One of my biggest skeptical heroes is James Randi. He is a small man with a big laugh, an even bigger heart, and an even bigger love for the pursuit of skeptical analysis into all manner of paranormal, mystical, or odd-ball claims. For Randi, no questions are off limits and skepticism knows no bounds; he and his legacy are one of the primary reasons why I am here, doing what I do on this blog and in my daily life as a skeptic and teacher, and I know his work (through the James Randi Educational Foundation) has reached and inspired countless others. Now there is a movie being made about him, called “An Honest Liar: The Amazing Randi Story”.
However, such an undertaking requires money, so please consider donating at the Kickstarter page to help get this movie made. Click the picture below for more information, and please spread the word…
One of my biggest skeptical heroes is James Randi. He is a small man with a big laugh, an even bigger heart, and an even bigger love for the pursuit of skeptical analysis into all manner of paranormal, mystical, or odd-ball claims. For Randi, no questions are off limits and skepticism knows no bounds; he and his legacy are one of the primary reasons why I am here, doing what I do on this blog and in my daily life as a skeptic and teacher, and I know his work (through the James Randi Educational Foundation) has reached and inspired countless others. Now there is a movie being made about him, called “An Honest Liar: The Amazing Randi Story”.
Watch the trailer, pass it on to your friends (even if they aren’t card-carrying skeptics), and consider helping to get this film made. As is stated early in the trailer, “This is a film about trickery, fraud, about lies…”
As most of you already know, the production company Premise Media went bankrupt. Their execrable propaganda film, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”, is on the auction block. The online auction is proceeding now, and will end on Tuesday, June 28th.
The auction promises that besides all available rights and interests in the finished film itself (there is an existing distribution contract), the winner will get all the production materials and rights to them. Want to know what was in the rest of the interviews with Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers? I know I would like to have that material archived and made available to the public, among other things that Premise Media found inconvenient to include in their film.
There was talk among individuals on “After the Bar Closes” about the auction. Kristine Harley pointed out that, depending on exactly what is in the production materials, there may well be “Wedge Document 2” in there somewhere. When the “academic freedom” label on religious antievolution goes to court, it could be very handy to have those materials on hand.
But any one individual is unlikely to have the wherewithal to make the winning bid on this.
Today, the TalkOrigins Archive Foundation approved a resolution to use our funds on hand to put in a bid on “Expelled”. We hope to make many of the materials freely available and to collaborate with other groups seeking to produce rebuttals to claims made in “Expelled”. To that end, we would like your help. Our final bid amount will be determined by funds on hand and what has come in via our PayPal donation button by Monday, June 27th. This is because there are delays in transfers between PayPal and the bank, and (hopefully!) we’ll need to pay out of our bank account.
Ken Fair, our secretary and treasurer, wrote a detailed discussion of donations and bidding. The short of it is that while we hope to bid and win the auction, we don’t know what the bid prices will be come the 28th, and cannot guarantee that we will win the auction, especially since it has an unknown reserve price on it. We cannot refund donations, so even in the case of us making the winning bid, donations that take us beyond that amount would remain part of the TOAF funding. On the other hand, contributions to the TOAF are tax-deductible for USA residents and will be used in accordance with the TOAF’s mission.
I hope that by providing a single point at which we can pool our resources, we’ll have a better chance to put in the winning bid on “Expelled”. Even if we don’t manage to make the winning bid, every bit that we can do to raise our bid helps in that the other side will have to take even more money out of their current projects in order to beat the bid.
You may recall that a few years ago, there was a major “documentary” (and I use that word in its loosest possible sense) released about creationism and evolution ironically titled “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”. The movie starred actor Ben Stein, who in my view totally jumped the shark by attaching himself to this film, and argued – among other things – that Darwin’s theory of evolution was responsible for Nazism and the Holocaust. The implication was, of course, that modern proponents of evolutionary science are somehow the moral descendents of Hitler and the Nazis – nice… I’ve heard of Godwinning an argument, but having an entire frakkin’ movie dedicated to a Godwin is a first.
Of course, this film was nothing short of a creationist oriented propaganda hit-piece against evolution, long on paranoid conspiracy mongering and short on pretty much anything factual. (**Aside: for more info on the myriad flaws in this movie, see the Expelled Exposed website)
I recall that at the time numerous creationist outlets (most notably the Discovery Institute) were feverishly promoting the movie, claiming that it was going to be another “death knell for evolution”.
