MOVIE: "Expelled"

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reggieM said:
I don’t know how you can support Catholic education and oppose that idea at the same time.

God is not separate from anything. Additionally, the fact that Mathematics is a separate domain from science does not mean that scientists cannot mention or use mathematics in their work. The Catechism does not state that we should exclude God from science, as you apparently, want to do.

I was educated in Catholic schools from grade school to college and God was certainly mentioned as part of science. The Sisters and Catholic laymen who taught me frequently reminded students of God’s power in nature. We were certainly not given a “God excluded” version of science – as apparently, you believe is required by the Catechism.
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I agree with you.

Not all Christians accept the theory of evolution, but you can be a Christian and believe it.

However, if you’re an atheist, you have no choice–you must believe in the theory of evolution.

I think what so many of us Christians object to is the way evolution is used to further the atheistic cause. Every other field of science is open to further inquiry, why not biology? I don’t hear any people complaining because their kids aren’t learning about the Kreb’s cycle or the electron transport chain, yet they must learn neo-Darwinian evolution?

Please, if the issue were really about kids getting an adequate science education, why is evolution the only issue we hear about.

No, it’s clear to me the issue isn’t science or evolution. The real issue is God, and the people who want to drive him out of our society, our lives, and our minds.
 
drpmjhess said:
Janet, I assume you don’t follow biology very closely. If you check out current issues a few of the hundreds of journals in the field http://home.ncifcrf.gov/research/bja/; http://www.bioexplorer.net/Journals/, or the thousands of presentations at annual conferences http://www.smbe.org/, you’ll find that the field is wide open to further inquiry.

Petrus
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But this route is not open to kids in a high school biology class. What they get from a textbook are simple assertions, not close argument. Besides, how many working biologists actually read widely? How many have actually read “origin of Species?” Education is so specialized. They certainly would not in schools learn enough about the intellectual history of the late 19th Century to understand how Darwin’s work was used to justify the materialism of the age.

In any case, getting back to the main topic, what is decried by the film is the way that academic politics works. If your departments consists of Aristotleans, the department is going to teach Aristotle. When new openings occur, they will be filled by people who have written papers on Aristotle. Dissenters are taken on with the understanding that they will mute their dissentions. There is a very human reason why Einstein could not get an academic slot: he didn’t fit the mold.
 
According to Box Office Mojo, Expelled ranked 15th among movies currently showing in the US, with a weekend gross of $678,304. Although the number of theaters showing the film dropped by half in the past week, its per theater gross is holding steady with $1,034 per theater.

Expelled has so far grossed $6.6 million.
 
ReggieM << I don’t know how you can support Catholic education and oppose that idea at the same time. >>

The full quote from the Discovery Institute’s "Wedge Document" (No, it is not a hoax, but initially meant to be read only by DI insiders) is what I object to:

“To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God…we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut if off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy…[we are] broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.”

They want to “change science.” That is not right. The Catechism does suggest science and religion are separate domains. The Catechism does not want to “change science” like the Discovery Institute does.
  1. The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers…
  2. The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated by a question of another order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences. It is not only a question of knowing when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin…
There are “questions of another order” and these questions go “beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences.” Such questions involve ultimate meaning, cause, purpose, objective God-given morality and other ultimates. That’s what I’m talking about when I refer to the Catechism. Also CCC 159 tells us science, God, and religion can never conflict.

Let me explain further. I don’t object to God “being mentioned” in science class. I object to a “science class” – let’s say biology – that contains the follow lectures:

“Hello, class, today we will talk about the dinosaurs. God created them. End of lecture. Are there any questions?”

“Today class we will talk about the bacterial flagella. God created them. End of lecture. Are there any questions?”

“Today class we will learn about the reptiles, birds and mammals. God created them all. Isn’t that nice? End of lecture. Are there any questions?”

Now this might be appropriate if you are Catholic home schooling 5 year olds, but when they get to high school age, real science must be taught. It doesn’t mean God cannot ever be mentioned. If you are Catholic, God should be included, but not at the expense of denying evolution (i.e. real science).

What a Catholic typically learns about science and evolution in a Catholic college or Catholic high school biology class I do not object to. See the things I have linked.

