451. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148704 by Dr Benway on March 23, 2008 at 4:07 pm

Lingering on my sense of outrage on PZ's behalf -

Have these Judeo-Christians never heard of the "Golden Rule," of treating others as you would be treated?

This movie is of course a political film. Ben Stein is a booster for the Republican Party. I just want to know when the next film about global warming and Hitler will be in theaters.

452. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148692 by Dr Benway on March 23, 2008 at 3:52 pm

MPhil, you must appreciate the context:

- security ejecting PZ with threats of arrest
- warnings to the audience that "enemies" are trying to prevent the movie from being seen
- warnings that the FBI is involved
- warnings that stormtroopers - er, persons - would be patrolling the isles with night vision goggles to suss out illegal recording

If this doesn't justify the fascist analogy, what ever would?

I'm trying to imagine how I would feel, if I gave an interview for a film, and the film was being shown in my home town, and if I attended a screening, and if then, without explanation and with threats of arrest, I was ejected from the theater.

I would be absolutely livid. I would be outraged beyond words.

Something has gone terribly wrong with any society that thinks it's ok to treat people the way that PZ was treated by these people.

453. Biology prof expelled from screening of 'Expelled'

Comment #148672 by Dr Benway on March 23, 2008 at 3:21 pm

Thanks, Beth.

Not everyone in the herd must be vaccinated to prevent an outbreak of disease.

Likewise, probably if a minimum of 25-30% of the population can think critically, we won't lose our democracy. But that 25% has to insert itself into things like the screenings of this nonsense. That 25% has to write letters to the editor. It has to say "bollocks" on the interwebs at the appropriate moments. It has to continuously break the spell of false authority.

If certain corners of our country have grown so dark that the mere juxtaposition of images of Hitler and some scientist can fool people into thinking that the scientist is wrong, we need to know about it so we can send a little light that way.

I used to like Ben Stein the few times I saw him on that game show. He seemed pretty smart. Now I'm suspecting the show was rigged.

454. The science of religion: Where angels no longer fear to tread

Comment #148646 by Dr Benway on March 23, 2008 at 2:06 pm

So that enhance the chance of survival of the group v.s other groups where members don't cooperate. Maybe I am naive like beelzebub, but that sounds like group selection to me.

Individuals carrying genes which promote cooperation will out-compete individuals carrying genes that can't cooperate. Natural selection is acting upon the gene, not the group. The gene remains the replicator, not the group.

455. The science of religion: Where angels no longer fear to tread

Comment #148628 by Dr Benway on March 23, 2008 at 12:38 pm

Genes that produced purely selfish behaviour would stand less chance of survival.

Remember that "selfish" is a technical term, meaning "behaves in a way that furthers its own replication at the expense of competing replicators."

Our selfish genes cause us to lay down our lives for our brothers.

This model explains kin selection and reciprocal altruism.

If natural selection is actually working on groups rather than genes, well, it's difficult to model this, given what we know about gene selection.

456. Does God answer prayer? ASU research says 'yes'

Comment #148609 by Dr Benway on March 23, 2008 at 11:54 am

But it may not be if it is very tiny, which would correspond to differences that fall within some experimental error if you really try to monitor it in some way.

Oy, now you're making my head hurt.

I think you're saying that some effect called "epsilon" is proposed to exist, but is very weak and hard to find. If we've any hope of finding it, we need a lot of statistical power - in other words, a large n. I'm with you to this point I think.

After that, I'm confused.

457. Does God answer prayer? ASU research says 'yes'

Comment #148602 by Dr Benway on March 23, 2008 at 11:43 am

Well you can specify your epsilon to be so tiny that on a practical level it is indistinguishable to zero, but the test will pick that up if the sample size is large enough

Yes, but that's not a bad thing, is it? If epsilon is some real effect? If it's real, we want to find it, don't we?

458. Does God answer prayer? ASU research says 'yes'

Comment #148597 by Dr Benway on March 23, 2008 at 11:26 am

Larger n does mean greater statistical power. But that helps to eliminate spurious effects on the data.

Null: My coin is weighted so heads or tails should come up equally.

Hypothesis: My coin is unevenly weighted.

Results of 10 flips: 7 heads, 3 tails. Hmm. Hard to say whether the coin is unevenly weighted or not. Could have got those results by chance.

Results of 100 flips: 70 heads, 30 tails. Well, it would be difficult to get those results by chance alone. It's unevenly weighted.

