Ben Stein's new movie Expelled

[robby]

@LurkMeister

Just for laughed I scanned through the reviews of this movie on IMDb, and couldn’t believe I read this:

Why do we still have monkeys? Shouldn’t they all have evolved into people by now?

:rolleyes:

Whenever I hear this idiotic argument, I always draw this analogy:

“So if your ancestors immigrated to America from Europe, why are there still people in Europe? Shouldn’t all people have immigrated to American by now?”

:rolleyes:

[The_Weird_One]

@robby

Whenever I hear this idiotic argument, I always draw this analogy:

“So if your ancestors immigrated to America from Europe, why are there still people in Europe? Shouldn’t all people have immigrated to American by now?”

:rolleyes:

Oo, good one!

[BrainGlutton]

Yoko Ono is suing Stein for using John Lennon’s song “Imagine” in his film without permission.

[wolf_in_second_hand_clothing]

Well, it seems that the plagiarized [animation](http://endogenousretrovirus.blogspot.com/2008/04/second-expelled-copyright- case-resolved.html) has been removed from the film, but Premise’s lawsuit which they’re filing in Texas because of the state’s lack of anti-SLAPP laws is still proceeding.

I love how they throw in the part about how, you know, they didn’t steal the animation, but if they did that would still be legal. But they still didn’t steal it. Oh no.

Also, I think I’m in love for whoever writes this blog for this entry: “After the Discovery Institutes blatant theft of a small animation companys work, three out of four of Papa-TARDs remaining functional neurons must have died after working so hard to drip out ‘But all deh cells looks dey sames!’ as a defense… only to have their massive effort ruined when Megalomania-TARD bravely screamed ‘LEEEEEEEEROOOOOOY JENKINS!’-- admitting the DI stole XVIVO/Harvards damn animation.”

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Princhester

Non-fundie conservatives will think it’s a load of crap, is my guess. However, it is politically expedient for some (conservatives and liberals alike) to pay lip service to fundie airheads in order to pick their votes, so they will say nothing publically.

Ok, but that only explains the pandering politicians. Why should this sort of cease-fire extend to all the general conservative publications?

Why shouldn’t there be debate within the National Review? Why do libertarians at that organ look the other way?

Answer: NRO isn’t a site for information, it’s a big pander party. Both wings enter that website for stroke and are willing to support the emotions and feelings of their comrades in the expectation that they too will do the same.
The left lacks such simpering conformity. There is regular back-and-forth on the subject of Israel. Nuclear power is viewed with ambivalence, as are other tools of public policy. Such are the consequences of realism, empiricism and reality-based thinking. Heading over to the Nation, the classic rag of the American left, and this week’s issue has a defense of the NRA’s interpretation of the 2nd amendment vis a vis original intent. I’m not saying this is shocking or amazing; I’m saying it’s the sort of thing that one should expect from a political magazine in the business of informing its readers.

What we need is a better quality, tougher, American conservative.

[HMS_Irruncible]

@BrainGlutton

Yoko Ono is suing Stein for using John Lennon’s song “Imagine” in his film without permission.

Stein could not have dreamed up better publicity for his magnum opus than to be sued by Yoko Ono and Harvard University. “Oh noes! The librulz are hurtsing the truthy again!”

@Measure for Measure

The left lacks such simpering conformity.

I don’t know if you can really go THAT far. Once you stray outside of civil rights, there’s a conspicuous lockstep on a number of liberal bread-and-butter issues like affirmative action.

[Princhester]

I remember certain conservative posters whose response to certain accusations of lack of ethics etc during the conservatives’ campaign during the last presidential election was, ultimately: “We won. Unless you learn to use the tactics we use you will continue to lose. Suck it.”

[Scylla]

expelled is actually a brilliant satirical refutation and condemnation of Michael Moore.

(if you could see me me now you’d be impressed with my “are they buying it?” straight face)

[Boyo_Jim]

@Princhester

I remember certain conservative posters whose response to certain accusations of lack of ethics etc during the conservatives’ campaign during the last presidential election was, ultimately: “We won. Unless you learn to use the tactics we use you will continue to lose. Suck it.”

Bill Clinton had that down. Remember when he lost a primary and declared himself the “comeback kid” because he didn’t lose as badly as expected?

[jayjay]

@Boyo Jim

Bill Clinton had that down. Remember when he lost a primary and declared himself the “comeback kid” because he didn’t lose as badly as expected?

To be fair, he was facing the same kind of revelations that tied an anvil to Gary Hart’s leg 4 years earlier and dropped him in the ocean off Bimini.

[Boyo_Jim]

@jayjay

To be fair, he was facing the same kind of revelations that tied an anvil to Gary Hart’s leg 4 years earlier and dropped him in the ocean off Bimini.

I don’t recall the womanizing being an issue before his first election, though I could certainly be wrong about that.

[jayjay]

@Boyo Jim

I don’t recall the womanizing being an issue before his first election, though I could certainly be wrong about that.

Gennifer Flowers erupted right before the New Hampshire primary, IIRC.

