[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGCxbhGaVfE[/youtube]
I think that the right wingers have decided that if liberal propaganda can be put forth as “the truth,” why by god, so can right wing, and/or religious propaganda be put forth as well. HE points us to topic of intelligent design as depicted in the “documentary” Expelled. Ben Stein (who actually writes for the NY Times occasionally) is the person behind the documentary which proclaims “no intelligence allowed.”
By the way, this reminds me of the NAMBLA guys who march at gay rights rallies because they falsely believe they too have “rights.” I am not sure that there is a place of the extreme right in the world of documentaries. Why this is, I don’t know. What I do know is that the docs that are popular with the Academy tend to be leftist more than rightist. And this doc will likely ruin any credibility Ben Stein may have had.
Apparently, as HE tells it, a critic was shut out of a screening of the film but went anyway, then panned it, naturally – and why wouldn’t he pan it? It’s a silly concept from the get-go, one that assumes an “intelligent” being “planned” life as we know it, the end result being smarter creatures roaming the earth. I’m going to ramble a bit so bear with me. Intelligence is something predators need but it doesn’t guarantee you long-lasting survival; in fact, many of the most hearty species evolved to a state where they were in harmony with their environment, took care of their waste, and have thus survived millions of years. We’re not quite there yet and from the looks of it, we ain’t gonna last that long unless we get a lot smarter in a hurry. Environmental changes usually wipe out a species and it looks like we’re headed in that direction, either by the natural order or by our own hand. What, pray, is so intelligent about that? Gorgeous and fabulous we are. We are a magnificently evolved species but just because we got where we’ve gotten on our intelligence doesn’t necessarily mean that will continue to help us survive. Moreover, intelligent design seems to favor mankind as the most successful, or the whole point of life in the first place. Phooey to that.
Okay, done rambling. The fact is, this “documentary” will likely be shown at religious gatherings and may be dragged out for the occasional Frontline. I’m, frankly, surprised this debate continued to thrive. I can understand scientists who want to poke apart Darwin’s theory of evolution but they lose me when they start talking about a higher being doing things on purpose. Then again, I suppose we’ve evolved to believe that there is a point to all of it; otherwise, what’s the point.
“**sigh** apparently you can’t read, so let’s put it in a mathematical formula”
Oh, and if I am unable to read, I don’t think I would be able to read your variables for your mathematical formula. Just sayin….
Certainly a lot of “lumping” going on in this post and comments for such open-minded people. I hate lumping or stereotyping people into big categories, therefore reducing them down to ideologies.
It reminds me of the Woody Allen quote in Annie Hall:
“Allison: No, that was wonderful. I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype.
Alvy Singer: Right, I’m a bigot, I know, but for the left.”
To ss…
“World created=possibility of relationship with Creator=purpose in being here
Darwinism=nothing greater than humanity=a bunch of confused and depressed humans mindlessly glad to be in charge of their own destiny but in reality just hoping someday they will evolve into something that has purpose.”
This kind of statement reflects your immature and infantile understanding of evolution, so let me break it down for you.
1) “Just hoping that they will evolve into something that has a purpose”: This statement clearly shows that you don’t understand evolution at all. The process of Darwinian change has no purpose. It is a mathematical algorithm that expresses the differential probability of some units remaining in a system at the expense of others. Over time, through this process of sifting, the constitutive frequencies of these units in a population will change. That is it. There is no purpose here, nor will anything ever evolve in a purposeful way.
2) You, like many others with your limited understanding, seem to believe that accepting Darwinism excludes the possibility of a creator. As I have argued above, this type of conclusion is not warranted. You argument follows this structure
Darwinism does not mention a creator in its doctrine
Atheism is the belief that there is no creator
Therefore, Darwinism is atheism
This is the kind of claptrap that is being pushed forward by ID proponents everywhere. However, the conclusion is not warranted because it does NOT follow from the two initial premises. It is not in the realm of science to prove or disprove the existence of a creator. That is something science cannot do because it is methodologically constrained in its naturalistic assumptions. The term Darwinism represents a subset of what is considered science by the scientific community. In fact, we could substitute particle physics for Darwinism, and the argument would not hold either. The problem is in the assumption that because science does not mention or argue for the existence of God, it must inherently be athestic. That is just plain wrong.
If you have to explain your analogy, it’s not working….or the analogy is ridiculous.
