Wheat-dogg’s world
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The big anti-evolution “blockbuster,” Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, was supposed to be shown at a private screening here tonight. For unspecified reasons, that showing has been postponed indefinitely. Whether the preview arrives before the national release of April 18 is debatable, so I decided to take a look at the “supertrailer” on the Expelled website.

The movie’s agenda is clear as day. If you were hoping for a fair review of creationism, Intelligent Design and evolution, stay home. Expelled is about as subtle as a brick through a picture window.

As the supertrailer opens, we see a janitor cleaning up a hallway, the camera pulls back and turns toward a door marked “Biology 101.” Inside, we see a man writing on the chalkboards in a large lecture hall, “Do not question authority” and “Do not question Darwinism.” Apparently, he was a bad boy.

Meanwhile, Ben Stein’s voiceover tells us of his search for answers and of his belief, that “everything that exists was created by a loving God.” He says he understands that others, including very intelligent people, believe otherwise, that despite the “spark of the divine” in all humans, they believe we arose from “pure dumb fate or chance.”

People are entitled to believe whatever they like, Stein’s monologue continues, and they are free to express those thoughts. Or so he thought …

I got this email today from savetheinternet.com, and I am reprinting it here. While the target audience is John Yarmuth’s constituents in the Third Congressional District-Kentucky, it applies to anyone. Keeping the Internet “neutral” means everyone has equal access to the “intertubes,” regardless of their need or size or financial wherewithal. The big telecommunication firms would prefer to control the ‘Net’s bandwidth for their own purposes.

The Internet is the first medium that gives everyone true freedom of expression and information, just as the Constitution guarantees. Don’t let anyone infringe on that right.

Well, here’s another review of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, but this one highlights the actual preview experience as no other has so far.

The screening was amateur, from the sound of it. Rather than using an actual print of the movie (or a high-res digital version), the producers showed the film using a laptop and a digital projector! This for a movie that is due to be released nationally in less than a month.

Since a laptop was playing the film, the sound was bad. Not exactly the best theater experience, either.

The reviewer hints that perhaps the background music during the private screening was not paid for. The tunes include John Lennon’s “Imagine” and The Killer’s “All These Things That I’ve Done,” the rights to which would cost a pretty penny.

The budget for this film was reportedly $3.5 million, much of it bankrolled by wealthy contributors. One would expect a somewhat slicker preview of it.

Not all reviews of Expelled have been negative, to be fair. Predictably, those who are already disposed to oppose evolution and support Intelligent Design/creationism adore the flick. Here’s some links to positive reviews.

Tom Bethell for The American Spectator
Rush Limbaugh on his talk show (audio)
Tom Cashill (Ingram’s Magazine, Kansas City)

It’s also got some thumbs up from Christian and “family-oriented” review sites, with warnings about some images that might be disturbing for younger kids.

Bloomfield Middle School officials had to tell a seventh grade science teacher that she could not teach Intelligent Design (ID) after they received a warning from the Kentucky chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The ACLU letter advised them that the teaching of ID was contrary to “the substantial legal authority establishing the illegality of teaching a religious doctrine within a science curriculum.” The Panda’s Thumb reprinted part of that letter yesterday.

The teacher in question, Adonna Florence, confirmed the gist of the report to me today. I am awaiting details from her, the BMS principal and the ACLU.

Technically, Florence’s introduction of ID into her science classes is not contrary to Kentucky state law.

At one point in history, Kentucky law expressly permitted, but did not require, the teaching of the Biblical creation of Earth and the organisms on it. As part of the Kentucky Education Reform Act, that statute, KRS 158.177, was effectively repealed in 1990 and re-enacted with substantially the same language as before:

I know you’re holding your breath in antici … pation, but getting into a private screening of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed locally will have to wait.

The marketers of Expelled told me today that the private preview showings in Louisville and elsewhere have been rescheduled, “due to unavoidable changes in the travel plans of the producers.” No word yet on when the new date will be here.

Meanwhile, you can read this negative review of the anti-Darwin flick by a blogger for The New Scientist. Amanda Gefler calls the film “silly,” with little science and much religious dogma.

The brouhaha about the creators of the movie booting out biologist PZ Myers from a private screening last week may have been a calculated risk. Bad publicity is still publicity, and one of the producers, Mark Mathis, is an expert at manipulating the media. This blogger details the background of Mathis, who heads his own public relations firm, Mathis Media.

One wonders if the Myers ejection and the postponed private screenings are all deliberate ways to build up anticipation for the film, which most critical (that is, thinking) reviewers say is a real dog. I predict they lose money on this flick.

As its official April 18 release date nears, the hoopla about the anti-evolution extravaganza, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed has made some strange turns.

