Today's Washington Post has an interesting opinion piece on the teaching of evolution in class rooms: Evolving Toward a Compromise. The key point is that simply defeating creationists efforts over and over again is not enough - in fact that can create a sense of persecution amongst those defeated (see this persecution complex in full display at Uncommon Descent). Instead, we need to understand some of their points of discomfort and, may be, compromise on some aspects not related to science. This is a good tactical move. I don't think this will be very effective in dealing with the ID folks at the Discovery Institute or the Ken Ham type creationists, but this will resonate well with those who are not too familiar with these controversies and have many misconceptions about the evolutionary theory and end up supporting "teach the controversy" or "strength and weaknesses" brand of creationism in classrooms.

Intelligent design and previous creationist debates appear to center on where humans came from. A less public yet similarly powerful motive of activists is their belief that the materialist underpinnings of evolutionary theory harm children's values. For example, the defender of fundamentalism in the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial," Williams Jennings Bryan, was motivated by his conclusion that Darwinism taught "the law of the jungle" and had led to World War I by subverting the morality of the Germans. More recently, "the Wedge," an infamous leaked strategy document of intelligent design proponents, suggests that advocates are not as concerned about the truth of evolution as they are about the underlying values they think it teaches. The paper concludes that teaching evolution leads to moral relativism. As one contemporary supporter of intelligent design put it, "Darwinian evolution tells us not only where we came from but also what behavior is natural and normative for humans. . . . Teach kids they are animals, and they'll act like animals."

We propose a compromise that would neither violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment nor limit the teaching of evolution in the public schools. Most defenders of evolution do not consider valid the critics' fears that evolution teaches values. Even so, teachers could take these concerns seriously by clarifying what evolutionary theory does not imply about values. To assuage the type of concern articulated by William Jennings Bryan, teachers could tell students that even though evolutionary science talks about the survival of the fittest organism, it is not a model for how humans should treat each other. They could explain that students should not make an "ought" about human behavior from an "is" of nature and that competition in contemporary society will not lead to increased survival rates. Moreover, they could explicitly note that just because mutations in organisms are random, it does not follow that human morality is random.

We are not asking teachers to discuss what morality should look like but, rather, to explain that morality does not logically flow from evolutionary theory. This will not allay all the fears of those who could be attracted to intelligent design. But it's understandable that parents could be concerned that evolution entices their children to think unconsciously of themselves as creatures with animalistic impulses, to lose faith in their religious traditions and to think that if the nature of animals is determined by random mutations, then morality must be random as well. Teaching consciously what evolution does not need to imply for morality recognizes these concerns and does not cross church-state separation boundaries. Furthermore, challenging students to think about the connections between science and society would promote high-quality science instruction.

Read the full article here.
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Here is an interesting combination (hat tip to RichardDawkins.net):


Too bad, Harun Yahya's name wasn't mentioned. It would have been cool to see Dawkins go after him on Al-Jazeera.
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Here is the second part of the Point of Inquiry interview with PZ Myers (first part here). The problem is again about making atheism and evolution almost synonymous with each other (or worse, creating an impression that science necessarily leads to atheism). DJ Grothe does a good job here of pushing Myers on the mixing of the messages of spreading science with spreading atheism and its effects on the National Center for Science Education. I do completely agree with PZ Myers' views about Expelled and how they truly misled people into giving interviews about science & religion interaction and then inserting those clips into a movie about ID. This is a good interview - if you have half an hour, give it a listen.

Here is the description of the program:

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, P.Z. Myers details his expulsion from a screening of Expelled, Ben Stein's documentary which claims that the scientific community is limiting academic freedom by not allowing Intelligent Design to be taught or discussed in the schools. He explains the background of how he and other scientists were invited to appear in the film under false pretenses, and what his response has been. He addresses "focus groups" and other marketing methods for finding the best way to communicate science to the public. Calling himself part of the "radical fringe," he elaborates on his view that leading science organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement for Science and the National Academies of Science are "playing a shell game" on the public when it comes to teaching the compatibility of science with religion, arguing instead that there is a direct link between science education and religious skepticism. And he also shares his thoughts about the future of the atheist and rationalist movement in the United States.

