1. Comment #164753 by Nova on April 20, 2008 at 4:47 pm

It will be interesting to see how Mark Mathis tries to wriggle his way out of this one.

Other Comments by Nova

2. Comment #164771 by mordacious1 on April 20, 2008 at 5:06 pm

These guys are brave to interview this weasel after what he did to Richard and PZ. They might end up falsely quoted in his next "documentary". That said, they made him look like the dope he is. By the way, long time reader, first time poster.

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3. Comment #164808 by 120DaysofSondheim on April 20, 2008 at 6:01 pm

I think this clown is the guy we should be directing our ire at and not so much as Ben stein, who is just the clown with the microphone. The producers are the ones behind the lies and misinformation being spread by this film.

Other Comments by 120DaysofSondheim

4. Comment #164819 by BumbaCLot on April 20, 2008 at 6:10 pm

Mathis basically says he is a minor decision maker in how the film ends up.

Other Comments by BumbaCLot

5. Comment #164843 by mordacious1 on April 20, 2008 at 6:36 pm

Don't be fooled. Ben Stein knows exactly what he is doing and he has an agenda for doing it. He reminds me of Dick Cheney, the puppet master.

Other Comments by mordacious1

6. Comment #164876 by kintaro_crab on April 20, 2008 at 7:16 pm

Wow, how revealing. This has to be the best interview I have heard dealing with expelled. I think the editors at Scientific American really put Mathis to the task. What a sleazy lying scumbag.

I especially liked them calling him out on that age old creationist saying, "I am not a scientist but..." then present false facts to back up their false conclusions.

Other Comments by kintaro_crab

7. Comment #164896 by urn on April 20, 2008 at 8:28 pm

hmm, i can't seem to listen to this. When i click on the download i get a screen full of gibberish, then my browser freezes for up quite some time, and ultimately crashes....Anybody else having this problem?

Other Comments by urn

8. Comment #164900 by adonais on April 20, 2008 at 8:35 pm

OMG listen to part 2 - Mathis is getting disemboweled! Everybody should listen to this.

Other Comments by adonais

9. Comment #164903 by urn on April 20, 2008 at 8:36 pm

never mind, did the old "save target as" thing at it worked fine :P

Other Comments by urn

10. Comment #164910 by ekted on April 20, 2008 at 8:49 pm

Wow. Mathis dodges every question, and makes it seem like he's a puppet in the whole thing. I'm surprised the SA people tolerate his evasiveness as much as they do.

Other Comments by ekted

11. Comment #164928 by Big City on April 20, 2008 at 9:09 pm

This is nuts. What a slippery bastard.

OMG listen to part 2

For realsies.

Other Comments by Big City

12. Comment #164942 by crazy4blues on April 20, 2008 at 9:46 pm

I've listened to part 1, and Mathis is completely "On Message" the whole time. I especially like the bit when he suggests, nay, comes right and says that Ken Miller of Dover trial fame isn't a "real catholic". That's the thing with these folks; if they aren't simply obfustacting, they absolutely stick their feet in their mouths when they get to the heart of their point, which is, 'We want everyone to believe the same lies we do--whether you want to or not!'

Other Comments by crazy4blues

13. Comment #164949 by akado on April 20, 2008 at 10:07 pm

wow.................
this guy is just.......
the way he lied about the judge trial he obviousy knew nothing about and tried to slip put of questions and just....wow

also the being rude part....lol
what an arsehole

Other Comments by akado

14. Comment #164974 by Diocletian on April 20, 2008 at 10:43 pm

I wonder how much longer Mathis will continue spreading his lies about Judge Jones now that the people at Scientific American have publicly clarified and corrected his claims. If he follows the tendencies of the people who contribute to ID, then there is little doubt he shall continue his lies.

Bravo to John Rennie, Steve Mirsky, Phil Yam, Dan Schlenoff, and Aaron Fagan. And Mathis showed his true colours yet again.

