State of the World Address: Canadians and the Federal Elections

The Canadians...
The Canadians don't vote

I'm out and out disappointed in many of my fellows who are eligible to vote and refuse to vote. Fuck, 59% of you voted, and I can see the majority of those votes being the ones who give a damn who is placed in power, like the big guys who make six figure wages annually. Because of that disgraceful vote ratio, the Conservatives have been re-elected. The only saving grace here is that they're a minority government, so they don't have full power like that of a majority government.

I do know that people did vote, but for some fucking reason, the majority of you didn't think voting was useful or were too lazy or stubborn to vote. Well, because of you non-voting citizens who can vote, we have that idiot in office once more. He doesn't appeal to the little guy, such as me and you (unless some of you are connected to people making millions a year), and is not doing much of anything good for this country. His party doesn't listen to us concerned average citizens nor does he care. Like me, many of you other average civvies have a gripe with him and the rest of the Tories; unless you are absolutely uninformed about any of the parties, for which I have no hope, voting helps.

If you don't vote, don't fucking bitch. You may believe that we live in a Fascist country but we don't, stop taking in those stupid conspiracy theories and shit to heart and grow up, we have a democracy. It isn't perfect, nor has it ever been or will ever be perfect, but it's still a democracy. Democracies allow the citizens to make informed (haha, yeah right, not quite so for Canada it seems) decisions about political issues -- like voting. Exercise your rights, and speak up. The voting process gives you that right. It's not that parties that are doing everything in their power to screw up the country are always getting in power, it's that not enough of my fellow Canadians are voting! The little guy is fed up with politics completely or knows jack all about the parties and what they stand for, while the big guy wants the Conservatives to win because the Conservatives will grant tax breaks and all that other bureaucratic nonsense to them, ala special fucking treatment.

The Liberals had a chance, for instance, but so many people took their CARBON TAX plan the TOTALLY WRONG WAY! This tax applies to industrial corporations who make billions of dollars in profit a year and who can easily afford a small tax like that. It would cost them just thousands a month. But many voters were turned off from voting for the Liberals because of the word TAX in 'Carbon Tax'. Utterly laughable. However, one thing I can understand about people not voting for the Liberals is that Dion is a bit difficult to understand due to his Francophone accent. While you can understand Harper's monotonous aristocratic Calgarian accent or Jack Layton's charismatic voice clearly, it's a bit of a chore at times to understand just what Dion said. Dion is a smart cookie and he appears to know how to run the government better than the others, but the way he speaks isn't effective nor is he all that charismatic. Harper has as much charisma as that of a sloth, but he got re-elected? He has proven that he can't run the government all that well, but he got re-elected? I was hoping that Layton would take office, he's a much better speaker than the others and his position seems noble, but he didn't have quite a chance anyway, now did he?

Thanks, and no thanks lazy voting-class citizens. You didn't help at all, so if you bitch about the results, you don't have a fucking say. My vote to the NDP was worth it even though it didn't result in them getting elected; but it was worth it for the effort alone. So many people are lazy or stubborn enough to think that voting is a waste of time or whatnot, but these same people have the guts to complain about it after wasting the chance they had to make a difference. Now I know how Greenpeace activists feel, when people aren't doing enough to make a difference in the most vital climate on the planet, the Amazonian rainforest. It's frustrating. I am frustrated.

Canada SHOULD, even though I know it won't any time soon, follow Australia's footsteps. Make it mandatory to vote and make a punishment for not voting. Fine a voting-class citizen and lock them up for a period of time until they pay the fine, which wouldn't be much. Due to this method, 90+% of the people in Australia place their votes, the non-voting citizens who CAN vote get fined and arrested. We should have this, but I know that the Tories wouldn't put it in place now since they like having power so much. They're probably laughing at you and other careless eligible voters for not voting against them (or voting at all), as well as relieved, because I know most of us wouldn't vote for those idiots. At least, I hope so, because those idiots do nothing for the likes of me and others making a fraction of an aeronautics engineer (that's an example). But the big problem is you didn't bother to vote at all when you had the full ability to do so.

You let Canada down. If you don't want to vote again, then keep your fucking mouth shut.