Listen to the podast here.
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Yes, I have a difficult time justifying this article on a science & religion blog. But then its by Steve Mirsky, whose articles in Scientific American are quite funny (yes, he often provides a full dose of geek humor).

Anyway, I was channel surfing recently and happened on a listing for one of the lesser works in the fly chronicles, the 1965 Curse of the Fly. (Which starred Brian Donlevy. Who in real life was the stepfather of Bela Lugosi, Jr. Which is mixing apples and oranges. If by apples you mean flies and by oranges you mean bats.) And I became intrigued by the short description of Curse of the Fly that appeared on the screen when I hit the info button on the remote: "A mad scientist tries out a molecular disintegrator on people but cannot get the hang of it."

It occurred to me that other sci-fi and fantasy movies also require terse synopses for the channel-surfing community. Here then is a selection of such possible descriptions:

2001: A Space Odyssey
A slab of onyx and a singing computer get two astronauts in hot water.

Alien
A feisty cat survives tense times onboard a spaceship.

The Day the Earth Stood Still
A drifter helps an old man with his math problems.

You should explore the full list of movies in his article. But here are the last few films he mentions:

Iron Man
An arms manufacturer finds himself neck-deep but gets a leg up and heads home.

The Matrix
A man discovers his true destiny.

Star Wars
An adolescent discovers his true destiny.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
A boy discovers his true destiny.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
A hobbit discovers his true destiny.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
A sad sack seeks a way to turn back time so he can live in the Dark Ages.

Ha! Can't be more accurate than this...and the last film provides a perfect cover for this article to be included on this blog.

Read the full article here.

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First Spain won the Euro Cup, and now their parliament is calling for rights to life and freedom for apes. This is very cool!

Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.

Parliament's environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans.
...

The new resolutions have cross-party or majority support and are expected to become law and the government is now committed to update the statute book within a year to outlaw harmful experiments on apes in Spain.

Read the full story here.

And of course, Bill Dembski, the brave protector of human uniqueness is not too happy:

Here is one consequence of evolution being used to justify strict continuity between humans and other forms of life. Discovery Institute’s persistent stress on humans being made in the image of God and that not being a privilege extended to the rest of the animal world makes more and more sense. This action in Spain may for now seem benign, but I sense lunacy around the corner.

Oh no. Stop this madness. Evolution is making us see that all life on Earth is connected to one another and that is making us sensitive to other species.

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Earlier this month, NYT wrote a strong editorial about creationist efforts at Texas State Board of Education. Here is another about Louisiana, where a creationist-friendly bill has just passed:

It comes as no surprise that the Louisiana State Legislature has overwhelmingly approved a bill that seeks to undercut the teaching of evolution in the public schools. The state, after all, has a sorry history as a hotbed of creationists’ efforts to inject religious views into science courses. All that stands in the way of this retrograde step is Gov. Bobby Jindal.
...

The new bill doesn’t mention either creationism or its close cousin, intelligent design. It explicitly disavows any intent to promote a religious doctrine. It doesn’t try to ban Darwin from the classroom or order schools to do anything. It simply requires the state board of education, if asked by local school districts, to help create an environment that promotes “critical thinking” and “objective discussion” about not only evolution and the origins of life but also about global warming and human cloning, two other bêtes noires of the right. Teachers would be required to teach the standard textbook but could use supplementary materials to critique it.

That may seem harmless. But it would have the pernicious effect of implying that evolution is only weakly supported and that there are valid competing scientific theories when there are not. In school districts foolish enough to head down this path, the students will likely emerge with a shakier understanding of science.

And the wack-a-creationism continues. There is nothing new to say here, but I like the fact that the bill also brings in global warming and human cloning. While we are at it, we may also include theories critical of NASA's moon landing claims and perhaps add some 9/11 skeptics to the mix too. This will unite all the crazies for one cause. By the way, why include human cloning? I think they mean stem cells research here...

Here is the full editorial.