**sigh** apparently you can’t read, so let’s put it in a mathematical formula
NAMBLA = Illegitimate minority group
Intelligent Design = Illegitimate scientific theory
NAMBLA people marching alongside gay people for civil rights = sick joke
Neocon filmmakers who tout ID as a scientific theory alongside docs like “An Inconvenient Truth” = sick joke
It’s an analogy. If you still don’t get it I can draw you a picture.
I know what NAMBLA is, but I am just trying to connect NAMBLA and this documentary.
The theory of evolution has improved everyone’s life by being the foundation for nearly every act of modern biological science. And it doesn’t exclude the existence of a creator. So what did intelligent design give anybody? Nothing but a sword to attack one of the most important and influential scientific theories in human history.
AND
Let me break it down, JLo.
NAMBLA people claim they have rights similar to those of homosexuals. Nevermind that their “lifestyle” is based on sexual congress with people who cannot legally consent. Ergo their marching for their rights is a sick joke.
Intelligent design is not a theory, but an attempted negation with a purely political genus with nothing scientific to give it creedence. When a documentary is made attempting to legitimize Intelligent design as a theory, it is also a sick joke. Hope that cleared it up for you.
Can someone explain to me what this has to do with anything?
“By the way, this reminds me of the NAMBLA guys who march at gay rights rallies because they falsely believe they too have “rights.””
“It’s a silly concept from the get-go, one that assumes an “intelligent” being “planned” life as we know it, the end result being smarter creatures roaming the earth.”
Is this actually a critique of the movie or your own opinion? I can’t believe a movie site would actually discredit a movie because of something other than the artfulness of it. I mean, heck, I don’t agree with the ideas in Birth of a Nation, but I hope I won’t judge the quality of the film making based on the film or director’s values.
Actually, was in part of your post anything other than a diatribe against the film’s subject matter or ideas? I visit this site every so often, but I don’t visit it to read about anyone’s theories on intelligent design or evolution. It’s your site, though, you can do whatever you want. I just think this is a rather puerile post.
Can anybody give any great stories of how their lives were changed for the better and how they found purpose through a “conversion” to Darwinistic/evolutionary thinking?
World created=possibility of relationship with Creator=purpose in being here
Darwinism=nothing greater than humanity=a bunch of confused and depressed humans mindlessly glad to be in charge of their own destiny but in reality just hoping someday they will evolve into something that has purpose
i find that conservative documentaries, or the idea of them, lack any compelling interest. the main thrust would be to desperately attempt to bolster and defend principles of military force, corporate supremacy and evangelical christianity. overall, these elements of society suffer from a shortage of any discernible sense of humor. they just can’t be funny. ever try to watch a christian tv channel or fox news try to be funny? you end up with something like glenn beck.
You can disagree with Michael Moore’s positions and be turned off by his methods (or Canadian Bacon, which is kind of like hating all Scorcese films because of Boxcar Bertha), but you can’t ever say his fundamental premise is a complete sham. Hence, a false, disingenuous, lazy, default neo-con argument.
Harry, I appreciate your comments, but I think my argument is anything but petty. What I was trying to do was to separate the various levels of argument that have been put forth by ID supporters. They are a very cunning group, and the frequently interchange levels of analysis to confuse readers.
The Darwinian process of evolution as a process is VERY well understood and characterized. The development of drug resistance in bacteria, the development of the lens in the eye, predator-prey relationships are all very well explained through the process of evolution. To claim that there are holes in our understanding of evolutionary processes is about as nonsensical as saying the Earth is flat or phlogiston is real. It’s a free country, so you can believe whatever you want, but don’t expect to be taken seriously by individuals who have evidence to suggest otherwise.
Now if you are suggesting that there are holes in evolutionary theory’s capacity to explaining human development and the origins of life on this planet, then yes, there are missing pieces. This is allowed in science. No one is arguing that evolution has the answers for everything. But as a SCIENTIFIC theory, it offers a possible naturalistic explanation for how we got here without going into metaphysical nonsense such as angels or fairies. Remember, this is one of the core assumptions of science.
