Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed « Caffeinated Thoughts

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

April 18, 2008 by Shane Vander Hart

I’m looking forward to watching this movie this weekend. Below is a preview.

Here is an interview that Ben Stein did on the O’Reilly Factor:

This is interesting because not only is this a Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design issue, but really a free speech issue at play as well. It should be good. Go see it if you have a chance, especially opening weekend. If it does well it will open in even more theaters.

Time to stop giving Darwinism a free pass.

Technorati Tags: Expelled Movie,Ben Stein,Bill O’Reilly,Darwinism,Intelligent Design,free speech

Posted in Apologetics/Worldview, Politics and News | Tagged Ben Stein, Bill O'Reilly, Darwinism, Expelled Movie, free speech, Intelligent Design | 15 Comments

15 Responses

on April 18, 2008 at 4:15 pm Selena

Ben Stein is so freaking hot!

J/kidding. I am happy about this film!!
on April 18, 2008 at 4:43 pm Shane Vander Hart

LOL. Me too. Thanks for your comment.
on April 18, 2008 at 5:42 pm Matt

I am not sure how, at all, this could be regarded a free speech issue. Care to elaborate?

Also, there is simply no such thing as Darwinism.
on April 18, 2008 at 5:48 pm Shane Vander Hart

That is the premise in the movie… we saw that here in Iowa, when a well qualified professor at Iowa State was denied tenure because… he wrote an article in support of intellegent design based on science.

That is just one example that I have personal knowledge of.

What do you mean there is no such thing as Darwinism? I guess the Britannica Encyclopedia is wrong.

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9029409/Darwinism
on April 18, 2008 at 5:56 pm Matt

I guess it is. There is no field of science recognised by science called ‘Darwinism’. There’s the Theory of Evolution and that’s about it.

And the name of this professor denied tenure? It wasn’t ol’ Gonzalez was it?

I’ll give you a little clue right now. Every cases of supposed discrimination brought forth in ‘Expelled’ has already been shown to be false. Sternberg, Crocker, Gonzalez … even casual research shows that they either lied about what happened or simply didn’t meet academic standards.
on April 18, 2008 at 10:29 pm Shane Vander Hart

Matt – I’ll discuss Gonzalez because that is the one I’m familiar with. I haven’t seen the movie yet, and I’m not sure how you have intimate details about it since it is just coming out this weekend.

But I digress.

From an article back in May of 07:

An assistant professor who supports intelligent design and was denied tenure at Iowa State University (ISU) was found to have the highest score among the entire faculty, according to the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS),which calculates the scientific impact of scientists in astronomy.
The Discovery Institute, a think tank of intelligent design (ID) proponents, is again advocating for Guillermo Gonzalez to receive tenure, and argues that the school’s refusal is a result of their bias against ID – which holds that the biological aspects of life are too complex to have evolved randomly, but must have been produced by an unidentified intelligence. Gonzalez is author of the pro-ID book The Privileged Planet.
“In other words, Iowa State denied tenure to a scientist whose impact on his field during the past six years outstripped all of the university’s existing tenured astronomers according to a prestigious Smithsonian/NASA database,” said Dr. John West, associate director of the Center for Science and Culture (CSC), on the Discovery Institute website.
The ranking system is devised on how much a scientist impacts other colleagues’ research. The more times a person’s papers are cited in other scientific articles or research, the more weight that person receives.
The citation index is normalized since multiple people often author an article, so an article that is cited with more than one author will be weighted less than a paper which has only one author.
The score here looked at articles published from 2001-2007. Calculating Gonzalez normalized index, he received a score of 143. The next closest professor on the ISU staff had a score of 103 and the next best tenured astronomer was 68.
“It’s important to stress that the normalized citation counts for 2001-2007 only include citations to articles published during the most recent 6 years, yet Gonzalez is still the top ranked in his department,” explained Casey Luskin, M.S., J.D., who computed the citation counts using the Smithsonian/NASA data system, on the Discovery website. “These statistics refute any claim that Gonzalez’s scholarly productivity and impact ‘trailed off’ since coming to Iowa State.”
Looking at the years individually, Gonzalez received the top scores in his department in 2001, 2003, and 2006 and came in second in 2002.
In last week’s Chronicle of Higher Education, the pro-ID astronomer also had the top “h-index” statistic among the ISU astronomy department. In the same way, scientists are measured by how often articles are cited by other scientists. Gonzalez’s score of 13 bested the next highest of 9.
“This new data adds to the mounting evidence that Gonzalez may have been denied tenure at ISU not because of his record as a scientist,” added Luskin, “but because of discrimination against his views in support of intelligent design.”
ISU is one of many schools that have already drafted a statement that negate use of ID thought as scientific. Although the school does not want to be aligned with the disputed idea, according to professors at the school, the university had begun to be labeled as an “ID school.”
Gonzalez, who has written 68 peer-reviewed journals (53 more than the 15 required by his department to meet its standard of excellence in research), says that he does not teach ID in class, however, and that it is purely outside research.
Apart from his work on ID, the denied professor has helped in the discovery of two planets, helped build technology that discovered extrasolar planets, and wrote a college-level astronomy textbook published by Cambridge University.
He was one of three professors not given tenure out of a total of 66 professors at ISU.
“For an untenured assistant professor to best nearly everyone in his department in lifetime normalized citations is most impressive,” concluded Luskin, “and it makes even more indefensible the university’s decision to deny him tenure.”
Generally, individuals that are denied tenure leave their university.