And if you can't have enough of these controversies, check out this interview (from May 25) where philosopher, Barbara Forrest, tackles a creation science supporter in Louisiana. And here is an open letter by Louisiana Coalition for Science requesting Governor Jindal to veto the bill.
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Good timings here. Related to yesterday's post, here is Kenneth Miller with Colbert:

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Last Sunday's NYT magazine has an article about a pastor who calls himself an evolutionary evangelist:

For the last six years, he has traveled across North America with his wife, Connie Barlow, in a van that displays an image of two fish kissing each other — one labeled Jesus, the other Darwin — explaining to conservative and liberal congregations why understanding and accepting evolution will bring them closer to spiritual fulfillment. The religious advantage to embracing the evolutionary worldview, Dowd says, is that it explains our frailties, our addictions, our infidelities and other moral deficiencies as byproducts of adaptation over billions of years. And that, he says, has a potentially liberating effect: never mind guilt; once we understand our sinful ways, we can get past them and play a conscious role in the evolution of humanity.

Read the full article here. It includes criticism both from religious and atheistic side for his views. Indeed, the pastor seems to go a bit too far in incorporating evolutionary psychology into his spiritual (?) world view. But at least he accepts science for the explanation for the physical world.

On the other side, William Dembski has gone ballistic over Ken Miller's new book and his brand of theistic evolution. Read commentary on this at Open Parachute and at Pharyngula. The funniest part of Dembski's rant is that he calls Ann Coulter for his defense. Really? C'mon Billy D... you can to do better than that.

Here is what he has to say about Ken Miller and Francis Collins:

Could it be that the evolutionists’ assault on both science (by perpetuating the fraud that natural selection has unmatched creative powers) and religion (by using evolution as a club to beat people of faith) is undermining America’s soul? Not according to Miller. He’s got other fish to fry. For him, it’s the ID proponents’ assault on evolution that is undermining America’s soul. Forget about Dawkins and his blasphemy challenge. Let’s shaft the ID community.

Francis Collins agrees. His endorsement of Miller’s book leaves no doubt that the ID people are a bigger threat than the atheistic evolutionists like Dawkins:

“In this powerfully argued and timely book, Ken Miller takes on the fundamental core of the Intelligent Design movement, and shows with compelling examples and devastating logic that ID is not only bad science but is potentially threatening in other deeper ways to America’s future. But make no mistake, this is not some atheistic screed — Prof. Miller’s perspective as a devout believer will allow his case to resonate with believers and non-believers alike.” –Francis Collins, Director, the Human Genome Project and author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief

With devout believers like this, give me a good infidel any time.

Hmm...this is so much fun! And then Billy D. lays out his strategy, which includes the unleashing of Ann Coulter over the civilized world:

What’s our strategy. The strategy is multipronged. Let me just give you one prong: WIN THE YOUTH. The release date for Miller’s book is June 12th. I’ve got a book titled Understanding Intelligent Design: Everything You Need to Know in Plain Language (co-authored with youth speaker and high-school teacher Sean McDowell) whose release date is July 1st. It is geared specifically at mobilizing Christian young people, homeschoolers, and church youth groups with the ID alternative to Darwinian evolution. You might want to compare Francis Collins’ endorsment of Miller’s book with Ann Coulter’s endorsement of mine:

In my book Godless, I showed that Darwinism is the hoax of the century and, consequently, the core of the religion of liberalism…. Liberals respond to critics of their religion like Cotton Mather to Salem’s “witches.” With this book, two more witches present themselves for burning: Sean McDowell, whose gift is communicating with young people, and Bill Dembski, often called the Isaac Newton of intelligent design. I think Dembski is more like the Dick Butkus of Intelligent Design. His record for tackling Darwiniacs is unmatched. This book gives young people all the ammo they need to take on Darwinism and understand the only viable scientific alternative to Darwinism: intelligent design. Every high school student in America needs a copy of Understanding Intelligent Design. –Ann Coulter, BESTSELLING author of Godless: The Church of Liberalism.

Yes, please do compare Collin's endorsement with Coulter's.

