By SKATJE
Added: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:00:00 UTC

Reposted from:
http://skatje.com/?p=381

A list of all blogs writing about this:
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/03/pz_myers_expelled_gains_sainth.php

I'm expected to say something about the events that occurred last night at Expelled, but you all know the shenanigans involving my dad being expelled, but Dawkins getting in. Here's my impression of the movie:

I'm trying very hard to be unbiased, but that's pretty difficult in this situation. Regardless of content, the movie was surprisingly unpolished and cheap-looking. It might be due in part to being unfinished, but how far off can they be when it's released in less than a month? The camera-work was shakey, obnoxious, and they seemed to like to zoom into ultra-close-ups. Ever wonder what's up Dawkins' nose? Here's your chance to find out.

The entire movie was interspliced with stock footage and older movies. A comment from an interview about "Big Science" picking on the little guys would be followed by a 1940's-looking clip of two guys slapping each other. A comment from someone who supposedly lost their job over ID would be followed by a clip from Planet of the Apes, with an ape water-hosing Heston and calling him a freak. While they were obviously trying to be funny, it just got so tiring and distracting.

It started out going one-by-one through the people who've had their jobs affected by their talking about ID. This was also pretty boring. You hear one, you basically hear them all. They asked Michael Shermer what he would say about people losing their jobs because of ID, and he said that as far as he knew, that's never happened, and if it did, it probably involved other factors than just ID. This was basically ignored, and Stein continued to assert that ID was the only reason they were fired.

There was also a part where Stein wandered around Seattle saying "Where is it? Oh, I'll just keep walking. Where is it?" He reaches a building and says "The Discovery Institute must be this entire building." Soon after: "Oh, but it has to be at least one of these floors." But no, it turns out it's only half a floor out of a 20-story building. They also point out the half-dozen people at the office, clearly making the point that IDists are the underdogs when it comes to money. You have to be kidding.

They never actually explained what the evidence for ID is, they just tried to make the actual scientists look as silly as possible. One guy talked about abiogenesis, something about molecules on the back on crystals. Stein repeated this multiple times, and said, paraphrasing, "If they can accept life arising on the backs of crystals, what's so improbable about God?" They also asked Dawkins about the possibility of ID, and he was talking about that the designer must have evolved themselves, so if we did find evidence for ID, then it would have to be something like an alien seeding life here rather than a god. Of course, Stein took this and ran with it. Dawkins himself believes ID to be possible, but only if it's aliens! Why not God? Isn't that more plausible?

Stein then asked Dawkins to put a number on how sure he is that ID didn't happen. After saying he didn't think it was appropriate to put a number on such a thing, he said 99%. Then conversation following went as such: "99, huh? Why not 97?" "Uh, well, you asked me to put a number on it…" "Why not 47, then?" "Well, I think it's definitely in the higher range…" Dawkins looked more confused than anything in this part, and understandably so. The audience was laughing their asses off, but I can't understand why. Dawkins was kind of stuttering, but it was because he was asked to quantify something that can't be quantified.

Towards the end of the movie, it started gearing towards Darwinism causing Nazism, so the interspliced footage was of tanks rolling through Germany and piles of corpses and incinerators in concentration camps. Eventually, Ben Stein himself visited a camp in Germany and some sort of building where people were gassed and dissected. It was very slow-moving, with lots of shots of Ben Stein covering his face and trying his best to look melancholy (but does he ever not?) and emotionally disturbed. There was also a recurring theme of the Berlin wall, too. Big Science has put up this wall to destroy freedom and keep out ideas, y'know?

Before I'd seen this movie, I was of the opinion that it would be worthwhile to see, but I'd pay money for something else and walk into the "wrong" auditorium. Now I realise that it really wasn't worth the hour-and-a-half of my time. I cannot emphasise how utterly boring this film was. Half of it was annoying clips of people knitting, people making toys, people laying bricks, tanks, Hitler, and people chipping at the Berlin wall. Half of the other half was different people saying the same things.

I love a good piece of stupid to laugh at, but I was even disappointed in that aspect. It was too boring to be amusing. Don't bother. If you really must, just wait a while and find it on the internet where you can hit the stop button.

TAGGED: CREATIONISM, MOVIES, REVIEWS