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April 23, 2008
My First Ballot in PA
It would appear that Operation Chaos worked, as Hillary Rodham Clinton has beaten Barack Hussein Obama in the Democrat Party primary for President here in Pennsylvania, 55%-45%. So we'll get to see these two candidates continue to bludgeon each other politically for a few more weeks, hooray! Hopefully this chaos lasts right up through the Democrat National Convention in August in Denver. :-) I thought about joining the thousands taking part in Operation Chaos, but as the registration deadline approached a month ago, I just couldn't stomach the thought of voting for Hillary, even for such a noble cause as this. So I stayed registered with the GOP.
Meanwhile, yesterday I voted at a voting booth for the first time ever in my life (in 2002 and 2004 I voted via absentee ballots for the generals, and in 2006 I didn't know about PA's 30-day voter registration deadline or WI's change in voter laws that required everyone to re-register in person), and I cast my ballot for Ron Paul as a protest against John McCain (and as practice for not voting for him in November either, haha). Voter turnout was higher than normal for a primary across the state and in PA-5 because of tight, meaningful races, and when I showed up at my precinct (Borough of State College, South Central 2) at 9am, I was Republican #24, and I saw that they were already up to Democrat #86, which wasn't unexpected because of the Hillary vs Obamessiah contest. It was interesting watching the election returns come in online last night. That's really a much better way of doing it in my opinion, then I don't have to suffer through listening to the repetitive, incessant inanity of the talking heads on the cable news networks.
Speaking of the doom our country faces no matter which of these three clowns gets elected to the presidency (just kidding, calm down), check out this hilarious parody by "The Eschatologians" (about a whole range of end times doctrines, haha) of a Justin Timberlake song at a church variety show in Orlando last year (h/t: Tracy)!
The signs of spring are all around State College these days. Ever since last Thursday when we got to the upper 70s, it seems like every time I walk around I notice more and more buds, leaves and blossoms coming out. It almost seems like it's happening by the hour (which it is). 
It's just so nice to be able to walk around without a jacket anymore. Spring sure feels so good after a long winter! The time for cookouts (not barbecues, I don't wanna irk my southern friends), picnics and tennis is definitely here! And before you know it, it'll be time for the church softball season to get underway (in two weeks actually, I think). 
And it also means the looming end of the semester, which for me means I only have a week left to try to get through as much as I can on my final project for Remote Sensing. I'm so ready for this semester to be over so that I can focus exclusively on my research for the summer.
Monday was a pretty busy day. In the afternoon I took part in a weather forecasting & economics research study that Caren helped to design. Basically, we were given a certain amount of forecast information, and based on that, had to indicate the maximum amount of "experimental dollars" we would be willing to pay for certain shares. The "market price" for the various shares that were pseudo-randomly chosen determined whether or not we bought a share in that temperature range. If the actual high temperature fell in the range for which we owned shares, we earned money. If we owned shares that didn't verify, we lost money. It was a fun little diversion for a couple hours, and I earned $21 from it. Thanks Caren!
The IM dodgeball playoffs were on Monday night, but unfortunately we were knocked out in the first round. It was a really close, intense, back-and-forth match, and I was able to knock one person out to help our team go up 4-1 before one of my throws was caught. In the end it came down to 1-on-1, with Jeff [Grabon] going up against a really good player from the other team, and that went on for probably close to two minutes, with each taking turns dodging the other's hard throws, before one of Grabon's tosses was caught. Sigh. At least we gave it a good run, and showed we belonged in the playoffs. Our quest for an elusive IM block will continue this summer in softball.
Also on Monday night I went with a few people from PSCG to go see Ben Stein's controversial new movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." In this very well-done documentary (click here for a good review), Ben Stein goes on a personal odyssey over the span of two years to find out if scientists who are proponents of intelligent design (ID), or those who even mention it in a neutral light, really are treated fairly in academia. And the answer is a pretty resounding no, as he documents many cases of academics being fired and denied tenure for what they've said about ID. Many of the world's leading Darwinist scientists were also interviewed, including Richard Dawkins (author of such books as "The God Delusion"), and by their pronouncements it was clear the disdain and contempt they hold for anyone who doesn't toe the "party line" on Darwinism.
