I saw the film EXPELLED today and it was interesting ...

Select poll option that suits you most closely:

I am with Ben Stein who is a genius.	12.7%	[ 40 ]
I am with Dawkins who is brilliant!	28.3%	[ 89 ]
Darwinism is a foggy working hypothesis.	6.4%	[ 20 ]
There is no academic freedom anymore.	14.6%	[ 46 ]
I evolved from a cluster of cells that emerged from a pokey-ball.	37.9%	[ 119 ]
Total Votes:			[ 314 ]

[Chrono_Tata]

A Confused Iguana

Chrono_Tata

Calico Vass

ID is a Hypothesis

You're too kind. A hypothesis at least makes testable predictions. ID does not.

Eh, I hate that demarcation. A hypothesis is an idea, a scientific hypothesis requires that it be testable but I am not adverse to people using hypothesis in a more loose way. It is very petty to insist that ID be called conjecture and not hypothesis to the non-scientist.

Well, if you want to say ID is a hypothesis in the non-scientific sense then you could say it is a theory in the non-scientific sense (like the Elvis-was-kidnapped-by-aliens theory). I assumed Calico was talking about scientific hypothesis and theory,

[VoijaRisa]

A Confused Iguana

Eh, I hate that demarcation. A hypothesis is an idea, a scientific hypothesis requires that it be testable but I am not adverse to people using hypothesis in a more loose way. It is very petty to insist that ID be called conjecture and not hypothesis to the non-scientist.

I think it's important to recognize. And I don't even like the term conjecture. It's sounds far too intellectual for something that's a gaping logical fallacy. I prefer "half assed guess".

[Shokushu]

Sum_Kinda_Thug13

I dont believe in Creationism OR Intelligent Design because all that would mean that we [humans] have some higher purpose on this planet. My belief is that our purpose is the same as any other animal's purpose. [and yes, humans ARE animals, the only difference between us and a goat is that we're smarter in our own ways]
And that purpose is to live, ********, and die.

FYI: even without some higher creator we can have much deeper purposes/meanings than that. If you want to be relatively nihilistic about it that's fine but try not to make it sound like accepting evolution means accepting that you basically have no purpose in life.

A Confused Iguana

Chrono_Tata

Calico Vass

ID is a Hypothesis

You're too kind. A hypothesis at least makes testable predictions. ID does not.

Eh, I hate that demarcation. A hypothesis is an idea, a scientific hypothesis requires that it be testable but I am not adverse to people using hypothesis in a more loose way. It is very petty to insist that ID be called conjecture and not hypothesis to the non-scientist.

Wouldn't it be grand if people started using hypothesis when they were talking about laymen's theories?

Redem

I don't know if anyone has posted this here yet, but the full and proper version of the "Inner life of a cell" video can be found here. That is the video the creationists ripped off for expelled, and for which they removed they replaced the science with "oooo lookit it, doesn't it really look designed? Hypothesis proven!"

The thing I dislike about those videos is how they show only the useful motion of things- even without the ID commentary you can think that looks awfully perfect.

The reality of those processes is that they happen at an extremely fast rate with lots and lots of chaotic bumping around.
Watching the microtubule transport (the walking thing) you'd not see so much time spent swinging the foot forward and chances are the damn thing is only close to the microtubule and has to wave around pretty randomly until it finds it.
Assembling the tubules? Well ya, the little units could pretty much flock to the ends of the tubes due to magnetic charges but they'd be jostling around on the dipoles of water molecules in a much messier way than was shown.
*though understandably it would probably be beyond the rendering power to show water molecules even if they were of comparable size to these structures. Being as small as they are they'd have to make them very transparent for you to be able to see anything. They could still at least show the ones currently interacting with the molecules and just have them fade afterwards.


They showed the motion of the cell membrane pretty well since it's fluid nature is something biology students would probably be learning about in a cell biology class but with that being intended for biology students other people aren't going to notice or probably even really understand that.