Well, two things are now clear: evolutionary science is still very much alive and kicking, and the legacy of Expelled and those behind it is looking rather grim. That’s because the production company behind the film, Premise Media, is going bankrupt. Here’s more news on this…
The production company behind Ben Stein’s shaggy god story ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ has a sequel to its intellectual bankruptcy: financial bankruptcy. Premise Media has filed for Chapter 7 and is selling off any asset it can find. The fact that somebody still thinks this movie is an asset could be a clue to what went wrong. Survival of the fittest is a bitch for the unfit.
Critics far and wide trashed the film, with Time magazine stating that he “makes all the usual mistakes nonscientists make whenever they try to take down evolution,” and the New York Times (Stein’s former employer) calling the film “one of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time…a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.”
But what really drew the ire of critics and scientists was Stein’s claim that Darwin’s theory of natural selection could be the cause of “euthanasia, abortion, eugenics and—wait for it—Nazism,” according to Time. But perhaps the most notorious pan came from noted film critic Roger Ebert:
“Stein…takes a field trip to visit one ‘result’ of Darwinism: Nazi concentration camps. ‘As a Jew,’ he says, ‘I wanted to see for myself.’ We see footage of gaunt, skeletal prisoners. Pathetic children. A mound of naked Jewish corpses. ‘It’s difficult to describe how it felt to walk through such a haunting place,’ he says. Oh, go ahead, Ben Stein. Describe. It filled you with hatred for Charles Darwin and his followers, who represent the overwhelming majority of educated people in every nation on earth. It is not difficult for me to describe how you made me feel by exploiting the deaths of millions of Jews in support of your argument for a peripheral Christian belief. It fills me with contempt.”
But, if I know anything about the mindset of some of these creationist organizations, they’ll find a way to rationalize their spectacular failure. My guess is, in keeping with their conspiracy-minded worldview, their rationalization will somehow involve blaming “Darwinists” for the company’s downfall. In short, they’ll go back to their old standby:
[**Note: This is a guest post I made over at the Women Thinking Free Foundation's blog, WTF Is Going On?!, and I thought I would share it with you]
by Matt Lowry, WTFF Secretary
As another part of the WTFF’s effort to simultaneously inform the public about the benefits of vaccines while also countering anti-vaccinationist propaganda, we make an effort to keep tabs on what the anti-vaccination movement is doing. This includes having some of our Skeptical Ninjas attend anti-vaccinationist conferences, such as last week’s Autism One Conference in Lombard, Illinois.
You know how we often hear pseudoscientists and other folks make the claim that skeptics are not interested in allowing dissenting views or that “they” (academia, the establishment, Big Pharma, whatever) are “expelling” those brave scientists and activists who dare to challenge the orthodoxy of scientists, etc? Yes, we’ve all heard this tired old argument many, many times and rolled our eyes at the overly melodramatic and irrational nature of it (which is simply a blatant attempt to avoid the facts of the argument in favor of making an emotional appeal). Well, the interesting thing is that some pseudoscientists, such as the anti-vaccintationists, appear to want to have it both ways: they wish to make this argument while simultaneously “expelling” their critics.
Case in point: two Skeptical Ninjas – the WTFF’s very own VP Jamie Bernstein and journalist Ken Reibel – were “expelled” from the Autism One Conference because… they paid for their registration and showed up. Yup, that’s it – these anti-vaccination loons kicked them out of the conference, even though they had paid to be there and were not causing any disruptions whatsoever. In fact, they not only kicked them out, but the organizers actually had seven (seven!) security personnel escort Jamie and Ken off the premises – the hypocrisy is so thick you can cut it with a knife!
To read more about the incident in question, here are a variety of perspectives from various skeptical blogs on the matter:
Now, I’ve never met Ken Reibel, but I personally know Jamie Bernstein and I have to say that she is about the most least intimidating person I know. In fact, here is a photo of her standing next to James Randi (who is about 5 feet tall)…
The ultra-menacing Jamie Bernstein next to James Randi – if you add their heights together, they might reach up to the usual person’s knee
So the obvious question is: WTF Autism One?!! Why are you throwing Jamie and Ken out simply because they attended the conference? Folks, this sort of mindless Orwellian crap doesn’t occur at skeptics’ conferences, I know that for a fact. Last year at TAM8 I met both a renowned self-declared psychic and one of the world’s leading Moon hoax conspiracy theorists. Both were perfectly welcome at TAM8 and, while there were understandably a lot of skeptics rolling their eyes and laughing at these folks, nobody was entertaining the idea of having them thrown out. We don’t play that game.