Read Isaac Newton's - er.. I mean Bill Dembski's full rant here. Also Ken Miller's book is Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul.
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Strong NYT editorial against the new creationism strategy (here is an earlier post on that):

The Texas State Board of Education is again considering a science curriculum that teaches the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution, setting an example that several other states are likely to follow. This is code for teaching creationism.

It has the advantage of sounding more balanced than teaching “intelligent design,” which the courts have consistently banned from science classrooms. It has the disadvantage of being nonsense.

The chairman of the Texas board, a dentist named Don McLeroy, advocates the “strengths and weaknesses” approach, as does a near majority of the board. The system accommodates what Dr. McLeroy calls two systems of science, creationist and “naturalist.”

Actually, its great that he calls the two systems creationist and naturalist. Unlike the Intelligent Design advocates, at least he is being honest by calling his view creationist. Of course, the idiocy remains all the same:

The trouble is, a creationist system of science is not science at all. It is faith. All science is “naturalist” to the extent that it tries to understand the laws of nature and the character of the universe on their own terms, without reference to a divine creator. Every student who hopes to understand the scientific reality of life will sooner or later need to accept the elegant truth of evolution as it has itself evolved since it was first postulated by Darwin. If the creationist view prevails in Texas, students interested in learning how science really works and what scientists really understand about life will first have to overcome the handicap of their own education.

Scientists are always probing the strengths and weakness of their hypotheses. That is the very nature of the enterprise. But evolution is no longer a hypothesis. It is a theory rigorously supported by abundant evidence. The weaknesses that creationists hope to teach as a way of refuting evolution are themselves antiquated, long since filed away as solved. The religious faith underlying creationism has a place, in church and social studies courses. Science belongs in science classrooms.

Read the full editorial here. I think, we have now reached a stalemate in the fight over evolution and creationism/ID in schools. The creationists are not going to gain any new significant ground but they will keep scientists and educators busy by creating (ha ha) new code words for creationism, and advocating their inclusion in biology textbooks. I think fatigue will set in soon (if it hasn't already) and people will get tired hearing about another new code word for creationism. The Discovery Institute's "teach the controversy" strategy was new and novel few years ago and they managed to fool some people and generate sympathy regarding that. But now its old news and one can easily see through these new code-words. Unfortunately, valuable time still has to be spent countering this idiocy.

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The creationism/evolution battles are getting a bit ridiculous. After failing to bring "scientific creationism" and "Intelligent Design" into science classrooms, we have a new candidate in Texas:

Now a battle looms in Texas over science textbooks that teach evolution, and the wrestle for control seizes on three words. None of them are “creationism” or “intelligent design” or even “creator.”

The words are “strengths and weaknesses.”

Starting this summer, the state education board will determine the curriculum for the next decade and decide whether the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution should be taught. The benign-sounding phrase, some argue, is a reasonable effort at balance. But critics say it is a new strategy taking shape across the nation to undermine the teaching of evolution, a way for students to hear religious objections under the heading of scientific discourse.

Already, legislators in a half-dozen states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri and South Carolina — have tried to require that classrooms be open to “views about the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory,” according to a petition from the Discovery Institute, the Seattle-based strategic center of the intelligent design movement.

So the Whack-A-Creationism-Mole continues. Perhaps they should include "strengths and weaknesses" of every scientific theory included in the curriculum - that should keep the education board busy for a while...

And here is the origin of this phrase:

The “strengths and weaknesses” language was slipped into the curriculum standards in Texas to appease creationists when the State Board of Education first mandated the teaching of evolution in the late 1980s. It has had little effect because evolution skeptics have not had enough power on the education board to win the argument that textbooks do not adequately cover the weaknesses of evolution.

Yet even as courts steadily prohibited the outright teaching of creationism and intelligent design, creationists on the Texas board grew to a near majority. Seven of 15 members subscribe to the notion of intelligent design, and they have the blessings of Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican.

What happens in Texas does not stay in Texas: the state is one of the country’s biggest buyers of textbooks, and publishers are loath to produce different versions of the same material. The ideas that work their way into education here will surface in classrooms throughout the country.