And watching the ribosomes assemble proteins (and then they showed rna AFTER that? What gives?) gives a better idea of how fast that process is but they omitted the RNA that carries the amino acids to the ribosome- against probably due their limited animation power or because it would be too chaotic to show what's happening.

[Westenblum]

VoijaRisa

A Confused Iguana

Eh, I hate that demarcation. A hypothesis is an idea, a scientific hypothesis requires that it be testable but I am not adverse to people using hypothesis in a more loose way. It is very petty to insist that ID be called conjecture and not hypothesis to the non-scientist.

I think it's important to recognize. And I don't even like the term conjecture. It's sounds far too intellectual for something that's a gaping logical fallacy. I prefer "half assed guess".

Saying they half-assed it would assume they put some effort into it. xd I prefer "totally inane non-science."

[A Confused Iguana]

VoijaRisa

A Confused Iguana

Eh, I hate that demarcation. A hypothesis is an idea, a scientific hypothesis requires that it be testable but I am not adverse to people using hypothesis in a more loose way. It is very petty to insist that ID be called conjecture and not hypothesis to the non-scientist.

I think it's important to recognize. And I don't even like the term conjecture. It's sounds far too intellectual for something that's a gaping logical fallacy. I prefer "half assed guess".

"Complete bollocks" is the normal technical term.

I think there is an important distinction between the scientific and vernacular versions of theory, but the rest is just silly semantics. I'd rather explicitly say something is testable and well-motivated than convolve it with a poorly understood definition.

[pockybot]

Jaaten Syric

Except Sanger herself stated that her (political) views were shaped by poverty and inherited ignorance, not race, and was routinely praised for her actions by civil rights activists, and her early (Harlem) facilities staffed entirely by minorities. I know you don't have an issue seeing vast conspiracies where none exist, but this is a tad much. Kindly stop conflating the personal beliefs of the founder with the demonstrated political goals of the organization she founded.

LOL! No, I back up "conspiracy theories", I don't parrot things that have no legs to stand on. Margaret Sanger, along with her colleagues at the time were hardcore racist eugenics. Need I pull whole passages from her writings, publications, tracts, books and own speeches to show you?
My God, your arguing that Sanger wasnt a eugenicist is like those people trying to argue that the Holocaust was a hoax.

I already said I support a woman's right to go to an abortuary, it's a tough decision between her, her God and whomever...I'm just not going to deny the proto-Nazi eugenics origins.

[A Confused Iguana]

Now then, how astonishing were her views given the moral and social Zeitgeist of the first few decades of the 20th Century? I think it is a little inappropriate to speak about people as if they existed within a vacuum. It is not as if racialism, racism and anti-semitism were alien concepts prior to 1859; and some contemporary critics were scathing of Charles Darwin's proposal, ridiculing the idea mercilessly. We had already been applying artificial selection to animals for centuries before Charles Darwin and natural selection. Nazi eugenics used artificial selection methods, remember, this was not new work.

Take Sir Francis Galton. Yes, the man was a eugenicist but he was also a brilliant scientist and mathematician who inspired Karl Pearson, another eugenicist, to create the entire modern field of mathematical statistics. Does that mean that all our statistical methods are sullied with the taint of racialism and eugenics? What is essential to remember is that it was not until later developments in evolutionary biology that scientists realised just how wrong they were in their original views. There is no genetic basis for what we consider "race" and ethnicity [a finding of the Human Genome Project].

Science is an amoral tool that can be used for different ethical purposes. Should the reputation of Enrico Fermi be destroyed because of the implications of his work on nuclear physics in the US?

If you really really want to be appalled, look at the anti-semitism in Europe in the times before the rise of Nazism in Germany. To pin this social milieu on later scientific developments is poor analysis. Then again, Expelled has a political axe to wield and do not seem to care about integrity and honesty

[pockybot]

A Confused Iguana

Now then, how astonishing were her views given the moral and social Zeitgeist of the first few decades of the 20th Century? I think it is a little inappropriate to speak about people as if they existed within a vacuum. It is not as if racialism, racism and anti-semitism were alien concepts prior to 1859; and some contemporary critics were scathing of Charles Darwin's proposal, ridiculing the idea mercilessly. We had already been applying artificial selection to animals for centuries before Charles Darwin and natural selection. Nazi eugenics used artificial selection methods, remember, this was not new work.