459. John Templeton: God's sugar daddy

Comment #148557 by Dr Benway on March 23, 2008 at 9:44 am

Love is outsmarting the tax man.

Love is dominating your extended family in a mini-van.

Love is tempting people to lie for you.

Meh. Talk of "love" and "God" and "prayer," and people will line up to hand over their hard-earned money. Anyone who "loves God" must be trustworthy, right?

Sheeple.

460. Does God answer prayer? ASU research says 'yes'

Comment #148548 by Dr Benway on March 23, 2008 at 9:24 am

Now the null distribution is almost always "wrong" because of truncation errors in representing real numbers. For example, in your null the mean is 7.5, while in fact it is 7.5111. With a powerful enough test you can resolve the difference and get a significant result.

I'm with Steve on this. Rounding errors ought to be evenly distributed.

There are many ways to lie with statistics. Increasing sample size isn't one of them.

Whenever you read a study, anything that sounds like an unusual dependent variable ought to raise a red flag. For example, if "getting better" is defined as "lower incidence of post-op infection," I would go, "huh"? Why that, specifically? Why not something more general, like "fewer days in the hospital"?

It's possible to collect data on many variables that potentially say something about "getting better." For example:
- time in recovery
- time in the ICU
- post-op bleeding requiring return to OR
- post-op infection
- self-report of pain
- hours on the ventillator
- days until return to work
- days until resuming normal activities
- frequency of sex over following month
- satisfaction with sex
- pints of ice cream consumed
- number of positive self-statements during follow-up interview

And so on.

An honest scientist selects a small set of measures and reports the data for all of them.

A dishonest scientist gathers a mass of info, runs the ANOVAs, and reports on those measures that come up significant without mentioning all the things that weren't significant.

If you measure enough things, something will come up significant purely by chance.

461. The science of religion: Where angels no longer fear to tread

Comment #148527 by Dr Benway on March 23, 2008 at 8:59 am

Regarding group selection where members do not share the same genes:

Imagine some in the group using altruistic strategies - that is, strategies which sacrifice self-interest (defined as the opportunity to replicate) to the advantage of others in the group, and some using selfish strategies. Over time, the gene frequency of the selfish strategies ought to increase.

If there is a more general principle of information replication at work, with genes being merely one example of a more general "unit of replication," you might be able to get group selection to work.

462. Does God answer prayer? ASU research says 'yes'

Comment #148483 by Dr Benway on March 23, 2008 at 7:28 am

*cough* filedrawer effect *cough*

463. Biology prof expelled from screening of 'Expelled'

Comment #148401 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 11:19 pm

Lotta drug/alcohol abuse among those Hollywood guys.

Note that the Expelled crew ran the movie from a friggin' laptop.

Mebbe the producer was up all night with Windows Movie Maker trying to take some of the shit outta teh thing. So no have time for de master plan to pwnz teh worldz.

Of course we shouldn't feel over confident.

I'm just sayin'...

464. Biology prof expelled from screening of 'Expelled'

Comment #148394 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 9:39 pm

Ok Lagomort, I've tried to imagine myself in the producer's shoes. From that vantage point, I'm confident that I would be aware of the atheist conference in town, of Dawkins, and of PZ. That seems a pretty minimal level of homework anyone would do.

As the producer of a mediocre flick, I believe I also would want a public confrontation with The Enemy, in order to create a buzz and drum up interest.

I can see how booting PZ might seem like a good idea. I'd feel more in control of the situation without him there. And I'd probably feel I could handle Dawkins simply by modulationg my own approach toward him. Dawkins isn't the sort to go out of his way to fuck with people. On top of that, he's in a foreign country facing too many unknowns for any serious fuckery.

So your hypothesis seems reasonable.

Still, these guys do seem a bit dim. So I can't rule out incompetence.

465. Fleabytes

Comment #148382 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 8:24 pm

When the Gospel of Christ came to that area the worship of the Creator God replaced the worship of idols, Local tribes turned away from practicing witchcraft and from observing occult arts. Headhunting and cannibalism ceased almost overnight.

Your post is an appeal to my moral judgment.

My moral judgment.

The fact of your appeal proves that the product you are selling is unnecessary.

You're like a salesman selling a book which teaches a person how to read.

466. Fleabytes

Comment #148372 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 7:02 pm

We have the authority of evidence and the authority of "because I said so."

A better pun:

467. Discussion on PZ Myers being expelled from Expelled

Comment #148341 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 4:57 pm

At least for me, an apology and video/online correction would suffice

WTF? They didn't let PZ in. Of course he's guessing about that cell animation.