Other Comments by Diocletian

15. Comment #165013 by robotaholic on April 20, 2008 at 11:38 pm

wow this was a great argument- Mark Mathis is icky

Other Comments by robotaholic

16. Comment #165019 by Spinoza on April 20, 2008 at 11:46 pm

Oh, this is BRILLIANT.

Sci Am REAMS this guy to perfection.

If only they weren't preaching to the choir...

Other Comments by Spinoza

17. Comment #165036 by madame_zora on April 21, 2008 at 1:09 am

Wow, what a schmo- he kept arguing for his own ignorance, then trying to present his arguments as authoritative- a five year old could see through him. Sadly, many theists don't have the reasoning capacity of five year olds, but then again, most of them will never hear this podcast.

His only argument was "I don't understand science, therefore I'm entitled to make up my own answers!!" We really need to start calling this argument out when we hear it. I was waiting for someone to say it but they never did. Since when is ignorance a license to make shit up?

Other Comments by madame_zora

18. Comment #165039 by MrStray on April 21, 2008 at 1:11 am

I love the post in the comment section:
"As Chuck Norris is to the roundhouse kick, John Rennie is to critical analysis."

Gold!

Other Comments by MrStray

19. Comment #165042 by MrStray on April 21, 2008 at 1:15 am

urn: Probably a bad mime setting, either on the server or on your machine. Instead of clicking the download link, right-click and select "Save As" and you should be fine.

Other Comments by MrStray

20. Comment #165045 by AllanW on April 21, 2008 at 1:35 am

Re; comment #165036 madame_zora

'His only argument was "I don't understand science, therefore I'm entitled to make up my own answers!!" '

Exactly; nice, succinct summary, Thanks.

Other Comments by AllanW

21. Comment #165049 by shonny on April 21, 2008 at 1:44 am

Why bother with God's Nazis?
Why bother with the stupidity that is so embedded in their their every utterance that even Dr. Goebbels would have blushed (then again, maybe he wouldn't, because these people are the same type of automatons that took his words for gospel.
Life is too short to argue with a moron.

Other Comments by shonny

22. Comment #165056 by MrPickwick on April 21, 2008 at 2:08 am

Shonny writes:

Life is too short to argue with a moron.

Yes! You are right. Thats why we must thank Dawkins and the sciam crew: they do the dirty stuff so we don't have to live creepy short lives wasting our time dealing with extreme idiocy.

Other Comments by MrPickwick

23. Comment #165081 by V'Ger on April 21, 2008 at 3:35 am

This guy is mentally ill right? Or have I missed the joke?

Other Comments by V'Ger

24. Comment #165088 by pewkatchoo on April 21, 2008 at 3:44 am

I think that Mr Mathis is an extremely brave man. After all, he must be aware of the fact that he is a complete numpty, and yet he still took part in this interview.

Other Comments by pewkatchoo

25. Comment #165109 by Logicel on April 21, 2008 at 4:22 am

What do you expect from a 'Praying Mathis?'

What a pathetic dipshit!

Other Comments by Logicel

26. Comment #165176 by Stephen Maxwell on April 21, 2008 at 7:14 am

This was awesome!

"Atheism is a religion. It's a set of beliefs."

Ludicrous.

Other Comments by Stephen Maxwell

27. Comment #165205 by mcadamsdj on April 21, 2008 at 7:57 am

pewkatcho - "I think that Mr Mathis is an extremely brave man. After all, he must be aware of the fact that he is a complete numpty, and yet he still took part in this interview."

Maybe he lost a bet with the producer...what a tool.

Other Comments by mcadamsdj

28. Comment #165210 by HMS Polio on April 21, 2008 at 8:16 am

Oh dear.

Whilst listening to this, I was halfway through shaving - itself a rather momentous act for me, being a beard wearer of several years - when I hear a knock on the door.

I dry my face and run to the front door to answer it. There are two women there. Obviously Jehovah's Witnesses.

We had a discussion about beliefs etc. and I believe I did a very good job of putting forward the unlikelihood of a biblical god. I managed to present them with my own personal reasons for this in my grounding in scientific reasoning and biblical exegesis. I closed the door patting myself on the back that I had been eloquent, attentive and polite the whole time, even wishing them a good day.