Take Sir Francis Galton. Yes, the man was a eugenicist but he was also a brilliant scientist and mathematician who inspired Karl Pearson, another eugenicist, to create the entire modern field of mathematical statistics. Does that mean that all our statistical methods are sullied with the taint of racialism and eugenics? What is essential to remember is that it was not until later developments in evolutionary biology that scientists realised just how wrong they were in their original views. There is no genetic basis for what we consider "race" and ethnicity [a finding of the Human Genome Project].

Science is an amoral tool that can be used for different ethical purposes. Should the reputation of Enrico Fermi be destroyed because of the implications of his work on nuclear physics in the US?

If you really really want to be appalled, look at the anti-semitism in Europe in the times before the rise of Nazism in Germany. To pin this social milieu on later scientific developments is poor analysis. Then again, Expelled has a political axe to wield and do not seem to care about integrity and honesty

Should James Marion Sims, the famed legendary obstratrician revered in American medical fields be honored, even tho he mutilated many many poor black women against their will?

Should Thomas Murrell, O.C. Wenger and Thomas Parren be celebrated by the medical establishment, even tho they spearheaded the Tuskegee experiments on poor black men?

What about famed neurourgeon Orlando J. Andy, who in the 60's and 70's was using foster home and kidnapped black children, and cutting out parts of their brains?

You really need to read the award winning Medical Apartheid and the best selling War Against The Weak: The History of Eugenics in America to really have an eye opener to whats been going on.

Its sickening you'd white wash the most racist eugenic beliefs as mere "dabbling of the time".

. Margaret Sanger and the rest of the founders of the abortion movement were hardcore racial eugenicists:

In her own words:

Quote:

Organized charity itself is the symptom of a malignant social disease. Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and to diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and dependents.

It [charity] encourages the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant

In 1939 Sanger launched what came to be known as “the Negro Project,” a concerted attempt to build birth-control clinics in black areas across the country. The underlying goal was to limit the rising number of African Americans by reducing African American birthrates throughout the rural South as well as in the urban cities of the North.

I am pro choice, but this isn't a joke...this is the serious racist evil that is the very root of the abortion movement, something Pro Life people NEVER talk about

"We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
-Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood


I mean seriously...youre argument is like saying "well ok, Josephy Mengele and company did some evil, sure...but they and Japanese Unit 731 did a lot of good medical research that otherwise couldnt have been done on willing subjects"

[Piltdown]

To whomever asked about abiogenisis:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/


This site also covers other ID falsehoods about various feilds in science.

As far as reasons why Ben Stein is a moron, liar, and snake:
http://www.expelledexposed.com/


Expelled exposed was created and maintained by the National Center for Science Education. This site exposes everything about the film to what evolution actually is, what it is not, production tactics (like renting that hall in Pepperdine and filling it with extras from the movie), and the true stories behind those who claimed they were "expelled" from their jobs simply for beleiving in creationism. Yes, it does cover what he said about nazi germany (lest us forget Gott mit une was the nazi slogan "God with us.')

All sources are cited an credible.

[Hepzeba]

Westenblum

VoijaRisa

A Confused Iguana

Eh, I hate that demarcation. A hypothesis is an idea, a scientific hypothesis requires that it be testable but I am not adverse to people using hypothesis in a more loose way. It is very petty to insist that ID be called conjecture and not hypothesis to the non-scientist.

I think it's important to recognize. And I don't even like the term conjecture. It's sounds far too intellectual for something that's a gaping logical fallacy. I prefer "half assed guess".

Saying they half-assed it would assume they put some effort into it. xd I prefer "totally inane non-science."

You are not going to be persuasive or get across information well by ridicule, Westenblum. Please be more positive and constructive in your criticism. No matter how tempting it is to give up and despair that people will understand you, this is still not a good idea. I understand and feel compassion for you when you blow off steam in this manner, but I must also remind you that this is not a good debate ethic and you will perhaps not persuade a single soul resorting to this.