Phil P
 
JanetS << I agree with you. Not all Christians accept the theory of evolution, but you can be a Christian and believe it. However, if you’re an atheist, you have no choice–you must believe in the theory of evolution. >>

I agree. Not all Christians accept the theory of evolution. The term should be accept/reject rather than believe in/not believe in. You don’t “believe in” the earth being round, you accept it is round and not flat, based on the evidence. We’ve seen the pictures.

The Christians who accept the overwhelming evidence for evolution are not ignorant, stupid, insane, wicked, nor tormented, bullied, brainwashed. 👍

Dawkins in his “Review of Blueprints” was of course referring to “common descent” (macroevolution which the 2004 ITC statement calls “virtually certain”) and not “natural selection.” Some scientists do have differences over the role of natural selection, and M. Pigliucci is putting on a conference for such biologists.

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A central issue in making a new theory of evolution is how large a role natural selection, which has come to mean the weeding out of traits that don’t favor survival, gets to play. MIT will publish the findings in 2009 – the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s publication of the Origin of Species. And despite the fact that organizers are downplaying the Altenberg meeting as a discussion about whether there should be a new theory, it already appears a done deal. Some kind of shift away from the population genetic-centered view of evolution is afoot.

Here are the Altenberg 16:

John Beatty, University of British Columbia
Sergey Gavrilets, University of Tennessee
David Sloan Wilson, Binghamton University
Greg Wray, Duke University
Michael Purugganan, New York University
Eva Jablonka, Tel-Aviv University
John Odling-Smee, Oxford University
David Jablonski, University of Chicago
Massimo Pigliucci, SUNY Stony Brook
Stuart Newman, New York Medical College
Gerd Muller, University of Vienna
Gunter Wagner, Yale University
Marc Kirschner, Harvard University
Werner Callebaut, Hasselt University
Eors Szathmary, Collegium Budapest
Alan Love, University of Minnesota

They don’t debate how or whether God did it, that is a philosophical / theological question and perfectly acceptable in a “religion and science” conference. This is strictly a scientific conference on evolution.

Phil P
 
drpmjhess said:
Janet, I assume you don’t follow biology very closely. If you check out current issues a few of the hundreds of journals in the field http://home.ncifcrf.gov/research/bja/; http://www.bioexplorer.net/Journals/, or the thousands of presentations at annual conferences http://www.smbe.org/, you’ll find that the field is wide open to further inquiry.

Petrus
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This post completely ignores Janet’s main point. That doesn’t surprise me, since that is the tactic that has been used repeatedly on this particular thread: Ignore the big picture and try to make the other person feel like you are more educated than she is. This is one of the logical fallacies that was brilliantly pointed out earlier in the thread. Her point was not that Biology is not open to inquiry at all. The point is that it is not open to inquiry in the area of evolution.

Also, I agree with Janet’s point that the Biology curriculum is somehwat arbitrary, yet it is becoming more inflexible as time goes on. Our state has mandated a curriculum for Biology One in high school which starts at the biochemical level, then moves to the cellular level and DNA, does a brief survey of biological classification, and ends with Evolution. Rather than capture the attention of students by first exploring those organisms in their environment that they actually encounter, as used to be done when teachers had control of Biology (nature study, etc.), the State mandates that we have to prepare everyone to be a future scientist (because everyone has equal ability, right?) Biology has become a study that goes from the abstract to the concrete, which is not a good way to reach teenagers.

As a Biology teacher, I found this curriculum to be very difficult to work with when you are dealing with the general population, where only one or two students per class have already decided on a scientific career. Evolution most certainly does not have to be part of the introductory Biology curriculum. It is there for political reasons.

OK, now find the one detail you think is inaccurate and ignore my main point.
 
AnotherChance said:
This post completely ignores Janet’s main point. That doesn’t surprise me, since that is the tactic that has been used repeatedly on this particular thread: Ignore the big picture and try to make the other person feel like you are more educated than she is. This is one of the logical fallacies that was brilliantly pointed out earlier in the thread. Her point was not that Biology is not open to inquiry at all. The point is that it is not open to inquiry in the area of evolution.
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This post completely ignores the main point. The continuous claim that Evolution is not open to inquiry is False. It is simply not true. This has been illustrated repeatedly throughout this thread. Why you insist on repeating this falsehood, I can’t understand.