And there’s the rub: when it comes to questions of real free inquiry and open discussion, the skeptics such as those represented by the JREF and WTFF practice what they preach. While we may not agree with them, we welcome our critics and allow them to participate within our discussions. On the flip side, pseudoscientific scare-mongers like the anti-vaccinationists at Autism One openly display their hyprocrisy by saying one thing and doing another, and in so doing they show that they’re not driven by an objective search for truth but rather an ideological zeal which is dangerously disconnected from reality.
And that is why they must be opposed at every turn: because in the distorted reality-challenged worldview of the anti-vaccinationists, a lot of innocent people will die of perfectly treatable and curable diseases if they get their way.
The news of these latest developments was broken by my skeptical colleague & one of the most awesome women I know, the scourge of anti-vax morons everywhere, Skepchick Elyse Anders…
Last night, after I had a glass of wine and a delicious butter pecan cupcake, I got a disturbing text from fellow Skepchick Maria.
She was at Studio Movie Grill in Holcomb, Ga, and was about to enjoy some Christmas Eve movie wonderfulness when… BAM… in her face, 70 ft x 30 ft of nauseating news:
The Safe Minds PSAs, the ones we had pulled from AMC last month, are still playing in other theaters. (This may not be the exact PSA running, but the message is the same.) …
Boy, this sucks! But rather than curse the darkness, let’s light some candles, folks… to hell with that, let’s light a motherf***ing bonfire! We’ve been here before, and we know what works – the threat of a widespread boycott will work; the problem is that we have to know exactly what movie theaters to target for the boycott. And the anti-vaxxers are making it tougher this time because they haven’t advertised the theaters which are playing their ad. So what we have to do is find out exactly what theaters are and are not playing the ad shown above.
If you’d like to help out, I suggest that you follow Elyse’s advice:
… Before you go [see a movie], I ask that you call your theater and find out if they are playing the SafeMinds ads. If they are, find an alternate theater. AMC Theaters have agreed not to run these ads in any of their theaters.
If you do see these ads, please leave a comment here [on the Skepchick comment thread], or if you’d rather not leave a comment, contact me using the Link? Question? Comment? link on the left side bar or email me at elyse(at)womenthinkingfree.org.
Once we have a list, we can work on writing letters, making phone calls and organizing our boycott. Jamie Bernstein of the WTFF is working on compiling a list as best she can… which is difficult without calling every single theater in the country today. …
Please consider getting involved, somehow. We know that we can win these fights, but it takes commitment & persistence. We cannot do it without you.
I want to pass along a story to you all. This story is about my good friend & skeptical colleague-in-arms, Elyse Anders, who is quite possibly the most awesome skeptic I know (and I know a lot of them, folks). I say this because Elyse not only talks the skeptical talk, she walks the skeptical walk, even if it means walking right into the jaws of some folks who are not very pleasant people to deal with (and that takes serious guts). You see, Elyse was one of the driving forces behind getting the Age of Autism’s anti-vaccination “PSAs” pulled from circulation at AMC Theaters before the Thanksgiving weekend.
Well, now the folks at Age of Autism are pissed and they’ve started their counter-attack, which is no surprise. Sadly, also no surprise, they are not attempting to counter our skeptical display of facts with facts, research, and so on; rather, they have started to attack Elyse personally – very personally – and I think it would be good for us to send her some love. Below I share her account of the events of recent days…
… My morning started with a coffee while checking FB to see who’s got good snark and who’s got stupid cartoon profile pictures. Instead of snark and snorks, I got an email from Kim Wombles informing me that Age of Autism has started their attack against me.
I wasn’t surprised. After the AMC awesomeness just before Thanksgiving and the Grant Park rally last May I knew I was on their radar. And Orac’s been warning me for months, and called their shot Thanksgiving Day. I was waiting for them. I was prepared… I thought.
