22/04/2008

Press Release regarding Expelled

This came to me via the British Centre for Science Education

Expelled
flunks the test

www.ExpelledExposed.com finds new creationist “documentary” lacking accuracy on many levels


Oakland, California, April 15, 2008 — Millions of dollars have been spent promoting Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed to fundamentalist church groups, but that money would have been better spent on fact checkers. www.ExpelledExposed.com, a website launched today by the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), reveals the truth behind the creationist movie’s misrepresentations.

“Creationists have been making the same arguments for decades,” says Eugenie C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education. “They’ve gotten better at marketing these claims, but they’re no more valid now than during the Scopes trial of the 1920s. Creationists have been predicting the death of evolution for over a century, yet it is constantly affirmed by evidence from fields Darwin could never have imagined.” Given the damning assessment at www.ExpelledExposed.com, Scott adds, “Perhaps the filmmakers should have spent more time hitting the books, instead of beating up on hardworking scientists.”

Throughout the movie, Ben Stein claims that “Big Science” represses intelligent design to advance an atheistic agenda, but Peter Hess, from NCSE’s Faith Outreach Project, doesn’t buy it. “There are many successful evolutionary biologists who are also people of faith,” he observes, “and a host of people of faith who regard intelligent design as a misconceived and harmful rejection of science. In attempting to pit Christianity against science, Expelled misrepresents both.”

“We reviewed public records and reports on the intelligent design promoters who were supposedly discriminated against, and we discovered that the claims that they lost their jobs over intelligent design are unsupported,” explains Josh Rosenau, a biologist at NCSE. “That said, professors who aren’t making advances in their field, editors who disregard their journal’s established practices, and lecturers who repeat creationist falsehoods shouldn’t be surprised if they have trouble holding jobs. These people weren’t expelled; they flunked out.” www.ExpelledExposed.com contains information about the “martyrs” from Expelled, and also of real scientists who successfully challenged established science. “The difference,” NCSE researcher Carrie Sager observes, “is that real scientists back their challenges with experimental results. Results are what changed minds, forced textbook revisions, and earned Nobel Prizes.”

More insidious are the movie’s attempts to link evolution to the Holocaust. Susan Spath, a historian of science at NCSE, comments: “The implication that Darwin led to Nazism and the Holocaust is an irresponsible misrepresentation of a terrible history. Hitler abused many things, including science, and Expelled is wrong to shift blame off his shoulders and onto evolution.” www.ExpelledExposed.com quotes the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman, who described similar claims in a previous creationist movie as “an outrageous and shoddy attempt ... to trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust.”

The National Center for Science Education is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools. The NCSE maintains its archive of source material on the history of creationism at its Oakland, California, headquarters. On the web at www.ncseweb.org. www.ExpelledExposed.com is a resource for journalists, teachers, and curious moviegoers who want the full story behind Expelled.

Contacts:

Eugenie C. Scott, scott@ncseweb.org, 800-290-6006

Josh Rosenau, rosenau@ncseweb.org, 800-290-6006

Susan Spath, spath@ncseweb.org, 800-290-6006

Carrie Sager, sager@ncseweb.org, 800-290-6006

02/04/2008

Some discussions with a Roman Catholic

I quite often have 'chats' with people using the MeeboMe widget down there on the right. Quite often they are fellow atheists or reasonable human beings, sometimes they are fanatics telling me that I'm going to spend eternity in hell (which, if hell is relative, would be with them, meaning they're off to hell too or I've got a special pass upstairs). Anyway sometimes the misguided come and have a rather longer chat, as in this case.

