Friday, April 18, 2008

Expelled Movie


Ben Stein opens today. Freedom to think.
Amazing. Fun trailer.

2 comments:

David Juel said...

Had there been comments to this post. I hope that they would have reflected the best of the 2000 plus posts here: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/29682_Steins_Expelled_Exposed/comments/#ctop

Khylov said...

Ah, well, since no one else has taken up the mantle, let me put some substantial root down here:

Good stuff, yo; glad to see this film getting some exposure. I think what gets me the most: There seems to be a misconception... well, why not say it - a willful prejudice - that somehow the sciences are the strict domain of the materialists, folks who say that they don't allow a metaphysical/philosophical belief system to dictate their practice. It’s a false dilemma – science or faith? – and I think even religious folks have had a hand in this, being intimidated by the proclamations of Huxley or Sagan, and relegating their own Sunday practices to simply going through the motions - while "science" is that other thing that socially inept lab coats or bio majors do. Let them have reality, we’ll have our safe corner in the confessional over here…

And yet, the funny thing is that materialists (and more correctly, ardent Darwinists) advocate a position that says that complexity and information can come from ancestors which didn't possess said complexity - through stabilizing or reducing mechanisms, of course (mutation and natural selection). Essentially, a computer can form itself from nothing. What's better, it happened over unobserved millions of years - no way we could ever hope to see it, even if it weren't the biological equivalent to alchemy. Not to mention that natural selection and speciation were the brainchildren of E. Blythe, a creationist, 25 years before Darwin... So much for observation or originality on Darwin’s part.

I don't think Darwinism would be as stigmatizing as it is now if weren’t for the imperious attitude on the part of the Darwinian establishment concerning their preferred creation narrative. As diplomatic as it is to say that Darwinists on the whole aren’t consciously being deceptive, after having seen some of the arguments for macro evolution – at least from the media piranhas like Eugenie Scott or Dawkins – it’s hard not to get the impression that they’re trying to work up an almost religious fervor in the public, “for the cause”. Even if that’s not the case, they’re having quite a few ecstatic Quaker spasms with their own selves while protecting their silversmith trade.

... But enough of that; I'm sure this battle will go on so long as there's a Huxleyian lawyers' streak in the human race (or Hitlerian, for that matter). When the discussion becomes de-politicized (if ever), the scientific community can then take a collective breath of fresh air, and be allowed to at least say that Darwin's explanation, while ingenious, is essentially a Victorian bedtime story for nature dorks, right alongside Ayn Rand and Dr. Seuss.

In the end, people will want to ask questions about how things came into being, regardless of which golden calf gets rocked off its foundations. I mean, let’s face it, people are curious; they want to know how things got here. It’s an epic scenario, either way you slice it – like the title card in Star Wars rolling up the screen. THE BEGINNING. And people want to know.

And once the questions can be asked in freedom, Darwinism's going to have some hard sailing in explaining (without negating known natural laws, of course) how eye biochemistry came about by random processes - and ultimately from nothing – while still keeping a straight face and tax supported status.

But, of course, people don’t believe in eyes popping up from nothing because it’s somehow been scientifically confirmed – they believe in it because it’s convenient. And I guess that’s where the true battle is at, ultimately. But, so long as the sun burns, the explanations will still keep a’rollin…

Darwinists have done a pretty good job of it so far though… the poker face that is. Dawkins seems to be the only novice in this regard, he faintly cracks a smile when talking about how you could never hope to observe macro evolution occurring. Once his books get that tax break as “religious literature”, I’m sure he’ll perfect that winning look of straight-faced constipation by then.