Matt and Mike basically a very large demographic. They are not creationists, and neither are they scientists. They are not expert in the various issues raised in the movie, but neither are they clueless on the background.

The great hope of ID is to sell the idea to such folks of “fairness”; that they “deserve to be given a hearing”. Mike puts it thus, according to the article: “I think the film has a viewpoint that has the right to be heard.”

I agree… in the sense that anyone has a right to be heard, no matter how stupid or dishonest their perspective. They have a “right”, but they don’t “deserve” to be heard in the sense of having any merit or value. Everyone has a right to be heard, but not everyone has a right to be correct. Everyone has a right to a fair hearing; but not everyone has a right for the conclusion of that hearing to be supportive.

The particular viewpoint given in the film is absurd; and not supported even remotely by the facts. The alleged repression and expulsions don’t hold up to examination. The way the Darwinism/Hitler link is set up is unmitigated bilgewater. Hitler distorted science every bit as badly as he distorted religion. Racist appropriations of science began long before Darwin was born (have a look at Linnaeus) and Darwin’s own contributions have far more to do with bringing about a recognition of the deep relationship of all humanity and the values of diversity than with a concern for racial purity (which is actually a very BAD thing for a species from an evolutionary perspective).

I really hope Mike and others who see this film go on to check the claims a bit further. A film can only ever give a brief introduction to a topic like this… just think how much detail has to be omitted when even just one book is made into a film. So check a bit. If an interested amateur like Mike can’t see the flaws and distortions and outright dishonesty in the film after checking out the background a bit, then there’s a problem.

It takes time to do this; I’m not being critical of Mike. I’m wishing him the best and hoping he will check it out for himself a bit further.

While I have been reading about this on PZ’s blog I never clued into your being Vancouver based. I’m in North Burnaby myself. Nice to see some talented people working locally (if not from here, I am actually transplanted from NB, I would never assume someone working here is from BC)

3. There’s no difference between D.Phil and Ph.D.
Oxford and Cambridge adopted different abbreviations for the Latin form of “Doctor of Philosophy”. The rest of the world, for some reason follows the Cambridge form, Ph.D. (except Sussex, Buckingham and perhaps York although I am not sure about that). It would simplify matters if Oxford were to come into line with the rest of the world, but I don’t see it happening any time soon. There is absolutely no sense in which a D.Phil is superior to a Ph.D. The higher doctorate of science is the D.Sc (Oxford) or Sc.D (Cambridge).
Richard

You’ll find the original posting at rd.net:
http://www.richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2409,Beware-the-Believers,RandomSlice,page5#152142

Cheers,
^_^J.

1) reference to “natural selection” instead of evolution, something that ID folks almost never do;

2) the lyrics actually allow that Darwin saw things “no one had ever seen” on the Beagle’s voyage;

3) the bit showing Darwin raising the roof — no anti-Darwinist could have made that.

And I forgot to say once again that I still get a kick out of the video. Great work!

a. Aristotle was a great biologist; indeed he was arguably the first biologist. His philosophy makes no appeal to “faith”; Aristotle is a champion of reason. Thus it’s an error to gloss Aristotle as advocating “faith” in his debate with Democritus (who was certainly not “more scientific”). And, along these same lines, there’s no reason to tie Aristotle’s prime mover to “magic.”

b. The animation pretends that Plato (from the School of Athens painting) is Aristotle, and that Aristotle is Democritus.

c. Paley wrote after Hume (which probably means he should have known better), so it might be considered an error to depict Hume (who is surely not a scientist) taking out Paley.

d. One might take away the erroneous impression that Darwin’s expedition took place after the Wilberforce-Huxley debate.

OK, I’ll stop being pedantic. (Besides, I’ll bet you have in mind something even more glaring that I haven’t listed.)