This would be better kept to a fun PM format between yourselves and not posted on the thread.

[Hepzeba]

Piltdown

To whomever asked about abiogenisis:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/


This site also covers other ID falsehoods about various feilds in science.

As far as reasons why Ben Stein is a moron, liar, and snake:
http://www.expelledexposed.com/ All sources are cited an credible.

I've seen some of your posts and I am convinced that YOU are not in a position to define who is a "Moron." Did you learn that term in anthropology? eek

This site does not prove any of your statements that Ben Stein is "moron, liar or snake."

Please concede that this is your opinion or I will report you for spam.

If you cannot debate here with a proper ethic then please leave. You are not helping anyone, least of all this very important subject matter, nor are you educating a single soul with this approach.

Are you really interested in your subject matter? I ask because based on your posts it seems you are much more interested in hurting and being negative and destructive than you are in an honest intellectual pursuit.

Please clean up your act. SRSLY.

[A Confused Iguana]

pockybot

Should James Marion Sims, the famed legendary obstratrician revered in American medical fields be honored, even tho he mutilated many many poor black women against their will?

Should Thomas Murrell, O.C. Wenger and Thomas Parren be celebrated by the medical establishment, even tho they spearheaded the Tuskegee experiments on poor black men?

What about famed neurourgeon Orlando J. Andy, who in the 60's and 70's was using foster home and kidnapped black children, and cutting out parts of their brains?

These individuals obtains their findings as a result of morally dubious action, my normal understatement applied. My comments were about men whose words or ideas lead to others committing evil. Galton and Pearson never experimented on people directly, nor did Fermi drop an atomic bomb on anyone. Of course, had the individuals I mention been directly responsible for immoral action then their legacies are tainted. To compare them with people who did actively take part in unethical research is, I will not pull punches, typical of your hysterical appeals to pathos. They situations are not the same, do not pretend that they are.

pockybot

Its sickening you'd white wash the most racist eugenic beliefs as mere "dabbling of the time".

I did not say that, I said we must judge individuals in the context of the politics and social views of the time. That is not to say that the overall views were acceptable, they were clearly not when we judge from our perspective; but it becomes churlish to single people out for direct criticism if they are largely in alignment with the way of the times. Is this approach of looking at individuals too nuanced for you?

pockybot

I am pro choice, but this isn't a joke...this is the serious racist evil that is the very root of the abortion movement, something Pro Life people NEVER talk about

A root or historic unpleasantness? Or do you still believe that Planned Parenthood is actively engaged in a system of racially-targeted negative eugenics? What was done in the past cannot be undone. We move on.

pockybot

I mean seriously...youre argument is like saying "well ok, Josephy Mengele and company did some evil, sure...but they and Japanese Unit 731 did a lot of good medical research that otherwise couldnt have been done on willing subjects"

Again with making leaps I did not make. The indirect argument put forward by Expelled is that Charles Darwin and evolutionary theory enabled the genocide and atrocities of the Nazis. I must stress that Darwin's thesis was about natural selection and not artificial selection: that was his great insight. We already understood the effects of selectively breeding animals so it does not take that much of a leap to change from non-human to human artificial selection: that is what eugenics was about. You see, eugenics has nothing to do with Charles Darwin's major bombshell that was selection in nature affecting development. It is crass and unsophisticated to draw a direct link from Darwin and natural selection to eugenicists and their artificial selection given that eugenics had already been carried out on other species before Darwin's time. So it is underhanded to imply that Charles Darwin and natural selection enabled eugenics and the atrocities of that time. It did not. The elements were all already in place with the pre-existing racialism and anti-Semitism in Europe.

Do not put words in my mouth.

[VoijaRisa]

Hepzeba

This site does not prove any of your statements that Ben Stein is "moron, liar or snake."

It certainly does. By revealing that those that Stein presents as "expelled" in his movie did not really lose their jobs and were in no way actually persecuted for their ID position, it clearly demonstrates that he is a liar.