Last week, organizers of a private screening in Minneapolis Thursday famously ejected a vocal critic of the movie and Intelligent Design/creationism in general, despite his having an invitation to attend it. University of Minnesota-Morris bio professor PZ Myers immediately blogged about his removal in Pharyngula, and the news quickly spread throughout the blogosphere and was even written up in The New York Times.

The producer of the film admits that he had Myers ejected because he wanted Myers to pay to attend the movie. IDist Denyse O’Leary reprinted this tidbit on her blog:

March 24, 2008: Update note from line producer Mark Mathis, who writes me to say:

You should know that I invited Michael shermer to a screening at NRB in Nashville. He came and is writing a review for scientific American. I banned pz because I want him to pay to see it. Nothing more.

As did many other people on either side of the debate, Myers went to the Expelled website to request an invitation to the private screening. After filling out his name, address, phone, etc., Myers got an email confirming his invitation. So, Mathis’ ejecting of Myers was just petty. Shermer and other anti-ID/creationism critics have been allowed to attend.

ScienceBlogs blogger PZ Myers was pulled out of a theater queue and told he would not be allowed to preview Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed at a screening at the University of Minnesota last night. The organizers of the event did permit Myers’ family and their guest, noted biologist Richard Dawkins, in, however.

Myers and Dawkins both appear — somewhat unwillingly — in the movie.

Myers is a UM biologist and an atheist, and excoriates creationism and Intelligent Design regularly in his blog. If the creators of Expelled have a dartboard in their office, Myers’ photo is probably thumbtacked to it.

In order to attend a preview of the movie, you visit their site and register for the screening. Registrants have to provide name, address, email and phone number.* Myers is well known in his town, and on the blogosphere, so his registration probably alerted their watchdogs. Either that, or they were specifically looking for him in the crowd.

Dawkins, another well known “evilutionist,” was spotted later in the audience. As this eyewitness report on the Expelled website puts it, he was “crashing the party.” (The report also alleges Myers tried to sneak in without a ticket. No tickets were required, and Myers and others there say he was not being disruptive, as the report alleges.)

Wait a minute. The premise of the flick is supposedly that “evolutionists” are squelching the teaching of creationism and Intelligent Design in academia, and persecuting faculty who try to teach those ideas as alternatives to evolution. Instead, the movie’s creators contend, there should be a free and open discussion of the origins of life, giving creationism and ID equal time.

And that’s a big deal because methane is an organic molecule that can be a precursor to life. We know methane exists in our solar system, but the Hubble’s discovery is the first evidence it exists on planets outside our solar system.

Whether it means life is out there remains to be seen. Methane is a simple enough molecule to be created by chemical means. Its existence does not mean living organisms are producing it. (Y’know, like extraterrestrial cow farts.)

Details are at the Hubble Space Telescope site.

At 1:48 am tonight (the 20th), the Sun will be right on the celestial equator. At sunrise, it will come up due east of your location. We northern hemisphere dwellers call this event the vernal (as in spring) equinox. Southern hemisphere types call it the autumnal equinox.

Either way, for one day, we each get about 12 hours of day and 12 of night.

Ancient civilizations held big celebrations around the time of the equinox, since it marked both the end of winter (in the northern hemisphere, anyway) and the beginning of the planting season. Two religious observances, Passover and Easter, are tied to the season. Easter bunnies and Easter eggs are signs of fertility and reproduction, celebrating the rebirth of the land in spring.

Speaking of eggs, it’s a myth that the only time you can balance an egg on its end is during the equinox. In fact, you can do it any old time. The Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, shows you how here:

The Ben Stein movie, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” champions academic freedom, purporting to demonstrate how faculty who believe in Intelligent Design or Creationism are being forced from their jobs by some kind of “evolutionist” hegemony.

The movie, which I have not seen, supports the opinion that someone who does not accept the theory of evolution cannot debate or question the theory in the classroom without fear of reprisal. The rights of anti-evolution faculty and students must be protected, the movie’s creators claim.

It’s another version of the “teach the controversy” canard that IDists and creationists have been passing around for the last few years. First, they create a false controversy (many people doubt evolution is valid). Second, they contend that “evolutionists” are forcing this “controversial” theory down students’ throats. Then, they insist that other theories must be given “equal time” somehow in the classroom to give students a full education.

This strategy to introduce ID and creationism in the public school classrooms failed miserably in Dover, Penn., after a federal judge (a Republican appointee) ruled that ID was just another form of creationism, that is, it was religion. Therefore, he said, ID cannot be taught in a public school without violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

So now the ID/creationist tactic is to focus on the “academic freedom” to question evolution. The plan is to appeal to the public’s sense of fairness and belief in free speech rather than to concoct a controversy from whole cloth.