If don't want people guessing, let them see the movie.

468. Fleabytes

Comment #148337 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 4:52 pm

Now you're just being argumentative.

Vadjong, people have been shot for better puns than that. Ouch!

469. Biology prof expelled from screening of 'Expelled'

Comment #148336 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 4:50 pm

Never attribute to malice what incompetence can explain.

From the account PZ gave, the entry list had "PZ Myers & x guests" on it. The daughter, wife, daughter's boyfriend, Josh, RD, etc., weren't listed.

So someone scanned the list, saw his name, and asked a guard to kick him out.

470. Fleabytes

Comment #148332 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 4:45 pm

O I C.

471. Fleabytes

Comment #148325 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 4:27 pm

I'm arguing against arguments over the content of belief.

472. Fleabytes

Comment #148315 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 4:01 pm

Bonzai, I'm wary of any argument that boils down to "because I said so." This includes arguments that appeal to the authority of:

- God's will
- nationalism
- racial superiority
- utopian schemes

Murky believers are less of a problem than fundamentalists because they simply don't believe much of what their religion teaches. That's not a strong argument in favor of belief, I'm afraid.

473. Fleabytes

Comment #148278 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 2:25 pm

Bonzai, no country is safe. It's not just the US. Humans will revert to authoritarianism and tribal alliances during periods of rapid change and stress. We're wired for S&M like other social animals.

BUT I have some hope that if a significant percentage of the population can think critically about what they are told, we might be saved from sudden regression to fascism and warfare during periods of unrest and anxiety.

The invasion of Iraq is just one example of how powerful people who aren't thinking clearly can use fear and God-talk to persuade others to hasty action. We have to break the spell that goes: "He believes in God, so I can trust him."

Murky religion hardens into more fundamentalist belief rapidly when communities are freaking out. So murky belief isn't entirely benign.

Better that people stick with "I really can't be confident of things I don't have evidence to support."

474. Fleabytes

Comment #148269 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 1:50 pm

Bonzai, pushing back the argument from invisible authority among the nutters won't reduce the number of assholes among us. But the assholes will have a harder time manipulating the herds of gullible nutters.

475. No Admission for Evolutionary Biologist at Creationist Film

Comment #148265 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 1:45 pm

Hi Christopher Davis. Thank science for the Internet that lets us hear from you guys so far away and in harm's way for the sake of the rest of us back home.

My husband's brother was in the army a few years ago. He came out of the service a conservative Christian, and has remained so. His wife sent us an email last week, one circulating the web for a couple of years, showing a group of soldiers praying and a caption stating, "What's wrong with this picture?" At the bottom it says, "Nothing!" then goes on to explain how the ACLU is trying to put a stop to group prayer... blah blah blah.

I immediately checked snopes and saw it was a hoax. Liars for Jesus again. I googled and found a seargent's blog posting the same email. Someone had alerted him to the fact it was a hoax. His response, I kid you not, "Well, there's a grain of truth in everything."

What a crazy world we live in.

476. Fleabytes

Comment #148256 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 1:28 pm

I hope you realise that programming projects are never really finished?

Where were you when I started this thing back in 2003?

477. Fleabytes

Comment #148254 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 1:21 pm

I am afraid you are making religious beliefs to be more coherent and consistent than they actually are for many "murky" believers.

I wasn't limiting myself to murkies with my comment about God=final authority.

We might ask, "Why do they stay so murky, those murkies? Is this murkiness motivated? Is it intentional? Does it provide advantages? What are those advantages?

I see a game of cake-and-eat-it-too in the fog.

The top murkies like Bill Moyers talk about values and ethics, but refrain from offering arguments based upon a personal or traditional sense of what God wants. Good on Bill then.

But middle-brow murkies "just know" God doesn't like butt sex. They'll vote for anti-gay policies. But to your face they'll say, "Oh how nice that you and your partner got married!"

478. Fleabytes

Comment #148246 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 12:59 pm

Religion in the "murky" form is often just a visualization aid and a short hand for experience and feelings that cannot be clearly articulated, but it is not to say that these feelings are completely alien to non believers.

The Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers types. I like those guys, and I trust they wouldn't cross the lines in the sand that I drew.

It is not different from people having too much confidence in their judgments in general. Not qualitatively different anyway.

I disagree. God = final authority. Nothing says STFU in an argument better than, "I just feel God really wants..."

