Dictionary Definition
expel
Verb
2 put out or expel from a place; "The child was
expelled from the classroom" [syn: eject, chuck out,
exclude, throw out,
kick
out, turf out,
boot
out, turn out]
3 remove from a position or office; "The chairman
was ousted after he misappropriated funds" [syn: oust, throw out,
drum
out, boot out,
kick
out]
5 eliminate (substances) from the body [syn:
discharge, eject, release] [also: expelling, expelled]expelled See expel
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Pronunciation
Alternative spellings
- expeled (US)
Verb
expelled- past of expel
Extensive Definition
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a
controversial 2008 independent
documentary
film promoting intelligent
design. The movie claims that "Big Science" suppresses
criticism of both the evidence for evolution and the
modern evolutionary synthesis, which is the theory explaining this evidence.
The film, hosted by Ben Stein,
contends that this scientific theory contributed to the Nazi Holocaust,
communism, atheism and Planned
Parenthood.
Expelled opened in 1,052 theaters, far more than
any other documentary before it, As of May 13, 2008 it had earned
over $7 million, making it the twelfth-highest-grossing documentary
film in the United States - (in
nominal dollars, from 1982 to the present). while the New York
Times described it as "a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as
investigative inquiry." One of the few positive reviews appeared in
Christianity
Today.
The
American Association for the Advancement of Science describes
the film as dishonest and divisive, aimed at introducing religious
ideas into public school science classrooms, and the film is being
used in private screenings to legislators as part of the
Discovery Institute intelligent design campaign for Academic
Freedom bills.
Overview
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a film described by its promoters as a controversial new satirical documentary.Promotion of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution
The film claims that intelligent design deserves a place in academia and refers to examples of what it calls a "design approach." The Discovery Institute's Paul Nelson describes "design theory" as "the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as a result of intelligence." In a review of the film, Scientific American editor John Rennie comments on the vagueness of intelligent design's proposals, describing it as "a notion which firmly states that at one or more unspecified times in the past, an unidentified designer who might or might not be God somehow created whole organisms, or maybe just cells, or maybe just certain parts of cells—they're still deciding and will get back to you on that." The trial resulted when a public school district required the presentation of "Intelligent Design" as an alternative to evolution, and the court ruling concluded on the basis of expert testimony and the testimony of leading intelligent design proponents that intelligent design was a creationist religious strategy and was not science. The court rejected the Discovery Institute's claims that intelligent design was not religiously motivated, and rebuffed the attempt to introduce it into public school science classes as a constitutional violation.Claims that intelligent design advocates are persecuted
The producers claim that those opposing intelligent design "don't like the very idea of an intelligent cause because they don't like the idea of allowing even the possibility of the existence of an intelligent 'designer.' That might lead to scientific evidence in support of the unthinkable, i.e. G-O-D." The producers further assert that those who oppose intelligent design "are simply wrong." What one reviewer describes as four or five examples of "ordinary academic backbiting"}}However, describing the film for New
Scientist, Amanda Gefter wrote:
Portrayal of science as atheistic
The film alleges that scientists and the scientific enterprise (which it calls "Big Science") are dogmatically committed to atheism, In an interview with Scientific American, the associate producer of the film Mark Mathis said they had excluded scientists who are religious, such as Roman Catholic biologist Kenneth R. Miller, because their views would have "confused the film unnecessarily." Mathis also questioned Miller's intellectual honesty and orthodoxy as a Catholic because he accepts evolution. Miller later noted that 40% of the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science profess belief in a personal god, and that the film by "avoiding these 50,000 people, tells viewers that 'Darwinists' don't allow scientists to even think of God." Defending the movie, the producer, Walt Ruloff, said that scientists like prominent geneticist Francis Collins keep their religion and science separate only because they are "toeing the party line." Collins, who was not asked to be interviewed for the film in any of its incarnations, said that Ruloff's claims were "ludicrous."The film portrays the
modern evolutionary synthesis as a theory that refuses to
accept ideas with a theistic
component like intelligent design. The National Center for
Science Education states that this ignores the many scientists who
are religious but do not bring God in as part of their theories, as
testing requires holding constant some variables and no one can
"control" God; consequently scientific explanations are restricted
to the natural causes that are testable, regardless of the
religious views of the scientists.