Unfortunately, I’m naive. I expected them to come at me with information. I expected them to be angry. I expected them to call me names. I expected them to take my words out of context. I expected them to paint me as a bad mother. I expected them to use my son’s developmental delays against me. I expected them to show up here and on their own blogs.
But they play dirty.
They’ve taken my FB profile pic and posted it on their FB page with the caption:
This is the woman who fought to pull the SafeMinds PSA’s from the theatres. It’s her FB profile page photo. She is anti-choice and wants to tell you that mercury is safe and that Thimeosal is good – according to her blog. She trolls AofA regularly. As do all the pro-vaccine-injury bloggers.
It’s sly. A thinly veiled call to arms against me. They’ve called me ugly. They’ve called me negligent. They’ve threatened to call child protective services on me. They’ve vaguely threatened violence. They’ve threatened my face. They’ve threatened to rape me with broken thermometers. They’ve posted my full name and my face… and worse…the pic is not just me; it’s me and Delaney, my infant daughter. They dragged my daughter into this. They’re attacking my baby. She’s 6 months old. And she’s being threatened. …
Folks, this sort of thing is just downright despicable. It is also revealing to see the tactics being employed by these anti-vax loons when their primary response to a grassroots skeptical campaign to stop their pseudoscientific propaganda is to personally attack, smear, and even threaten the organizers of that campaign (not mention, to drag their kids into it all). Pardon me while I puke…
A few days ago when I mentioned that “It’s time to kick some ass…” on the issue of the anti-vaccine scumbags at Age of Autisum and SafeMinds trying to run a pseudoscientific & fearmongering anti-vaccine ad in theaters nationwide, I meant it. And apparently you did as well, because collectively we have kicked some major woo ass, folks!
… SafeMinds was notified late yesterday afternoon that AMC Theaters has decided to block the SafeMinds Public Service Announcement (PSA) on influenza vaccines with mercury. The PSA alerts parents and pregnant women of the presence of mercury in most influenza vaccines and the ample availability of mercury-free alternatives. The CDC has declined to give a preference for the mercury-free versions, so it is important that the public is aware of its options. AMC’s advertising representative had reviewed and approved the PSA to run in AMC cinemas over the Thanksgiving weekend. A small group of vocal vaccine proponents dismissive of mercury concerns learned of the PSA and bombarded the AMC website, leading to the company’s decision to prevent its release. SafeMinds thanks its supporters who viewed the PSA and contributed to its efforts to educate the public to avoid unnecessary mercury exposure. Mercury in all forms is dangerous, especially to the developing fetus and infants, as referenced on the PSA website www.safemindsflu.org. SafeMinds will continue its mission to educate the public on this important healthcare topic. …
Now, in their fit of whining, the Age of Autism people are encouraging their followers to boycott AMC theaters. In response, I say we encourage everyone we know to attend an AMC theater this weekend; I also suggest that you consider writing a letter to the company stating how happy you are that they made the right decision in pulling this dangerous ad from circulation in their theaters. I think perhaps a quick way to do this is to leave feedback at this website, the same website where earlier complaints about the anti-vax ad were left earlier this week.
Congratulations folks, we did it – this is a testament to grassroots skepticism in action that makes a real difference for everyone
Please note: I have no idea if any other theater chains (such as Regal or Sony) potentially involved in airing this ad have followed AMC’s lead. If anyone has any information on this, please share it with me.
**Update (11/23/10): I may have spoken too soon with my earlier update, folks. It seems that over the last day or so we’ve received some conflicting reports about exactly what is & isn’t going on at AMC with these ads. Elyse Anders provides more details over at Skepchick on this – until we have more info, stay tuned & continue contacting the theaters in question.
**Update (11/21/10): It appears the executives at AMC (which owns some of the theaters in question) have listened to the public outcry – they say they have pulled the ad and do not plan to show it. However, some of the other theaters may not be owned by AMC, so please contact them.