"Snake" is a general term for someone selling or promoting something that is false or harmful. By promoting Intelligent Design, Stein is doing this as well. Again, expelledexposed.com demonstrates why ID is false, and as such, the label is appropriate.

As far as "moron", I'll even have to point out that this is clearly demonstrated on the website because you really do have to be pretty stupid to think that, by hiring someone to make a copy of someone else's work and just changing the colors around a bit, you're not violating copyright laws.

[ElectricTerra]

Hepzeba

Piltdown

To whomever asked about abiogenisis:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/


This site also covers other ID falsehoods about various feilds in science.

As far as reasons why Ben Stein is a moron, liar, and snake:
http://www.expelledexposed.com/ All sources are cited an credible.

I've seen some of your posts and I am convinced that YOU are not in a position to define who is a "Moron." Did you learn that term in anthropology? eek

This site does not prove any of your statements that Ben Stein is "moron, liar or snake."

Please concede that this is your opinion or I will report you for spam.

If you cannot debate here with a proper ethic then please leave. You are not helping anyone, least of all this very important subject matter, nor are you educating a single soul with this approach.

Are you really interested in your subject matter? I ask because based on your posts it seems you are much more interested in hurting and being negative and destructive than you are in an honest intellectual pursuit.

Please clean up your act. SRSLY.

ExpelledExposed doesn't show that Ben Stein and Co. are morons, no. It most certainly does, however, show that they are sneaky and treacherous in their twisting of facts. Do you deny this? If so, why?

[Piltdown]

Hepzeba

Piltdown

To whomever asked about abiogenisis:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/


This site also covers other ID falsehoods about various feilds in science.

As far as reasons why Ben Stein is a moron, liar, and snake:
http://www.expelledexposed.com/ All sources are cited an credible.

I've seen some of your posts and I am convinced that YOU are not in a position to define who is a "Moron." Did you learn that term in anthropology? eek

This site does not prove any of your statements that Ben Stein is "moron, liar or snake."

Please concede that this is your opinion or I will report you for spam.

If you cannot debate here with a proper ethic then please leave. You are not helping anyone, least of all this very important subject matter, nor are you educating a single soul with this approach.

Are you really interested in your subject matter? I ask because based on your posts it seems you are much more interested in hurting and being negative and destructive than you are in an honest intellectual pursuit.

Please clean up your act. SRSLY.

I never said it showed proof I said it gives reason. I am a biological anthropologist, not a cultural anthropologist. I call Ben Stein a moron because he willfully refuses to learn about evolution. This is evident as he had several years to do so for this film and yet continues to show an understanding of evolution that is below 8th grade biology courses. Having simply read one scientific account of the definition of evolution he would have found that evolution is dissent with modification through changes in allele frequencies. Alleles are in reference to genes, in order to have genes you must have life. Therefore, evolution cannot say anything about how life began as evolution deals with he diversity of life, not the origins. Ben Stein also claims that evolution deals with the origin of the universe (WRONG), planetary revolutions (WRONG), and the laws of thermodynamics (SO WRONG I COULD SHOOT MY FOOT). Evolution deals with the diversity of life, as the universe, planets, and thermodynamics are not living, it has NOTHING TO DO WITH EVOLUTION. The man did not do an iota of research before making any of these claims yet resents himself as a revolutionary on the topic. It makes me sick. I have no issue with religion being taught in schools, so long as it is in a religious studies course, not a science class. ID cannot be tested and it therefore not science. If a scientist used his tactics within the scientific arena, they would be ripped to shreds. Not only was he willfully ignorant, arrogant and a down-right liar (as evident by production techniques and the stories of he "creationist" teachers) but he is promoting this kind of behavior to continue. It is utterly despicable. People like Ben Stein are the reason why American children have such low scores in science. He does not promote thinking but the restriction of it. People like him disgust me and I have every right to state it. As I o not have time to give every reason why I think it is despicable, I provide links for later reading. I did not realize that I had to label everything I write, especially when it is blatantly obvious that it is an opinion. I will do so in the future.