On the film's portrayal of science, Lauri Lebo, a
York
Daily Record journalist who covered the Kitzmiller
v. Dover trial, noted "The first half of the movie is devoted
to explaining how intelligent design is not religion" and then "the
filmmakers seem to completely forget their earlier message. The
rest of the movie is devoted to proving that atheistic scientists
hate God and are trying to suppress intelligent design because,
well, it's all about belief in God."
Claims that Nazism was inspired by acceptance of evolution
The film is largely devoted to portraying evolution as responsible for Communism, Fascism, atheism, eugenics, Planned Parenthood and, in particular, Nazi atrocities in the Holocaust. Weikart's arguments are strongly criticised by other historians as highlighting a weak putative connection while ignoring the important influence on Nazism of Christian anti-Semitism in Germany from Martin Luther onwards. The National Center for Science Education say that the public's interest is not well served when the complicated history of Nazi Germany and its horrific atrocities is distorted and simplified to promote a narrow sectarian agenda.The film refers to evolution as "Darwinism", a
term which has been long abandoned by most biologists as modern
theory does not rely on Darwin's ideas alone. John Rennie writes in
Scientific American that this is an attempt to portray evolution
not as evidence-based science, but as a dogmatic ideology.
After watching the film, one Jewish viewer wrote
an angry letter to interviewee Michael Shermer, which Shermer
forwarded to fellow interviewee Richard Dawkins. This prompted
Dawkins to write "Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying
propaganda" as a response.
People presented in the film
The film portrays several people including Richard Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzalez, and Caroline Crocker as victims of persecution by "Big Science" for their promotion of intelligent design and for questioning Darwinism. Other intelligent design supporters such as David Berlinski, William Dembski, Stephen Meyer, Jonathan Wells, Paul Nelson, Pamela Winnick and Gerald Schroeder appear in the film as well.In addition, the motion picture includes
interviews with scientists and others who advocate the teaching of
evolution and criticize intelligent design as an attempt to bring
religion into the science classroom. These include PZ Myers,
William
Provine, Richard
Dawkins, Michael
Ruse, Michael
Shermer, and Eugenie
Scott.
Richard Sternberg
Richard Sternberg, a Staff Scientist for the National Center for Biotechnology Information and fellow of the intelligent design advocacy group ISCID, also has an unpaid research position giving him facilities at the Smithsonian Institution. Six months after he gave notice of resignation from a temporary unpaid position as editor of the scientific journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, he circumvented the journal's reviewing process to include a paper by intelligent design proponent Stephen C. Meyer which argued that the development of phyla during the Cambrian explosion was not fully explained by evolution. The Society subsequently declared that the paper "does not meet the scientific standards of the Proceedings" and would not have been published had usual editorial practices been followed.In the movie Stein states that the paper "ignited
a firestorm of controversy merely because it suggested intelligent
design might be able to explain how life began." He claims that
Sternberg was "terrorized" and his "life was nearly ruined when he
strayed from the party line while serving as editor of a scientific
journal affiliated with the prestigious Smithsonian Museum of
Natural History." The journal is not affiliated with the
Smithsonian, and Sternberg still has his research position. Stein
claims it was the "most egregious" case and "He lost his job," but
the
NCSE noted "the worst that happened to Sternberg is that people
said some unkind things about him in private email to one another.
Since the same can be said of almost every person, it’s hard to see
how this could be construed as 'life ruining'." he was not granted
tenure and promotion on
the grounds that he "simply did not show the trajectory of
excellence that we expect in a candidate seeking tenure in physics
and astronomy." In the previous decade, four of the 12 candidates
who came up for review in the department were not granted tenure.
Expelled portrays Gonzalez as a victim of religious discrimination
and the Discovery
Institute campaign asserts that his intelligent design writings
should not have been considered in the review. However, Gonzales
listed The Privileged Planet as part of his tenure review file. Dr.
