Talk:Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

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There is already a page on Expelled. Merge the categories over here? DanH 00:14, 2 January 2008 (EST)

Including Criticism

I have to disagree with this edit. While I don't think the critics' arguments have merit, I think we should include them. People who believe in creationism or intelligent design have nothing to hide; let's not appear that we do, by removing a criticism section.-MexMax 13:47, 15 February 2008 (EST)

See strawman fallacy. I don't know that the film portrays intelligent design as an alternative scientific theory to evolution. According to what I've read so far, it portrays the establishment as suppressing discussion of whether there can be any such alternatives. Do you see the difference? --Ed Poor Talk 13:59, 15 February 2008 (EST)
Oops. You're right; that doesn't bear on the movie, it bears on the theory. Good call on removing it, sorry. Thank you!-MexMax 14:01, 15 February 2008 (EST)

Counterarguments

Has anyone argued that the film's thesis is untrue? Or are we just going to get the usual liberal backlash complaining that interviewees were "tricked" into exposing the truth? --Ed Poor Talk 16:30, 4 March 2008 (EST)

The main point of the film is that there's a vast, far-reaching conspiracy by the Evolutionists to stifle the teaching of the idea that a magical man created everything exactly as it is now. As for proving it untrue... Well, how can we possibly prove there ISN'T A conspiracy against the teaching of unscientific dogma under the guise of science? Barikada 21:20, 5 March 2008 (EST)
You should take up cricket: You're good at putting a negative spin on things! Philip J. Rayment 21:36, 5 March 2008 (EST)
Why thank you, Philip. Somebody here needs to take off the rose coloured glasses, yes? Barikada 21:40, 5 March 2008 (EST)
Or clean their glasses. Philip J. Rayment 03:35, 6 March 2008 (EST)
You're not very good with metaphors, are you? Barikada 21:21, 6 March 2008 (EST)
Hmmmm. Philip J. Rayment 07:59, 7 March 2008 (EST)

Bribery

Oh deary me. I cite the website itself with its message of "Force kids to watch our film and get money!" and you still revert my edit stating that the producers have been ACCUSED of attempted bribery. Tell me, Philip, what would be a better source than the website in question? Barikada 21:40, 5 March 2008 (EST)

The problem is not (this time) with the choice of web-site, but with what it's claimed to be saying. The site says nothing about bribing. Philip J. Rayment 03:37, 6 March 2008 (EST)
Ah, yes. Encouraging mandatory field trips (Question 2.) and saying the schools can return the ticket stubs for donations certainly isn't bribery. Aside from that, I said that that's the site that was cited. How about I simply add that they've been accused with no source? Hmm? Would that appease you? Barikada 10:10, 6 March 2008 (EST)
The main definition of "bribe", according to my dictionary, is "any valuable consideration given or promised for corrupt behaviour in the performance of any official or public duty" (my emphasis), and this is what use of the word here would suggest. Yet there is no basis for putting that in the article, beyond a non-notable blog. Therefore, it should not go in, full stop. What could go in is a mention along the lines that the producers of the movie are encouraging schools to take their students to see it, but I don't really think that's of sufficient relevance to warrant a mention. Philip J. Rayment 20:43, 6 March 2008 (EST)
It seems to match the definition given perfectly. What's your problem, then? Barikada 21:21, 6 March 2008 (EST)
My problem is that it doesn't' match the definition, unless you have an odd definition of "corrupt behaviour". Philip J. Rayment 08:01, 7 March 2008 (EST)

Subsidizing the exposure of censorship seems to be what you oppose. Sounds like you're only against "bribery" when it opposes your cause.

What we need for this article is a discussion (or better yet, a description) of the thesis and the specific points made in the film - one which regrettably I have not seen yet. Along with this, we welcome any reports of noteworthy critiques of the film's thesis.

Complaints by the group which in engages in censorship, that they were tricked into testifying against themselves, are irrelevant. "No fair! I thought I was bragging, not confessing!"

