Expelled - Ben Stein's creationism movie - Page 8

Um... but you're not telling the truth. By using the loaded word, "necessary", in your statement, you're telling a falsehood.

The truth is that genocide happened before Evolution was a factor and happens now whether evolution is a factor or not. That's the truth.

"Darwinism was only one necessary condition."

False.

"Darwinism was only one condition."

True

Oh, come on -- are you ready to equivocate the rest of the horrors of the 20th century likewise? The philosophy is there for everyone to see. So is the history of thought that led to the Statist regimes. "Darwinism makes it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist," remember?

They didn't get their ideas from the Book of Common Prayer.

(If you're having trouble editing, left click the edit button and "open in new window")



Yes, in Hitler's case, he needed all factors in place to sell the soap. Everything from latent racism, to a draconian settlement of WWI, to the Science that let him justify his "Master Race." I haven't read Mein Kampf, but I would imagine Marx or Hegel make an appearance as well. You can't separate one from another.

You know I wanted to resurrect this thread myself at a later date, to put this propaganda film in it's proper place.

But since dmz has kindly provides an entrance, I'll digress into the box office take to date, and come to a rather interesting hypothesis.

Some background first, the following analysis came about as a result of this link at WorldNetDaily

'Expelled' propelled to box office top 10

First a list of several films (type in parentheses), followed by their opening dates;

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Documentary), 18-Apr-2008
The Forbidden Kingdom (Action), 18-Apr-2008
Fahrenheit 9/11 (Documentary), 23-Jun-2004
Bowling for Columbine (Documentary), 11-Oct-2002
Sicko (Documentary), 22-Jun-2007
An Inconvenient Truth (Documentary), 24-May-2006
Roger and Me (Documentary), 22-Dec-1989
March of the Penguins (Documentary), 24-Jun-2005
The Passion of the Christ (Drama), 25-Feb-2004

The first two are currently running (data presented based on two full weeks of receipts), the others are for historical perspective as they pertain to genre and subject matter, and most were very successful films at the box office for their respective runs.

The following link provides most of the necessary data, other data from this site used for non-documentary films;

Documentary Films Ranked by Lifetime Gross

As of today, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is currently ranked #14 all time after just two full weeks of release, which might sound impressive at first glance.

I fully expect this film to make the Top 10 all time, but as you will see, this inevitable fact doesn't amount to a hill of beans, literally speaking!

Additional data was obtained from the BLS (CPI-U) and U.S. Census Bureau to adjust past films to current day estimates based on inflation of ticket prices and population growth.

The following lists are in the same order as the above list of films (taken from a Excel spreadsheet of mine );

Domestic Gross
$5,776,780
$40,924,406
$119,194,771
$21,576,018
$24,540,079
$24,146,161
$6,706,368
$77,437,223
$370,782,930

Worldwide Gross
$5,776,780
$64,987,723
$222,446,882
$58,008,423
$35,729,099
$49,749,351
$7,706,368
$127,392,693
$611,899,420

Total Theaters
1,052
3,151
2,011
248
1,117
587
265
2,506
3,408

Adjusted (Present Value) Domestic Gross
$5,780,000
$40,920,000
$138,510,000
$26,700,000
$25,300,000
$25,830,000
$13,820,000
$86,940,000
$442,770,000

Adjusted (Present Value) Worldwide Gross
$5,780,000
$64,990,000
$258,500,000
$71,770,000
$36,830,000
$53,220,000
$15,880,000
$143,020,000
$730,690,000

Adjusted (Present Value) Worldwide Gross/Total Theaters
$5,494
$20,625
$128,543
$289,395
$32,972
$90,664
$59,925
$57,071
$214,404

Too much information, you say? Yes. And that will also be my closing hypothesis on this propaganda film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

The last set of data are the most important as the first two films are in current release, and over time, those first two numbers can only go down as has happened with all films, as fewer and fewer people go to any film as time passes.

Here's another similar data set (same order as before);

Adjusted (Present Value) Worldwide Gross/Theater Days
$392
$1,473
$1,004
$844
$277
$556
$368
$354
$1,374

Again, the first two numbers can only head south as time passes. So after only two weeks (and counting) Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed has a per theater day take of $392, assuming a ticket price of, say $7.00, that's a total of only 56 occupied seats per theater day.

