Thursday, January 08, 2009

Expelled!: The Mask is Off!

The producer of the movie Expelled! now says never meant to make a movie that presented a fair treatment of the case for the academic dismissals of supporters of Intelligent Design but, rather, wanted to get people charged up about the cause. The interview with Walt Ruloff, which appears in the Vancouver Sun reveals this:

In Expelled, Stein, with his trademark monotone, takes on the role of a Michael-Moore-like muckraker bent on exposing the allegedly closed minds of scientists who champion Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

The documentary links such scientists to Nazis. The reaction was what one would expect.

"We wanted to generate anger," Ruloff said.

"We always knew we'd get extreme anger on the one side and extreme support on the other. We also think we got extreme interest in the middle."

There is also this:

Its harsh tone mocked and almost demonized opponents, especially the anti-religious scientist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion.

The documentary also interviews several ID proponents who say they lost academic positions because of their views. However, defenders of the scientific community have countered that Expelled's claims of academic persecution are misleading, if not false.

Ruloff says the film is accomplishing its goals, nevertheless. "What we really wanted to do was give scientists more courage. Science is in such lockdown. The only way we can give scientists courage is if we deal with the issue head-on -- in kind of an American style."

So the object of the film was never to present the case that the dismissals were unfair, but rather to "demonize" evolution supporters, to promote ID in the colleges and universities and provoke people to anger. Hardly a scientific endeavor. On par for something connected to the Discovery Institute.

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