If you would have done casual research you would have found that. I am not going to say every pro-ID scientist that has been dismissed or denied tenure hasn’t had that done on merit. But to wholely dismiss everyone? Not likely that is true.

BTW – Darwinism doesn’t just encompass the teaching of the theory of evolution, but also a philosophy that many times accompanies those teaching it. Not everyone, but many.

My thing is why not be allowed to question it? The Theory has holes that need to be explored and questions that need to be answered.
on April 18, 2008 at 11:30 pm Matt

Oh, please. Gonzalez’s record was very poor indeed during his nine years at ISU, which is solely what his tenure application was based on. The same as every other person.

The level of funding he attracted was incredibly small, his work with graduate students was almost non-existent while his publication record while at ISU was well before expectations of faculty members.

http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.php/the-truth/gonzalez

I suggest you try another case of supposed discrimination.
on April 18, 2008 at 11:33 pm Matt

As for questioning Darwinism? It’s not even a philosophy let alone a recognised part of science. That’s like calling something ‘Einsteinsism’ or ‘Newtoniansm’ or ‘Millerism’, it simply doesn’t work.

And people do investigate the Theory of Evolution. Each and every day. These people are called scientists and they hope they actually can disprove it, since it’d make their names go down in scientific history.

What science does not allow is hypotheses with no actual scientific merit to come along and try to force it’s way into universities, classrooms and science text books.
on April 19, 2008 at 12:03 am Shane Vander Hart

Matt, please point out in my comments or the original blog post did I call Darwinism a science? I didn’t. You are missing my point. There is the theory of evolution, and then there are philosophical presuppositions that many who buy into the theory of evolution hold. Darwinism, would be the philosophy.

I.D has no scientific merit? There are a growing number of scientists who would disagree.

The main problem is with macroevolution, not with microevolution. The theory about life’s origin have holes and don’t have much support either, but yet it is touted as indisbutable fact by many who hold this view.

From Intelligentdesign.org
What is intelligent design?

Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system’s components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.

Is intelligent design the same as creationism?

No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the “apparent design” in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural.
Honest critics of intelligent design acknowledge the difference between intelligent design and creationism. University of Wisconsin historian of science Ronald Numbers is critical of intelligent design, yet according to the Associated Press, he “agrees the creationist label is inaccurate when it comes to the ID [intelligent design] movement.” Why, then, do some Darwinists keep trying to conflate intelligent design with creationism? According to Dr. Numbers, it is because they think such claims are “the easiest way to discredit intelligent design.” In other words, the charge that intelligent design is “creationism” is a rhetorical strategy on the part of Darwinists who wish to delegitimize design theory without actually addressing the merits of its case.

Is intelligent design a scientific theory?

Yes. The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion. Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.
on April 19, 2008 at 12:17 am Shane Vander Hart

Last comment about Dr. Gonzalez
I.S.U.’s explanation was a sham. Some Q&A about his story.
A bunch of info can be found here.
I think I’m in a better position living only a 1/2 hour away from the University and hearing all the news as it was happening. There is a lot behind this story that your source isn’t mentioning.
I’ll never convince you though, so this is really a wasted effort.
on April 19, 2008 at 12:30 am Matt

The theory of evolution is not in any way related to philosophy, just the same way the theory of relativity isn’t. They are no links at all. It’s not how science works. It’d be like trying to blame Gravity for falling down and grazing your knee, it’s a leap of logic which illustrates a huge misunderstanding about the nature of science.

A growing number of scientists? Um, sure. I guess that is the reason we see so many peer reviewed papers and research on the subject … oh wait, we don’t.