Some who protest the movie claim that the Darwinist scientists who were interviewed weren't told what the documentary was about, but I've also read that all the interviewees were given the questions in writing beforehand. Whichever's true, it really doesn't matter, because it doesn't change what they said in response to Ben Stein's questions when he interviewed them. And what they said, quite frankly, makes them come off as condescending, arrogant, closed-minded and desperate people. Some critics also claim that Stein is equating Darwinism with Naziism. That's blatantly not true! Stein is very careful to explain in the movie that he doesn't think that all Darwinists will become Nazis, but documents how foundational Darwinism was to eugenics and Nazi ideology. If Darwinism is taken to its logical philosophical conclusions, eugenics is one of the ugly places where it leads. Some critics also claim that "Expelled" is trying to get creationism and/or ID taught in the schools. That's blatantly false as well! I don't know how *anyone* can watch this film and come away with that message. Stein is merely pointing out (repeatedly) that freedom of speech and academic inquiry is being squelched in scientific circles, in that Darwinism is never allowed to be questioned. For the brave souls who do muster the courage to question it, their jobs are in jeopardy and their reputations are smeared. That this can be allowed to happen in a supposedly free country like ours is unconscionable.
In short, "Expelled" is a fantastic movie, and I highly recommend that everyone go see it. I'm probably gonna try to go see it again on Saturday too, assuming it's still in the theater here for a second week. I can only hope that this eye-opening movie causes more of an open dialogue about these issues in our society and in the academy, because it raises some very "inconvenient" facts (to the scientific establishment, anyway). I probably shouldn't hold my breath though.
Posted by Jared at April 23, 2008 09:15 PM
Comments
What does eugenics have to do with Darwin or the Theory of Evolution? If I'm not mistaken, people had been breeding animal and plants into various breeds for thousands of years. The same had been done to various degrees to people at various times throughout history (breeding your best warriors, for example). If Darwin was so important, why doesn't Hitler mention it once in Mein Kamph? Plus I was under the impression that Jews had been persecuted for a long time before Darwin had ever born.
As for the people who were 'expelled' for their beliefs, thats largely been debunked. If you care to, check out the rather lengthy stories behind the various individuals who were 'expelled' in the movie.
http://www.expelledexposed.com/
Darwin's theory has been challenged quite a bit over the years and has changed. But it requires the scientific method. Proofs that can be reproduced. Thats why theories are so great. If you have something thats concrete and you can prove it, theories can change. Theories change all the time the more we understand the world around us, and new theories are proposed. Does ID hold up to scientific review and real world testing? Does it hold up to the stringent tests that all other theories are held to?
If not, then it either needs to be revised or thrown out.
In the past you've highly attacked more 'liberal' documentaries for their bad logic, twisting of the facts, and bad propaganda. For some reason I'm reminded of these talks we had as I watch clips of Expelled.
Posted by: Joshua at April 24, 2008 08:49 AM
Expelled is as insightful and objective a documentary as Fahrenheit 911.
Posted by: Jacob at April 24, 2008 09:40 AM
Okay, I know it's been awhile since both my friends Josh's and Jacob's comments, but I was a bit bogged down with end-of-semester stuff and life in general. That being said, part of the delay in my response has been because I've also been reading a great deal of material on both sides of the debate (including Richard Dawkins' lengthy rant about the film on his blog), to weigh the evidence and try to figure out for myself where the truth on these matters lies. I'll do my best to respond to each of the general claims/points they make above.