Our mission here is to provide trustworthy information. So unless Dawkins, et al., are taking back what they said, then the lack of candidness on the part of the producer's is hardly germane. Unless you want to make an argument that academic dishonesty is so prevalent, so cavalier, and so devious that exposing it requires extraordinary detective work! --Ed Poor Talk 10:22, 6 March 2008 (EST)

"Subsidizing the exposure of censorship seems to be what you oppose. Sounds like you're only against "bribery" when it opposes your cause." Please, show me where I've encouraged bribery to support my "cause."
So... In order to expose the academic dishonesty of this secret cabal, you must use academic dishonesty? The ends don't justify the means, my tinfoil hat wearing friend. Barikada 15:03, 6 March 2008 (EST)
What standard of academic dishonesty do you suggest we all avoid while collaborating here? --Ed Poor Talk 13:49, 14 March 2008 (EDT)
He was blocked for 3 months, so you'll be waiting a while for an answer. Philip J. Rayment 19:21, 14 March 2008 (EDT)
Not the classiest way to win an argument. --Gulik5 15:38, 18 April 2008 (EDT)

Stating my reasons

I changed some wording that may make me seem like a liberal...I'm not. I simply did so in order to make the article as unbiased as possible. If you want proof of my views look at all the trouble I've gotten into on the Wikipedia version of this talk page. Saksjn 09:39, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

I don't think it's serious enough to revert, but in doing so the wording now gives the impression that it doesn't necessarily succeed in this. Not having seen the film, I can't really comment on the accuracy of that, but Conservapedia aims to be accurate rather than neutral, and if being neutral gives a false impression, then it's not for the better.
You also added a line about criticism, footnoted to a paragraph that said nothing about the criticism, and which had no source. Could you clarify that please?
Philip J. Rayment 10:17, 14 March 2008 (EDT)
The Orlando Sentinel's movie reviewer snuck into a private screening and then blasted the film in his reviews. Several other editors have done the same. We were talking about it over at wikipedia and I couldn't find the source cite. So I took a quote we we were discussing at the talk page and used it as the temporary source. Saksjn 14:16, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

I've always found that its better to say that something attempts to do something than to say it does something. If you say it does something than it someone will come along and claim that it doesn't. Its just a way to be safe. Saksjn 14:18, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

Where does your last reference come from? You quote it, but you don't state the source. Learn together 14:25, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

So we should say that NASA attempted to send men to the moon rather than saying that they actually did? The point is, we say things as though they are true when we are satisfied that they are true, and by that I don't mean that nobody disputes it (some argue, for example, that NASA didn't really send men to the moon). At Conservapedia we reject a lot of ideological objection. A lot of the objection to things like this movie are ideological. That's not to say, of course, that the people objecting are wrong; we still have to be careful to ensure that what we say is correct, but we don't qualify statements that we believe are clearly true just because people with a different ideology object. However, in this case, as I said, I've not seen the movie (and presumably nobody else here has yet), so I can't say whether it does succeed in its objective.

To clarify some of that, when a court decides if a defendant is guilty of a criminal offence, it does so "beyond reasonable doubt". When a court decides who is at fault in a civil matter, it does so on the basis of probabilities. In neither case are the matters normally settled with absolutely no doubt at all. If they were that clear, the criminal defendant would plead guilty and the civil participants would not even bring the matter to court, but settle it themselves. In both cases, the court decides according to the level of "proof" appropriate to the circumstances. Note also that the court is unable to test the matter scientifically. The court is making its decision on a unique past event, and that event is not repeatable; it's not able to be studied in a scientific way. (This doesn't deny that scientific tests can be made about some of the supporting evidence, such as DNA found at the scene.) Similarly, whether this movie achieves its results, although not a past event, is difficult if not impossible to determine in a scientific way, as it concerns people's motives (i.e. it likely does demonstrate suppression and persecution, but it's further arguing that this is deliberate. How do you scientifically test for deliberateness?) But this lack of ability to scientifically test does not prevent courts from making decisions, and neither should it prevent this encyclopedia from stating what is clearly the case (on those occasions when it is clearly the case), regardless of the objections of people with opposing ideological views.