So why is ID then being tauted as science? Some individuals believe that such a chaotic world could not have given rise to intricate molecules such as RNA polymerases or hemoglobin. They must have been designed. Why not? Evolutionary processes operate on enormous timescales, anywhere from hundreds of thousands of years to a million years. We have no concept of a time scale that large or processes operating that slow. Just because it doesn’t “seem” like it could happen doesn’t get at what it really is. We can’t see electrons. We have no intuitive sense of how fast light travels. We have no intuitive basis for understanding what an electric field is. What does it mean to be at absolute zero? And yet, we accept all of these phenomena as having a basis in nature. Not once has an ID supporter gone on record as saying that because electrons are so unimaginably small there must be a divine force at play in designing the molecules.
Why suggest the need for divine intervention? The minute you open the door and start accepting non-naturalistic explanations as science for things as small as RNA Polymerase enzymes, you have lost everything. You might as well go ahead and say the tooth fairy or the flying spaghetti monster created the entire universe. There is no possible way to differentiate a hypothesis built upon on faith from a naturalistic one. Where the ID debate really belongs is in the philosophy department, where the debate between naturalist and non-naturalist positions still continues. It is NOT science.
Limeymcfrog, It’s only disingenuous and ill fitting if I have an agenda and you think Michael Moore isn’t a hack. Otherwise it’s just my opinion.
TJ, I appreciate the passion, but I also kind of feel these are the kind of petty arguments scientists have in free societies that just slow things down. There ARE holes in evolutionary theory that need to be filled, so let’s fill them instead of wasting your time telling people how stupid they are for disagreeing with a theory that’s less than a couple centuries into finding its proofs.
Gentle Benj, so is ID a planned static design, or one that changes overtime to correct itself or improve attributes to perfect the design?
Better yet, why can’t Christians accept the possibility that evolution is God’s way of handling things?
How can you doubt his style? I mean, he’s the Almighty Teacher who puts the smart strong kids up head of the class, he dumps the dumbasses to the back.
ALSO, Fuck Michael Moore. How can I trust someone who shot a shoddy comedy like CANADIAN BACON?
Exactly.
DING DING DING!!! Thank you Harry for making the first ill-fitting, disingenuous Michael Moore comparison! Tell ’em what he’s won Johnny!!
The biggest problem with people who think ID is a legitimate scientific field of inquiry is that most of those individuals have no real understanding of Darwinian processes and most individuals mix up different levels of hierarchical analysis to the point where they obfuscate several important issues. The general questions are…
1) Is ID an alternative theory to evolution? If by this question you mean “can ID offer a better explanation for the diversity of life than evolution by utilizing established scientific principles?” then the answer is a resolute NO. I can reference you to works by Dennett, Dawkins, Pinker, Churchland, etc. Pretty much the entire scientific community accepts evolution as the best explanation for the diversity of life on this planet.
2) Is ID science? Science is fundamentally assumes a naturalistic position. It assumes that the natural world exists as it exists, and the laws of nature are consistent across time and space. Everything that we need to explain the universe can be explained through natural laws of the universe. We do not need to invoke paranormal phenomena. Unexplained phenomena could be explained upon significant and greater developments in our understanding of the natural world. At one point in our intellectual history, we wondered what caused the Northern Lights to occur. They certainly seem mysterious and magical. Some speculated that it could have been the work of angels flying through our sky. Over time, that phenomena was characterized by high energy photons from the sun exciting various atoms (namely oxygen and nitrogen) to higher quantum states, and this produced the colors we see. Science allows us to not know, but what science does not allow is explanation by argument outside of natural law. The developments of time-space symmetry (see Noethers Theorem) and insights into conservation laws make this assumption much more powerful. So if proponents of ID want their arguments to be taken seriously by the scientific community, they have to be willing to concede that their hypothesis is a naturalistic one. Science, by principle, does not accept a non-naturalistic position. Currently, no ID proponent has been able to demonstrate that their position can explain the phenomena of evolution in a way that is non-naturalistic.
Is ID a political movement? Yes. The exposure of the Wedge document has exposed the movement for what it really is. It is a corrupt, deceitful organization whose whole purpose is to undermine the study of evolution by advocating the controversy instead of the argument. This same kind of manipulative strategy was used by the tobacco industry in the early 90’s and is still used today by various oil companies to justify high green house gas emissions in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming. In short, this is not an argument at all. This whole documentary is feeding into the collective consciousness of everyone so that people believe there is a controversy, when none exists.
It is horrendous, it is despicable, and for anyone who thinks its a viable argument, I strongly, strongly urge you to read the works by Dennett, Dawkins, Pinker, Miller, Flanagan, and Churchland. If that is too much work for you, then argument by reason is not a strategy worth pursuing. I’m sorry if that sounds elitist, but science cannot argue with the ill-informed.