Ah, ol’ micro and macro evolution. That’s more or less a strawman constructed by creationists and IDers. You’d be hard pressed to find a biologist who actually agrees with such a classification. Regardless, try here for some actual evidence: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
Fully referenced and backed by actual experiments, observations and so on.

And yet, no one has ever been able to refute such findings and instead blindly claim that little to no evidence exists. I guess they simply have not done much research into the subject themselves.

‘Hearing all sorts of things’. So you take heresay and gossip as evidence now, hm? Interesting. There is simply no evidence of any discrimination and yet every indication that Gonzalez simply failed to meet academic standards that were expected of him to gain tenure.
on April 19, 2008 at 11:52 pm Expelled - A Must Watch « Caffeinated Thoughts

[...] debate is Richard Dawkins, author of the God Delusion. By the way, just a quick digression, one commenter in my last post said there is no such thing as Darwinism – at least three of the ID dissenters [...]
on April 22, 2008 at 10:30 am Foxfier

*cough*

Matt, you are aware of the guy who was fired for printing a peer-reviewed article in support of ID, right? That would rather make folks unlikely to, oh, PRINT ARTICLES.

Evolution *should not* be related to philosophy– it should just be a theory which folks support or defend with logic, scientific research and evidence.

Problem being, that isn’t happening.

BTW, might want to check what the folks who denied tenure said when they thought no-one was listening….
http://www.uncommondescent.com/the-design-of-life/gonzalez-tenure-case-university-admins-credibility-in-shreds-as-truth-emerges/
Short version: they went looking for a reason to deny tenure *because* of his ID work.

the chairman of ISU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dr. Eli Rosenberg, stated in Dr. Gonzalez’s tenure dossier that Dr. Gonzalez’s support for intelligent design “disqualifies him from serving as a science educator
on April 22, 2008 at 5:18 pm Matt

Sternberg wasn’t fired for printing a pro-ID article, which you would know if you did some independent research of your own.

He had long before announced he was stepping down as editor and the approval of that article was his parting act. He then got into trouble for approving that paper because he failed to comply with long standing editorial procedures and guidelines. When the paper was reviewed by the full panel of the journal, it was found to be severely lacking in several areas and would never have been approved if Sternberg hadn’t cut corners.

So no, Sternberg wasn’t fired from the Journal – he retired and broke guidelines and procedures as he left.

If you’re referring to the Smithsonian affair, he wasn’t fired from there either. In fact, he was never employed at the Smithsonian … instead he was granted Research Associate privileges, which is an unpaid position but he gets 24/7 access to the buildings resources and some research space.
Guess what? He still, to this day, has all of those.
on April 22, 2008 at 8:45 pm Foxfier

Matt-

why don’t we go to the prime source, IE, the person accused?

http://www.rsternberg.net/

In the case of the Meyer paper I followed all the standard procedures for publication in the Proceedings. As managing editor it was my prerogative to choose the editor who would work directly on the paper, and as I was best qualified among the editors I chose myself, something I had done before in other appropriate cases. In order to avoid making a unilateral decision on a potentially controversial paper, however, I discussed the paper on at least three occasions with another member of the Council of the Biological Society of Washington (BSW), a scientist at the National Museum of Natural History. Each time, this colleague encouraged me to publish the paper despite possible controversy.

Note: I never mentioned the Smithsonian.
Note: you offer no proof he violated procedure.
Note: he was pressured to pervert the peer-review system, yet did not.
Note: http://www.rsternberg.net/OSC_ltr.htm shows that he was found to have been wronged.
Note: “In order to avoid making a unilateral decision on a potentially controversial paper, however, I discussed the paper on at least three occasions with another member of the Council of the Biological Society of Washington (BSW), a scientist at the National Museum of Natural History. Each time, this colleague encouraged me to publish the paper despite possible controversy.”
Note: “The Society and the Proceedings are not officially affiliated with the SI or the NMNH, yet they maintain a close symbiotic relationship through its leadership and payments made for publications”

Also, in response to your statement that he still had privileges:
The first thing they did was to check your official status with the SI to see if you could be let go for cause for the Meyer article and the information found in your unofficial background investigation. Then they tried a more sophisticated strategy by arguing that since your sponsor died shortly before the Meyer article was published that you could be denied access on that basis. Within two weeks of receiving the Meyer article in the Proceedings, four managers at the SI and NMNH expressed their desire to have your access to the SI denied.

Failure to remove his access is really NOT a major bonus, double that since the article published had NOTHING to do with the SI.

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Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

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