Read the full depressing story here.
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Here is a clip from AAAS on the compatibility of science and religion - a perfect representation of Gould's non-overlapping magestaria (NOMA) (tip from Framing Science). Yes, when pushed this view gets into trouble (as Francis Collins in this clip talking about God answering personal prayers). But the question is, who is the audience? This video would work for those who are religious and science-friendly and may provide them with a justification for supporting (and doing) science. On the other hand, many would have good reasons to point out that NOMA can be a slippery slope - and that these boundaries are overstepped all the time. Thus, there may not be a single good approach to talking about science & religion. Different videos for different audiences.

Yesterday was my last day on Chincoteague Island. At breakfast at the hotel, I overheard a conversation about the movie Expelled. A guy, probably in his 70's, was talking to a younger couple (seemed like his son and his wife). He liked the movie and was now reading Michael Behe's new book. He was familiar with the fine-tuning argument (with explicit religious overtones) and also with the tenure case of Guillermo Gonzalez. However, what struck me was his interest and fascination with science. Too bad, he got suckered into ID-nonsense. But I was thinking, he would be the perfect audience for this AAAS video - well-educated, religious, and having a deep interest in science. Yes, NOMA has serious problems - but we should also not cede this demographic to ID.
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Here is a case, where "purpose" clearly played a role in design. See how (and why) creationism was replaced with "intelligent design" in the creationist textbook, Of Pandas and People (tip from richarddawkins.net)


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So what percentage of US science teachers are creationists? Hmm...16%!!

Well...here is the graph:
There you go...Now we can cry together. And these are not just proponents of Intelligent Design nonsense. These 16% actually believe in a 10,000 year old Earth!! Yikes! (Although, they still look good compared to the 48% of the general public who are young Earth creationists)

And it turns out that 12% also teach ID or creationism as valid scientific alternative to evolution:

The researchers polled a random sample of nearly 2000 high-school science teachers across the US in 2007. Of the 939 who responded, 2% said they did not cover evolution at all, with the majority spending between 3 and 10 classroom hours on the subject.

However, a quarter of the teachers also reported spending at least some time teaching about creationism or intelligent design. Of these, 48% – about 12.5% of the total survey – said they taught it as a "valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species".

The results are published in Plos Biology (go Plos!!) and the paper is titled: Evolution and Creationism in America's Classrooms: A National Portrait

The authors of the study conclude that requiring high school teachers to complete one evolutionary biology class can significantly improve the situation:

These findings strongly suggest that victory in the courts is not enough for the scientific community to ensure that evolution is included in high school science courses. Nor is success in persuading states to adopt rigorous content standards consistent with recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences and other scientific organizations. Scientists concerned about the quality of evolution instruction might have a bigger impact in the classroom by focusing on the certification standards for high school biology teachers. Our study suggests that requiring all teachers to complete a course in evolutionary biology would have a substantial impact on the emphasis on evolution and its centrality in high school biology courses. In the long run, the impact of such a change could have a more far reaching effect than the victories in courts and in state governments.

Read the full paper here, and the New Scientist story here.
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Please check out this excellent op-ed piece by Ken Miller on the ID-nonsense movie, Expelled.

"Intelligent Design," the relabeled, repackaged form of American creationism, has always had a problem. It just can't seem to produce any evidence. To scientists, the reasons for this are obvious. To conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, Intelligent Design is nothing more than a "phony theory." No data, no science, no experiments, just an attempt to sneak a narrow set of religious views into US classrooms.

Advocates of Intelligent Design needed a story to explain why the idea has been a nonstarter within the scientific community, and Ben Stein has given it to them. The story line is that Intelligent Design advocates are persecuted and suppressed. "Expelled" tells of this terrible campaign against free expression, and mocks the pretensions of the closed-minded scientific elite supposedly behind it.