Gregory Tinkler of Iowa Citizens for Science stated that "Being a
religious scientist is perfectly normal and acceptable, but
scientists are supposed to be able to separate science from
non-science, and good research from bad. Academic freedom protects
a scientist's ability to do science, not to pass off a political or
religious crusade as science."
Caroline Crocker
Caroline Crocker was a part-time cell biology lecturer at George Mason University who became the center of controversy after her lecture taught students creationist claims about evolution and promoted intelligent design in a biology class, telling them that Nazi atrocities were based on Darwin's ideas and on science. Crocker subsequently had a postdoctoral year at the Uniformed Services University, and currently has a full time post as executive director of the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center which promotes intelligent design clubs at high schools and universities. and author of numerous technical books and articles. The Baylor administration asked Marks to return an intelligent design research grant. Marks' collaborator in this project was Discovery Institute fellow William Dembski. In July and August 2007, they formed the Evolutionary Informatics Lab (EIL) at Baylor, and posted their work on the subject on a web server hosted by the university. The university removed the website after receiving complaints that the website appeared to be endorsed by the university. Baylor officials later allowed the website back on their server but required changes be made to the website so that it did not appear to be endorsed by the University. Evolutionary Informatics Lab was reestablished independently of Baylor University.Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor is a neurosurgeon and a signatory to the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism and Physicians and Surgeons who Dissent from Darwinism. When a citizen's group in Virginia sponsored an essay contest for high school students on the topic "Why I would want my doctor to have studied evolution," Egnor responded by posting an essay on an intelligent design blog claiming that evolution was irrelevant to medicine. His essay was met with considerable criticism by medical professionals, professors and researchers. In the film, Stein describes this as "Darwinists were quick to try and exterminate this new threat," and Egnor says he was shocked by the "viciousness" and "baseness" of the response. The National Center for Science Education surmises that "Michael Egnor had apparently never been on the Internet before."Michael Shermer
Michael Shermer is an author, science historian, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating and debunking pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. He was interviewed for the movie by Stein and assistant producer Mark Mathis and described feeling awkward about their motives soon after the interview began.After a break and small talk the interview
resumed, but the questions continued to follow a similar
vein.
Shermer has, however, stated that he believes
that the film is effective in delivering its message to its target
audience.
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist, popular science writer, and holds a professorship dedicated to Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford. Dawkins is portrayed as one of the leading members of "Big Science." In her review of the film for New Scientist, Amanda Gefter comments on the film's presentation of Dawkins' interview, including showing him "in the make-up chair, a move calculated to demean since surely everyone else, including Stein, is powder-puffed off-camera," and describes "foreboding music" and a "low-lit room" filmed with "sinister camera angles" used as part of an appeal to "raw emotion" during his interview. Dawkins responded with Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel's tongue-in-cheek example that in the case of the "highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would themselves have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent 'crane' (to quote Dan Dennett)."PZ Myers
Paul Zachary Myers is an Associate Professor of biology at University of Minnesota Morris, and the author of the science blog Pharyngula. In the film he is portrayed as a member of "Big Science."Claims that film producers misled interviewees
The movie has been criticized by several of the interviewees, including Myers, Dawkins, Shermer, and National Center for Science Education head Eugenie Scott, who say they were misled into participating by being asked to be interviewed for a film named Crossroads on the "intersection of science and religion," with a blurb which described the strong support that had been accumulated for evolution, and contrasted this with the religious who rejected it, and the controversy this caused.However, the movie was actually pitched to Stein
as an anti-Darwin picture: On learning of the pro-intelligent
design stance of the real film, Myers said, "not telling one of the
sides in a debate about what the subject might be and then leading
him around randomly to various topics, with the intent of later
editing it down to the parts that just make the points you want, is
the video version of quote-mining
and is fundamentally dishonest." Roy
Speckhardt, executive director of the
American Humanist Association wrote a letter
to the editor of the New York
Times, writing, "If one needs to believe in a god to be moral,
why are we seeing yet another case of dishonesty by the devout? Why
were leading scientists deceived as to the intentions of a
religious group of filmmakers?"