Now comes the hypothesis part, or what you all would sum up as "Too Much Information."

That's exactly what Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed amounts to for the average viewer of this propaganda film, it is indeed "Too Much Information."

It is just so much easier to pick up and/or believe in the good book, than it is for most people to sit through this propaganda film. And assuming that the "average" viewer is Christian (I don't have a clue, because I'd watch this "thing" (but only for free ) for the hilarity value alone), and makes up what, 80% to 90% of the U.S. population, means this "film" doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Compare Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed with The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11, for example if you must, to come to the conclusion that people just want to be entertained, than they want to learn something, even if that something is disingenuous from the start, and panders to a certain demographic.

In summary, I give Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed a √-1 for imaginary content!

franksargent, I'd happy to vet any more of your claims of "falsehood."

It's a little troubling that in both the case of Sternberg and the Nazi thing, that the criticism directly contradicts the facts -- badly misrepresents what was said. "Dawkings was "tricked" into reading from his book on camera." Oh boy.

(I got burnt on the DI's handling of the Gonzalez tenure issue, and went into that movie looking for slight-of-hand crap. Other than garden-variety polemical techniques, they played fair. No chasing people across parking lots with microphones, no year-apart splices of speeches, etc.)

I don't mean to be a smartass on that last post franksargent. If the Expelled people used Michael Moore ethics on their project, I want them nailed, and nailed hard. I will not tolerate a lair.

So fire away.

Seeing as this propaganda film has been vetted by those in the public domain that have much more experience and knowledge on the subject matter at hand, than either you or I.

If my previous post doesn't illustrate the extent that I would go to to support my position on evolution versus ID, nothing else would.

Firstly, I haven't seen the film, nor do I expect to until it's released on DVD and available for quite literally cents on the dollar.

Secondly, I'd have to have a full transcript of said film, including a full scene by scene storyboard in order to dissect the film properly. Without that I can't form an accurate first person impression of this film or it's purported accuracy.

Thirdly, other then the usual links that I've already provided plus a roughly weekly full read of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed at wikipedia, there's not much that I'd want to discuss in a one-on-one format.

But I do have two comments to offer, the first is anecdotal, the second is just an observation.

I watched one of James Burke's Connection shows, where he basically laid all of modern society at the feet of Darwin. That includes Hitler, Stalin, and western capitalism. I use to have much more respect for the BBC but have come to realize one needs to always question the source regardless.

The other deals with authoritarian governments and authoritarian regimes, which have always existed, and will always exist. I would argue that the current Bush Administration is the most authoritarian U.S. government dating back to at least the days of the Great Depression. I would also argue that scientific understanding is inherently not authoritarian since no one entity can control knowledge and subsequent revisions of that knowledge, it isn't static like virtually any other dogmatic philosophy, It is a method and not a means to an end, in and of itself, it is nothing more and nothing less.

I mean seriously, a "God in the Gaps" philosophy is so dead end I don't even know where to begin, suspend reality and just accept something unknown and unseen, that worked for humans for a very long time, but it's not the place humans inhabit today, sorry for the reality check.

It gets as basic as trying to disprove causality, disprove determinism, or disprove probabilistic realities. Good luck with ID in trying to make much from critiquing evolution as a basic scientific fact. I mean ID is the current flavor of the month for the neocon artists, thankfully it is just concentrated in the US, and if it continues, signals an inevitable collapse of the US in intellectual terms, as well as physical and societal terms.

I hope I've been clear in the above, as my foundation of knowledge is unshakable and ever increasing. I will never stop learning via the scientific method, to do otherwise would be sheer folly. And that's a fact.

Why, pray tell? It's spot-freaking-on.

The Final Word? Whatever, it's too abstract and ambiguous to gain any ultimate understanding. But maybe I'll go resurrect him up myself and ask him in first person what he truly meant.

I didn't mean to focus on Michael Moore films, it's just where they sit in that list I linked to.

And it wasn't my intent to compare MM's techniques to the propaganda techniques used in the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

Different people, different methodologies, same disingenuous effects.

I'm not in the habit of resurrecting old tired ideas from the dead, the time is now, the place is now.