Bearman out.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed In-Depth Review

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

In-Depth, Detailed Review

by Garrett Will

(Edited for clarity and to correct spelling/grammar errors)

Expelled is a real eye-opener, right as soon as the “curtains” unfold to display the first frame of the film. Showing some modified footage of Eastern & Western Berlin during the construction of the Berlin wall, with the names of crew members cleverly integrated into various parts of the environment, there's nothing that serves to form relevance to the topic of the film for the audience. Just what is the point of this intro?

Then, we shift to an auditorium, and are shown clips of proponents of ID and of Evolution, such as P.Z Meyers & Richard Dawkins, and a couple of ID proponents whose names I cannot give at the time of writing. Once in a while in between each clip of the different figures and their arguments, Ben Stein is shown in a dressing room, looking ecstatic and/or to the brink of tears. Immediately after, he begins to walk towards the auditorium, which greets him with loud claps and an almost scripted appearance of glee. Ben Stein talks about the decay of “freedom” in America in both the auditorium and outside of the Washington monument, but because of what, he doesn't get to. He then begins to ponder paranoid thoughts about the scientific establishment doing some suspicious things regarding freedom of inquiry (including such wonderful things as suppression and oppression of differing viewpoints, and other lovely tactics). Unsurprisingly, he doesn't serve anything to support it; this trend overlaps the entirety of the film. This is just a warning from me to you..

So then, the movie jumps to the subject of an allegedly 'expelled' editor for a paper run by the Smithsonian institute, named Richard Sternberg. With the man's life supposedly ruined when he was said to have been fired by the Smithsonian institute for publishing an article by Dr. Stephen Meyer, in which Meyer proposed that Intelligent Design was a possible alternative theory to Evolution. Ben Stein plays along by saying, “you were a bad boy, a bad boy, bad boy”, appearing to draw a scheme of baseless accusations. A flaw in the argument put forth is that it doesn't show us the big picture, nor the real one, regarding Sternberg's tenure as a scientific journalist. It shows us a paper published by Meyers, but it is severely edited, with sections crossed out. It zooms in and sweeps the paper in certain parts; this could suggest a quote-mining method to convey a different point. What the movie should have done is shown the audience the entire paper, unedited, to allow the audience to decide for themselves. That, and it wouldn't have to take long either, thanks to the 'magic' of the pause button so that viewers can read the whole paper themselves. Lastly, Stein sits down with Sternberg who explains his so-called “predicament” and what happened, but it's all very amateurish, almost on-the-spot material; he pauses from time to time. In the process, it shows some cuts from a clip of three men beating on a poor single individual. It seems that the film is trying to equate the Scientific Establishment as the bullying men, with Sternberg serving as the bullied man. Yet it's all baseless without evidence put forth for the audience.

Stein interviews an opinionated man, Michael Shermer, who is a skeptic and has an opinion regarding the credibility of either Evolution or Intelligent design, himself claiming that Intelligent Design is very close to being nonsense. It's a short-lived but ineffective interview.

Another interview of a supposedly “expelled” Caroline Cocker, a teacher at George Mason University, follows. By merely mentioning Intelligent Design (and not teaching it, as she asserts) in her class, she supposedly got fired from the university later on. She also says that she got blacklisted from the academic community. Nothing proves the case, it's all assertion. This interview is disappointing since it doesn't cover the whole picture, not even a fraction of the picture that the first interview with Sternberg surprisingly had. A very short clip from the 30's or 40's is shown of shadowed figures carrying away a lurching, smaller figure off; this is another means from the filmmakers to try to show that the academic arena is suppressing the careers of those who disagree, or seem to anyway.

Another person seems to have been expelled, Dr. Michael Egnore of Columbia University, a neurosurgeon who wrote a medical article putting forth a case that the conscience “couldn't come forth by an accidental origin.” The article put forth that evolution is not needed to explain the origin and elements of the brain that intrigues us to this day. Supposedly, he got so much criticism from what him and the film calls “nasty Darwinists” and others in agreement of the scientific theory, he got silenced. Supposedly, he received “nasty comments”, and vicious accusations; his website which serves as a publicly viewable journal for his research was shut down, so they say. The website address was not supplied in the film. Tricky tactic there, Stein.

