Censoring critics is not at issue here. Do neo-Darwinists have platforms to criticize ID? Sure. There is no “fairness doctrine” floating around that in a movie exposing a problem that you have to give your opponents free reign. Where were Michael Moore’s critics in all of his movies? Expelled is not a discourse on scientific theories. It is a discourse on what is going on in academic science.

Regarding “real research”, I suspect that you will just argue that any of the projects are just religious because of your assertion that ID is religion. Nevertheless, if you ever learn what it really is, here is a starting place for various projects that have been proposed or research that is going on:

http://www.researchintelligentdesign.org/wiki/ID_research

The Hitler material is showing that there are ethical implication of neo-Darwinism. The link is between Darwinism and the research that Hitler allowed to have done.

The examples given by Scientific American (no longer a non-political journal) are not critiques that challenge the entire presupposition of neo-Darwinism–namely that all species came from a single biological source. Their examples only challenge specific ideas within neo-Darwinism. It is not a matter of science versus religion; it is doctrinal science versus a scientific assertion outside of the accepted doctrine.

Regarding Stalin: Stein is not making broad economic and political arguments in this movie. He is showing how highly credentialed scientists are being persecuted for proposing scientific ideas (or allowing those ideas to be debated) by those with power within the scientific establishment. This is an apples/oranges comparison.

1a. I know that’s a common assertion, but it’s simply wrong. All I can do is encourage you to read an ID book– for example, Dembski’s Design Revolution (or check out my posting on ID).

1b. Do you understand that Kent Hovind is a young-earth creationist– and that this is not at all equivalent to old-earth creationists or ID’ers? It’s apples and oranges– or, apples and rocks.

3a. I don’t think you read what I wrote. How can a Christian accept a view of Evolution that eliminates God? And I agree that All Christians accept evolution as change within species.

3b. What is your definition of evolution?

1. Sternberg ignored the proper processes and published the article without proper review. He basically snuck a religious text into a scientific journal. That’s like a priest preaching that there is no God! Should such a priest be allowed to continue preaching?

2. The point is that the Expelled crew systematically censor people to prevent critical voices from being heard.

3. What christians who accept evolution does the film mention? How?

4. What real research does the ID movement have? When even the leaders admit that there is none, your claim rings hollow.

You did not address my point about how whether Hitler supported it or not is irrelevant to whether evolution is valid or not.

And if you don’t think Stalin is a good commentator of science or politics, what makes you think the Expelled crew are? There are countless outright lies in the film.

“What was contended is that their careers have been pushed toward the toilet because of their support for open discussion of ID.”

Which is obviously nonsense, seeing as lots of scientists question darwinism SCIENTIFICALLY and get away with it because they are doing science and not religion like the ID movement is doing. Read more here:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=ben-steins-expelled-review-michael-shermer&page=4

Read under “Questioning Darwinism”.

1. ID is religion. ID is trying to circumvent the scientific provess, and gain scientific recognition without doing science! That’s like a random guy calling himself Ph.D. without going through the proper steps. (Much like Kent Hovind, then.)

2. Dembski is a well known ID proponent, and he actively censors opinions on his site, and bans anyone who doesn’t tow the party line (”ID is the best”, etc.)

3. Lots of christians DO accept evolution. Your definition of evolution is circular, dishonest and extremely biased. (Who are you to decide what methods God may have used? Do you believe that each and every single snow crystal is manually carved out by God, rather than God creating the laws of nature to allow for crystals to form?) Even the pope accepts evolution!

4. No, ID leaders have admitted outright that they have no research.

http://schansblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/expelled-excelled.html

It is excellent and more detailed than mine because he was nutty enough to go into the movie and take notes.

“Scientific theories explain why something happened, explicitly. ID has no scientific evidence.” There is so much wrong with these two statements it is hard to know where to begin. First, science is primarily concerned with what will happen in the future, not the past. Second, there is no more “evidence” for neo-Darwinism than there is for ID or other theories. Third, you do not START with evidence. You start with hypothesis and then move to building experiments that can be used to determine if there is good evidence. The reality is that both ID and neo-Darwinism are really not even theories, but rather hypotheses.

Your explanation of ID is pathetic. Many in the field are not even creationists. Some are theistic evolutionists (a god created and guided the process, but used macro evolution as the mechanism).

Your last paragraph is actually a demonstration of the problem. First, you have not taken the time to actually understand what ID is–you are simply taking the neo-Darwinist propaganda. Second, if you are correct, then there should not be a problem in the world with removing all of the restrictions that are being experienced by supporters of ID to be published. If there is really no “scientific evidence” it will become clear in the journals. Instead, we are having this discussion in the media and the courts.

(Did you see the movie, or are you just quoting stuff from other sources?)

I have also blogged at length on this– after reading Dembski’s book and participating in a debate on ID.

http://schansblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-about-some-intelligent-discussion.html

enjoy!

As stated before, many weren’t actually fired. And if IDers do receive prejudice from the scientific community, it’s for a good reason. It’s not science.

Science is backed up by evidence. Scientific theories explain why something happened, explicitly. ID has no scientific evidence. It explains nothing. It assumes that because humans can’t figure out why something happened, it must have been an “intelligent designer.” The theory muses-some being, at some point, somehow created us. There’s no scientific evidence so it’s not a theory. I laugh when people claim it’s not Creationism.

What they DID show is that the very vocal neo-Darwinists believe that evolution leads to atheism. Atheism seems to have been a bigger influence in Stalin’s economic system of communism rather than the economic system of capitalism.

So if they did mention Stalin, it should have been in the context of “what a poor student of economic history.”