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Help defend science: flunked not expelled
Author: cbit on April 18 2008 Viewed 7773 times. 29 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
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Apologies, a completely non-music related post.
The creationist/ID friendly pseudo documentary called Expelled will be screening near you soon. In the film, Ben Stein claims that scientists critical of the theory of evolution are being silenced by the powers behind "big science". Through ham fisted montages the film also tries to establish a link between the theory of evolution and Nazism and other genocidal ideologies.
Christian fundamentalists are lobbying hard to promote this film, even offering incentives to school groups to go and see it.
A counter site has been launched by the national center for science education that lists, and refutes, the lies and important omissions of the expelled film.
Publishing hyperlinks to the expelled exposed site, using 'expelled' as the visible link text, will help make the counter site more visible in search engines, and help ensure that people really do hear 'both sides' of the story. If you can, please help out.
Here's a review of the film:
link
Digging this page will help spread the word too (there's a subtle digg link beneath this blog post)
edit: "help defend science" == shorthand for 'help protect people from being robbed of the chance to understand the scientific method, to understand the crucial importance of evidence based reason in evaluating truth claims, to understand the principles or critical thought, to appreciate the enormous weight of evidence in support of evolutionary theory.' | |
Comments
04/22/08
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flies
tantan said: "I don't care whether he's "real." Empirical reality is often overrated. If some people choose to use mythology as their gateways to enlightenment or whatever you want to call it, I see no harm in this so long as the mythology is recognized for what it is."
if you care that mythology be recognized for what it is, then you do care whether santa is real. I don't think you disagree, but your verbiage is unclear. On a certain level (the meaning of the santa myth), that he does not exist is not so important (see below). However, one only reaches the point of considering santa as a myth by acknowledging that he doesn't exist.
One could also consider 'the myth of abe lincoln'. born in a log cabin, freed the slaves, etc etc. There is a mythology surrounding the man. Lincoln did exist and Santa didn't, therefore the myths surrounding the two of them have different meanings. From this perspective, whether or not santa exists is directly pertinent to the meaning of his myth. This is why i'm taking issue with your statement 'i don't care...'. This is why i think fred is harmed by being shielded from the 'truth' about santa. clearly how young fred is has some relevance to whether or not he deserves to know 'the truth'.
04/22/08
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flies
cbit said: " dach said: "Your rock solid faith that science is true is also subject to ignoring very obvious things."
What on earth do you mean by 'science is true' (or false for that matter)? This is unintelligible."
in my experience, i have found scientific reasoning to be effective. my belief in science is not faith.
04/22/08
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flies
Fredo said: "I think it's a bit rude the way you keep referring to "these magical people." It's a bit haughty and elitist....
It certainly is a very biased choice of words."
Just because this elitism thing is going around, i am a little more annoyed by this than i might be otherwise.
when one speaks of a viewpoint that one finds foolish, it is appropriate to characterize it in terms that bring out the form of the foolishness. Only the fact that most people seem to be victim to the foolishness makes the remark appear elitist. It's almost as though galileo would be considered an 'elitist' for believing that the earth goes 'round the sun.
04/23/08
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crabster
fakeBlooper: haha, more puns!
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