This movie looks awful. That aside, aren’t you guys just reinforcing the stereotypes Ben Stein is playing on?
What I expected to find when I read this talkback was funny quips about how dumb the movie itself looks, or how stupid that NAMBLA comparison was. Instead, there’s a bunch of angry gnashing of teeth. And now I think if Michael Moore can make ill-informed leftist docs then maybe Ben Stein should be able to make ill-informed right wing docs. Hell, I didn’t see the uproar when What the Bleep Do We Know? was released and that was total religious propaganda. Why does this piece of crap push so many buttons?
All right, elaborating on RRA’s point then, how about some thing unnecessary and dangerous: appendix.
That’t pretty goddam shoddy design. It makes perfect sense in the light of evolution as an organ that was once useful. Now, though, it’s just an irritating piece flesh which, before we learned to get rid of it by performing a relatively simple and safe surgical procedure, killed millions upon millions of people throughout history and pre-history.
No, a designed universe would look very different indeed than the one we currently inhabit.
limey: I agree that faith is an individual choice, not one for schools to force. I think you may have misunderstood the context of what I was saying.
RRA: Designing something unnecessary doesn’t make the designer unintelligent. That doesn’t figure.
I have one logical statement that will shit on “Intelligent Design,” and I dare ID-fans to retort it.
Tell me, what’s so “inteligently designed” about man tits? They’re useless, and get in the way of a Superman chisel-chest.
Using this theory, or glorified hypothesis, are ID fans saying that God is idiotic or a hack scientist this side of a bad B-movie?
How blasphemous…
Or is God an Alien? Again, using ID’s logic, blasphemy again.
Better yet, since people refuse to “believe” in Evolution simply because its a “theory”….using that logic, do they not believe in ATOMS either?
You know, the whole “Sub-Atomic Theory”?
I love religion, I love God, and I love his hack Christian Scientists. I guess there is a place for jobbers in the world after all.
BTW, anyone offended by my posting can e-mail me, and I’ll detail why RRA wasn’t just intelligently designed….the “Creator” broke the mold.
Too bad he/she never got rid of the whole Man Tits thing. Oh well.
Right, so there are Intelligent Design scenarios in which evolution can be incorporated? So, Intelligent Design would add nothing more to a science class than every 10 or so minutes saying “and maybe this was all done by god.” It wouldn’t change the teachings, the scientific theories, just add god into the mix like so much paprika?
Just more proof that Intelligent Design is a subtler, more desperate way to inject religion into a place that we have already decided as a nation that it has no place!
“An ID scenario that incorporates evolution”????
How about evolution which doesn’t exclude, and has never excluded, the hand of jaweh, jesus, vishnu, allah, zeus, xenu, osiris, c’thullu, or chuck norris in the creation of the earth. That’s a personal choice for families to decide, not for schools to enforce.
Well, the NAMBLA thing is an interesting variation on the grand “compare whatever you don’t like to Hitler” tradition of t3h internetz.
Sasha, you know I love you and your site, but that really offended me.
PS, Ryan, I agree. I teach at a private Christian school and am thus surrounded by a fair few loony fundamentalists, and I just don’t get why they think an ID scenario that incorporates evolution would rob God of His creatorship. To me, a God who creates the fundamental laws and processes of the universe and then sets it to rolling is more impressive than a cosmic magician.
I never understand how it’s more meaningful to fundamentalists to imagine that God extracted the universe out of his butt, like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
God as David Copperfield. Voila! Giraffe! Abracadabra! Orchids! Poof! Dolphins! Allakhazam! Scarlett Johansson!
Isn’t it infinity more awesome to think god created the vastly complex building blocks of DNA and set things in motion for billions of years? Darwin didn’t invent evolution. He was just one of the first to attempt to explain it. How about if God designed evolution, along with every other intricately interconnected system in the universe in all its mind-bending splendor?
But nope, fundamentalists would rather think the creation of all the creatures on earth was a Harry Potter trick.
How is the Bible gonna try to explain DNA in Genesis 1600 years ago, back when a lot of people still believed the earth was carried around on the back of a giant turtle?
Bottom line: The right-wing agenda depends on an ignorant population. Smart people ask too many aggravating questions.