(some of this I've posted elsewhere)

Hmmmm.... what's true/not true about the movie should be straightforward. I don't think anybody likes a dog and pony show. I can see breaking this down on ideological/philosophical lines -- hell -- what else is there?

On causality -- neither causality chain ends up well -- both end outside our experience. Having a deity in the process won't in the slightest effect our reverse engineering the genome. This is about dogmatic turf, and who gets the credit for Creation, God or Chaos. And the entire impetus for rooting for Chaos, is that Chaos isn't a personal God telling you to behave yourself.

(As a Christian it is my duty to inform you that unbelief is an active process, not the other way 'round.)

All the science questions -- how you build information systems by only citing Natural Selection -- those questions are "unanswered" for the simple reason that Darwinism has no application in building information systems. None. It's a vacuous hypothetical playground where anyone can imagine whatever they like. It has no real bearing on research -- a cure for cancer, etc. Everyone involved in research functions in terms of "apparent" design.

As to any hope that "science" describes reality comprehensively, you need to reread your philosophy. Being, Essence, etc. are fairly tenuous things. That "science describes" this or that, is just the assumption that your senses are ultimately capable of individuation -- a fairly steep ontological demand. A lot of this hubris could be avoided with a little humility about the nature of Existence. But not only are the metaphysical implications of determinism smoothed over, but the ultimate difference between Chaos and Information is smoothed over as well -- out of convenience. Throwing Darwinism at information systems was just the act of a lazy academia, and that mistake was/is compounded by making unprovable deterministic statements about the universe. Both those problems need to be countenanced, and corrected.

Just an aside, Moore's "techniques" are fully supported -- they remain to be critically examined in any way by "the media."

And being from the US county with the highest per capita engineers and PhD's, that's really saying something.

Random chaotic thoughts from dmz versus the scientific method?

I wonder which one wins.

Simple question, have you been formally trained in the scientific method?

And do you have a subsequent 30 years of first hand experience in using said scientific method?

Thou that dost not truly understand, thou shalt not dictate to thy brothers and sisters.

Here's a curve ball for you.

What does ID offer in the complete absence of the scientific FACT of evolution? It's a trick question, think carefully before answering, but then again it's a trick question, so no matter how it's answered, that answer will be incorrect, since it's a trick question.

Oh no, now I'm starting to sound like dmz, getting all obtuse, and what all.

Mind you, there is no scientific debate about the scientific FACT of evolution.

Chaos or Creation, that's a false dilemma from the ID side of the fence, sorry back up one square.

Is that a matter of opinion, or a matter of fact? If the latter please present evidentiary facts of record. Thanks.

Hell's bells, franksargent. Natural selection has nothing to say about how information systems develop chaotically.

Chaos or Creation, that's a false dilemma from the ID side of the fence, sorry back up one square.

And what do 1's and 0's have to do with anything with respect to the FACT of evolution?

Start with a flawed premise end up with a flawed dilemma.

The artificial world of information theory versus the real world of evolution.

To follow that point, which I think is valid, I wonder how many genocides were carried out based on creating a "master race" (perfection of the human species) rather than just a "pure race" (racial cleansing for its own sake).

I guess my other question on this topic would come from the other direction... what is the purpose of the 20th Century eugenics movement, if not for the sake of accelerating the process that Darwin describes?

I really don't get why so many here in PO react with such swift condemnation to the thought that some thread or descendant of Darwinism could have something to do with Nazi racial policies.

No one is saying that people who believe in Darwin are Nazis, just that Nazi ideology may have had something to do with Darwin's thoughts or his philosophical descendants. It seems like the trigger is set very, very light for anything negative regarding ol' Chuck.

No, there's just no middle ground there -- either there's direction, or not.

Of course there's direction, the ebb and flow of life, through processes of natural selection.

Evolution does not presuppose a one way flow, the tides of life rise and fall.

Again it's not about Chaos versus Creation, that's how YOU want to couch the debate.

Those of us who are scientists don't except ID's binary flawed premise to begin with, therefore for scientists, there is no debate about the FACT of evolution.

Here's a bone for you, chaos theory.

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Chaos != Random

franksargent, the presuppositions on each side are inescapable. Determinism is as determinism does.

