Quote:
Originally Posted by mlurp
I like Ben Stein's dry humor... But this is for all of you not just me to express my ideas. The story has links in it if you want more.
Opinion
Brent Bozell III
Ben Stein Vs. Sputtering Atheists Fri Apr 18, 3:00 AM ET
Ben Stein Vs. Sputtering Atheists - Yahoo! News |
I like fictional stories too:
Colorado Confidential:: Science Sunday: Intelligent Design Goes to the Movies
The best part of the review: "For instance, the assumption by IDers is that if neo-Darwinian evolution can be shown to be largely incorrect, ID and creationism triumph. But this isn't so. There are other hypotheses besides design or God or Darwin that could replace it, if they were supported by the evidence. The trouble is that only evolution is so supported. "Expelled" doesn't try to build up a coherent alternative theory. It simply bashes evolution."
Another hilarious observation: "The confusion about the definition of ID is apparent throughout the movie. "Expelled" ridicules a hypothesis proposed some years ago called "panspermia." This conjecture - for which, I hasten to add, there is zero direct evidence (just like ID) -- is that life on earth was originated elsewhere in the galaxy and was planted here, either delivered by alien visitors or remotely somehow. "Expelled," and the audience I saw it with, found this idea laugh-out-loud funny. But think about it. This is exactly ID's hypothesis: Some superintelligence planted life on earth. IDers prefer that the "intelligence" be the God of Abraham, but there's nothing in the hypothesis to rule out visitors from another galaxy."
And then there's this little problem with the "perfection" IDers think they see everywhere: "The ID take on [DNA replication] is: It's so beautiful and complex, a designer must have been behind it. My take on it is: It's so beautiful and complex, why would any designer bother with it? Something like 80 percent of the genetic material in a strand of DNA is not used for anything. It's junk DNA. Surely an intelligent designer could have come up with something simpler."
The most important part of the review: "most evolutionary biologists do not deal with the origins of life. Evolution acts on organisms that already exist. The question of how life came about is not something that Darwinian evolution deals with. "Expelled" acknowledges this, then proceeds to ignore this acknowledgement and fault evolutionary theory for misinterpreting the origins of life. Sigh." And this is the exact seem mistaken conflation the OP makes above. Sigh indeed.