Enjoy the clip. When it is finished, you can click on several other clips from one of the greatest movies of my generation.
Also, I'm looking forward to seeing Ben Stein's new movie Expelled. I hear it is excellent. www.expelledthemovie.com
Has anybody else seen it yet? Anyone? Anyone? :)
4 comments:
Hi Vicki
I saw Expelled a week ago and thought it was a particularly bad movie. First, it is very boring. i found myself nodding off during it.
Second, it it presents itself as a documentary, but is presented in such a one-sided manner, with both misleading, and false information, that it really is nothing more than anti-science propaganda.
Expelled tried to portray the science community (reffered to as "Big Science" and "Darwinists") as a cabal attempting to block freedom of speech in academia, athestic, and contributors to Nazi genocide. All of these are untrue.
From the Reasons to Beleive website, they say-
"In Reasons To Believe's interaction with professional scientists, scientific institutions, universities, and publishers of scientific journals we have encountered no significant evidence of censorship, blackballing, or disrespect. As we have persisted in publicly presenting our testable creation model in the context of the scientific method, we have witnessed an increasing openness on the part of unbelieving scientists to offer their honest and respectful critique.
Our main concern about EXPELLED is that it paints a distorted picture. It certainly doesn't match our experience."
It's not that Intelligent design proponents are being silenced, the proposals brought up have been thouroughly reviewed, and have been found to be completely lacking in any scientific basis. When the same things are continually brought up without anything to further their credibility, yes, they are going to be ignored by the science community.
Where the movie really failed, though, was by tring to establish a connection between Darwins' theory of evolution and the Holocuast. In the movie the narrator says "While darwinism wasn't the substantial cause for the Holocaust, it was a factor", then show visuals of death camps inferring that the theory of evolution was, indeed the cause for Nazi attrocities, while never mentioning the more substantive causes for the murder of millions of human beings.
Other faults with the movie were, while it was trying to advance the position that ID is science, it never gave any evidence to support that position, only saying that the theory of evolution is wrong, while never explaining why it is accepted almost universally by the scientific community.
It seems the only positive reviews were by ultra conservative Christian groups, who vilify evolution, without understanding what they are critisizing.
Do you understand the theory of evolution?
Hi Vicki-
Yes, I do believe in God. Similarly, there are hundreds of millions of people in this world who believe in God, and also accept the reality of evolution.
The theory of evolution doesn't attempt to answer the qusetions of
"why". Why am I here? How did life begin? What is my purpose for living? What happens after I die?
Those questions are the domain of religion and philosophy. Evolution merely addresses the questions of how life has changed over time, not why.
But you are incorrect when you think that people who do not believe in God have no responsibility for their actions. They simply feel that their responsibility is towards their families, their community, their country, their civilization, and their rationality.
Morality is not dependent on the concept of eternal damnation. One need only look at the immorality practiced by so many of those who claim to "beleive" in eternal consequenses.
Hi Vicki,
I saw Expelled. It was awesome. It did a little injustice with a couple clips that led people to believe the atheist Dawkins believed in aliens which he emphatically denies. (However there are scientist out there who will posit aliens before they will accept the idea of a Designer God.) Other than that I thought it was well done and showed not only the bias against Intelligent Design science, but also the absurdity of many evolutionary theories and the social dangers of believing in evolution. I'm not sure it will bridge the gap and open the doors for Intelligent Design for it does cater to a Christian audience. Hopefully others will see it and give Intelligent Design a chance in the scientific world. It seems to me people are afraid of the ramifications of Intelligent Design being true.
Benjamin Franklin, you are right that science (the inquiry into the physical world) cannot produce metaphysical answers (origin, God, etc.) However, the problem we are facing is that everyone has a set of basic beliefs about life which determine how they look at the world. An atheist is always going to seek naturalistic answers and a theist will seek supernatural answers. The problem is when the atheist claims God can't exist and gives evolutionary science as his supporting evidence. The theist makes the same evidentiary claim by positing creationism or Intelligent Design. We have to understand that science won't produce these answers conclusively. And we also need to keep science to examination of the world around us and not make it into a worldview that encompasses other areas of life. However, it happens just the same where people take evolution to it's extreme and cause great devaluation of human life as in the Holocaust. There is a connection to the social darwinism and evolutionary theory. Ideas have consequences. We must examine our worldviews carefully and pay attention to what could come of them if they are in error. This I believe was the message of Expelled.
Post a Comment