Says who? God? Please articulate in precise detail these "presuppositions" that you keep on referring to, in your typically obtuse and unfathomable language.

Oh, I get it now, it's a technique for answering the many questions, that I've addressed to you, that can only be answered in typical obtuse dmz fashion. Please pick up your obtuse baggage at the DI.

The supposition of evolution is a scientific FACT! Until you can refute it, I'll just have to be dismissive.

I'm just not into talking about old dead unprovable philosophies that ID seems so hung up about.

Make some form of coherent argument, in other words a theory of ID in the absence of ANY EVOLUTIONARY processes.

Seriously, you are really starting to bore me.

Get to a set of irrefutable concise salient points, about whatever it is you are trying to say.

Otherwise, you will find yourself in a self imposed echo chamber.

Its been along time since I spoke, but I was holed up in bed the other night with quite severe dizzyness and sickness, when something quite random just popped into my head.

The story of Exodus - when you strip away the meanderings and philosophical teachings, is an account of ejaculation and the journey of the sperm up the birth canal to the cervix and subsequent impregnation

I really believe it is, read exodus, keep an open mind and the whole story just makes perfect sense.

what do you think Frank, dmz?

waaaaaaaaasupppp!

Now franksargent, that's no way to be.

Polkinghorne said it best: epistemology models ontology.

One more bump here -- from Richard Weikart's essay republished over at Uncommon Descent:


And from Mein Kampf:


http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/

http://www.uncommondescent.com/expel...ies/#more-3303

Are you sure you don't need to go back and edit that?

Christianity is a necessary condition for the atrocities committed under Pol Pot, Stalin, Mussolini, ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Darfur, etc.

I'd suggest you read The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution

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It's a good read about Mr. Darwin, the man (and his family) behind the theory of evolution. Mainly covering the period from 1836 (after his HMS Beagle journeys) through to his release of The Origin of Species.

He was basically faced with a whole bunch of facts, and how best to explain those facts of nature, naturally.

He didn't evoke the Hand Of God (HOG) simply because he was observing a natural system.

Epistemology models ontology? Or to save other people the trouble;

John Polkinghorne

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Metaphysics and philosophy, you say? Sorry, but the scientific method doesn't need to carry such ancient baggage. The scientific method also doesn't carry the baggage of deconstruction

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So the scientific method, having cast away your seemingly "iron grip" on being and philosophy, is left with a whole pile of natural facts, and how best to explain then in the context of a natural system.

Nature

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An interesting definition, to say the least, and thus I return to the aforementioned book, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin

Humans have consistently tried to exclude themselves from the natural system, and if they are the observers, if they are the agents of change, then there must be an observer of the observers, there must be an agent of these agents.

So the natural question to ask, by humans, of humans, is what is this observer of observers, what is this agent of agents? This would be termed begging the question or more simply circular logic, something which is part and parcel with religious philosophies.

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A human paradox if you will, since nature itself poses no paradoxes.

So in the end you are left with your circular reasoning, while the scientific method clearly avoids this human paradoxical construction.

You have set a trap for yourself, from where there can be no escape, while I much prefer thinking outside the box, then that which is of human creation.

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Those are completely contradictory statements. I'm struggling to take this line of argument seriously.

"Information systems" refers to the context of storing and retrieving 2-dimensional code to build 3-dimensional systems.

Hitler was clearly referencing Darwinian theory.

My God, franksargent, that statement was idiotic. No one gets their epistemological/ontological paragdigms for free.

Honestly.

Association fallacy

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Try harder next time, now you are just running around in circles chasing your own tail.

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They do now, regardless of what you may think.

Hey, now!

You're supposed to brush off other posters with witty references no one else gets. That's part of your charm!

Right, it didn't really happen, those information systems didn't really accomplish all of those things and more. You're making Darwinism out to be quite the nebulous thing.


Gosh, I don't know. I do know about "argument via endless clarification," though.


Yes, his argument was scientific, he specifically referenced that "higher development of organic living beings would be unthinkable" without Darwinian mechanisms.

... Expelled: No Retreads Allowed?

I could have used a different R word there, but a tire is circular, and a very old idea remade for reuse, the word retreads is much more appropriate, since it covers an old worn out circular idea.

Hey, you just made that one up!