Yet another person seems to have been “expelled” from the academic arena, but he's perhaps the most crooked of them all. Without any evidence or any actual argument to base his allegations and ad hominems on, the “10 year, academically safe” Robert J. Marks the 2nd, says that a close-minded ideology formed in the scientific arena is negatively affecting those who do not fully support the current scientific ideas proposed. His website, if there was one, was shut down; again, this is an allegation. Like every other interview in this film, it is supplied by clips from old films, this time from Planet of the Apes, with Charlton Heston's character being sprayed by a jailor ape while in captivity. Again, this is another method of making the scientific arena seem to be the bad guy.

Dr. Guillermo Gonzales is the next up, who is, or was, an astronomist from the University of Washington. It is alleged that he got into a “shootout” from Iowa State university over his book “The Privileged Planet”, in which he puts forth that the universe was intelligently designed. This supposedly put his tenure as an astronomer in jeopardy. Still, nothing to really prove the point, with assertions all around.

Ben Stein says that they got into contact with a number of “scientists” who wished to remain anonymous 'for fear of losing their jobs'. Their argument is that when the academic community even hears anything regarding Intelligent Design, it is equated with creationism, the religious right, etc. Is this really a case of narrow-minded lack of motivation towards investigating the “Intelligent Design theory”, or is it really intended to bend the truth, to make intelligent design seem like a truly scientific theory when it is simply creationism under the guise as a scientific idea?

The film then shows clips of proponents of the scientific method, but uses certain tricks to undermine their arguments. One is the low lighting quality surrounding each interviewee. Whether or not this is a method of demeaning the appearance or even presence of these people is questionable, but it's likely to be just that. They show one proponent's rather poor 'argument' that ID is “boring, boring, boring”, which doesn't do any good for the scientific argument, but the film deliberately goes in-depth on his argument above the others, even P.Z Meyers who receives around 12 seconds of footage in this part.

Stein goes to the Discovery Institute, the same institute that wouldn't defend ID under oath during the Dover vs. ID case (several prominent members of the 'institute' went AWOL during the case to avoid the case, for what reason, is not known to this day). Ben Stein then finds his nerdy-looking self in the Bible Belt of Los Angeles, California, with “Your own personal Jesus” playing in the background. He finds himself at Biola University. A member is lectured on what his profession may be (Gee, Stein, shouldn't you at least know about your interview interests before taking them on?), and asks whether he was a pastor, minister, youth minister, or supported the prominent figures of creation like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson financially through donations. “No” is the answer to them all. Then, Intelligent Design is alleged to be the “study of patterns in nature best explained with intelligence.” This throws off the contemporary definitions of ID completely, but is perhaps just this one man's opinion of it. Ben Stein leaves and says, “he doesn't sound like a crazy person...” Funny guy, right?

(no)

Another member of the Discovery Institute, in fact a member that avoided the Dover case back in '05! He says that Darwinism was an attempt to paint the entire picture of a branch of science (obviously bound to be Biology) with the idea of Natural Selection. He says that “Newton was Physics” (even though Newton explained motion, not the entire subject of physics. D'oh!), however, this argument is null since it's a blatant generalization that seems to aim to demean scientific theorists, especially Charles Darwin.

Jonathan Wells, a fellow of the Discovery Institute yet again, is sought. This man says that Darwinism “corrupts the evidence – distorts the evidence.” Otherwise, the arguments are nothing new, where Wells says that he “loves Science.” Stein then narrates, “was Darwinism really that baaaaad?” It's a poor attempt at humoring the audience into staying interested to hear what Ben Stein and his future interviewees have to say about the ID vs. Evolution debate.

Another person is interviewed. He asserts that Evolution is “such a mess', so filled with holes, so distorted, that he compares it to a “room full of smoke.” It, in his opinion, has none of the rigor of other established scientific ideas, and is a drop in the meter of intelligibility. He says that “we don't even know what a species is!” My question is, is this man credible enough to be taken seriously? Richard Dawkins is shown briefly giving his opinions, to which Stein displays him as a heavy contender against ID. Stein then says that each previous interviewee aside from Shermer was a “highly credented scientist.” (Funny, it might not be relevant, but my internet browser's integrated dictionary could not recognize 'credented' as a certified term)

However, the film's point fails when it deliberately misconstrues the point of Evolution, when he says that it was meant to explain the origin of life. One can read the definition of the word 'Evolution' to understand the very purpose of the scientific theory.

