first cause, if there was one.
However I see nothing in what we’ve learned about what has happened since then to suggest that a vast intelligence is behind the nature we experience. In fact every time we discover things through science about our world the facts appear to me to strengthen the case for concluding that the course of evolution of life on this planet, and the physical development of the universe have been unguided processes.
But that is totally opposed to what the creators of ID want. They are trying desperately to keep God and ID separate. Unfortunately for them the connection is so obvious that it can’t be denied.
You, I and every other thinking person know that the sponsors of ID (the Discovery Institute) mean the Christian god when they talk of a designer. But they have to deny that fact if they want to get ID past the US legal separation of church and state, and taught in the public schools. That is the fundamental (pun intended!) issue here.
The DI and it’s sponsors want some way of pointing school students towards a Christian alternative whenever the theory of evolution is mentioned in school classrooms. And they will do or say absolutely anything to help achieve that goal. In their eyes this is about saving souls, and saving the soul of America and those ends justify any means. If they have to lie or dissemble about the nature of the designer then they will do it. That mindset is what Dawkins and others have labeled “Lying for Jesus”. And that is the underlying cause of all the bitterness in the ID/Evolution ‘debate’.
May 14, 2008, at 1:41 pm
Malcolm, you’re right, the IDers are saying more, though they claim they’re not going as far as the full-blown Creationists (of course there’s evidence that they’re simply using the same creationist theories with a different name, as you say here.)
Many folks other than IDers or Creationists would debate the broader theory that any mention of religion or God in the classroom is a “separation of church & state” issue, but again, that’s a broader theme that stretches far beyond this particular debate, though the secularists are making church/state a part of it. Conservatives believe secularists are overreacting to cases like this and taking ALL mention of God out of the classroom as as preemptive measure.
And personally, if someone would lie and trick me in order to save my soul, I would have them not bother. Incidentally, I have never read of this “lying for Jesus” story line, has it been pursued in the media at all? Can you point to soures. It *is* relevant to this post, actually.
May 14, 2008, at 4:23 pm
1. IT is amazing how many movies “do not remain top ten” movies given some period of time after the release weekend.
Not sure that matters.
2. “Expelled” did an excellent job of videotaping the censorship and “holy war” viewpoint of some key believers in Darwinism.
3. Expelled made an excellent case for “Academic freedom to follow the data where it leads” - and the almost dark-ages style censorship being directed against science by Darwinist believers.
I also thought the interview with the National Academy of Sciences spokesperson was “telling” as they described the campaign they conducted since the early 80’s to shut down all opposition to Darwinism.
Bob
May 16, 2008, at 2:34 am
Stephen,
Re: Lying for Jesus
A quick google search will get you what you want.
The Dawkins article where I first read the phrase is here . The story relates to the movie Expelled, and the duplicitous tactics used to get Dawkins, P Z Myers et al. to agree to be interviewed for it, and also to the episode where Myers was prevented from entering a preview of the movie, while Dawkins, his guest, was allowed in.
Re: Church and State
I think the reason that many secularists shout at any mention of God in your classrooms is that the people who want to mention God are are predominantly evangelical Christians who would do their utmost to exclude mention of other religions.
I doubt most secularists would object if, for example, there was a strong move to introduce a course in comparative religions into the US public school system - as long as it mandated equal time for the various major religions, and some for non religious moral/ethical philosophies.
In that context - I remember reading somewhere an article that drew a link between the introduction of religious education into the schools in the UK and the decline of religion as a major factor in most British peoples lives.
Now if *that* hypothesis got more traction it might bring an interesting shift in a lot of peoples ideas about bringing god into the classrooms….
May 18, 2008, at 9:26 pm
Malcolm:
Question: Was Michael Moore 100% honest with ALL of the people he interviewed for his hit-piece films? Nope. Was he honest with the gun store clerk? With members of congress he harrassed about their families’ military service (he cut out one congressman whose nephew was actually serving. Didn’t serve his point.)
Agreed that makers of Expelled messed up badly in screening this film. Cheers for allowing the opposition to appear in it and speak for themselves.
In the sixth grade, my mother was outraged because I came home with a low grade on a test because I couldn’t spell “Mohammed” (wish I knew THEN that it had multiple spellings.) But the school made no mention of the Christian holidays, because to do so would be “violating church/state rules.” And this was in the South, even. And back in the 1970s.
Dead wrong approach.
I doubt many would ojbect if a comprehensive multi-faith course was taught in school. It’s just that Christians seem to feel they will always be kicked to the curb or mischaracterized by teachers, based of course on previous experience.
I question the report you cite re: lower church attendance tied to a class in school. Most likely it has to do with an overly secularized culture that doesn’t value religion or tradition any longer, and has chucked both.
May 19, 2008, at 1:10 am
Hi Stephen,
I never thought I’d be tagged as pro-Michael Moore! I’m sure he was as dishonest as you say. But that is an issue entirely separate from the validity or seriousness of the issues he was addressing. Nor does Moore’s behaviour in any way excuse or justify the dishonesty and lies used by the producers of Expelled.