Philip J. Rayment 19:45, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

opps

My mistake.. AdenJ 15:06, 14 April 2008 (EDT)

Disagreement and condemnation

I'd like to see a division in the article, between actual disagreements and mere condemnation. After all, the whole point of the movie is that ID opponents never take on ID directly but merely condemn it. Where are the specific rebuttals of the movie's main point? --Ed Poor Talk 10:47, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

Ed, I'm happy to debate with you about the merits of the article. However, it seems to me that you block anyone who tries to do that. If you're willing to not block me, and listen to me in good faith, I'll try to abide by 90/10 as well. Are you willing to listen, or am I going to be expelled, too?-Cdesign 11:28, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
Ha, ha, nice try. You condemn without giving evidence - precisely what the movie complains of. --Ed Poor Talk 11:50, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
Seriously, what would you like me to answer? I can tell you that scientists certainly take on ID directly - for example, in response to the "irreducible flagellum" argument, a great amount of research has been generated which parses the variety of intermediate forms between "nothing" and "flagellum," and scientists have identified each and specified their independent uses. I'm looking for the source right now.-Cdesign 11:55, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
Inter alia, a director of the NCSE assembled this accessible document here, which explains how the gradual evolution of the flagellum is possible. Additionally, there are a couple of easy-to-understand arguments against irreducible complexity - namely, if all flagella are irreducibly complex, and therefore "designed," how come there are so many different types or assemblies of flagella? Why are there different "styles" of flagella, functioning in different ways, which still perform the same task today? Evolutionary biology suggests that "convergent evolution" - different processes working on different organisms which, by virtue of the end product's desirability, produce a similar result - would have exactly this type of result. How does intelligent design explain that?-Cdesign 12:00, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

The movie said people are pressured to keep quiet about their scientific disagreements about evolution. How does your response relate to this point? --Ed Poor Talk 12:33, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

I don't appreciate the "yawn" edit comment.
You said that evolutionists never take on ID, head-on, scientifically. I just did, right? And proved that scientists do, right?
Also, if the claim is that ID creationists are being "expelled" for their bona fide scientific position, what I've proved is that their position, if scientific at all, is bad science, and therefore their alleged termination wasn't "discrimination," but termination for failing to live up to professional standards... just like a history teacher being fired for denying the holocaust. After all, ID is a negative argument: once a valid positive surfaces, to continue to argue the negative and pretend the positive doesn't exist is just ignorance.-Cdesign 12:39, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
This latest edit of yours isn't borne out by your ability to debate the merits on the talk page :-/-Cdesign 14:44, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

More like a journalist fired for questioning Senator Clinton's tarmac terrorist story. --Ed Poor Talk 14:47, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

Copyright infringements

I noticed that someone removed the piece about the movie using plagiarized animation material from Harvard. There is also another issue that the movie used John Lennon's "Imagine" without getting the rights as well as well as some other song "All these Things That I Have Done" by the Killers. Since the original material was removed from the article is it allowed to put these issues back in?--Able806 11:45, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

You may put in any trustworthy information. I will remove anything which is false, misleading or inadequately sourced.
If you know anything about metabolism that you can explain in terms a high school student can understand, I'd rather you worked on that. See recent changes for a draft. --Ed Poor Talk 11:49, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
Wall street journal? Would this count?--Able806 11:58, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
Ed, what was false or inadequately sourced about my original edit? Someone accused the film's producers of copyright infringement,and I sourced the legal notice sent to them. The producers filed a counter-suit claiming they didn't, and I sourced that as well. The fact that this is unresolved is just that, a fact - it's wrong to assume that the producers of Expelled are innocent (or guilty for that matter) until the issue is settled in the courts. I've restored the edit, and if you can present a fact-based reason why it should be removed, I'm open to revising it accordingly. --DinsdaleP 21:15, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