In trying to further undermine the theory, he shows clips of one pro-Evolution film that asserts that life may have formed by a stroke of lightning on “primordial ooze.” He interviews a scientist who supports the evolutionary theory, who gives a possible explanation for the origin as “forming on the backs of crystals” (which follows with a short, old clip of a magic crystal, oddly enough). Stein deliberately misunderstands the proponent's case, to which the interviewee shows minor frustration.

Dr. Walter Bradley is shown saying that the 250 proteins forming the simplest forms of life couldn't have happened through “simple steps.” A short film about the chances of those 250 proteins being arranged to cause that simple organism to form; it asserts that in order for this to happen, those proteins have to be placed or organized in the right order 250 times, perfectly, in order for that simple organism to even form. Two scientists are shown saying that the probability of a natural origin of life is one in a “trillion-trillion-trillio

n-trillion-trillion-trillion!” There is no basis for this outlandish “chance” ratio being conceived of in either case. Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates are guilty of using this strange argumentative method to convey the improbability of something they think was impossible. One of the interviewees says that “nature has to be skewed for it to work.” All baseless with no evidence to support the arguments. Another failed attempt at debunking the scientific method, and for any clear-headed, thinking watchers, this wouldn't help for Ben Stein's favor.

Rather under-developed ideas of the natural origin of life, such as alien intervention or the “backs of crystals” idea put forth from a previous interviewee seem to be asserted as the strongest arguments for the natural origin of life. More weak arguments and quote-mining.

A recycled argument is put forth that the cause of the origin of life, the formation and intricate elements of DNA, and other still intriguing subjects are so complex, that the best explanation as the cause of these things is an intelligent designer. Stein questions about the possibility of Darwinian Evolution even capable of producing the cell. To him, they're too complex to be a result of long-term natural processes. It perpetuates the decades-old escapist argument that “it's too complex to know, so God did it.” Simple as that, and that's why the Scientific Community doesn't take ID or Creationism seriously.

Another falling point of the film, and the interviewees within, is that the ideas put forth by Darwin are the be-all, end-all of the scientific method explaining the gradual change of life on Earth. After all, Ben, and your fellow compatriots, scientific ideas constantly change; Evolution is far from an exception, as it is one of the most robust theories due to the countless amount of new information added to it, and the revisions of previous ideas in the theory to keep it in coherence with natural explanations of the universe, and other current scientific ideas of different and related fields. So far, the theory of Evolution has withstood the test of time, the sheer amount of skeptic inquiry and investigation in the academic arena, and came out in spades. Next time, if there is another time for Stein, he should study at least a little bit on the subject before tackling it and its credibility.

A dire case is developed, and it had been throughout the entire film so far, that the scientific community is impeding on the academic freedom, by silencing the “other view.” While it is true that Science does not involve a Democratic process, the proponents of intelligent design shown in this rather heated part of the film try to compare it to a totalitarian agenda to keep ideas that are not supported from being seriously considered. It all lays down that a conspiracy theory is running amok, perpetrated by the scientific community, to silence those who do not put forth generally accepted ideas. Paranoia based on an argument from incredulity. A “fear” of free speech, or new ideas, as Stein says, is supposed to be present in the scientific community.

Hell, it is even called a “gospel”, but for what reason, is not too clear. The only means of possibly supporting this idea is when they show footage of Eugene Scott, a figurehead for the National Science Center for Science Education (whom Stein claims is behind every “controversy” behind Evolution science in the last 25 years. What defines controversial in Stein's mind, in this case?). Stein deliberately misconstrues all of her points. Dawkins is also shown giving his argument on the matter, but even he is misconstrued to be saying that supporting Evolution equates to becoming Atheistic. The case developed here by Stein is that Evolution equals Atheism. Also, he tries to lay the point that the media generally accepts the scientific method rather than the religious method. Journalists were alleged to be silenced and harshly scrutinized by unnamed sources, then claiming the careers of these journalists.