479. Fleabytes

Comment #148240 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 12:39 pm

Steve: Fundamentalism isn't civilized. It labels good people as evil and intrudes in lives.

So says you. But if the fundies' assertions about reality are correct, they're not evil; they're heroes.

So long as we insist upon proper application of the rules of evidence, we don't have to worry too much about the style of presentation or the content of the propositions on the table.

Many fundamentalists actually show greater fidelity to ordinary rules of evidence than the murkies. They just compartmentalize, or they assume that facts have been established that actually haven't.

I'm ambivalent about the manners issue. Just depends. Being hurtful usually feels bad. But kissing the ass of some sadist who gets off on dominating others feels bad also. There's a dark streak in human nature and it's no good pretending otherwise. If you've seen it and you've survived it largely intact... well, I feel there truly is a duty to save yourself and you really don't owe everyone the same standard of concern.

If there's any universal rule, perhaps it's the rule that a population of diverse strategies will allow a process of natural selection to reward those strategies that are most effective.

Bonzai: Stockwell Day became a national laughing stock for believing in creationism and he was slaughtered in the election. That alone tells us we are different from the U.S.

We were like you until the rise of the Moral Majority in the late 1980s. Most of the nonsense we face now is down to well-organized, well-funded groups who cynically and effectively manipulate the public. Wherever there is gullibility, there is danger.

What a post. Superb. May I quote it elsewhere?

Of course. Now stop feeding my crack habit so I can finish this programming project.

480. Fleabytes

Comment #148227 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 11:52 am

Whatever "God" represents for them. Whatever personal revelation they receive.

The nstuff God. The God of personal psychological comfort. Fine. However, this God hides a few dangers that must be addressed:

1. Confidence. It's not ok to assume that one's uncorroborated personal revelation from God is actually and undoubtedly from God. The brain plays a few tricks on all of us.

2. Egocentrism. Just because it seems self-evident to you that ham is forbidden by God desn't mean everyone has the same "inner knowing" or intuition.

3. Sock puppetry: your God, like your appendix, your farts, or your dreams at night, is actually a part of yourself. Saying "I humbly submit to the Lord" is like saying, "I humbly submit to a part of myself," which, frankly, is the opposite of humility.

4. Blank checks: the ineffable unknowable has to stay that way. No fair getting specific or concrete about the mind of God at a later date.

481. Fleabytes

Comment #148214 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 10:54 am

Steve: A harsh approach: "Don't you preach at me you ....." (see what I mean?)

Oh goodness. I'd never use that strategy myself "in real life," as they say.

There's a difference between talking to strangers on the interwebs and talking to people you see regularly. On the web, the arguments and ideas can take center stage. But in real life, you have to reassure people of your intentions and feelings all the time. On the web, you can say "bollocks!" in response to some idea or strategy of another. In real life, you have to make sure your blunt talk doesn't signal some change in the status of the relationship.

Comedians on the web likely don't talk the same way to their elderly relatives as they do on YouTube.

BTW, I had no intention of telling that kid his chicken was in heaven with Jesus and grandma. My bad faith does have its limits. Think I delegated that job to someone else who simply told the kid his pet had died.

482. Fleabytes

Comment #148206 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 10:29 am

But if we're talking about political leaders, I think we need to consider how the epistemic elbow room of murkyism can be used to manipulate groups of people.

Yes, indeed, if I understand what you are saying... you mean in the direction Bonzai was talking about.

When a murky is your equal, you likely can take a live-and-let-live attitude toward the other's dodgy assertions. But a murky in power may be a problem. Power, like an ill tempered child, needs firm limits. Give an inch to power, and it takes a mile.

"How nice for you that you believe Jesus died for us, somehow, maybe not a real Jesus but an ideal Jesus on the spiritual plane, which you sense within yourself in an important but poorly examined way" is an epistemic blank check. Decades may pass without it ever being redeemed. But we've no way of knowing what it will cost if and when it's cashed. Do we really want to hand something like this to those in authority over us?

483. Fleabytes

Comment #148198 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 10:09 am

Bonzai: I am not sure if it (murkyism) will lead to non-belief. In fact it may strengthen belief in my estimations.

Not in talking snakes of course. But in what? Belief in what?

Steve: I simply don't believe it (softly-softly, non-confrontational approach) is either paternalistic or condescending. It think it shows respect for other people as fellow fallible humans.