[08:03] meeboguest924815: hello
[08:03] edwbaker: hi
[08:04] meeboguest924815: i am from the philippines how are u
[08:04] edwbaker: good thanks
[08:04] edwbaker: how are you?
[08:05] meeboguest924815: im fine...whats ur web all about?
[08:05] edwbaker: in what sense?
[08:06] meeboguest924815: are u an anglican?
[08:06] edwbaker: no
[08:06] meeboguest924815: i just want to know what ur web is...are u atheist?
[08:07] edwbaker: yes
[08:07] edwbaker: the website is about atheism
[08:08] meeboguest924815: thanks and ur from england?
[08:08] edwbaker: yes
[08:09] meeboguest924815: what do you think today atheism becomes the choice of the world people
[08:10] edwbaker: it's not based on old and inaccurate beliefs
[08:10] edwbaker: and it is consistent with the science
[08:11] edwbaker: and all religions disagree with each other, at the very most one can be right, but there are hundreds of them
[08:13] meeboguest924815: the champions of reason unsurpassed in history is thomas aquinas,,,he explained the congruence f reason and faith
[08:13] edwbaker: yes, you are very misguided
[08:14] meeboguest924815: einstein give in to the fact that the universe has beginning and sun will end..the scientific fact in which is trying to refute
[08:16] edwbaker: we know the uiniverse has a beginning and the sun will end, einstein accepted that
[08:16] edwbaker: but he accepted it because it was scientifically accurate
[08:17] meeboguest924815: hes scientist in physical law...he spend his time disproving god through science but he discover god in science
[08:17] edwbaker: He didn't spend time disproving god, he spent time studying physics
[08:18] meeboguest924815: if the universe has beginiing..then it has beginner...this is solid reason itself
[08:18] edwbaker: no, that's very very poor reason
[08:19] edwbaker: why is the 'beginner' there in the first place?
[08:19] meeboguest924815: the margin of error is improbable to create a universe...the basic force
[08:19] edwbaker: explain that to me....
[08:19] edwbaker: i don't understand your argument
[08:20] meeboguest924815: how complex accuracy in nuclear force...we need time...can i have your email?l
[08:21] meeboguest924815: i mean to create a universe the margin of error is 1 is to miilion something...thanks ill get in touch with you...anyway how young are you
[08:22] edwbaker: i'm 22
[08:23] meeboguest924815: im 30,,i spend my time disproving god...but im at great lost everytime i intensely resrearch
[08:23] edwbaker: why do you try to disprove god?
[08:25] meeboguest924815: because i rational being should fing meaning of existence...i know something y english people loose confidence in theistic ideology
[08:25] edwbaker: is there a meaning to existence?
[08:25] edwbaker: there doesn't have to be
[08:26] edwbaker: perhaps the meaning is what you make of it
[08:26] meeboguest924815: there is at least in me...and to people who think that way...look,the stones in israel scream to the history there is a living god
[08:27] meeboguest924815: history itself is a story betwwen god and the people
[08:28] meeboguest924815: if thre isnt...try to study how meaningful anglo saxons turn into race of reason from a senseless barbarians
[08:29] edwbaker: i think you may misunderstand some human history
[08:29] edwbaker: what do you belive?
[08:29] meeboguest924815: ifever i misunderstood based on ur perception...it was meaning
[08:30] meeboguest924815: i beleive in god and nothing else..if u dont beleive in god..u beleive in everything
[08:30] edwbaker: are you a Christian?
[08:31] meeboguest924815: my firend im not just a christian,,im a roman catholic christian,,,reasercher...advocates science,reason, knowledge,history,evolution etc.
[08:32] edwbaker: when was the world created?
[08:32] meeboguest924815: i study objectively atheism,,,everything about atheism,,,
[08:32] edwbaker: there's very little to study - it's the absence of belief
[08:33] meeboguest924815: universe was created around 20 to 30 billion yeras ago by god intricate design using all physical law...
[08:33] edwbaker: where did you get that age from?
[08:34] meeboguest924815: so where did you came from>thats a belief system science would tell you,,that will pave way to theistic disposition
[08:35] meeboguest924815: based on astronomers dating..they have such technical prowess we coulnt knew exactly,,but its so close to reality...thats all science is all about
[08:35] meeboguest924815: athesim is loosing folowers since scientist turn to god
[08:36] edwbaker: the age of the universe is about 13.7 billion years according to astronomers
[08:36] edwbaker: which scientists turn to god?
[08:36] meeboguest924815: ed,,theres someting wrong which accumulate in ur society so englishmen are in dispair of reality of god
[08:37] meeboguest924815: the history would tell you...scientist who turn to explain god as author of all unfathomable knowlege such as genteics
[08:38] meeboguest924815: genetics...a single cell may composedof 30 volumes of book...there are trillion cells in ur body times it to the volumes of books
[08:39] edwbaker: it's not literal books though, thats just an analogy
[08:39] meeboguest924815: if a library of book has an author,,a cellular being more intricate,more complex in its chemical composition and functioning has also author
[08:40] edwbaker: and that's taking the analogy too far
[08:40] meeboguest924815: we christian has used a lot of analogy to simplify what things could be understood by all I.Q. level
[08:41] meeboguest924815: i know the ground where we stand...
[08:42] meeboguest924815: we have roughly 4000 years of story between god and us
[08:43] meeboguest924815: vatican now is working to melt down all atheictic view
[08:44] meeboguest924815: since not all astronomers agree on dating....its all estemate
[08:45] edwbaker: they agree to within quite a small range
[08:47] meeboguest248740: how long haveu been atheist?
[08:48] edwbaker: always
[08:48] meeboguest248740: quantifiably what?
[08:49] edwbaker: since i knew about religion and science
[08:50] meeboguest248740: that was around back when your 7 years old ?
[08:51] edwbaker: if not before
[08:51] meeboguest248740: you know,,theres one explanation in christendom the appetite for atheism
[08:52] edwbaker: which is?
[08:54] meeboguest248740: Satan,the ancient deciver the father of lies...unseen yet his machineries like a whirlwind is conquring the world...though not all in history but snatching those who are not favored by our god
[08:56] edwbaker: yes, god is omnipotent apart from when it comes to the devil
[08:56] meeboguest248740: ed,,,i beleive england has life expectancy of 70 or more god give you time to think even crispily...you will hear him when your church began to call you
[08:56] Meebo Message: meeboguest24874

Damn... was just about to ask whether it would be ok to become a Muslim, or Hindu.

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