First, I'll address the issue of eugenics/Hitler/Nazi ideology and Darwinism. While I don't know if it's true that Hitler never explicitly cited or mentioned Charles Darwin's name or books/papers in "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"), there seems to be a great deal of evidence that Hitler did indeed derive much of his ideology at least partially from Darwinism:
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/1914/
http://www.discovery.org/a/4629
Did Hitler's ideology come from Darwin alone? Certainly not. Do people who agree with Darwinism necessarily become Nazis? Hardly! (And "Expelled" is very careful to make that important clarification loud and clear.) But the views that Hitler and eugenicists espoused were heavily based on Darwinian evolutionary concepts in that the fittest/strongest would survive, that the various human 'races' are more or less 'evolved' or developed than one another, and that certain humans are less deserving of life because they are weaker, 'less fit,' or of a 'lower race.' Darwin himself is quoted in "Expelled" as saying in "The Descent of Man," in effect, that just as humans don't let their weakest domesticated animals breed, that humankind is being degraded by allowing the weaker members of humanity to procreate and propagate their genes. Even if Darwin would not have condoned eugenics (and I'm not claiming that he did), that sure seems like a foundation for eugenics to me! And yes, it is true that anti-Semitism has been around for many centuries, long before Darwin came along, but Nazi ideology clearly was much, much more than anti-Semitism alone.
Second, I'll address the claim that "Expelled Exposed" has thoroughly debunked the claims about the 'expelled' scientists that were made in "Expelled." After Josh's comment, I read a substantial amount of the material on "Expelled Exposed," a website run by Eugenie Scott and the National Center for Science Education. And I'll admit, a great deal of what I read on the site seemed pretty damning and was troubling. The charges they make are pretty serious, and question the entire premise of the movie (that academics and other people have been persecuted for espousing pro-ID views, or even views that are merely neutral to ID).
HOWEVER...
Eugenie Scott and the NCSE are hardly the model of objectivity on this subject, as they have demonstrated themselves time and again to be vehement and vitriolic in their opposition to intelligent design and to creation science. I wondered if it was possible that they were stretching or misrepresenting the facts in the cases of the 'expelled' scientists, so I did a short search to see if there was a rebuttal of sorts. And sure enough, there was! The Discovery Institute (which, being the primary organization promoting ID, admittedly also has a bias) has a lengthy article on their website which addresses -- and refutes -- some of Michael Shermer's criticisms of "Expelled," dealing mainly with two of the 'expelled' scientists, Richard von Sternberg and Guillermo Gonzalez. (Shermer, an avowed atheist, is head of the Skeptics Society, and appeared in "Expelled.")
http://www.discovery.org/a/4689
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/04/the_ncse_exposed_clunky_attack.html
So while this doesn't address *all* of the charges laid out on NCSE's "Expelled Exposed" website, it lays bare and refutes NCSE's twisting of the facts in its attempts to refute the claims in "Expelled." So if the NCSE, Shermer and other critics are so wrong about von Sternberg and Gonzalez, that certainly does cast reasonable doubt upon the veracity of the claims on the rest of the "Expelled Exposed" website.
Third, there is the issue of Darwinian evolution and the scientific method. In response to this, I would just like to echo David Berlinksi's words in "Expelled," that the theory of evolution is so incredibly vague and ill-defined that it's not even scientific, that it fails to meet the stringent criteria that other scientific theories must meet to be scientific. In fact, the eminent philosopher of science Karl Popper has said that the theory of evolution is so malleable, that it can incorporate every new observation, that it is therefore unfalsifiable as currently outlined, and therefore is unscientific. I agree that as we continue to make discoveries and uncover more data, scientific understanding must likewise change to accommodate the new data/discoveries. However, as new discoveries are made that seem to overturn previous evolutionary thinking and theories, many scientists concoct new variations of evolutionary theories, but never question the paradigm of evolution itself. For more discussion on the issue of creation, evolution and science, please check out this link:
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/2480
"Expelled" is an advocacy documentary, in that it certainly promotes a particular viewpoint. However, the filmmakers didn't simply interview people who line up with their point of view, as they talked to many eminent scientists on both sides of the debate. It is far more insightful a documentary than "Fahrenheit 9/11" was, because the facts actually largely line up with "Expelled," which is something that definitely cannot be claimed for "Fahrenheit 9/11"!
I hope this response has been helpful.
Posted by: Jared at May 5, 2008 12:48 AM