PZ Myers sneaks into press teleconference … !
| March 28, 2008 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
I was in a press conference this afternoon for the Expelled documentary (about scientists who are persecuted for questioning Darwinism and other materialist evolution theories). Ben Stein, the film’s lead, producer Mark Mathis, and others were there.
Mathis confirmed that he kicked PZ Myers out of the film to make a point (Myers endorses the destruction of the careers of those who question Darwinism, yet he was really upset about getting booted from a film).
And … Myers apparently somehow got into the press conference itself! – “under false pretences” according to the moderator. He was told to be quiet, and he rung off (to the best of my knowledge). He told the media to phone HIM instead. Greg, at Hollywood Jesus live blogged the affair and is promising updates.
For more, go here.
Pretty clever operator, the man who said,
The only appropriate response should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy, far-right politicians … I say, screw the polite words and careful rhetoric. It’s time for scientists to break out the steel-toed boots and brass knuckles, and get out there and hammer on the lunatics and idiots.
Strangely, while he was in the telemeeting, Myers insisted that Darwinism had nothing to do with Nazi Germany. Of course, historically, Darwin was an enormous influence on the Nazis because his Descent of Man appeared to put racism on a scientific footing. That does not mean (and the Expelled guys made clear that they did not think it means) that today’s Darwinists have anything to do with Nazism. But it is a historical fact that Darwin was one of the Nazis’ heroes, as historian Richard Weikart painstakingly shows.
Note: I update the Expelled story at this page, to keep it all in one place. So if you are interested in my coverage, it is all there by date.
77 Responses to PZ Myers sneaks into press teleconference … !
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Aesahaettr,
Don’t you think your comment is just a little disingenuous?
“and misrepresenting him thusly is (if deliberate) a dishonest attempt to poison the well against him.”
Do you actually believe that? I cannot believe you do. Are you seriously worried about PZ’s reputation? PZ is enjoying himself and in what group that PZ cares about is the well being poisoned? I have to believe in his world, he is more of a hero than before.
DaveScot (60),
The vocal response to a film’s content, the response to a fellow blogger for being told to shut up, and the response to being kicked out of a movie theater are three completely different situations. Ms. O’Leary writes plainly that PZ was upset at being thrown out of the movie, not that he was upset by a fellow blogger’s response. As it is written, she is wrong.
And thank you for taking the time to misspell my alias. I had to smile.
Jerry (62),
By misrepresenting PZ’s response to a prior event, O’Leary sets him up as a belligerent hypocrite so as to discredit his stance on the issues. How is that not poisoning the well? What matters here is not how PZ is perceived by his readers, but how he is perceived by O’Leary and HER readers.
asshatter
Independent of O’Leary’s calling Myers “upset” it appears to me he was upset about it too. Of course it appears to me Myers is upset by everything about ID so this is no exception. It’s a personal opinion. I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree because I’m not going to approve any more of your arguments about it.
I misspelled your name because it’s not exactly easy to remember how to spell it but it’s easy to remember phonetically. Since it isn’t a word or name that appears anywhere on the internet and has no derivation I could see from the name on your email address I assumed the phonetic similarity to asshat (which is a fashionable term among young Darwinists) was intentional. If I’m mistaken you have my not very sincere apology and no promise to stop using it unless you change your handle to something that doesn’t sound like it.
Aesahaettr,
Which would think would poison the well more?
Publishing his quote:
‘I say, screw the polite words and careful rhetoric. It’s time for scientists to break out the steel-toed boots and brass knuckles, and get out there and hammer on the lunatics and idiots. If you don’t care enough for the truth to fight for it, then get out of the way.?’
Or the supposed reactions to his being kept out of the film Expelled which you describe as a misrepresentation.
Come on, you have a degree from a highly respected university. Let’s cut out the charade. It has the feel of “I’m shocked, I’m shocked” in Casablanca.
Very well, I’ve said my piece, I don’t intend to push it any further.
And if you want to call me “asshatter,” just go ahead and do so. I don’t mind. You don’t need to make up lame excuses.
“When Nisbet and Mooney suggested he tone down the rhetoric about being expelled from Expelled because it’s playing into the hands of the producers with free publicity…”
Yeah…Dave, check out Moran’s advise in regard to Nisbet and Mooney:
“It’s about time we started to ignore Nisbet and Mooney.”
I read a few other comments like that at Nisbet’s blog.
Looks like they’re starting to expel their own. Sheesh. Not only must they comply to Darwinism and naturalism, but they also must not under any circumstances question PZ Myers and his tactics.
That is exactly why ID will win in the end, because we have a big top strategy that brings together different belief systems under one canon.
On the influence of Darwin on Hitler see:
Richard Weikart
From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany 2004 (paperback edition in 2005) with Palgrave Macmillan in New York.
See sample video of Weikart’s lecture :
Sample clip “From Darwin to Hitler” V056 Weikart on YouTube
poacy, don’t you think that there’s a danger that once Darwinism is defeated the divisions between the members inside the big top will cause infighting to break out and some sort of bloody survival of the fittest type brawl to break out? Or do you think the ID side more civilized then then a typical random bunch of humans and can they settle their differences via rational debate in the end when required?
DLH – I saw the clip and It’s just that Hitler is not saying “Darwin with us” that’s not doing it for me at the moment. Perhaps later.
Would it be possible to calculate compare the CSI in the Bible and Mein Kampf? I know Dr Dembski wrote the foreword for a Bible code book in the past, and so this would not be the first time such issues have been raised, I imagine.
DLH [69], I haven’t read Weikart’s book, but on his web page he never confuses “Darwin” with “Darwinism” as you do above. (On the other hand, his book’s title invites precisely the kind of confusion and simplification he decries in his critics.)