I then went back to the bathroom to finish shaving only to discover that I had been sporting a neat, Hitler-esque moustache.

Ooops.

Sorry Dr. Dawkins.

Other Comments by HMS Polio

29. Comment #165270 by G M Becker on April 21, 2008 at 9:24 am

Scary, not that these people should be allowed to say these these things, but that they should be able to speak with so much apparent authenticity.

It makes me mad.

Other Comments by G M Becker

30. Comment #165288 by HumanisticJones on April 21, 2008 at 9:49 am

I have to say, my favorite part involving the discussion about Miller was not where Mathis dismissed him as "not really following what most other Catholics believe", but where he declared that "including Ken Miller would have confused the message of the movie". Couldn't have gotten a better admission of the ignorant ear-plugged prejudice of the creators of this dreck if Mathis had simply dropped his facade and declared "Look, we wanted to say that all evolutionists are atheists and all atheists are Nazis. The evidence of Ken Miller clearly contradicts our dogma, therefor the evidence is wrong and must be ignored!"

Congrats to the SA team for this wonderful interview. This should be linked from the best Expelled website out there.

Other Comments by HumanisticJones

31. Comment #165307 by Angels On a Pin Head on April 21, 2008 at 10:12 am

There's just too much stupid in what Mr Mathis says to comment on it all, and the SciAm people do a good job in general. However, I'm surprised that they didn't object to the characterisation of "Darwinism" as a necessary condition for the Holocaust. It was no such thing.

As they say, mass transportation of people was a necessary condition (no transportation would mean a very different Holocaust). Also, anti-Semitism was a necessary condition (no anti-Semitism would mean that any Holocaust would not include Jews).

However, I see no way to argue that, without Darwin's ideas, the Holocaust could not have happened precisely as it did. The major contributing factors were bigotry (in this case it was primarily anti-Semitism, which predates Darwin by centuries), a technology capable of slaughter on an industrial scale (not connected with biology), and a strong military regime. With these three things it seems to me that you have a good chance of a seeing the attempted genocide of whoever the subject of the bigotry is. Without any one of the three, you may still have terrible acts committed, but you don't get the Holocaust.

Neither Darwin's work, nor the reality of evolution, were necessary or sufficient for this shameful episode in our species' history.

What I do grant is that a poor understanding of Evolutionary Theory was taken and misused as a justification for the eugenics aspect of the Holocaust (I'd love to cite specific individuals who used this reasoning, unfortunately my knowledge doesn't extend that far, but it seems likely that such thinking existed). Meanwhile, the actual strategy of eugenics relied on nothing more than the ancient knowledge of artificial selection. However, this misuse of a little science knowledge is an argument for better science education, so that in the future such twisted reasoning cannot be used without it being obvious to everyone that it is worthless attempt to justify psychotic racism. No doubt people would find other ways to justify malignant world-views, but I hope that such cancers would be less successful in spreading within an educated population.

Other Comments by Angels On a Pin Head

32. Comment #165351 by SomeDanGuy on April 21, 2008 at 11:36 am

Hahahaha: "It was also necessary to have roads"

To quote the internet: pwned.

Other Comments by SomeDanGuy

33. Comment #165489 by Mitchell Gilks on April 21, 2008 at 2:10 pm

I thought that was pretty good. I would have taken him to task on what the proposed mechanism is for ID and how it can be tested for.

Besides intuitively knowing, which is non-rational, and second cousin to faith, how can one determine design in nature exactly?

How an argument like "irreducible complexity" is a word game, and an unfalsifiable trick. It basically posits that there are structures in nature that are too complex to come about by natural means. It finds complex structures in nature, and instead of this falsifying this hypothesis, it somehow proves that they got there by another mean. It is like saying that rivers cannot develope by natural means, and then when you find rivers in nature, claiming that it is proof that rivers came about through artifical means.

Reality doesn't comform to our definitions of it, presumably, our definitions are suppose to confrom to it.

