Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
So, this film is out in the US now I think and I guess it will be here soon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expelled_No_intelligence_allowed

"Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a controversial 2008 film hosted by Ben Stein. The film claims that what it calls "Big Science" suppresses criticism of the scientific theory of evolution, while portraying that theory as having contributed to the rise of the Nazi Holocaust, communism, atheism and Planned Parenthood. The film also claims that American educators and scientists who believe that there might be evidence of intelligent design in nature are being persecuted for these beliefs.
While a number of conservative and Christian media outlets have given it favorable reviews, the general media response has been largely unfavorable, and the science community's response to it has been unanimously negative, asserting that it is propaganda."
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Anyone seen it? Know how well it's doing? In a way it's surprising that there haven't been more things like this so far. After Gibson made a huge success out of the Passion of The Christ (despite the naysayers) one would have thought that lots more mainstreamish films would be coming out pandering explicitly to a right-wing Christian audience. If this does well maybe there will be loads more of this stuff.
Also some of this stuff sounds not just like propaganda but incredibly and unnecessarily vicious

"Intelligent design proponents are also shown, including David Berlinski who raises the claim that Darwinism influenced the Nazis. Stein then tours sites of Nazi atrocities emotively describing the nightmare he implies was due to Darwinism."
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What argument are they gonna make for that? A worrying development anyway I think.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The degree to which people are prepared to blame science for human misfortune, error and atrocity is astounding.

"Intelligent design proponents are also shown, including David Berlinski who raises the claim that Darwinism influenced the Nazis. Stein then tours sites of Nazi atrocities emotively describing the nightmare he implies was due to Darwinism."
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No doubt the Great Depression was Adam Smith's fault, Freud invented paedophilia and insanity and Einstein personally ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. :rolleyes:
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
I like this and hope they inserted a drumroll and adopt speicallly sinister voice before the last one:

portraying that theory as having contributed to the rise of the Nazi Holocaust, communism, atheism and Planned Parenthood
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What argument are they gonna make for that? A worrying development anyway I think.
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Well, it did, didn't it? Influence Nazism I mean, not provide a direct causal link to the gas chambers.
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
There's a good youtube video debunking this film, using terms and ideas even yr average joe can understand. Although I can't search and post it 'cuz youtube's blocked at work. I think the main jist of it was that discarding ideas because they don't conform to the scientific method is not the same thing as censorship.
 
S

stelfox

Beast of Burden
you can quite convincingly say that darwinism influenced the nazis. because it did. however, the point that's being missed is that social darwinism is an entirely different thing to the theory of evolution. of course, its roots are in darwin's scientific priciples, but it's a total corruption of them. it's also worth noting that this isn't the only instance of the extreme right co-opting aspects of perfectly reasonable beliefs/theories, meshing them with other ideas that have very little to do with them, and incorporating them with absolutely repellent basic motivations. the nazis were influenced by tons of things that are essentially perfectly reasonable; various religions and belief systems etc that in no way advocate or correspond to the atrocities they committed. you only need to look to the way the green movement ended up becoming filled with right-wing nutbags for a present-day example. it's an especially ridiculous proposition, given the number of right-wing racists etc who link their actions and beliefs to god. just as there are plenty of extremely nice christian people in the world, there are plenty of decent folks who believe in darwin's theories. placing faith in the basic scientific fact that evolution occurs does not lead to you being a nazi or a genocidal communist dictator. it doesn't make you an atheist, either. darwin wasn't. if you take any political, religious or theoretical principle to its absolute final and most extreme conclusion, you're in for a pretty unpleasant ride, just as you can use any political, religious or theoretical principle to "justify" totally abhorrent actions. also, bringing nazis into an argument (unless, it's actually about extreme right-wing politics) rarely does anything but make the person doing so sound like a first class idiot. needless to say, i won't be watching this film. it sounds stupid.

i also really like the way that "the Nazi Holocaust, communism, atheism and Planned Parenthood" are all lent equal weight in terms of badness.
 
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Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
stelfox said:
you only need to look to the way the green movement ended up becoming filled with right-wing nutbags for a present-day example.
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It has? In what way?

stelfox said:
also, bringing nazis into an argument (unless, it's actually about extreme right-wing politics) rarely does anything but make the person doing so sound like a first class idiot.
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Oh yeah? That's exactly what HITLER said!

regarding_mussolini.png
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"What argument are they gonna make for that?"
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OK, read a bit further on now.

"In the film, intelligent design proponent David Berlinski says that Darwinism was a "necessary though not sufficient" cause for the Holocaust, and Stein presses the message of evolution being responsible..."
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Also

"Christianity Today film critic Jeffrey Overstreet's "spoiler" describing the film's specific content was also posted on the official Expelled website:

Many scenes are centered around the Berlin Wall, and Ben Stein, being Jewish, actually visits many death camps and death showers. In fact, Nazi Germany is the thread that ties everything in the movie together. Evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany."
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Hmmm...

"needless to say, i won't be watching this film. it sounds stupid."
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Well, I guess that none of us will be. I'm worried about the film not in so much as it will almost certainly be a ham-fisted mess preaching to those who are already one hundred percent behind its message but as possibly the first of many like it. If such films can be made and made profitably it's not hard to imagine loads of similar propaganda oozing out after it.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
IdleRich said:
Well, I guess that none of us will be. I'm worried about the film not in so much as it will almost certainly be a ham-fisted mess preaching to those who are already one hundred percent behind its message but as possibly the first of many like it. If such films can be made and made profitably it's not hard to imagine loads of similar propaganda oozing out after it.
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I might check it out actually. Be good for a blog entry at the very least.

I seem to remember reading something about it being funded by churches, or US church goers covering its costs in some roundabout way, via funded or heavily subsidised attendance. So I don't think profitability is a big factor.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
john eden said:
I seem to remember reading something about it being funded by churches, or US church goers covering its costs in some roundabout way, via funded or heavily subsidised attendance. So I don't think profitability is a big factor.
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Really? Does anyone know how many people have seen this film, then?
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
stelfox said:
Propaganda of the Christian right: as endorsed by Uncarved.org/blog!
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Hey I've just posted about Flux of Pink Indians' "The Fucking Cunts Treat Us Like Pricks" album and I don't endorse that!

Vim - I suspect a lot of people have seen it in the US but probably at showings organised by (or in) churches. I suspect that is the core audience in any case.
 
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O

Octopus?

Well-known member
If I recall correctly it made $3 million + in its first week and actually broke into the Top 10 films in the country. (insert shudder here)
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I might check it out actually."
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I thought I might but then I thought about queueing up with a load of nutters and handing over the money and suddenly it seems a lot less likely. Plus from what I've read I don't think that there are really going to be actual arguments and stuff to address - and anyway if someone believes that thinking that evolution is the most likely possibility leads to death camps then what can you say to them?

"I seem to remember reading something about it being funded by churches, or US church goers covering its costs in some roundabout way, via funded or heavily subsidised attendance. So I don't think profitability is a big factor."
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I think it is funded by vested interests but if it is profitable in itself then it's sustainable to keep on making films like this.
 
N

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
So the argument is that intelligent design = true and evolution = false. And the proof of this is, Hitler. Hmm, I don't think they are doing themselves any favours here. ;)
 
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