Slashdot effect

I'll probably protect this article tomorrow, when lusers start pouring in after watching the premiere. --Ed Poor Talk 14:45, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

Probably a good idea, at least until the publicity dies down.--Frey 20:19, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

Reviews

Ed - regarding your pulling of the Time magazine review, the fact that ID is explained on the website isn't a good reason to pull the reviewers comment. The movie should stand or fall on its own merits, as that's all the viewer's going to see. So while I've removed the inflammatory section you objected to, I'd ask that it be put back in - or any other quotes from any of the reviews, in fact. These reporters are mostly the movie critics of their publications, and it's only fair to hear their comments on the movie itself, even if we don't agree with them - remember, this is only a movie, and even if you like its premise, you might not like the movie, as a movie. MakeTime 21:07, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

Ed, I found a document at the movie's website - it's promotional material for the film, the Leader's Guide. Although we haven't seen the movie yet, obviously the Leader's Guide and movie are a coordinated effort. MakeTime 21:30, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
I don't see your point. Many evolutionists have claimed that life was magically generated on its own from a primordial soup. Experiments have even attempted to duplicate it.--Aschlafly 21:33, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
The Time reviewer knocked down a straw man of his own creation, by putting words into Ben Stein's mouth: characterizing him as "asking, for example, how something as complex as a living cell could have possibly arisen whole from the earth's primordial soup".
The leader's guide - quoted at Rat. Wiki - says: "Darwinian evolution argues that life arose from a primordial sea on a lifeless planet through a chance collision of chemicals, and that over billions of years, this biological accident gave rise to all of life, including humans."
The contrast is between cell ... arisen whole and life arose.
It's not "fair to hear their comments" on what the movie didn't say - but if they have comments on the movie itself I don't mind those. --Ed Poor Talk 21:38, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
I wasn't trying to debate ID, not at all - let's not forget those words are someone else's words, not mine. Disagree with him if you wish, but don't shoot me - the messenger. I was simply asking that a quote of a journalist's review of the film not be removed simply because one is offended by their negative review of the film? I think the studios wanted to rip up all the review pages when the reviews ofIshtar or Gigli came out? Sure! My own point is one and only one- just because you want to like a movie, doesn't mean it's going to be a good movie. That's all - I'm staying out of the ID debate. MakeTime, as TakeTwo 21:42, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
We don't post falsehoods. If a review makes a false claim, then it would generally not be posted.--Aschlafly 21:45, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
Fair enough, I have no problem with that. But then neither you, nor Ed, nor I have seen the movie, and the reviewer has. Perhaps Stein does indeed ask "for example, how something as complex as a living cell could have possibly arisen whole from the earth's primordial soup". I don't know that he doesn't, and no-one else does yet either. And since other reviewers refer to the same fact, and they have all seen the movie, perhaps he does? TakeTwo 21:50, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
But evolutionists do believe and teach that life arose from a primordial soup. They do not teach that there was divine intervention.--Aschlafly 21:52, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
The actual words used by the reviewer are "[Stein] makes all the usual mistakes nonscientists make whenever they try to take down evolution, asking, for example, how something as complex as a living cell could have possibly arisen whole from the earth's primordial soup." But Ed suggested that this was clearly not so - despite not having seen the film, unlike the reviewer. TakeTwo 21:56, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
Actually, I will probably need to retract, as it seems Ed has seen the movie. He states quite clearly here that the movie does not say that. Although, it does appear he uses the leader's Guide as reference, rather than the movie itself. Which, again, the reviewer has seen. TakeTwo 22:00, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

No, I haven't seen the movie. If I've made an error here, by assuming that it conforms to the Leader's Guide, I stand corrected. --Ed Poor Talk 22:04, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