I stand by my earlier assertions - US health care is a problem (Re: Sicko), US Obesity levels are a problem (Supersize Me), Global warming is a problem (Inconvenient truth) but when it comes to Expelled there is no real issue addressed. As I said above:
If you think that any of those three claims made in Expelled have validity I’d be happy to argue the points with you…
Regarding religious education in schools you said:
I find that expectation hard to understand, given that Christianity is overwhelmingly the majority religion in the USA and most of the teachers presenting the course would profess to be Christians of one sect or another. Certainly most of the Church/State conflicts that I’ve heard of seem to involve criticism of one Christian group or another but that is because they are the ones in conflict with the secularist community. My feeling is that most US Christians feel that any questioning of their beliefs counts as persecution.
If a Buddhist or Hindu group started pushing for their beliefs to be taught in schools, or for a display of some of their scriptures beside the 10 Commandments in a court house somewhere in the USA I’m sure the critics (both secular and Christian) would tear into them too…
It wasn’t a report - just an article or podcast somewhere. As I remember it the topic was the different levels in religious observance in the UK and the US. The author suggested a possible link between the introduction of compulsory religious education in the UK (in 1944) and the fairly dramatic decline in traditional religious observance in Britain in the latter half of the 20th century.
I think his point was that for many people raised in a religious environment any questioning of the religious beliefs of their parents and elders is almost, if not literally, unthinkable. However once you examine (and presumably reject as unbelievable) the beliefs and myths of a few major religions it becomes easier to examine the dogma of your own religion with a similar critical mindset and possibly reject those beliefs too.
I was merely speculating that if more people believed that such a casual link really does exist you might see the odd spectacle of secularists trying to get religious education introduced in US schools, and religionists trying to stop them. Just whimsy on my part.
May 21, 2008, at 10:28 pm
As noted before, I do not adhere to any of the film’s claims as to evolution or ID. My thesis has been that the CORE argument, that science and the secular culture as a whole has been hostile to God and religion.
As I also said, regardless of how they applied this core argument to the issue of ID (and regardless of whether attaching it to ID has merit) they have been shrewd in doing so, because it was likely to strike a chord in Christian conservatives across the U.S.
As for the podcast you saw “somewhere” that tied religion in the schools to a precipitous decline in the UK’s church membership, the embrace of society’s value system in the mainline churches in the UK as well as here in the US are likely more answerable for that decline. I find that if a person of faith cannot withstand exposure to other faiths, it was rather weakly held, so your premise has some merit, for those people at least.
Conservative Christians would find this rather Utopian view of the school system humorous, and I would agree. Teachers and their Union have been ardent supporters of wiping the mere mention of Christianity or Christ from the classrooms. Mentioning the elimination of Christmas plays and carols is almost a cliche at this point, it’s so well known. Less known are the news reports of students who are sent from class for doing reports on Christ, or mentioning his name, or bringing a Bible to class, none of which violates Church/State separation legal rulings, which are not well understood by teachers or school boards (and I’m being charitable saying this last bit. One surely HOPES they don’t know.) And Christians, for the most part, have been weak and powerless in enforcing its will on the schools, despite the assertions to the contrary, and despite their numbers in the US.
(Bible study illegally banned on playground: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44223)
(Students expelled for praying http://healtheland.wordpress.com/2007/03/09/students-expelled-from-washington-high-school-for-praying/)
I will grant that some Christians are far too touchy about discussing their faith with non-believers, and see it as persecution. Then again, tell a Christian that Jesus was just a man and tell a Leftist that Man-Made Global Warming isn’t real, and you’ll get the exact same reaction.
We’ve actually discussed this here at GR last summer. http://www.getreligion.org/?p=2496
Eastern religious teachings and meditations are commonly sold to schools as “centering techniques”, minus the religious labels and origins. Christians tend to raise a howl, but are largely written off as too “judgemental.” As I noted last summer, if the shoe was on the other foot, the old “church/state” argument would be trotted out in a heartbeat, and often is.
May 22, 2008, at 2:48 am
Hi Stephen,
I agree with you that the Expelled movie is aimed at conservative Christians and will be welcomed by most of them.
I believe that for the most part the scientific and secularist communities’ perceived hostility to religion is more a response to what they perceive as pressure or interference from religious groups than a chosen course of action.
For example -geologists for the most part would be quite happy to do their research, publish their findings and get on with their careers, without reference to god or religion. But when a group of Christian Biblical literalists came up with an alternative explanation for the creation of the Grand Canyon that claims it was formed in a single event - by the run off from the Noachian flood - then proponents/defenders of the the traditional geological hypotheses will challenge that claim. If that challenge is seen as hostile to religion well tough. That’s just how science works - and the theory that best explains the evidence eventually wins.
The same sort of argument exists for the scientific community’s backlash against ID, and earlier against Creation Science.
For some reason I felt challenged by your quotation marks around ‘somewhere’… So I did a little searching. My original source for the idea was Daniel Dennett. He expounded the idea in a debate against Dinesh D’Souza, author and Christian apologist in late 2007. Video of the debate can be found here and a discussion of it with selected hilights of the video here.
You may be right that the Churches’ embrace of society’s values also contributed to the decline.
I agree with you - and so does Dennett. That’s why he proposes compulsory religious education be introduced in US schools. He wants to let the doubt set in before the ‘religious indoctrination’ has had time to set. As one English commentator put it
As for the active suppression of Christianity and references to it in the US public schools - I have no experience of that system - so I defer to your knowledge.
I liked the discussion of the meditation lesson and it’s possible Buddhist overtones that you linked to. Some interesting thoughts there. It struck me that most of the controversy would not have arisen if the bowl had been described as a ‘resonating chime’ rather than a Tibetan buddhist bowl…