I also don’t understand why you open your post with absurd claims of arrogance and wrongdoing by the posters who are simply trying to respond the Janet’s points and show her why her statements are incorrect. It’s especially odd when you seem to have no problem with the movie and numerous posters tarring the supporters of science as wicked, misguided, guilty of persecution, etc.

As to your comments about curriculum, I don’t see what that has to do with the science of evolution, or this movie. It sounds like a backwards way to teach HS biology, but I doubt that is the fault of those evil “Darwinists”.
 
RobbyS said:
But this route is not open to kids in a high school biology class. What they get from a textbook are simple assertions, not close argument.
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How does this differ from the way any science is generally taught to high school students? Why single out biology? Why not Physics, or Chemistry?
 
AnotherChance said:
Loved your post. I’m glad you went to see it. I had the same reaction as you when I saw it. I expected it to be hugely slanted, based on what people were saying on the Internet. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t.

Sometimes people get so busy picking apart details, they miss the bigger picture.

I saw the film “Life is Beautiful” again on satellite yesterday. It reminded me once again of the cruelty of the Holocaust. It also highlighted in my mind quite strongly the connection between the atheistic form of Darwinism and the evil that was Hitler. The Holocaust is what is possible when people deny the fact that Man is created in the image of God.

This denial is the only way the concentration camp guards and shower attendants could possible have done their job.
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My point regarding nitpicking was made above by the existence of Tony’s post. Really this earlier post about the Holocaust is the last one I intended to make on this thread, but I couldn’t stand seeing the condescension toward Janet. So to resist temptation to defend fellow Catholics against attacks I would expect to see in atheist academia but not here; I will unsuscribe from this thread. Have fun with your mental convolutions! I won’t get in your way anymore. You won. Does that make you feel superior?
 
tonyl said:
How does this differ from the way any science is generally taught to high school students? Why single out biology? Why not Physics, or Chemistry?
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DESIGN-LOSSERVATORE Jan-17-2006 (510 words) xxxi

Intelligent design not science, says Vatican newspaper article
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Intelligent design is not science and should not be taught as a scientific theory in schools alongside Darwinian evolution, an article in the Vatican newspaper said.

The article said that in pushing intelligent design some groups were improperly seeking miraculous explanations in a way that creates confusion between religious and scientific fields.

At the same time, scientists should recognize that evolutionary theory does not exclude an overall purpose in creation – a “superior design” that may be realized through secondary causes like natural selection, it said.

The article, published in the Jan. 17 edition of L’Osservatore Romano, was written by Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna in Italy.

The problem with intelligent design is that it turns to a “superior cause” – understood though not necessarily named as God – to explain supposed shortcomings of evolutionary science. But that’s not how science should work, the article said.

“If the model proposed by Darwin is held to be inadequate, one should look for another model. But it is not correct methodology to stray from the field of science pretending to do science,” it said.
 
drpmjhess said:
The article said that in pushing intelligent design some groups were improperly seeking miraculous explanations in a way that creates confusion between religious and scientific fields.

At the same time, scientists should recognize that evolutionary theory does not exclude an overall purpose in creation – a “superior design” that may be realized through secondary causes like natural selection, it said.

The article, published in the Jan. 17 edition of L’Osservatore Romano, was written by Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna in Italy.

The problem with intelligent design is that it turns to a “superior cause” – understood though not necessarily named as God – to explain supposed shortcomings of evolutionary science. But that’s not how science should work, the article said.
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Interesting philosophical opinions by this biologist. I can’t see any evidence that he has any credentials in the study of philosophy. But he’s entitled to his opinion anyway – no matter how uninformed.
 
PhilVaz said:
They don’t debate how or whether God did it, that is a philosophical / theological question and perfectly acceptable in a “religion and science” conference. This is strictly a scientific conference on evolution.
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From the site you posted:

“Our idea is nothing less than getting together a high-level group of biologists **and philosophers ** to have a frank exchange of ideas about what, if anything, might a new Extended Evolutionary Synthesis look like.”
 