Charles Darwin quotation issue
In support of his claim that the theory of evolution inspired Nazism, Ben Stein attributes the following statement to Charles Darwin's book The Descent of Man: Stein stops there, then names Darwin as the author in a way that suggests that Darwin provided a rationale for the activities of the Nazis. However, the original source shows that Stein has significantly changed the text and meaning of the paragraph, by leaving out whole and partial sentences without indicating that he had done so. The original paragraph (page 168) (words that Stein omitted shown in bold) and the very next sentences in the book state:}}The Expelled Exposed website also points out that
the same misleading selective quotation from this passage was used
by anti-evolutionist William
Jennings Bryan in the 1925 Scopes
Trial, but the full passage makes it clear that Darwin was not
advocating eugenics.
The eugenics movement relied on simplistic and faulty assumptions
about heredity, and by the 1920s evolutionary biologists were
criticizing eugenics. Clarence
Darrow, who defended the teaching of human evolution in the
Scopes trial, wrote a scathing repudiation of eugenics. which
intelligent design proponent William
Dembski had used in lectures until he was stopped in November
2007. XVIVO issued the film producers a cease-and-desist
letter on April 9, 2008, alleging
infringement of copyright. The producers then
filed a suit claiming that they owned the copyright on animations
in the film, and a different animation was publicized, apparently
as a substitute. Other animation segments in the film have also
been questioned.
The film includes a portion of John Lennon's
song "Imagine,"
which led the copyright holder Yoko Ono to file
a lawsuit for copyright infringement on April 23,
2008. Ono's
lawyer stated that the film had failed to license its use of the
song, while the film's producers responded by claiming protection
under the fair use
doctrine. In response to the lawsuit, a federal judge in New
York issued an injunction preventing the
further distribution of the film pending a hearing on May 19. On
May 19th the judge ruled to "stay the original TRO pending his
ruling, which means that “Expelled,” currently playing in theaters
around the country, cannot be reproduced or otherwise
distributed."http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/05/20/updating-the-latest-star-studded-fair-use-flap-starring-yoko-and-ben/
On June 2,
2008, U.S.
District Judge Sidney H.
Stein in the
Southern District of New York ruled against the preliminary
injunction preventing distribution of the film, as the plaintiffs
had failed to meet the standard required for a court to grant such
a motion and on the basis of the information provided to the court,
the defense of fair use would be likely to succeed in a full trial.
Yoko Ono said she would appeal.
A song by The
Killers is used in the film under a license which the band's
manager said was obtained by misleading them about the film.
Academic Freedom bills
Since 2004 a series of anti-evolution Academic Freedom bills have been introduced in State legislatures in the United States, based on the claims by the Discovery Institute that teachers, students, and college professors face intimidation and retaliation when discussing scientific criticisms of evolution, and therefore require protection. The Wall Street Journal describes the bills as aiming to expose more students to anti-evolution articles and videos produced by advocates of intelligent design or Biblical creationism. There were pre-release screenings of Expelled for Florida and Missouri legislators in support of Academic Freedom bills in those states. Commenting on this, and the controversy over Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel managing to view the film against the wishes of the film company, House Democratic leader Dan Gelber of Miami Beach stated, "It's kind of an irony: The public is expelled from a movie called Expelled." The screening was attended by about 100 people, but few were legislators, and the majority of legislators stayed away. At least one Discovery Institute press conference on the bills has included a screening of Expelled. and when the film was released it received generally negative reviews. As of April 26, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 3 critics gave the film positive reviews and 30 gave negative ones. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 20 out of 100, based on 13 reviews.Response to the movie from conservative Christian
groups and the Discovery Institute has been mostly (but not
exclusively) positive, largely praising the movie for its humor and
for focusing on what they perceive as a serious issue. One
otherwise critical review in the mainstream press praised the movie
for highlighting the idea of academic freedom.
Georgia Purdom of the young
earth creationist organization Answers
in Genesis commented that the film was to show "expelled"
individuals from the
intelligent design movement rather than biblical creationists.