Ben Stein said a mouthful, but all I heard was “Bueller…. Bueller… Bueller… Bueller…”
I’m a Christian, but Darwin’s been proven right. You can’t question that evolution took place without ignoring the evidence. Sorry, we evolved from apes. End of story.
I suppose no one else was available. Apparently Charlton Heston (who has narrated Creationist propaganda in the past, by the way) is too far gone into his Altzheimers’induced stupor nowadays, Ron Silver has standards and Chuch Norris doesn’t host science documentaries, science documentaries host Chuck Norris.
Someone needs to expell ben stein from this earth maybe the invisible man he’s decided to talk so freely about. Is he kidding me saying that by simply “watching” this movie it could ruin your life. Boy do I wish he was correct when he said that this is not the status quo. Someone better wake stein up and tell him that the majority of the country actually does believe the crap he’s spewing. and trust me if fahrenheit 9/11 can change people’s minds about huge issues then this certainly won’t change anyone’s either. Unfortunately, the majority of the population does not believe everything that is said in documentaries and this “film” is one of the primary reasons. People still look at them as just “movies”
P.S.: The icing on the cake for me was his lame reference to ferris buller’s day off which is the only thing on this fucking planet that ever gave this hack any semblance of notiriety to begin with. The people behind this movie must have realized they were in a heap of trouble when they found out that this guy was the best celebrity they could find to endorse their seemingly poor arguments.
I saw Triumph of the Will at Bard College in 1967. It knocked me out….or the good smoke did. Chevy Chase and Blythe Danner were there also….
Anyone who thinks ID offers a fair and thoughtful alternative to evolutionary theory, needs to read this: http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Wedge document, outlining the Discovery Institute’s (A collection of the leading proponents of ID) strategy to win over the hearts and minds of the public by essentially renaming creationism Intelligent Design. It was leaked to public during the famous 2005 Pennsylvania trial and the Insitute, representing the creationist side in the dispute, was unable weasel out of the responsibility and had no choice but to admit they had written it. The republican judge, appointed by one George W. Bush, decided against the creationists and professed to being frankly disgusted by their intellectual treachery. He has, naturally, been receiving hate-mail and death threats ever since. That he was also branded, ridiculously given his credentials, “activist judge” goes without saying.
This is NOT a partisan issue. I’m saddened that good, honest posters even on this site have been duped into thinking that rejecting ID is somehow a leftist or even a liberal issue, easy to accept or dismiss depending on you own political leanings. No, no, no, it is your duty to find out about the these things instead of going for the knee-jerk reaction. You don’t teach Fleat Earth Society’s position as “controversy” during geology lessons, anymore than astrology is a good, valid alternative view to astronomy. God and religion has nothing to do with this mind-bending idiocy and sooner the religious authorities distance themselves from the creationist movement, the better.
Cut me a friggin break. Intelligent Design has no shape of its own. It is, as was earlier pointed out, a tarted up version of creationism, which was originally intended as an antithesis for evolution. The existence of “Intelligent Design” is itself an attack on the theory of evolution which has been the basis for just about every modern medical innovation. So this defacto “poor wounded me” act any time someone acts “elitist” by stating facts just sickens me.
If you really don’t believe in the theory of evolution, then go lick the petri dish of one of those new evolved staph infections we now have no cure for. Take your antibiotics whenever the hell you choose, because there’s no way bacteria can build up resistances. I’m sure you’ll be fine.
Did you find that last comment elitist? GOOD! I find your comments to be disingenuous crap attempting to legitimize an illegitimate, corporate simulacra of a theory; a pseudo-position.
Now instead of acting wounded, how about you actually state your position and argue like an adult.
“It doesn’t matter how good or bad a movie could be, if it showed a slant in favor of conservative politics or creationism… it likely to be bashed and panned and poked, etc. Especially here.” – McAllister
Yes it would be bashed and panned. David Lean could rise from the grave and make a perfectly filmed documentary about how the holocaust was all a sham, and it would also be bashed and panned. As would Billy Wilder’s brilliant posthumous doc about the earth being flat. Any documentary that deals in obvious falsehoods will not be awarded, nor should it.
(Please make sure to include as many terrible Michael Moore analogies as possible in your response. Denying decades of scientific breakthroughs is SO like saying you grew up in Flint, Mi instead of Davison, MI.)