But don’t tell that to the anti-vax crowd, because they don’t give a whit about the science. They believe in their heart of hearts that they know the “truth about vaccines”, and they don’t care one way or the other what the actual evidence is… and they want to proselytize this lunacy to you:
Folks, the purpose of this ad is simple: it is to sow fear & distrust of vaccines in the hopes that you & your kids don’t get them at all – that’s it. These anti-vax groups are, for whatever reason, ideologically opposed to the very idea of vaccinations, and they’ll use every slimy tactic in the book to push it on you. If you can stomach it, here is their ad…
And here is the list of theaters that are currently being targeted by Age of Autism for this dangerous propaganda (with the potential to reach over 500,000 people):
*Empire 25 in New York City
*Long Beach 26 in Long Beach, California
*River East 21 in Chicago, IL
*Boston Common 19 in Boston, MA
*Phipps Plaza 14 in Atlanta, GA
*Tyson’s Corner 16 in McLean, VA
*Northpark Center 15 in Dallas, TX
*Rosedale 14 in Saint Paul, MN
*Pavillions 15 in Denver, CO
We cannot let this stand… I suggest that if you live in any of these areas (or know people who do) that you contact the theater in question to find out whether or not they plan to run this PSA, and if they do plan to do so then make it well known to them that you will boycott that business in perpetuity (and you will encourage everyone you know to do the same) – when it comes to stuff like this, money talks & bullshit walks. I would also notify your local health department and medical doctors’ organization about this, on the chance that they might wish to make some kind of public statement against this idiocy.
And spread the word – the skeptical & pro-science community needs to send a strong, clear message to those who would spread such life-endangering pseudoscience that we will not stand for it. We didn’t ask for this fight, be we will fight it & we will finish it.
Well, the movie failed badly, mostly because those people who were not already convinced that Evil-ution is, well, evil rightly concluded that it was a bunch of hooey. Score one for the pro-science side
And, in an incredible twist of irony, here is a rather interesting fact: one of the leading thinkers in the Intelligent Design creationist movement, William Dembski, was nearly fired from his theological institution for daring to publicly disagree with them on the age of the universe and details regarding Noah’s Flood as written in the Bible! Really folks, you can’t make this stuff up…
… William Dembski, one of the main proponents of intelligent design, has recanted his scientific views in an attempt to keep his job. As philosopher Michael Ruse has said, explaining but not condoning Dembski’s actions, “here he is with a wife and kids to support and the threat of the sack.”
The issue is as clear as any could be and demonstrates the kind of litmus test that proponents of religious fundamentalism impose on their adherents — even on their stars. And make no mistake about it, William Dembski is a first order star in the intelligent design firmament. He is a prolific author who has earned both a Ph.D. in mathematics as well as a Masters of Divinity degree. He is a fellow of the Discovery Institute and a professor of philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Indeed, you can’t read anything about intelligent design without encountering Dembski’s arguments in support of this version of creationism.
And yet, according to an article in Florida Baptist Witness, even his stellar creationist credentials were not enough to keep the inquisitors from his door. As the article describes it, Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, called Dembski into his office along with “several high-ranking administrators at the seminary.”
At issue were two of Dembski’s beliefs, as expressed in his latest book The End of Christianity and elsewhere: that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and the universe 14 billion years, and that Noah’s flood was regional rather than worldwide.
Again, according to the article in Florida Baptist Witness, “At that meeting, Dembski was quick to admit that he was wrong about the flood, Patterson said.”
Patterson went on to say, “Had I had any inkling that Dr. Dembski was actually denying the absolute trustworthiness of the Bible, then that would have, of course, ended his relationship with the school.” [emphasis added]…
The blatant hypocrisy here is so thick you could cut it with a knife: the ID-creationists spent a huge amount of money & resources on their “Expelled” campaign in an effort to convince the public that the scientific institutions were being overly dogmatic & squashing free inquiry (despite the fact that some pro-ID scientists, like Dr. Michael Behe, still retain their positions at respected universities as they push their crackpot ideas). Yet, on the other side you have the creationists (not the scientists!) actively seeking to purge their ranks of those who do not march lock-step with the “true interpretation of the Bible”.
The interesting thing here is that I think this whole fiasco proves many of these creationists just don’t get it when it comes down to how science is done. They think that science is rigid and dogmatic, because they come from a rigid & dogmatic worldview based upon their interpretation of the Bible, and so they naturally conclude that all worldviews (including one based upon science) must also be equally rigid & dogmatic. To them it seems to be a matter of getting on board with the “true” or “good” system of dogma, and then subsequently recognizing all over systems as “false” or “evil”. They simply haven’t the capacity to see how fundamentally different science is in the process of how it is done and by the manner in which scientists interact with each other.