She and other creation
scientists also had difficulties in getting their research
published in scientific journals, as their presuppositions were
based on God's
Word, but the journal's reviewers had presuppositions based on
human reason. Purdom noted that Ben Stein wants everyone to have
access to the "truth" regardless of their beliefs, in accordance
with the intelligent design "big tent"
approach, but considered it a problem as truths would differ if
based on agnostic
human reason, the Muslim Koran, or the
born-again Christian reading of the Bible.
Response from other critics was largely negative,
particularly from those in the science media. The film's extensive
use of Michael
Moore-style devices was commented upon, but the film was widely
considered unamusing and unsubtle, unconvincing, and offensive to
the religious.
The film's rhetorical approach was subject to
much criticism, widely considered to be misleading and dishonest
and was compared to that used by Big Tobacco
The movie's use of Holocaust imagery (and other techniques) The
statement "further decries the profound dishonesty and lack of
civility demonstrated by this effort," and said the movie "seeks to
force religious viewpoints into science class – despite court
decisions that have struck down efforts to bring creationism and
intelligent design into schools."
The
American Association for the Advancement of Science describes
the film as dishonest and divisive, aimed at introducing religious
ideas into public school science classrooms, and the film is being
used in private screenings to legislators as part of the
Discovery Institute intelligent design campaign for Academic
Freedom bills.
Box office
As of May 13, 2008, Expelled had grossed over $7 million and was ranked twelfth-highest-grossing in the documentary film genre in the United States from 1982 to the present, figures not adjusted for inflation.Expelled opened in 1,052 theaters (the most ever
for a documentary), Subsequently, in the second weekend it earned
$1,394,940 at 1,041 theaters ($1,340 per theater), in the third
weekend it earned $678,304 at 656 theaters ($1,034 per theater),
its fourth weekend it earned $328,836 at 402 theaters ($818 per
theater). Originally, Walt Ruloff, the movie's executive producer,
"said the film could top the $23.9-million opening for Michael
Moore's polemic against President Bush, Fahrenheit
9/11, the best launch ever for a documentary." Reviewing
Expelled's opening box office figures, Nikki Finke of the Los
Angeles Weekly wrote that considering the number of screens
showing the film, the ticket sales were "feeble," demonstrating
"there wasn't any pent-up demand for the film despite an aggressive
publicity campaign." Referring to its opening weekend, Joshua Rich
of Entertainment
Weekly said the movie "was a solid top-10 contender" and
"[t]hat's a very respectable total for a documentary, although
non-fiction fare rarely opens in 1,052 theaters." In contrast,
Lew
Irwin (StudioBriefing) wrote that the film "flopped," and
"failed to bring out church groups in big numbers."
Promotion
The promotion of the film is being managed by Motive Marketing, which was responsible for promoting The Passion of the Christ, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Polar Express. A total of four public relations firms have been hired. The film's website includes trailers, additional material, press articles, and a blog. The blog's first entry was an open letter from Ben Stein which explains his personal premise for the movie. Stein utilizes arguments based on freedom of inquiry, teleology and the beliefs of historically prominent scientists. He also says that the modern American scientific establishment is "a new anti-religious dogmatism." The letter says that Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein based their work and discoveries on creationist assumptions, and that they would not be allowed to pursue their science in the anti-religious scientific atmosphere that exists today.The film's website asks for submissions of
personal stories of discrimination against students for suggesting
design or questioning Darwinian theory, with the enticement that a
winning story, or stories, will be featured in the film.
To publicize the film, Ben Stein appeared on the
cable television show The
O'Reilly Factor. Intelligent design was described by
Bill O'Reilly as the idea that "a deity created life," and
Stein stated that "There's no doubt about it. We have lots and lots
of evidence of it in the movie. And you know Einstein worked within
the framework of believing there was a god. Newton worked within
the framework of believing there was a god. For gosh sakes Darwin
worked within the framework of believing there was a god. And yet,
somehow, today you're not allowed to believe it. Why can't we have
as much freedom as Darwin had?" The Discovery Institute quickly
issued a statement that when Bill O'Reilly conflated intelligent
design with creationism he was mistakenly defining it as an attempt
to find a divine designer, and regretting that "Ben referred to the
'gaps' in Darwin's theory, as if those are the only issues that
intelligent design theory addresses." It went on to assert that
"intelligent design also provides a robust positive case, and a
serious scientific research approach," a claim that had been
explicitly refuted in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
court
case.