After going through specific examples of false information and/or blatant lies in the movie (including the idiotic connection of Darwin with the Holocaust), Miller gets to the heart of the matter:

Why is all this nonsense a threat to science? The reason is Stein's libelous conclusion that science is simply evil. In an April 21 interview on the Trinity Broadcast Network, Stein called the Nazi murder of children "horrifying beyond words." Indeed. But what led to such horrors? Stein explained: "that's where science in my opinion, this is just an opinion, that's where science leads you. Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place. Science leads you to killing people."

According to Stein, science leads you to "killing people." Not to cures and vaccines, not to a deeper understanding of nature, not to wonders like computers and cellphones, and certainly not to a better life. Nope. Science is murder.

"Expelled" is a shoddy piece of propaganda that props up the failures of Intelligent Design by playing the victim card. It deceives its audiences, slanders the scientific community, and contributes mightily to a climate of hostility to science itself. Stein is doing nothing less than helping turn a generation of American youth away from science. If we actually come to believe that science leads to murder, then we deserve to lose world leadership in science. In that sense, the word "expelled" may have a different and more tragic connotation for our country than Stein intended.

Read the full article here.
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Intelligent Design/Creation proponents often whip out a list of scientists (numbering around a 100) who doubt evolution of species via natural selection (i.e. natural selection cannot account for the complexity we see on Earth). [Of course, this prompted Project Steve - and they just registered 884th scientist named Steve that accept biological evolution]. There is a newer list of dissenters, but the overall message is the same. But who are these scientists who reject evolution? And do they really? Here is an analysis of the list. (tip from Open Parachute)


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A nice short segment on the evolution of the eye from the National Center for Science Education. This is part of Expelled Exposed. (tip from Greg Laden's blog)



and while at it, check out this news about a squid with eyes the size of a soccer ball (hmm...fried calamari eyes...)
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While controversies regarding evolution/ID make a bigger splash, here is a refreshing story about Francisco Ayala - an evolutionary biologist/geneticist and a former Dominican priest (and while we are at it, he is also on the boards of Opera Pacific and the Pacific Symphony and owns vineyards in California! Hey forget about the idiotic evolution/ID controversies, he would be an interesting person to talk to about pretty much any thing). He makes it clear that evolution does not make belief in God impossible (also see his book, Darwin's Gift: to Science and Religion). Again this underscores the fact that evolutionary biologists have a spectrum of beliefs - and all these views should be respected. In fact Ayala, goes a step further and believes that the evolutionary theory can actually provide a solution to the pesky problem of evil:

Dr. Ayala, a former Dominican priest, said he told his audiences not just that evolution is a well-corroborated scientific theory, but also that belief in evolution does not rule out belief in God. In fact, he said, evolution “is more consistent with belief in a personal god than intelligent design. If God has designed organisms, he has a lot to account for.”

Consider, he said, that at least 20 percent of pregnancies are known to end in spontaneous abortion. If that results from divinely inspired anatomy, Dr. Ayala said, “God is the greatest abortionist of them all.”

Or consider, he said, the “sadism” in parasites that live by devouring their hosts, or the mating habits of insects like female midges, tiny flies that fertilize their eggs by consuming their mates’ genitals, along with all their other parts.

For the midges, Dr. Ayala said, “it makes evolutionary sense. If you are a male and you have mated, the best thing you can do for your genes is to be eaten.” But if God or some other intelligent agent made things this way on purpose, he said, “then he is a sadist, he certainly does odd things and he is a lousy engineer.”

That is also the message of his latest book, “Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion” (Joseph Henry Press, 2007). In it, he writes that as a theology student in Spain he had been taught that evolution “provided the ‘missing link’ in the explanation of evil in the world” — a defense of God’s goodness and omnipotence, despite the existence of evil.

“As floods and drought were a necessary consequence of the fabric of the physical world, predators and parasites, dysfunctions and diseases were a consequence of the evolution of life,” he writes. “They were not a result of a deficient or malevolent design.”

Again, one doesn't have to subscribe to his theistic views, but it is interesting to see him applying evolutionary ideas to religious problems. But he does see a problem when evolution gets linked to atheism:

He said he was saddened when he saw the embrace of evolution identified with, as he put it, “explicit atheism,” as in the books of the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins or other writers on science and faith.

