[The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind] Manufactured Persecution (Part Deux).

Well, it seems the folks behind Expelled, that festival paying homage to the burning stupid of creationism, have embarked on a rather unique publicity campaign. I must admit, I find their tactics to be kinda funny:

This is just getting weirder and weirder. What kind of dummies are behind Expelled, anyway? First they lied about the premise of their movie to get interviews; then they copied Harvard/XVIVO's cell animations; then they threatened XVIVO with a lawsuit; now it turns out that they're using music from John Lennon and The Killers without permission, stirring the ire of Yoko Ono. It's total legal chaos, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm not going to even guess how any of it will turn out. Is the movie industry always this rife with sneakiness and dishonesty?

Anyway, no matter how the lawyers dance, one thing is clear: the makers of Expelled have been paragons of ethical dubiety, doing their best to skirt the edges of the law and sneak as much doubtful, dishonestly obtained content into their little propaganda movie as they can. I guess they had to skimp on the budget for the actual content of the movie to scrape together a very large advertising budget — it's as if their movie is a metaphor for all of Intelligent Design creationism.
(PZ Myers)

It's stunning, really. It seems that the folks behind Expelled lie, they cheat and they steal, and I'm pretty sure when the lawsuits start flying, the first thing out of their mouths will be some dreck about how the shady and nebulous entity that is "Big Science" is somehow out to silence them and their message, and this is, yet another, attempt at keeping god down. Imagine the sniffles this madness will inspire? There may even be tears.

Forget about the fact that, right now, Ben Stein and the Expelled bunch should be more concerned about "Big Law" than they should be about "Big Science."

Then again, is there something much more dubiousat play here? After all, I can't be the only one thinking that Ben Stein & Company actually want this movie to be yanked so as to whip the confused creationist masses into a delightfully frothy little mess by, once again, feeding their persecution complex. I mean, let's face it, there is a whole steaming heap of rabid Christians in America who, in order to believe they need their god, also need to believe they are members of an ignored, neglected and down-trodden minority mass whose rights and the things they hold sacred are in jeopardy. Should this movie never be shown, then I imagine this mendacious cause and the delusional fears it propagates can continue on for however long they please among these folks.

After all, at this point, I find it very hard to believe that Ben Stein and the filmmakers behind this nonsense are out to push any other message than the fact that it's ridiculously easy to bilk the religious out of their money by creating a controversy where none exists or even belongs.

On the other hand, if this movie is allowed to show in theaters, I think the greatest fear of these filmmakers is that much of the crowd will watch this movie, and they may say "so what." Even worse, maybe there will be those out there who will see that trying to tie Darwin and Evolution to the Holocaust is really no different than blaming the Wright Brothers for the events of September 11th.

I suppose the religious folks out there have a hell of a choice to make. I think you need to seriously sit down and ask yourself whether or not your mythology and supernatural notions belong in America's science classes?

-DP

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Posted By Dan to The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind at 4/17/2008 08:57:00 AM