clevohardcore - 12-17-2009 at 08:42 PM
Ben Stein show/movie. Interesting.
Six66Mike - 12-17-2009 at 08:59 PM
I thought it was pretty awesome, watched it a few months ago. The comments of people who watched it were off track I think, they kept trying to
dismiss it or attacking the science. All Ben is trying to do is say evolution has many flaws and being a scientist is about exploring various
hypothesis, yet no scientist will give creationism the time of day to prove or disprove it. They won't put it through any testing, they just ignore
it.
clevohardcore - 12-17-2009 at 09:04 PM
exactly, and he is right. Anything is possible.
tireironsaint - 12-17-2009 at 11:04 PM
Actually, this is bullshit. There is absolutely no science to support creationism in any sense. It's not that there's some sort of conspiracy amongst
the scientific community, it's the plain and simple fact that creationism is absolutely untestable and unprovable through the scientific method.
Creationism, "Intelligent Design" and so forth cannot be tested or examined by scientific methods because by definition they are outside of the realm
of science. Arguing that they must have some form of validity because scientists won't test these "theories" makes no sense. There is absolutely no
evidence, nor is it possible for there to be evidence of anything outside the natural world, how does it make any sense to conclude that something
outside of the natural world is responsible for anything in the natural world, much less responsible for all of it?
Evolution itself is NOT a flawed theory, and I don't even want to get into the definition of the word theory in terms of science, but the fact remains
that evolution is testable and provable and there has NEVER been a theory from religion that meets those same two criteria.
I don't want to stir that whole argument back up between the religious folks on here and the atheists and agnostics, but this movie and the
creationist argument in general are only able to be taken seriously until you look deep enough to realize that there are HUGE gaps in the reasoning
behind them that cannot be explained rationally.
tireironsaint - 12-17-2009 at 11:17 PM
Just to clarify, I see this as a separate issue from religion itself. Believe what you believe, I'm not interested in converting anyone from their
faith, but as far as science goes, there is no basis for creationism or intelligent design. Those two versions of the same idea are not testable by
scientific method because they boil down to the idea that a supernatural being willed the world and everything in it into existence and there is no
way that can be proven through the scientific method.
random - 12-20-2009 at 07:29 PM
I never heard of the film until this thread, but I just watched it. Wow, what a piece of propaganda and - at best - misrepresentations (which we
usually call lies).
First off, it misrepresents the "expelled" individuals and their expulsions. I can spend the time explaining this, but honestly, wikipedia does a
good job overall (though I'd especially attack the claim of Caroline Crocker ever being a "professor" even though wikipedia doesn't, along with
Guillermo Gonzalez being an "expert" though not even having come up for tenure, though this latter one is debatable).
Second, it's funny to me how they spend the first half of the movie distancing ID from religion, then the last 20 minutes focuses on science being
dismissive of religion. Funny in the sense of good propaganda... the stuff that's convincing initially is forgotten by the end, where the opposite
idea becomes convincing.
Richard Dawkins is a dick. No argument from me.
Too many people were attacking Darwin and Darwinian theory. It really came across as them attacking "Origin of Species" which is 200 years old.
Without reading it, I will guarantee it has flaws that even modern evolutionary theorists would attack... this is true of any academic work that is
200 years old. I heard more of an attack on Darwin than on modern evolutionary theory.
ID and evolution *can* be compatible if the ID argument is about inception of life and then allows for evolution. The controversy only arises if ID
denies that evolution happened after inception of life. Inception of life is where ID can sound convincing, especially when confronting scientists
for a claim about the inception of life (see the Dawkins interview at the end of the film). The counter-response is that the "intelligent designer"
of ID would also have to be created from something.
Relating evolution to Social Darwinism was a red herring. Evolution does not require or imply the need for Social Darwinism. I found that part of
the film incredibly offensive. And if you like the ID argument and are religious, keep in mind that one justification for slavery in the US is that
God provided the beasts of burden to serve man, and blacks were considered part of these beasts of burden. Neither science nor religion can make a
credible claim to be free from justifying heinous acts historically.
The problem with ID... IT'S NOT TESTABLE. You can see this also in debates about string theory, as opponents will often point out the problem with
string theory is that it's untestable, and thus isn't a theory. ID is the absence of a testable theory. The basic claim is "some shit that we can't
explain happened, and thus we can't come up with a testable theory."
There's a bunch more that ignored me, but I'm getting bored of typing.
barc0debaby - 12-21-2009 at 01:28 AM
Ben Stein is a piece of shit.
barc0debaby - 12-23-2009 at 01:17 AM
Just to add on to this as I caught part of the flick tonight, what always made some sense to me is that evolution is itself intelligent design. If
their truly is an all knowing all powerful god, he is got to be more than capable of creating a system such as evolution. Its like you have two very
polarized views that are both dead wrong on this issue, but the smug factor is so great that no other ideas are entertained. I mean the big bang
theory is just as retarded sounding as man being made outta dirt and woman from mans rib.
DaveMoral - 12-23-2009 at 03:20 AM
I think unfortunately people don't take the Biblical narrative as an allegorical story nearly enough. They get hung up on it as "history" when, in
fact, sacred history is META-history and doesn't necessarily need to be strictly factual because the story isn't about history, it's about getting to
a higher truth or reality than mere historical fact. That's the function of myth, not the common derogatory "myth" but the "myth" as story to teach a
higher truth. The Bible, the Qur'an, or any other sacred text was never meant to be taken as a science book. They may occasionally have a science fact
or two, or hint at some kind of science fact with poetic or cryptic language. But they aren't science books and to take them as such does a disservice
to the text itself.
There are a lot of scientific theories out there right now that cannot be tested and cannot therefore be falsified. Dark matter/energy, for instance.
Hell, even the Big Bang Theory is untestable ultimately. And yet that is the common secular creation myth. For me personally, to take science as the
only means for approaching truth is foolish and narrow minded. Science is inherently limited to only what can be observed materially. It's a
discipline that can only observe and test the physical, it cannot penetrate the metaphysical. Science can literally NOT disprove the Bible or any
other sacred text simply because those texts deal with an entirely different sort of subject matter even if they have something to say about the
material realm in relation to the immaterial realm that is of primary concern to religion and spirituality.
The Biblical/Abrahamic creation myth is no more disproved than the Greek or Egyptian or Chinese creation myths. Those things only become obsolete to a
society as the teachings are evaluated and accepted or abandoned based upon their perceived value and effectiveness at attaining their goals by the
people of society. Or, also, if they are supressed by a government or other such authority. Religion has nothing to fear from science, because
religion deals with something entirely different. The only way religion could have something to fear from science is if they have cultivated a far to
materialistic outlook in their followers than their teachings warrant.
JawnDiablo - 12-23-2009 at 10:57 AM
I'm a little surprised so many people still give 2 shits about that whole argument in this day.
I'm more interested in how the human race is ending, cause it's bound to happen sooner or later.....at least that's how I'm feeling today.
Ben Stein is a cunt besdes ....just casue I don't really like him.
barc0debaby - 12-23-2009 at 11:39 AM
Stein is the LAST person on earth who should ever narrate a feature length film.