The equation of science to fierce artificial selection continues. Just about every trick in the book is used to try to support this point. However, Stein fails to acknowledge that it was scientific inquiry that was restricted in earlier generations, not religious ideas. Various scientific ideas were frowned upon, sometimes seen as blasphemous by the overtly religious authorities, following a rather theocratic political process. However, that barrier was defeated by acceptance through hard-proof to support the scientific ideas that were once so antagonized by the political and even scientific communities, that it was at times illegal to teach or propose these “bad” scientific ideas and often resulted in judicial discipline. Stein has an agenda here when he deliberately misses this historical fact, and it's thus completely devoid of competence for that reason.

The film carries on for a while in a drab, uninteresting, and completely non-educational way. It continues to portray science as the bad guy. Stein and the interviewees, including a newly introduced Alister McGrath, bend Richard Dawkins' arguments on the ID vs. Evolution debate to say that there is an ideological war between the two different opinions. More deliberation takes place in which they try to say that scientific supporters want you to break away from your religious beliefs in order to further scientific discovery. This is a moot point because Science is itself impartial to religious or ideological inclinations. However, to convey his and the ID proponents' point, they reverse the fact.

Later on, throughout the constant attempt to convey Evolution as an oppressive ideology, and then aftewards, the film really dips to a new low. Evolution is said to be the root inspiration of the Naziistic ideology that practiced Social Darwinism. In giving their point that Evolution leads to Science, coupled with the pushing of Darwinism leading to Social Darwinism, which is a political ideology. He finds himself in Dachau, one of the worst execution camps of the Nazi regime.

The point rings loud and clear with this part of the film; accepting evolution seems to lead to killing people in such sick, twisted ways. However, accepting evolution alone does not equate to any behavior as such. It is only when the concept of “natural selection” is imposed as a societal ideology that outlandish, violent, sadistic behavior that the Nazis and other necessarily evil regimes take place. This forced Darwinist ideology translates into Artificial Selection, essentially a forced system of survival of the fittest. A problem in this ideology is that there is no competition amongst those found in the ideology; the imposer of this ideology has the upper hand by default, and is also the one who decides who is fit to live. There is absolutely nothing scientific about this ideology, but Stein tries to slap the "This is Scientific Practice" label on it, to better his currently lame argument.

Quote-mining takes place again, which isn't surprising, this time taking Darwin's words from his master-work The Origin of the Species way out of context; this is all an attempt to support Stein's tried point that Darwin supported culling the unfit members of our species as we deem them to be. Funny enough, Stein engages in a concentrated vision contest of sorts with the statue of Darwin during his visit to Down House, where he was buried. Whatever mood he was trying to establish with this scene, didn't work for me (as I was annoyed by the film's many glaring flaws at this point).

Soon, Stein finds himself returning to the capital of America, where he quote-mines the words of Thomas Jefferson where he himself talks about the freedom that America was based upon, and to support freedom of inquiry. The overlapping point of the point developed with all this is that the Scientific Method and the community supporting it are entrenched, universally supported suppressors of different views and as Stein claims, freedom of inquiry. Science is portrayed is the wrong side of the wall, while ID supporters (and as Stein and his compatriots basically say) and of freedom of inquiry are the good side of the wall.

Stein interviews Dawkins, but Stein dodges the argument throughout. He also seems to have misunderstood Dawkins completely when he asks who created the earth, and thus the first life on earth. Dawkins admits that to this day, we are not fully sure how the first organism on earth appeared. Also, when Dawkins pointed out that a certain kind of intelligent design may be possible, Stein narrates again and totally changes what Dawkins said to fit his point of view. He then asks the overused questions that Dawkins clearly has encountered one too many times, like, “what if when you die, you run into God?” Or “do you not believe in any God?” If Stein actually filled in on what Dawkins wrote, or let alone had been saying in the interview, he wouldn't have asked him if he believed in any god. It's a deliberate misunderstanding of the opposing view.

So the film ends with Stein finishing his speech that was shown in the beginning of the film, in which he appears as a supporter of freedom, and tries to portray science as the enemy of that very freedom he supposedly champions. The film then closes, and breathed a sigh of relief. I didn't feel relieved in that I deliberately wasted over an hour and a half of my time to review this, but I feel it could help put some leverage on the more reasonable side of the argument in doing so.

I shall summarize this film's pros and cons; strengths and weaknesses below.

• Baseless accusations against the academic community from all the film's supported corners of being oppressive towards differing views, impeding on freedom of inquiry and information, and general methods of antagonizing the scientific methods.