Neither the existence nor nonexistence of God is susceptible to scientific proof, Dr. Ayala said, and equating science with the abandonment of religion “fits the prejudices” of advocates of intelligent design and other creationist ideas.

Read the full article here.
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You have to check this out! (tip from badastronomy)



Fantastic, yes! But which side is this video playing for - pro-science or pro-Intelligent Design?
It appears to me an equal opportunity satire in the tradition of JibJab. It has enough ID in it, that its probably not from the science camp, and it mentions enough creationism to be excluded from the Intelligent Design group (we won't even entertain the possibility of creationists here). But its mighty entertaining - especially with, philsopher, Dennett as a pimp(?). [In case you don't recognize the people, we have, ofcourse, Dawkins, PZ Myers. Darwin, Eugenie Scott, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, and the Machine].
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If you follow any science blogs, you have probably heard about the expulsion of evolutionary biologist, P.Z. Myers from the special screening of Intelligent Design movie Expelled! (yes, yes, everyone has already noted the irony). And the fact that his guest, Richard Dawkins, managed to get in unnoticed. Heck, even the New York Times is tickled by it:

The movie the two scientists wanted to see was “Expelled,” whose online trailer asserts that people in academia who see evidence of supernatural intelligence in biological processes — an idea called “intelligent design” — have unfairly lost their jobs, been denied tenure or suffered other penalties as part of a scientific conspiracy to keep God out of the nation’s laboratories and classrooms.

Dr. Myers asserts that he was unfairly barred from the film, in which both he and Dr. Dawkins appear, and that Dr. Dawkins would have been, too, if people running the screening had realized who he was — a world leader in the field of evolutionary biology.

Read the full article here, and here is P.Z. Myers' take on this incident and the New York Times article.

But wait. Thanks to this electronic age, you can also see Dawkins and PZ Myers talking about the incident:


All of this is well and good. But what does it do to the larger issue of science & religion debate? From the segments I have seen of the film and what I have gathered from Ben Stein's interviews, there is not much of intellectual value in the movie. But the creators of the film would probably love some controversy. The coverage in national newspapers, even for something idiotic, will be welcoming. So its tricky to cover this issue.

On another related thread, Matthew Nisbet at Framing Science, is of the opinion that this PZ Myers Affair is really bad for science. He also refers to the following segment from the film:

Here is Nisbet on the clip:

If you haven't seen this clip yet, above is a preview of the central message on how "Big Science" views religion in the documentary Expelled. There's little work needed on the part of the producers, since the message is spelled out via the interviews provided by PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins.

Notice the very clear translation for audiences as to what supposedly establishment science believes:

A) Learning about science makes you an atheist, it "kills off" religious faith.

B) If we boost science literacy in society, it will lead to erosion of religion, as religion fades away, we will get more and more science, and less and less religion.

C) Religion is a fairy tale, similar to hobgoblins, a fantasy, and even evil.

The simplistic and unscientific claim that more knowledge leads to less religion might be the particular delusion of Dawkins, Myers, and many others, but it is by no means the official position of science, though they often implicitly claim to speak for science. Nor does it stand up to mounds of empirical evidence about the complex relationship between science literacy and public perceptions.

I think he is right about the problems associated with this position. In this particular instant, both scientists and creationists agree that evolutionary ideas necessarily lead to atheism - and this is a bad way to sell evolution (and this is an unscientific claims). However, Dawkins, Myers, and Atkins were mislead about the intentions of the film when they were interviewed. So they did not take the mantle of representing science themselves (at least in this instance). It is ok if they take this position on evolution - but I think other scientists who disagree with their interpretation should speak up about it. I have also been thinking about this problem for Muslim countries - as any link to atheism will lead to a rejection of evolution, without getting a fair hearing. For the time being, the emphasis should be on (methodological) naturalism - and leave atheism (philosophical naturalism) for open interpretation. But we should be prepared to say that philosophical naturalism is a matter of opinion/belief/interpretation, and not an empirical result. More on this later.

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Ok...you really don't want to upset him by rejecting evolution (tip from pharyngula):

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