Also, how "we don't know this, we don'w know this, and we don't know this, thus goddidit" is both an argument from ignorance and a complete non sequitur.

Besides the above, I think they sufficiently demonstrated that he is as ignorant, slimy, douche-bag.

Other Comments by Mitchell Gilks

34. Comment #165500 by Frankus1122 on April 21, 2008 at 2:23 pm

I have listened to this 3 times. I like it that much.

Comment #165210 by HMS Polio

Hahahaha! That was funny.
I got out of the shower to hear a knock on the door. I put on a bathrobe and answered to find two Blue Nuns (?). After a bit of talk I wanted them to leave so I let my bathrobe fall open.
They got flustered and left.
Was I wrong to do such a thing?

Other Comments by Frankus1122

35. Comment #165521 by AoClay on April 21, 2008 at 2:53 pm

The closing statement of "Hey, come on." made me laugh out loud and that really is the basic showing of their case for why it should be allowed. "Because....come on!"

Other Comments by AoClay

36. Comment #165530 by Dr Benway on April 21, 2008 at 3:10 pm

MrStrayI love the post in the comment section:
"As Chuck Norris is to the roundhouse kick, John Rennie is to critical analysis."

Hehe. That was me.

Hey everybody, go dogpile the comments at SciAm with your love. Do it for the children.

Other Comments by Dr Benway

37. Comment #165621 by Shane Williams on April 21, 2008 at 11:22 pm

It was so hard for them to keep his attention, but eventually they narrowed their differences to blind ignorance on the part of Mark Mathis.

It's heartwarming to know that Expelled was produced by confused people in the media with no prior commitments; a fluke.

Other Comments by Shane Williams

38. Comment #165646 by Ygern on April 22, 2008 at 1:20 am

I enjoyed listening to this.

I felt a tint twinge of sympathy for Mark Mathis being the only one in the room trying to defend the film in the face of the surgically-precise criticism of scientifically sophisticated adults.

I was also quite stunned by how many 'gaps' were exposed in Mr Mathis' knowledge - some of the things he said about things like the Dover trial displayed that while he may have read 'many' books, they have clearly all been written by one side, and a rather biased and not particularly truthful side at that.

I was also quite surprised at Mr Mathis denial that the film tries to pin a causal link between Darwin / evolution and the Holocaust. Perhaps someone will point him in the direction of the recent correspondence between Mr J & Michael Shermer.

Other Comments by Ygern

39. Comment #165670 by utelme on April 22, 2008 at 2:37 am

This interview was like a group of earthlings debating with an alien. I felt no sympathy for Mathis but could only cringe with embarrassment. What a load of waffle from Mathis. At the end of everything he said I could only think, HUH? I think I'm going to light a candle to the spaghetti monster,lol.

Other Comments by utelme

40. Comment #165677 by nalfeshnee on April 22, 2008 at 3:16 am

I LOVE the way they let him run his mouth off at the end - it's just priceless.

However, the interview should not be titled "interview". "The vivisection of Mark Mathis" would be more appropriate.

"I mean, I'm not a scientist, you know - come on!"

Other Comments by nalfeshnee

41. Comment #165678 by Greyman on April 22, 2008 at 3:17 am

38. Comment #165646 by Ygern on April 22, 2008 at 1:20 am

I was also quite stunned by how many 'gaps' were exposed in Mr Mathis' knowledge - some of the things he said about things like the Dover trial displayed that while he may have read 'many' books, they have clearly all been written by one side, and a rather biased and not particularly truthful side at that.

His defense for not seeking other sources being that, surely the Discovery Institute wouldn't lie about something like that, seems rather naïve.

Other Comments by Greyman

42. Comment #165691 by nalfeshnee on April 22, 2008 at 3:44 am

I just went and subscribed to their SciamDigital service. To say thank you.

Other Comments by nalfeshnee

43. Comment #165736 by Steve Zara on April 22, 2008 at 7:34 am

What a revealing interview.

