Snookered by creationists
Scientists Feel Miscast in Film on Life’s Origin
By CORNELIA DEAN
A few months ago, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins received an e-mail message from a producer at Rampant Films inviting him to be interviewed for a documentary called “Crossroads.”
The film, with Ben Stein, the actor, economist and freelance columnist, as its host, is described on Rampant’s Web site as an examination of the intersection of science and religion. Dr. Dawkins was an obvious choice. An eminent scientist who teaches at Oxford University in England, he is also an outspoken atheist who has repeatedly likened religious faith to a mental defect.
But now, Dr. Dawkins and other scientists who agreed to be interviewed say they are surprised — and in some cases, angered — to find themselves not in “Crossroads” but in a film with a new name and one that makes the case for intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism. The film, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” also has a different producer, Premise Media.
The film is described in its online trailer as “a startling revelation that freedom of thought and freedom of inquiry have been expelled from publicly-funded high schools, universities and research institutions.” According to its Web site, the film asserts that people in academia who see evidence of a supernatural intelligence in biological processes have unfairly lost their jobs, been denied tenure or suffered other penalties as part of a scientific conspiracy to keep God out of the nation’s laboratories and classrooms.
Mr. Stein appears in the film’s trailer, backed by the rock anthem “Bad to the Bone,” declaring that he wants to unmask “people out there who want to keep science in a little box where it can’t possibly touch God.”
(Continued here.)
By CORNELIA DEAN
A few months ago, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins received an e-mail message from a producer at Rampant Films inviting him to be interviewed for a documentary called “Crossroads.”
The film, with Ben Stein, the actor, economist and freelance columnist, as its host, is described on Rampant’s Web site as an examination of the intersection of science and religion. Dr. Dawkins was an obvious choice. An eminent scientist who teaches at Oxford University in England, he is also an outspoken atheist who has repeatedly likened religious faith to a mental defect.
But now, Dr. Dawkins and other scientists who agreed to be interviewed say they are surprised — and in some cases, angered — to find themselves not in “Crossroads” but in a film with a new name and one that makes the case for intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism. The film, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” also has a different producer, Premise Media.
The film is described in its online trailer as “a startling revelation that freedom of thought and freedom of inquiry have been expelled from publicly-funded high schools, universities and research institutions.” According to its Web site, the film asserts that people in academia who see evidence of a supernatural intelligence in biological processes have unfairly lost their jobs, been denied tenure or suffered other penalties as part of a scientific conspiracy to keep God out of the nation’s laboratories and classrooms.
Mr. Stein appears in the film’s trailer, backed by the rock anthem “Bad to the Bone,” declaring that he wants to unmask “people out there who want to keep science in a little box where it can’t possibly touch God.”
(Continued here.)
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1 Comments:
I am shocked, shocked, that such emminent scientists as Professors Dawkins and Scott (among others) were dastardly fooled. Could it be, possibly, because they are fools? Please, doctors, aside from flattering your egos, if someone asks for an interview to be archived in a film consider taping a 3x5 card to your arm and read it often enough so that it is memorized:
1. Is this film sponsored by Creationist or Intelligent Design interests?
2. What is the interviewer's motivation?
3. What is the purpose and the audience for the film?
4. Have contract stipulate that your comments may not be edited
5. Reserve the right to have the questions submitted to you beforehand.
6. Have a list of other subject authorities appearing in the film provided to you beforehand
7. Refuse to participate if denied any of the above.
This same comic opera was exhibited on the film "What the Bleep Do We Know". Professional scientists appearing as subject-matter experts were flim-flammed into appearing in on screen interviews, totally unaware of the plot, intended audience, producer's motivation, and central message. They were shocked, just shocked, that its thesis was the mystical causes and effects of scientific phenomena. I am shocked as well at the lack of basic common sense. The naivety of these authoritative figures is hip-slappingly hilarious -worthy of the Marx Brother's "Duck Soup".
Ken Fowler
Dallas, TX.
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