It’s ironic that the criticism I am getting is from the right when I thought the post would elicit angered posts from the left. LOL, you can’t win. No, if I have a religion it’s Darwinism. I have no patience with intelligent design in the least. I believe in evolution to my very bones and am happy to debate it with any of you but please don’t give me the standard “you just don’t know argument” because that’s a given and something that is ultimately useless in a classroom setting; remember, we aren’t talking about general philosophy here so much as people trying to put creationism as a valid form of scientific study. It’s completely craptastic, sorry. And yes, I do think intelligence is a form of natural selection and a mutation that is favorable for certain forms of life and not so favorable for others. Let’s see how long humans last before we decide that intelligence is really the height to which all other species should strive. Because an animal is highly evolved towards intelligence doesn’t necessarily mean they will last long than, say, a cockroach or a fish.
It doesn’t matter how good or bad a movie could be, if it showed a slant in favor of conservative politics or creationism… it likely to be bashed and panned and poked, etc. Especially here.
I agree with Derrick. This post was very elitist, very ignorant, and just shows the inherent bias of this website. Sasha, this a site to talk about movies. So please, leave your political and religious (or lack thereof) rhetoric to those who actually have the credence to debate about it. You do realize not everyone who frequents this place is of the completely liberal, “I’m open-minded to everything but God and religion” sort of persuasion, right?
Why do people who don’t like people to force their opinions on other people force their opinion that they don’t like people to force their opinions on other people onto other people?
I personally agree with much of what was written, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s vitriolic. I’m just curious as to what is wrong with letting people believe what they want to believe without attacking them for it. That would seem to be the intelligent thing to do. Comparing someone’s religious belief to NAMBLA leads us down a dark road indeed…
Derrick: I sense no elitism whatsoever in Sasha’s comments. Intelligent design is, whether you like it or not, a dressed-up stalking horse for creationism. Furthermore, dreck like this is like a second Scopes Trial just waiting to happen. BTW, the voters of Dover PA and Kansas had to put up with this nonsense recently and reacted sensibly: voting out all the creationists/IDers and replacing them with more sensible people (both R & D). Personally, why does there even have to be a conflict? A higher force that can create life can just as easily let it evolve. Looking at humanity, I seriously question the idea of “intelligent design” because there is so little actual intelligence in existence (except for here of course).
Bring on Bill Maher’s RELIGULOUS!
Sasha, I really respect your opinion about the awards race and movies in general, however; I think your comments about intelligent design were extremely elitist in nature. My question for you would be, how can intelligence be created by a non-intelligent, chaotic event? In my opinion, I believe it is naive to believe that everything that we have come to know about our universe and our planet was completely random (i.e. through macro-evolution). I being an independent conservative, your comments don’t sound every “open-minded” as liberals, such as yourself, claim to be. Anyway, your opinion does not make me think less of you. That is the beauty of free speech. Keep up the good work on my favorite movie blog.
No offence to Mr. Stein, but having him narrate a documentary just doesn’t work. You may as well just have him repeat “Bueller. Bueller. Bueller…” over and over again. Not that another narrator would make this work any better.
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For those of you reading this blog who think that Ben Stein was in any way the motivating force behind this movie, please reconsider.
From the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Texan interview with Logan Craft (executive producer of Expelled):
http://www.sbtexan.com/default.asp?action=article&aid=5533&issue=2/4/2008
TEXAN: How did Ben Stein come to be involved in the film?
CRAFT: Well, John (Sullivan, producer of Expelled) had a real insight, we believe, into the necessity to have a person, first of all, who wasn’t overtly Christian or overtly religious…
Ben Stein is a hack!
This film is a manufactured argument, cleverly crafted to advance a conservative christian agenda. ID at this point, after almost 20 years and millions of dollars tossed at it by the Discovery Institute, is still merely a vague scientific idea. It has not yet even been fleshed out into a valid hypothesis, and certainly hasn’t developed into a viable or testable theory.
So at this point, the ID/creationist movement is merely a well-funded public relations effort trying to rally public support promoting “science = evolution = atheists”, rather than offering any positive evidence of the “designer”, or “design”.
“Tens of millions of Americans, who neither know nor understand the actual arguments for or even against evolution, march in the army of the night with their Bibles held high. And they are a strong and frightening force, impervious to, and immunized against, the feeble lance of mere reason.”
—Isaac Asimov
urgh.
There hasn’t been a decent right-wing documentary filmmaker since Leni Riefenstahl.