I wish, just once, that I would hear someone like Mathis say:

"I am not a scientist, so instead of just making stuff up, I am going to ask you scientists about this..."

Other Comments by Steve Zara

44. Comment #165849 by lol mahmood on April 22, 2008 at 1:11 pm

I've listened to it a couple of times now, 'cos it's just so entertaining! Is there one point he actually manages to make successsfully without being shot down in flames? Pitiful.

Other Comments by lol mahmood

45. Comment #165862 by Rachel Holmes on April 22, 2008 at 1:26 pm

Hmm. The tab for the SciAm link on my Firefox toolbar reads "A Conversation with Expelled's Ass".

Coincidence? Proof of God?

You decide.

Other Comments by Rachel Holmes

46. Comment #166130 by Shane Williams on April 22, 2008 at 7:20 pm

Rachel, that's proof enough, all my views of nature have been turned on their side.
I suppose I should pack my things and leave RD.Net forever, I've got a long journey of unreason, self-inflicted head bashing, and ignorance ahead of me.

Other Comments by Shane Williams

47. Comment #166453 by arogop on April 23, 2008 at 8:55 am

Kudoos to SCI AM. They are the reason I found this site.

Other Comments by arogop

48. Comment #166471 by Ygern on April 23, 2008 at 9:05 am

Greyman wrote:

His defense for not seeking other sources being that, surely the Discovery Institute wouldn't lie about something like that, seems rather naïve

I'm beginning to think that the Discovery Institute trades on the naïveté of their followers. I can't tell you how many times I have heard one of them say lately that ID is not the same thing as Creationism, clearly blissfully unaware of the (pardon the phrase) evolution of the textbook Pandas & People.

They swallow the propaganda whole & seem to never go and look a thing up for themselves ever.

Stupidity is its own reward, I suppose.

Other Comments by Ygern

49. Comment #168266 by hadrianushaereticus on April 24, 2008 at 8:32 pm

As for the preposterous claim that Darwin was not sufficient but necessary for the holocaust:

- Has he ever, as PZ Myers pointed out, heard the word pogrom? Christians systematically killed hundreds of thousands if not millions of Jews only in the 14th century. Jews were blamed for the plague epidemic (1347-49) which killed approximately one third of the population.
Certainly Christian anti-semitism was necessary if not sufficient for the holocaust (Hitler pointed out the fact the he was only radically doing what the church had been doing for two millennia).

- You have to look no further than the Bible in order to realize that systematic extermination of a people is obviously possible without and before Darwin and is (as any barbaric act) easily "justifiable" in religious terms! One chapter of Mathis' Holy Book is SUFFICIENT to completely debunk his preposterous claim of Darwin being necessary for the holocaust:

Numbers 31
(there are many genocides of this type throughout the Old Testament)

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=numbers 31&version=31

A materialist philosophy (let it be noted that evolution alone is quite obviously not sufficient for materialism) is neither sufficient nor necessary in order to treat people like impersonal prey and plunder polluting the world, quite the contrary: The materialist cannot, by definition, establish a transcendental difference, dualism and dichotomy between an eternally good, superior people and an evil, inferior one (let's not even take the naturalistic fallacy into consideration). Some kind of supernaturalism is needed in order to legitimize a chosen, elected and therefore superior people or race. In one supernaturalist context they were called "Jews" (later on "Christians"), in another context "Arians."

More emphasis should be put - in the rebuttals of the grotesque central claim of "Expelled" - on the genocidal crimes Christians committed throughout their history and on the genocides of the "most unpleasant character in all fiction" by which they were inspired.

Other Comments by hadrianushaereticus

50. Comment #168328 by Angels On a Pin Head on April 25, 2008 at 2:57 am

hadrianushaereticus

Yes, I was disappointed that the SciAm people not only let the "necessary condition" statement through, but they repeated it. I presume the staff logician was busy having treatment for the seizure brought on by watching Expelled.

I repeat as plainly as I can: Darwin's work has no logical connection with any atrocity committed in human history.

Other Comments by Angels On a Pin Head