ReggieM << “Our idea is nothing less than getting together a high-level group of biologists and philosophers to have a frank exchange of ideas about what, if anything, might a new Extended Evolutionary Synthesis look like.” >>

True some of them are apparently philosophers, but philosophers of science. They won’t discuss God in this conference. It is about re-making the theory of evolution. And science tests natural things, not the supernatural. So biologists are not dogmatic, evolution itself changes and evolves. JanetS and ReggieM proven wrong. Q.E.D. 🙂

Phil P
 
PhilVaz said:
ReggieM << “Our idea is nothing less than getting together a high-level group of biologists and philosophers to have a frank exchange of ideas about what, if anything, might a new Extended Evolutionary Synthesis look like.” >>

True some of them are apparently philosophers, but philosophers of science. They won’t discuss God in this conference. It is about re-making the theory of evolution.
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You seem reassured that God will not be mentioned. If they had chosen some Thomistic-Catholic philosophers of science, then God would be mentioned – but again, I’d guess you’re very happy that only secularists and atheists were invited.

The “making of the theory” is not science – since it’s not a “natural thing”.
And science tests natural things, not the supernatural.
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So again, if your philosophical opinion is correct here (why should anyone accept it as such?), then this conference it not about science – since it is not “testing natural things” but discussing how to “remake a theory”.
So biologists are not dogmatic, evolution itself changes and evolves.
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That’s a nice way of saying that since Darwianian evolution is far from proven correct (it is falsified in many ways), a “new theory is needed”.

The critics of evolution are proven correct since this conference has to come up with a “new theory” to replace the old (incorrect) one.

Darwinian confusion is clearly on display for anyone to see.
 
reggieM said:
They do a great deal of evil in our world. Expelled did a good job in revealing some of it.
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I think you mean Expelled did a good job of slandering honest scientists, blaming scientists for Hitler’s evil, and telling false tales of persecution. So who’s doing evil?
 
ReggieM << You seem reassured that God will not be mentioned. If they had chosen some Thomistic-Catholic philosophers of science, then God would be mentioned – but again, I’d guess you’re very happy that only secularists and atheists were invited. >>

If you want to talk about God, “God creating”, how “God creates” or how “God uses evolution”, or how God fine-tuned the universe and earth for life, you are at the wrong conference. Biological evolution is about science, and science deals with natural causes, not supernatural causes. Them’s the Rules, I didn’t make them up. I think I already said that, but it helps to say it again, except with more nuance, by an evangelical geologist:

“The doctrine of creation really says nothing about ‘How’ God creates. It does not provide a basis for a testable theory of the mechanism of change. If it does not address this issue, then it does not contribute anything to a specifically scientific description of the history of life. I believe that all of creation is designed by God and has its being in God, but that does not give me any insights into the processes by which God brought that creation into existence. That is the role of scientific investigation, a vocation in which I find great excitement and fulfillment…It is the continuing success of scientific research to resolve previous questions about the nature and history of the physical universe, and to raise new and more penetrating ones, that drives the work of individual scientists. For the theist this simply affirms that, in creating and preserving the universe, God has endowed it with contingent order and intelligibility, and given us as bearers of the divine image the capability to perceive that order.” (Keith Miller, Perspectives on an Evolving Creation [Eerdmans, 2003], pages 13,14)

Now the conference you want is the one with Pope Benedict’s “student circle” on creation and evolution. All the papers and discussions at this 2005 conference are coming out in book form this month, hooray!

Creation and Evolution: A Conference with Pope Benedict XVI

This advances the “science and religion” discussion where God is mentioned, can be mentioned, must be mentioned. 😛

ReggieM << Billions of Missing Links: A Rational Look at the Mysteries Evolution Can’t Explain >>

The author (Dr. Geoffrey Simmons), a Discovery Institute “fellow”, is not a paleontologist, he is a medical doctor. Yes, I’ve heard him on Tom Woodward’s "Darwin or Design" program as well. So sorry. Your book annihiliated, obliterated, demolished by my book:

Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters by professional geologist and paleontologist Donald Prothero (Columbia Univ Press, 2007)

Back down to $23, get it today. Sure, read them both side-by-side if you like. You will soon find out who is right, who is wrong.

Phil P
 
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