Ben Stein is in a new movie called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. It appears to be typical creationist/intelligent design whining about how their religion should be taught as science. (If you want more about this, I recommend the excellent blog The Panda’s Thumb.) And poor Darwin, who was a practicing Christian, is abused most shamefully.
But the extra-fun thing about Expelled is that there’s an article in the New York Times today about how they’ve been lying about their movie to get interviews with prominent scientists. Because God just looooves deceivers! P.Z. Myers of Pharyngula adds:
We were lied to, and they tricked us. It’s that simple. They ought to simply ‘fess up to it — it’s not as if we can take legal action against them or do anything to suppress their movie, since we all signed quite legal releases. They ought to take a little pride in the fact that, in their dedication to Jesus, they successfully deceived Richard Dawkins, Eugenie Scott, myself, and who knows how many others.
September 28, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Keep up the tantrums. Your only reasonable complaint would be if the producers perform deceptive editing, which has yet to be seen. Giving an accurate soapbox to such as P.Z. Meyers is simply a public service. Wouldn’t you want his wisdom to be better known? Or is giving more publicity to the opinions of Meyers, et al violating some sort of private cosa nostra? Shouldn’t his heartfelt opinions, accurately conveyed, only help your side? If not, why not? You seem mighty afraid of something. Perhaps Meyers should simply take the brave step of stifling his opinions if he thinks they will not be well received. But that seems kind of dishonorable. Really, where is the problem here?
September 28, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Oh, I am most happy to see PZ Myers get an accurate soapbox and as much publicity as his religion-bashing little heart desires. In fact, PZ said in both the NYT article and in his blog that he would still have agreed to be interviewed for Expelled had he known its true aim. It’s just the lying about the moviemakers’ true intentions that is so…entertaining, considering what the Bible says about lying.