Ah, OK Ed, thanks for clarifying that. It'd be great if in future you didn't try and post deceitful information you're not party to in the Trustworthy Encyclopedia - or ban users on the basis of your own ignorance. I hope you enjoy the movie. TakeTwo 22:13, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
TakeTwo, you're not addressing the falsehood. Evolutionists do claim that life arose from a primordial soup, and they teach that. There is nothing "mistaken" by criticizing that view.--Aschlafly 22:08, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
ASchlafly, I wasn't, and am not, going to get into the ID debate. Others are more qualified than me to do so. My problem is that Ed Poor claimed to have seen the movie when he hadn't, pulled a quote because he essentially claimed that a journalist at a major national new source was lying, and then banned me when I pointed out that it was the journalist's words, not mine, he was disagreeing with. TakeTwo 22:13, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
TakeTwo, the quote is nonsensical and should be deleted, and I'm not encouraged by your refusal to address why. Instead, you launch into an attack against Ed. Decisions can be right for the wrong reason, and your harping on a claim that the reason was wrong does not address the bigger point that the decision to remove the falsehood was right.--Aschlafly 22:25, 17 April 2008 (EDT)


But what is the reviewer saying here?

  1. That Stein is right, except for the passage of time?
  2. That Stein is wrong?

Evolution says that life came out of the "primordial soup" gradually. The Leader's Guide points out that ID questions how this could ever have happened.

Some evolutionists say that "biological evolution" only addresses the issue of how the first living cell gave rise to other forms of life - but others insist that "evolution" includes the origin of life as well. Anyway, ID addresses both issues scientifically, and that's what "the academy" refuses to address - expelling ID advocates rather than discussing their theory that life is too complex to have evolved - either (1) out of the soup originally or (2) from the first cell to humans. --Ed Poor Talk 22:27, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

My reply to "TakeTwo" and his socks:

Your account should be blocked. I've repeatedly addressed your point and you repeatedly decline to address mine. The review makes a false statement, regardless of what Stein said. We don't post false or misleading statements, regardless of the accuracy of the quote. This separates us from Wikipedia, which does post falsehoods if they can be found in printed publications. We do not.--Aschlafly 23:11, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
We don't post false or misleading statements, regardless of the accuracy of the quote.
This is a good quote. I have a feeling you and I will be seeing a LOT of it in the future. --Gulik5 00:02, 18 April 2008 (EDT)

Leader's Guide

I noticed that the article references a "Leader's Guide" accompanying the movie "Expelled". May I add an external link to this document? Feebasfactor 00:51, 18 April 2008 (EDT)

What is the external link? HenryS 01:07, 18 April 2008 (EDT)
Here, I believe. Appropriate? It raises a lot of interesting general points. Feebasfactor 01:38, 18 April 2008 (EDT)

Variety... Liberal???

The article calls Variety Magazine liberal. Are they talking about the entertainment industry magazine with the famous slang headlines?

It' an industry business magazine, more like "Steel Makers Today" than "Entertainment Weekly." While its movie or TV reviews probably show biases one way or the other, the magazine itself, the majority of its content, shows no actual bias other than being PRO-business. It simply logs the activities and business dealings of the entertainment business, including those of the very conservative Rupert Murdoch. Chances are, the magazine is as likely to give a positive spin on stories about media consolidation or tax breaks for American media production, not real liberal positions.

I know this site has point of view but not every other media source has to be sifted into "conservative" or "liberal."

Yes, Variety is a liberal magazine, to appeal to its very liberal audience/industry. You won't find a pro-life piece in there or any other conservative information, because thousands would cancel their subscriptions and advertisers would pull their ads if that ever happened, and the publisher knows it.--Aschlafly 14:53, 18 April 2008 (EDT)

Film Reviews

I felt that the movie reviews section was clearer when was divided into positive and negative sections--GabharGneasach 15:12, 18 April 2008 (EDT)