• No evidence is provided in the cases that the pro-ID speakers bring forth. The interviewees in the beginning, who are alleged to have been fired or silenced from their careers in the field of science for merely mentioning Intelligent Design, are especially guilty of this. They were proven to be false through research done by various unpaid individuals.

• Uses recycled and countlessly refuted arguments, such as the Reductio ad Hitlerum (otherwise known as argumentum ad Hitlerum) that tries to tie Evolution directly to the Nazi ideology; also the argument that accepting science leads to militant Atheism.

• Quote-mines and twists the words (spoken or written) of those who do post material or put forth opinions not in agreement with Stein & his compatriots, nor the filmmakers. Victims of this quote-mining method include Darwin himself and Richard Dawkins as notable examples.

• Develops a conspiracy theory in which the scientific community is really a conglomerate organization that suppresses differeing views that are not seen as scientific, ala Big Science. This idea is pushed throughout a large portion of the film and gets very tiresome, albeit with little basis to rely on.

• Interviewed the non-agreeing interviewees (PZ Meyers, Richard Dawkins, and others) under false pretenses, advertising the film to them as being named “Crossroads: the intersection of science and religion” and being rather impartial to either side of the debate, in comparison with the final, deceptive product. Proof of this deception is here and here.

• The interviews in the beginning portion of the film provide false situations and are deceptive, not to mention not backed by supportive evidence. A statement from the Council of the Biological Society of Washington backs the claim that Richard Sternberg circumvented the editorial process to ultimately publish the article, which, by some sources, is said to be biased for the article and its author and that Sternberg himself is aligned ideologically with the author's own.

• Deceptive marketing towards the audience, advertising itself as a look at the intelligent design versus evolution debate and offering insight on the matter. Instead, it is a completely one-sided attack on the scientific method.

• Offers no new insight on the matter, from either viewpoint. The film thus wastes the audience's time.

• Misconstrues the points put forth by the scientific method and the academic arena. It deliberately makes the audience misunderstand the scientific idea acceptance process, in how it requires not opinion or faith for the ideas to be acceptable, but evidence and proof to support the ideas and their claims. If the opposite were true, for example, pink unicorns would be accepted as true on the grounds that a contender in the academic arena felt sure that they exist.

• Stein tries to add subtle humor touches, but they are ineffective and do nothing to help the film.

• Uses Jon Lennon's “Imagine”, but in the wrong context. Allegedly, this use was not permissible by the owner, Yoko Ono.

• Also used a short animated segment developed by Harvard University's XVIVO without permission.

• Used a song by The Killers under false pretenses through the band's manager, by misleading him about the film.

Consensus:

Ben Stein's opinionated outing here adds nothing to the debate by way of philosophy or information, other than trying to add a sense of urgent settlement of the debate, preferably to them in favor of the proponents of Intelligent Design (and thus Creationism). Stein and Mathis (the film's main producer) break many rules, and thus portray a self-destructive level of dishonesty. False pretenses, baseless accusations, ad hominems, lack of evidence for the arguments put forth, and other wrongful tactics dominate the majority of the film's duration. Stein does nothing to boost the flavor; he's a dullard in just about every sense of the word: his voice is monochrome, he has a relatively slow-paced gait, and has a poor ability of expression. Many of his narrations in the film are narrow-minded, and during the scenes in which he gives a speech at an auditorium, his message slightly resembles political propaganda. Lastly, the film uses early 1900's footage of the second world war and the social decay that followed it (including a scene where three men push around a single smaller man) to illustrate science as the oppressive figures in each footage.

Critically thinking Christians hoping to get some insight into the matter of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design should look elsewhere, for it offers nothing new or even revised. Supporters of Science, Atheistic or not, should approach this film with a grain of salt at best.

My own expectations were pretty low, thanks to the dozen reviews (out of dozens of others) that almost universally chastised the film for mostly the same reasons as mine; but after watching it for myself, writing this review as it went along, it didn't even meet those already low expectations. Plus, after seeing some politically opinionated footage of Ben Stein where he suggests that the United States Army is both a “super-powered sitting Duck” and that the country should open nuclear war on other countries “for defense”, further cements my low opinion of him as an incompetent political and pseudo-political source.

F grade tripe.

Half a star out of five, and it's barely deserving of that.