Episode 15 – Expelled Exposed
Dr. Eugenie Scott
In response to the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, we decided to talk with someone who has invested her life defending evolution. Dr. Eugenie Scott, Director for the National Center for Science Education, talks to us about the movie, the NCSE response, and the place of evolution in science education.
- National Center for Science Education
- Expelled Exposed: Flunked, Not Expelled – What Ben Stein isn’t telling you about Intelligent Design
- Ben Stein: “Science Leads you to Killing People”
- Doonesbury Comic regarding medicine and Intelligent Design
- The Post-Crescent: It’s Your Call
- PZ Myers (Pharyngula) gets expelled from Expelled
- Boston Globe: No Intelligence Allowed in ‘Expelled’
- Scientific American: Expelled Explained
- Expelled Producers Accused of Copyright Infringement
Direct download: nstalol15.mp3
The Expelled Exposed website proves Ben Stein’s argument. Why is the evolution “camp” so offended by the movie? I believe that they see it as a threat. The website is nothing more than an anti-religious rant. If you are true scientists discuss all options. Dawkin himself admits that intelligent design is plausible. As a science teacher I continue to be disgusted by the NSTA and it’s lack of informing educators on all the information available. The bold clams against the movie Expelled prove that NSTA and the National Center for Science Education are only trying to promote their own bias agenda.
Anyone interested in the issues of evolution and creationism should definitely read both of David Sloan Wilson’s books: “Darwin’s Cathedral” and “Evolution for Everyone.” Each provides great insight into the concepts of evolution and religion.
I am a very dedicated scientist and science teacher and I have also been searching for a very long time in regards to my personal spirituality. What I have discovered in this controversy is that stepping up to the table of discussion with any biases, either for or against creationism, makes any reasonable discussion impossible. It is the same with each of these books I have recommended. If a person approaches them with any initial bias against them or are unwilling to finish them, that person is clearly holds pre-conceived biases.
In regards to the previous post’s statement that the NSTA’s (and the scientific community’s, for that matter) “anti-religious rant, I find it disturbing that a science teacher has that opinion and hope that my children are never in such a classroom. Science teaches have a responsibility to be teaching standard’s based material that is supported by sound, peer-reviewed, scientific research. None of the religious and intelligent design points stand-up to that measure. When the plum-pudding concept of atomic structure, spontaneous generation, and the geocentric model of the Universe were refuted with sound scientific evidence, they stopped being the accepted theories. If evolution were to be refuted with sound, scientific evidence, the same would occur with the theory of evolution. Until then it is the best science we have. Anyone who confuses science and spirituality with each other has much more soul searching. If evolution disturbs your sense of spirituality so much that a person is disgusted by it or afraid do of what that means. I sincerely wish them the best of luck in coping with such a dilemma – it seems that would make being a true scientist very difficult.
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