Aesahaettr [66], others have mocked your name in silly ways. But perhaps they’ve not read Pullman and so don’t know what it means. I say your name is only wishful thinking on your part.
The Nazis were influenced by American eugenics programs.
In the USA, the Station for Experimental Evolution merged with the Eugenics Record Office in 1920 to form the Carnegie Institution’s Dept. of Genetics.
Larry,
In that case if Christianity influenced the founders of America and if America influenced the Nazi eugenic s program then it seems we could trace the owners of the problem back as far as we like! Is there a common ancestor for eugenics programs? Don’t forget selective breeding is even mentioned in the bible!
Gosh, it sounds like some of us want the blame game played in one direction only. Just in case you were sleeping, two highly virulent books came out last year blaming Christianity for just about everything, including all anti-semitism throughout all of time and every war since the other JC was a corporal; one of them by arguably the world’s leading Darwinist. These tomes follow in the giant footprints of forty years of Christianity-bashing in the academy by the children of ’68, who love nothing more than to twist history to fit their totalitarian enthusiasms and high opinion of themselves.
But aren’t we sensitive when the obvious is pointed out on an obscure little site on the Web—that the mass murder wrought by totalitarian regimes in the last century can be credibly linked to Darwinism on many levels? Let me see—where should we begin? We are all aware, I assume, that Lenin and Mao both claimed Marx as their spiritual guru? And we are also aware that Marx loved Darwin’s theory? We know enough about history, don’t we, to realize that Marx made the elimination of religion a necessary condition of his utopia? And that Darwin’s theory was used to legitimatize this noble goal?
And we are all aware, of course, that Hitler based his notions of the superiority of the German nation on the superman and the will to power? That Hitler literally venerated Nietzsche? That the Final Solution was about race purification and had nothing to do with religion? And we do realize, of course, that Nietzsche was very much star-struck by Darwin? That Nietzsche regarded Darwin’s theory as a source of liberation from God and all notions of “the good”? That he wrote a nasty little book called “Beyond Good and Evil”? That this book can be read by wretched men like Hitler as an invitation to genocide?
The popular notion that Nietzsche opposed Darwin is based on a misunderstanding. Nietzsche did not oppose Darwin’s naturalism; he heartily embraced it. In fact he foresaw that it was the precipitating event in nihilism and a crisis in Western philosophy. What he opposed was Darwin’s notion of the randomness of evolution. In Nietzsche’s retelling of the story, man and his superiority are the product of a will to dominate found in nature itself. And happiness is therefore a matter of killing the Christian God with his self-sacrificing love and reclaiming this diabolical will.
No credible link between the horrors of the 20th century and Darwin’s theory of unguided evolution? Come on boys; join the fun. After all, it just isn’t possible to hide the truth forever. And take heart! Maybe you’ll learn to love being bashed as much as Christians do.
f.blair said,
Judge Jones said that it is “very clear” that Christianity did not influence the Founders, and who are we to question Judge Jones? He said in his Dickinson College commencement speech,
– from
http://www.dickinson.edu/comme.....dress.html
poachy @ 37
Hitler first rose to power by winning an election, so it’s hardly a surprise that he used Christian rhetoric. He was a politician, for goodness sake, trying to appeal to the German electorate, which included a lot of clueless Christians. Perverting the right ways of the Lord
Perverting the right ways of the Lord is hardly a new tactic.
Since Der Füror’s actions, after coming to power, followed Darwin’s words (check 27 et. al.), pointing out the link between the two may indeed be an instance of “Godwin’s law”, since that “law” says nothing of whether or not such a link is apt. However methinks the polemic “law” that Mr. McNeil was reaching for was Reductio ad Hitlerum.
f.blair @ 74
Oh yeah? Where?
To me, the best thing about the Darwin-to-Hitler stuff — regardless of how true it is — is that it is a nice slap in the big fat face (in the words of Kansas U. Prof. Paul Mirecki) of the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL regards criticisms of Darwinism as extremely anti-semitic. The ADL has –
(1) — called the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision a “victory for students.”
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Re.....841_90.htm
(2) — had that crackpot Judge Jones as a guest speaker at a national executive committee meeting.
http://www.adl.org/Civil_Right....._jones.asp
(3) — submitted an amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs/appellees in the Selman v. Cobb County evolution-disclaimer textbook sticker case and gave an “Unsung Hero Award” to lead plaintiff Jeffrey Selman –
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Re.....737_90.htm
(4) — called students “the real winners” in the Great Cobb County Cop-out, where the Cobb County school board took a dive by settling out of court with the plaintiffs even though the school board was ahead (the district court decision was vacated and remanded because of missing evidence and the appeals court judges indicated at an oral hearing that they were leaning towards reversal) –
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Re.....949_90.htm
(5) — condemned the Darwin-to-Hitler “Darwin’s Deadly Legacy” TV show produced by Coral Ridge Ministries.
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/4877_52.htm
(6) — While condemning linkage of Social Darwinism to the holocaust, the hypocritical ADL has no qualms about linking “Christian antisemitic ideology” to the holocaust.
http://www.adl.org/education/d.....issue2.asp
(7) — filed an amicus brief in Edwards v. Aguillard 482 U.S. 578, 580 (1987), showing that ADL opposition to criticisms of Darwinism is not new (the American Jewish Congress filed a separate amicus brief) –
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/.....nvol=578#t*
What in the hell does the evolution controversy got to do with anti-semitism? Ironically, orthodox Jews tend to be some of the biggest supporters of creationism and Intelligent Design. See –
http://im-from-missouri.blogsp.....er-is.html
http://im-from-missouri.blogsp.....ss-of.html
http://im-from-missouri.blogsp.....idism.html
http://im-from-missouri.blogsp.....-they.html