We may be imagining different situations. Typical softly-softly I encounter:

On the phone with neurotic mother of an 11 year-old boy with developmental delays living in a residential facility. The kid has visits home about 3x per year for a weekend or a week. He has a "pet chicken" at home. The chicken died.

Mom wants me to give the kid the bad news. She expects he'll be devastated. Me, eating a chicken sandwich at the time and knowing the boy fairly well, do not anticipate devastation. However fake tears and tantrums are a possibility, if some sympathy pay-off seems likely.

Mom wants me to tell the kid that Chickie or whatever its name was, "is now in heaven with grandma and Jesus."

"We'll talk to him today," I say. "Bye bye now."

484. Fleabytes

Comment #148189 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 9:44 am

The "softly softly" approach requires me to pretend that there's nothing wrong with assigning as much confidence as I'd like to certain propositions about our shared reality, no matter how controversial the proposition might be, no matter the lack of evidence. I actually feel this is dishonest. It's also paternalistic and condescending.

For strategic reasons I'm willing to go softly-softly. I avoid religious discussions with several family members, for example. But I never kid myself into thinking I'm being honest when I play this game.

485. Fleabytes

Comment #148181 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 8:55 am

It's been over a year since I listened to TGD. But what stands out in my memory regarding the child abuse issue, was RD's analogy comparing religions with economic philosophies. We wouldn't describe a four year old as a Marxist. So why do we call four year olds Catholics or Muslims?

There's something fishy about the labelling of children in this way. The meta-message kids get is this: our religion is self-evidently correct; no need for you to think critically about it.

But all the religions of the world can't be correct as they contradict each other. Therefore some children are embracing false beliefs.

If these children later realize that they've been told things that aren't true, they ought to be free to reject those beliefs. Unfortunately, once labelled as the member of some religion from a young age, it can be psychologically painful and difficult to separate from it. In the case of some religions with prohibitions against apostasy, it can be suicidal to leave.

This situation is indeed abusive to our children. Ignorance of this fact is the barrier to change. So the more we talk about it, the better.

486. Fleabytes

Comment #148166 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 8:25 am

The problem are the theologian preachers. The Archbishops and Cardinals.

Yes Steve. Murky religion seems safer than more concrete versions. But everything depends upon the status of the believer we're imagining or talking about.

If we're talking about our kindly neighbor who prays and thanks God but doesn't have strong opinions about gay marriage, hell, and so on, we've nothing to worry about.

But if we're talking about political leaders, I think we need to consider how the epistemic elbow room of murkyism can be used to manipulate groups of people.

487. Fleabytes

Comment #148159 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 8:04 am

On the other hand...

Steve: That is interesting, but surely illustrates how detached theologians can be from ordinary believers.

In a world where many believers are in fact literalists, can the murkies use words like "Creator" and "Christian" and "Jesus" and "died for our sins" without shouldering some responsibility for what these words mean to the literalists?

488. Fleabytes

Comment #148156 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 7:56 am

The sophisticated believer has reduced "Christian" to something like "nstuff" --e.g.:

"Our Christian values..." means nearly the same thing as "our values nstuff."

You can add "nstuff" in a sentence just about anywhere, and people do, for internal, psychological reasons likely resulting from sub-culture, habit, rhythm, whatevah.

You don't acutally need "nstuff." But if it makes you feel better, keep it.

489. Fleabytes

Comment #148151 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 7:43 am

He said if Christians wanted to bring their values to public policy debates such as abortion and stem cell research, they have to be able to frame their positions in secular terms and argue on those grounds alone, otherwise they should be ignored and written offs as yahoos.

I've no problem with that.

However, in a friendship with such a believer, when the mood felt right, I'd gently try to raise his consciousness about the problem of narcissism.

I'm a little young to slam into menopause as I have. The hot flashes are a trip. Suddenly it's 95 degrees in the room and no one else seems to realize. What's wrong with these people?

490. Fleabytes

Comment #148143 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 7:22 am

Artful_Dodger: Re "metaphorical" v "Literal" and the difference between the two, one knows by being familiar with the genre, and by not mistaking one genre for another.

Steve: We know this doesn't work, as there are major differences of opinion about which parts of the bible are metaphorical, and which are literal.

