Skeptic mag embarrasses Ben Stein
With little fanfare, Skeptic magazine has thoroughly debunked Ben Stein’s anti-science propaganda film, “Expelled,” which purports to expose that educators across the land are being attacked for being creationists.
There are, in fact, several articles on the subject of “Expelled,” and they share a common theme: Showing how the filmmakers, including Stein, were forced to resort to a variety of distortions and, basically, outright lies to make their points.
For example, there’s the case of one Guillermo Gonzalez, who the films claims was denied tenure at Iowa State University for being a creationist. But, Skeptic points out
…filmmakers neglect to bring up the fact that in all his years at Iowa State Gonzalez had only brought in only a tiny amount of grant money when compared to the funding brought in by his colleagues. Nor do they mention the fact that Gonzalez failed to mentor a single one of his students at Iowa State through to their Ph.D. Nor does it tell viewers that while initially his publication record was terrific, during his years at Iowa State, it had significantly dropped.
That kind of “forgetting to mention the salient facts” is typical of creationists.
For example, in Caroline Crocker’s case, she claimed that “[My supervisor] said ‘nonetheless you have to be disciplined’, and I lost my job” at either George Mason University or Northern Virginia Community College (it’s not clear which she’s referring to). Skeptic, however, puts her claim in perspective:
Although in interviews and trailers for Expelled Dr. Crocker and her documentary host Ben Stein repeatedly claim she “lost her job,” the facts show that, less dramatically, her contracts at both GMU and NVCC were allowed to continue through their natural terms and were simply not renewed. Although this indeed must have been disappointing for Dr. Crocker, it is certainly not uncommon: about 70 percent of instructional faculty members at U.S. universities work on term contracts, many as “visiting” or “adjunct” professors as Dr. Crocker was, without any long-term guarantees.
In fact, the magazine points out, students in her cell biology classes at GMU had complained about Crocker because she was teaching nonsense, and they knew it — this was reported in a Washington Post story about her.
For instance, in the Washington Post article Crocker is described as initially telling the reporter she would discuss “the strengths and weaknesses of evolution,” then proceeding to unleash on her NCVV students a barrage of Creationist talking points. Finally, following the reporter’s remark at the end of the lecture that she did not introduce any existing evidence in favor of evolution, Crocker volunteered that she doesn’t believe there is much, and that she doesn’t think it is necessary to teach any at all.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: When you have to distort facts (or simply make them up) to support your argument, there’s something seriously wrong with your argument in the first place.
gnomic says:
I don’t agree with eSkeptic’s arguments. They seem to point out the lies that these IDiots tell. So what? Their lies and stupidity are a sideshow to the facts of the main point. This seems to follow the GOP tactic of discredit the person and assume the person’s argument is discredited. The correct way to deal with the big lie of Idiotic Design is to deal with it directly. You can’t stop stupid people from believing stupid things. Its not only a natural law, its an American right. People are free to worship the tooth ferry and the easter bunny if the so wish. They just aren’t allowed to teach their stupidity in public schools. Trying to dress up stupidity as science means that it has to pass scientific tests. IDiot design can’t pass the most basic of scientific tests: It can’t be disproven. Name one stupid assertion of Idiot Design that, if disproven, discredits the theory. Since the assertions are all wrong (my favorite stupidity being irreducible complexity which is wrong on both logic and fact), the IDiots are willing to base their so-called theory on any assertions.
Stay the hell outta my science and I’ll stay the hell out of your church.