In advance of the film's release, executive
director Walt Ruloff, and producers Mark Mathis and Logan Craft
provided interviews to various Christian media outlets, explaining
what they thought of the movie, why people should see the movie,
and why it would have an impact on the evolution debate.
Producers also gave away a free, limited edition
Ben Stein bobblehead
doll to anyone who brought 25 people to see the movie. launched
"The Expelled Challenge" which offers to pay schools up to $10,000
to send students to see the movie. The program offers between $5
and $10 for every ticket stub submitted by the school within the
first two weeks of the release of the film. Wesley
R. Elsberry noted that at the upper end of the range, the value
of the reward is probably greater than the actual ticket price.
Elsberry criticizes this as a call to "take children away from
classrooms, fill their heads with obnoxiously delivered
misinformation, and profit off of it."
A similar program called the "Adopt-A-Theater
Campaign" was announced in March 2008. The goal is to produce a
competition among church groups and other organizations to see
which can generate the largest group sale of movie theater tickets
to see the film. The five largest groups to register and attend a
screening will be awarded $1,000.
Press conferences
Stein and the producers held a 50 minute telephone press conference in late January 2008. Dan Whipple of Colorado Confidential reported that journalists had to submit their questions by email in advance for screening, and at the conference "softball" questions were posed by Paul Lauer, a representative of the film's public relations firm. Only four outside questions were used, all from Christian organizations with only two of them from "the press." Questions came from the policy/lobbying groups Focus on the Family and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Christian program Listen Up TV, and the Colorado Catholic Herald. Whipple described Expelled as appearing to be anti-rational, and cited Stein describing problems with Darwin's Theory of Evolution as being the unanswered questions "Where did life come from?... How did the cell get so complex? ... Assuming it all did happen by Random Mutation and Natural Selection, where did the laws of gravity come from. Where did the laws of thermodynamics come from? Where did the laws of motion and, of heat come from?"Another telephone press conference was held March
28, 2008. PZ Myers listened in on the initial part of this press
conference, and then (having heard the password to talk into the
call during pre-conference chatter) challenged the producers for
"lying." The producers were flustered when Myers confronted them
with the information that there had been persecution
of Jews long before Charles Darwin's theory. Myers asked them
if they had ever heard of the word "pogrom." At this, the producers
said that Myers was dishonestly listening to the telephone
conference, and Myers was asked to leave the conference call. He
did so, after first providing the press with an email address where
he could be contacted.
On March 28, 2008, many members of the staff at
Scientific American were invited to view the film. After which,
they began an interview with Mark Mathis which was recorded and is
hosted on their website. In the interview, Mathis says the overt
use of Nazi imagery and quote-mining of scientists was not his
decision, but that of his superiors. He concedes that the cases of
the scientists shown in the film are inflated (again, not his
decision) and makes erroneous claims regarding the Dover vs.
Kitzmiller case which the editors factcheck on the same page.
Promotional efforts by others
The film was promoted by Christian media and by organizations affiliated with the Discovery Institute. As part of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns claiming discrimination one of the organization's websites, Intelligent Design the Future, said that Expelled "reveals the stark truth: Darwinists have been conspiring to keep design out of classrooms, out of journals, and out of public discourse."Ray Bohlin of Probe
Ministries also wrote about the upcoming film on his website.
He also stated that it was possible to doubt Darwin in biology
graduate
school in the 1980s, but it is no longer possible because of
increasing restriction of academic freedom.
