You demanded it, so we delivered. This week, we review the movie “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”. Well, if you can call this steaming pile of lies a movie… Anyways, this week, my co-host Ryan Harkness and myself try to explain just what is broken about this documentary, as well as make some promises that are hard to keep!

 

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Personally I’m not really a fan of Christopher Hitchens so I enjoyed this a little too much:

Late last year, the writer, polemicist and fierce proponent of the US-led invasion of Iraq Christopher Hitchens attempted, in a piece for the online magazine Slate, to draw a distinction between what he called techniques of “extreme interrogation” and “outright torture”.

From this, his foes inferred that since it was Hitchens’ belief that America did not stoop to the latter, the practice of waterboarding - known to be perpetrated by US forces against certain “high-value clients” in Iraq and elsewhere - must fall under the former heading.

Enraged by what they saw as an exercise in elegant but offensive sophistry, some of the writer’s critics suggested that Hitchens give waterboarding (which may sound like some kind of fun aquatic pastime, but is probably best summarised as enforced partial drowning) a whirl, just to see what it was like. Did the experience feel like torture?

And amazingly, he has done just that.

The word freedom gets tossed around a lot. It seems like the mot-du-jour for anyone smart enough to realize that manipulating people is as easy as telling them that such an important value might be taken away.

A few years ago, Creationists wanted people to “tech the controversy”. That was their angle, and they had managed to make a few inroads in schools. After a devastating ruling in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, it was time for them to go on the offensive. That’s why they’ve decided that the best way to push back is by invoking people’s sense of fairness and use the word “academic freedom” like they understand what that means.

The Governor of Louisiana, in his “infinite wisdom”, has helped pass a new bill that allows school to approve supplemental classroom materials to critique scientific theories they disagree with. In other words, religious creationists will bring in their intellectually disingenuous “intelligent design” into classrooms.

That means that if a school board is stupid enough to try and sneak their crap into biology classes, they open the door for possible litigation. Considering that the Dover trial cost over 2 million dollars in legal fees, you might be wondering what these idiots were thinking. It boils down to one thing: If you martyr small, ignorant school districts by feeding them to the courts, only to have them lose and become stifled in debt, you will create the illusion that government is out to take people’s freedom away. It will also look, to the uneducated many, that science is deadly afraid of intelligent design.

Here’s my proposal to the ACLU, or any other group thinking it’s a good idea to sue the schools that will take this opportunity to try and teach their creationist garbage: go after the legislators instead. If you go after these tiny, “we don’t know what we are doing wrong” school districts, you will only garner sympathy for their cause. You’ll also be regarded poorly for sending underfunded schools further into debt, likely decreasing the overall quality of their education. If you want to fight someone, fight the ringleaders, not the pawns.

From Ars Technica:

This is a story that starts in triumph, takes a detour through farce, and inadvertently ends raising some profound questions. The triumph is one of scientific progress in the study of evolution; the farce comes courtesy of those who run Conservapedia, who apparently can’t believe that any scientific evidence can possibly support evolution. The questions, however, focus on what access the US public should have to the research that their tax dollars support.

Ever wonder what it would be like to kill Mohammad and Jesus to stop the spread of the powerful monotheistic religions they helped create? Yeah, me neither. But apparently, a small game developer in Virginia has decided that it’s a good idea. Here’s an exert from the article:

The new game, not yet released, is giving a voice to the atheist community, that’s according to the game’s creator, a University of Virginia graduate student. He wouldn’t release his name, for fear of his safety.

“Atheists have never really had anything to speak for them like this. It’s the general atheist premise that the world might be a better place without some of those religions,” explained the creator of the game.

The object of the game is to stop the spread of Christianity and Islam by murdering Abraham and the authors of the Bible, before beheading Muhammad.

I don’t know about you, but it sounds like this game might seriously suck. I’m not entirly sure how this gives me a voice; I’d be just as offended if a bunch of Christian nutjobs made a game about killing Darwin, or Richard Dawkins. And what’s with beheading these guys? Seems just like a pathetic way to make a buck, and will only make us look like blood thirsty bigots.

From MSNBC”

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday threw out a jury award over injuries a 17-year-old girl suffered in an exorcism conducted by members of her old church, ruling that the case unconstitutionally entangled the court in religious matters.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices found that a lower court erred when it said the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God’s First Amendment rights regarding freedom of religion did not prevent the church from being held liable for mental distress triggered by a “hyper-spiritualistic environment.”