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Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was both better and worse than I anticipated and I took copious notes and jottings during the film filling 6 index cards, compared to my normal 1 for a given film.

  • Great music.  Few docudramas, infotainment pieces, etc have such a well done score.  I was thrown off by the Orchestral version of All Along the Watchtower, but I think it was well done.
  • Opening scene proved German time travel as people’s names appeared onBerlin wall.
  • Film equates act of questioning with scientific advancement.
  • Fails to produce instance where evolution’s explanations fail.
  • Repeatedly calling evolutionary biology “Darwinism” is a thinly veiled attempt at bringing out specter of idolotry and creating a straw man.  Pin evolution on Darwin, knock down Darwin and thus knock down evolution. Foolish.
  • Articles were claimed not to be allowed for peer review.  This is a misinterpretation of peer review where publishers act as referees and/or gatekeepers.  That’s the entire point.
  • Reference to academia as “scientism gulag”was cute
  • Makes reference to Einstein throwing out Newton where Einstein merely added exactness and clarity in some cases eg transit of Mercury.
  • Film cites that repression is systemic which implies a central authority, none given
  • Christopher Hitchens cited as scientist
  • Argument from authority, frequently calls those fired “obviously smart” but only in case of Guillermo Gonzalez (I think that was the name) was an example of previous work given.
  • PhDs mentioned but were not always in pertinent fields
  • The Tim Burtonesque DNA scene was delightful
  • Evolution attacked for not having rigor when compared to physics when compared to math.  Math isn’t a science and plays by different rules of proof.  Math has a possible level of proof much higher than in science which only has falsifiability and partial proof by partial exhaustion.
  • Saturn 5 as cell, Saturn 5 wasn’t terribly complicated.
  • Quote from cartoon Richard Dawkins “You stupid machine, I hate you”.
  • Misdefinition of information: Claims natural selection reduces information when in fact it reduces (in some cases) variance.  Information is useful knowledge from data.  Natural selection essentially acts as a pattern sift.  Information theory poorly explained.
  • Panspermia equated with aliens (which is intelligent design, derf) instead of thinking of comets simply providing some of the amino acids or crystalline structures needed
  • Statement made that appriciation of cell only began with our recent work in nano technology despite nanotech working on levels significantly smaller than the cell
  • Notion of how theory becomes accepted through media-courts-peers absolutely ludicrous
  • Intelligent Design as political correctness
  • Comparison to Poland poor as Poland has no real ID forces
  • Newton listed as “early modern scientist”
  • Argument from consequences listed as religious implications of evolution
  • Evolution as negating free will not explained
  • “Deconversion to science” sets up notion of progress towards religion
  • Ignores Laplace and stability of solar system as example which no God is required
  • Notion that science lacks transendental values is odd.  Science requires belief that universe is both predictable and discoverable and an implicit spirit of cooperation and truth
  • Evolution stated effectively as happening at individual level despite fact that it occurs on the species level
  • Quote mining of Darwin on the disabled
  • Missed science of Nazis ignored hybrid vigor and problems of “pure breeds”
  • Planned parenthood connection to eugenics is an argument from origin and doesn’t apply to current incarnation
  • Science as method of rationalization, misses that this mostly occurs with the social sciences
  • Failure of ID to make a priori predictions
  • “truth crushed earth will rise again” not sure what that was from
  • No examples of where debate betwain ID and evo could occur

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This post does not have humor as its primary purpose.  Live with it.

If you’ve seen the commercials for “Expelled” you’ve seen Ben Stein raise his hand and “where life came from?” as some sort of polemic directed against evolution.  This is simply ridiculous as it’s not evolution’s job to explain that.  Evolution steps in the moment life exists to explain how it changes and a damn fine job it’s done and doesn’t attempt to explain origins.  Requiring that it explain life’s origin would be like insubstantiating classical mechanics because while it can explain the motion of the ball it can’t explain where the ball came from.  Gha….

As a side note, Expelled Exposed has a wonderful run down of the errors of both omission and comission it commits.  If anyone wants to go see it with me and sit there and probably be angry for a few hours afterwards, I’m game.

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Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com had a nice quote in an October podcast on the God of the Gaps argument used by Anne Coulter.

“Finding evolutionary biology to be invalid as a science because some examples of one foundation of its evidence are buried under millions of years of rock and can’t reasonably be expected to ever be found, despite the fact that other foundations of its evidence such as genetics, resistant bacteria, and observation are perfectly intact, is a logical fallacy, and someone as smart as Ann Coulter should know that. The crime lab doesn’t throw out all the DNA evidence, blood stains, and the murder weapon just because many of the fingerprints were wiped clean.” –Skeptoid show notes

It’s a swell podcast and is usually brief but dense in content.  I’ve gone through about 50 episodes in the last 3 days.  There’s an infinitude of linking options on his page so I won’t bother.