Artful_Dodger's argument illustrates a naive theory of mind. From the Wikipedia entry on "theory of mind":

Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states, beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc., to oneself and others. As originally defined, it enables one to understand that mental states can be the cause of, and thus be used to explain and predict, others' behavior. Being able to attribute mental states to others and understanding them as causes of behavior means, in part, that one must be able to conceive of the mind as a "generator of representations" and to understand that others' mental representations of the world do not necessarily reflect reality and can be different from one's own. It also means one must be able to maintain, simultaneously, different representations of the world. It is a 'theory' of mind in that such representations are not "directly observable". Many other human abilities, from skillful social interaction to language use, are said to involve a theory of mind.

A person can develop more sophisticated schema for representing the minds of others. I learn more all the time about how the world seems from different minds. What's it like to be schizophrenic? Autistic? Three years old? Post-right hemispheric stroke? Color blind? Deaf? Blind and deaf? Unable to process subordinant clauses? Non-verbal? A bird?

Stepping inside these minds gives me that "wow" feeling that you physicist types enjoy when contemplating cosmic discoveries.

491. Fleabytes

Comment #148133 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 6:59 am

You've represented the murky position quite well, Bonzai. Strategically, the murky position is likely a necessary transition between belief and non-belief.

But it's a deception and we shouldn't kid ourselves about that. It only pretends to give authority to scripture. It doesn't acutally give any more authority to scripture than to Shakespeare.

492. Fleabytes

Comment #148127 by Dr Benway on March 22, 2008 at 6:44 am

It doesn't matter whether Artful interpret the Bible metaphorically or literally, the question is what kind of moral lessons he draws from it.

I think the problem of mythical vs. literal truth is the problem of morality also.

If the Bible is mythical like the Iliad, then the person reading it has the authority to decide what is right and wrong. If God as represented in the Bible wants us to stone adulterers, the reader can say, "That's what those ancient peoples believed; doesn't apply to me."

If the Bible is a literal transmission of the mind of God through selected human channels, then the text itself has the authority to dictate what is right and what is wrong. Even if we don't feel good about stoning adulterers, we're supposed to do this because we've been commanded by God.

Most Christians aren't yet ready to admit the Bible is a work of historical fiction. But once they admit that, it will be a lot easier for us to talk about our shared values.

493. No Admission for Evolutionary Biologist at Creationist Film

Comment #148042 by Dr Benway on March 21, 2008 at 9:45 pm

But surely it's time that you amended your famous constitution to limit the freedom of dishonest people, like those behind this film, to twist scientific facts and corrupt young and impressionable minds.

The cure for bad speech is more speech.

494. Discussion on PZ Myers being expelled from Expelled

Comment #148038 by Dr Benway on March 21, 2008 at 9:27 pm

Well now things make sense. "Expelled" is rolling out in this strange manner with showings of a partially finished version to friendly crowds, because the production company hasn't secured permission to all its contents - e.g., "Bad to the Bone," the Harvard animation, and likely more.

They're probably scrambling to raise money to sort these legal matters. No wonder they're nervous.

495. Two More Fleas

Comment #148024 by Dr Benway on March 21, 2008 at 8:46 pm

Josh, could you add a fourth category to the flag feature please:

[troll][spam][offensive][wtf?]

496. No Admission for Evolutionary Biologist at Creationist Film

Comment #148019 by Dr Benway on March 21, 2008 at 7:55 pm

I find it rather surprising that Richard Dawkins got in to see the movie when P.Z. Myers did not, considering that Richard Dawkins is a lot more famous than P.Z. Myers

Seems their telgent plan to keep critics out of moovie bout mean scientists suppressin criticism not so telgent.

O noes! Mai irony meter jes sploded again!

497. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #148008 by Dr Benway on March 21, 2008 at 7:12 pm

It's official! The Discovery Institute has given our favorite viking, P. Zed Myers, a ringing endorsement for the job:

The whole point of Myers is that he is a take-no-prisoners, crusading atheist scientist who has made it his purpose in life to harass people who disagree with him.

Oh noes! Myers iz wai too scary!!!!1!!

498. No Admission for Evolutionary Biologist at Creationist Film

Comment #148000 by Dr Benway on March 21, 2008 at 6:45 pm

Don't we stand to end up looking like Fleas through all of this?

Never really worried much about how I look. But thanks for caring, Mr. Concern Troll.

I added a bit on "breaking the irony meter" to the Wikipedia entry on irony:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

499. Fleabytes

Comment #147986 by Dr Benway on March 21, 2008 at 5:57 pm

That's the spirit!

Know what the Canucks call the paper money in their pockets?

500. EXPELLED!

Comment #147974 by Dr Benway on March 21, 2008 at 5:16 pm

All we need now is an update on how George Scales is doing.