Pre-release screenings
As part of the pre-release marketing for the film, a web-based RSVP system page was publicized, offering free private movie screenings. Persons filling out an online entry form were sent a reservation confirmation via email which stated that no ticket was needed and that IDs would be checked against a list of names. The producers also held invitation only screenings for religious organizations and government officials, including screenings for legislators to promote anti-evolution Academic Freedom bills. On March 11, 2008, a preview screening was held in Nashville for attendees at the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters. The young Earth creationist organization Answers in Genesis reported that its leader, Ken Ham, met Ben Stein beforehand to discuss promoting the film. It requested supporters to ask local movie theater managers to show the film, and to encourage their church leadership to buy out a local theater to show the film to as many people from that church as possible.PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins at Minnesota pre-release screening
Expelled interviewee PZ Myers followed the online procedure to reserve seats for himself and guests under his own name to attend a showing at the Mall of America in Minnesota on March 20 , 2008, but shortly before the film started, a security guard told him that the assistant producer Mark Mathis had instructed that Myers be removed from the premises. Myers described being expelled in this way as showing off "the hypocrisy of these people, as well as their outright incompetence." His guests were allowed in, including fellow interviewee Richard Dawkins, who asked in a question-and-answer session at the end of the film why Myers had been excluded. Dawkins later said that "if anyone had a right to see the film, it was [Myers]. The incompetence, on a public relations level, is beyond belief." Dawkins described the event as "a gift" and that "we could not ask for anything better."One blog said that Myers had gatecrashed the
showing. Jeffrey Overstreet, a film critic for Christianity
Today, cited an e-mail from a college student who was at the
screening. The student assumed that Dawkins and Myers had not been
invited, and suggested that Myers had been "hustling and bothering"
invited guests. The student subsequently stated that Myers "didn't
cause a disruption per se; he was kindly escorted out."}} Myers
described this as an admission by Mathis that Myers had not been
"unruly" or "gatecrashing," but had been thrown out "on a petty,
arbitrary, vindictive whim" without legitimate cause. In an email
to another blog, Mathis stated that "I banned pz because I want him
to pay to see it. Nothing more."
In a press release dated March 25, 2008,
Mathis claimed that the decision to expel Myers was made well in
advance, as soon as it was noted that Myers, Dawkins, and "a group
of other atheists" had signed up to view the movie, and was a
deliberate PR move to capitalize on the irony. The release claims
that Myers is "distraught" and that he had been calling upon others
to sneak into screenings for "many weeks." Myers responded that he
only felt "a little guilty that I'd escaped a bad movie while my
friends and family were stuck with watching it" and that he has
never requested that people sneak into screenings or "even asked
them to sign up for them, as I did." He observed that Dawkins was
registered only as an anonymous guest — the press release claim
that he "oddly used his formal surname [sic] 'Clinton' instead of
Richard to sign up" was erroneous. All attendees had to show
identification, and Dawkins had used his British passport, which
shows both of his forenames, giving his full name as "Clinton
Richard Dawkins." He and others later received an email stating
that the screening had been cancelled. One of the other individuals
to receive this email phoned the theater, which revealed that the
screening was not cancelled. He attended, and found that his name
was no longer on the guest list, but after some negotiation
(presenting his confirmation email and stating he was not
representing any organization) he was allowed to view the movie.
Lynch hypothesized that a guest pre-screening process was set up in
response to the Myers and Dawkins incident, and points to this as
evidence.
See also
- Creation-evolution controversy
- Flock of Dodos, a documentary contrasting the debate between intelligent design proponents and the scientific establishment that supports evolution.
- Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, a NOVA documentary about intelligent design and the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial.
References
External links
Supportive sites
- Expelled Resources A list of articles, multimedia resources from Access Research Network, a creationism and intelligent design advocacy group.
- Expelled Resources A list of articles, multimedia resources from Discovery Institute, an intelligent design advocacy group.
Critical sites
- Expelled Exposed — A National Center for Science Education site debunking various claims made in the movie and examining the actions of its producers.
- , package of reviews and commentary including Six Things in Expelled That Ben Stein Doesn't Want You to Know.
- Expelled:Leader's Guide - A RationalWiki page addressing all the points made in a "Leader's Guide" published by the producers of Expelled.
expelled in Swedish: Expelled: No Intelligence
Allowed