In January 1992, Clinton led Tsongas by a solid 16 points with nobody else even close. But Clinton was undone by two damaging stories that cut against his credibility. The first was the revelation of his affair by Gennifer Flowers, a former night club singer and television reporter from Little Rock, Arkansas. Clinton blunted this story with an interview on 60 Minutes at the conclusion of Super Bowl XXVI, where he flatly denied (which was subsequently revealed to be a lie when Clinton testified during the Paula Jones law suit) having had this affair. The story that caused Clinton greater damage, however, was the notion that he had ‘dodged the draft’ in order to avoid military service in the Vietnam War. The draft story put Clinton in what pollster Stan Greenberg called ‘meltdown.’ Clinton lost nearly twenty points in less than a week.

[Boyo_Jim]

There I go, wrong again.

[BrainGlutton]

@wolf in second hand clothing

I love how they throw in the part about how, you know, they didn’t steal the animation, but if they did that would still be legal. But they still didn’t steal it. Oh no.

It’s called arguing or pleading “in the alternative.” Lawyers do it all the time; it’s entirely proper.

[dropzone]

@Boyo Jim

Bill Clinton had that down. Remember when he lost a primary and declared himself the “comeback kid” because he didn’t lose as badly as expected?

And “Bolshevik” used to mean, “a member of the majority.” In my long and sad experience, “a member of the majority” has rarely meant “those who are correct.” Usually, and said with as few sour grapes as possible because I do not wish to be accused of being the elitist that I am, it means the opposite.

[JRDelirious]

@Scylla

expelled is actually a brilliant satirical refutation and condemnation of Michael Moore.

(if you could see me me now you’d be impressed with my “are they buying it?” straight face)

Y’see, if it had been Paul Verhoeven directing it, we could argue whether it is a brilliant parody OF a satirical refutation of Michael Moore…

BTW, Yoko Ono may be in her 5th decade of needing to Get Over Herself but yeah, you’re supposed to get proper permissions to use copyrighted material. The producers are arguing “fair use” but I suppose she does NOT want the music associated with this sort of enterprise (Yet why in the world would they think the expected audience of this film would feel reassured by John Lennon – indeed why ANYONE should CARE about his views on evolution – is beyond me).

[Brown_Eyed_Girl]

@BrainGlutton

Yoko Ono is suing Stein for using John Lennon’s song “Imagine” in his film without permission.

From the article:

The producers cited the fair use doctrine, which allows the use of copyrighted materials for the purposes of commentary and criticism.

“We are disappointed therefore that Yoko Ono and others have decided to challenge our free speech right to comment on the song ‘Imagine’ in our documentary film,” they said in a statement.

I haven’t seen the movie, but I’m curious. How is the song used in the movie? Is there actual commentary on the song or are they critiquing it? Exactly what does it have to do with ID or, for that matter, evolution?

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Cosmic Relief

I don’t know if you can really go THAT far. Once you stray outside of civil rights, there’s a conspicuous lockstep on a number of liberal bread-and-butter issues like affirmative action.

1. Nitpick: affirmative action seems to me to be inside of civil rights, but…

2. Let’s test that hypothesis. This is the 2nd time I’ve visited The Nation’s website at least recently, IIRC. (The first time was earlier in this thread). Let’s see what happens if I type “Affirmative Action” into their search engine. The first hit reads,

Affirmative action, while generally a good and necessary thing, has always been more complicated than its supporters admit. It inspires a backlash; it often promotes people who are underprepared for their assigned tasks; and it attaches a stigma to those who do succeed on their own, often with a crushing psychological burden. Yet another problem is how easily it can be manipulated for nefarious purposes.

I’d say that’s a paragraph written by someone in the business of informing their readers. Pretty terse criticism, eh?

And this is The Nation for bog’s sake. More liberal than The New Republic, never mind the oh-so-scary New York Times.

Sorry, but the true ideological zombies are Communists, Islamic Fundamentalists and Republicans.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Brown Eyed Girl

From the article:

I haven’t seen the movie, but I’m curious. How is the song used in the movie? Is there actual commentary on the song or are they critiquing it? Exactly what does it have to do with ID or, for that matter, evolution?

It showed images of Nazi Germany and Communist Russia underneath the lyrics – juxtaposing lines like “…and no religion too” with a shot of Stalin. Real subtle stuff. Basically they were trying to demonize atheism (which the movie constantly conflates with evolutionary theory as part of its imaginary doctrine of “Dawinism”).

[whitetho]

@Measure for Measure

Why shouldn’t there be debate within the National Review? Why do libertarians at that organ look the other way?

It is a rare counter-example, but three years ago John Derbyshire wrote a strong defense of Darwin in National Review Online, Teaching Science: The president is wrong on Intelligent Design. which stated such things as:

Darwinism is the essential foundation for all of modern biology and genomics, and offers a convincing explanation for all the phenomena we can observe in the life sciences. It may be that, as we get to finer levels of detail, we shall find gaps and discrepancies in Darwinism that need new theories to explain them. This is a normal thing in science, and new theories will be worked out to plug the gaps, as happened with Newtonism a hundred years ago. If this happens, nobody — no responsible scientist — will be running round tearing his hair, howling “Darwinism is a theory in crisis!” any more than the publication of Einstein’s great papers a hundred years ago caused physicists to make bonfires of the Principia.