The Scientific Theory of External Delivery (ED)

This site is a great parody of intelligent design. I personally found this even funnier than the FSM site. Here's an excerpt about what exactly the scientific theory of external delivery claims.

What is External Delivery?

External delivery refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of older kids, teachers, and other adults who seek evidence of external sources of Christmas presents. The theory of external delivery holds that certain features of how Christmas presents are delivered each year are best explained by an external source, not an internal source such as your parents.

Through careful study and analysis, Sexternal delivery proponentsists are able to determine the distinct features of presents that don't come from our parents, such as those given by strangers, and then seek to find similar informational properties in Christmas presents. By applying this scientific method, older kids have identified many irrefutably external structures in Christmas presents.

Is External Delivery the same as Santa Clausism?

No. The theory of external delivery is only concerned with empirically testing whether Christmas presents are delivered by an external agent, or an internal agent such as your parents. Santa Clausism typically starts with the premise that Santa Claus is delivering presents, and then seeks to fit the evidence to that theory. The theory of external delivery has developed strictly from objective interpretations of the empirical evidence.

Do Any Older Kids Believe in ED?

Yes. While it is true that the prevailing opinion in the higher grades has traditionally been parentism, a growing number of older kids and adults are breaking away from that paradigm. More than 700 5th and 6th graders have signed our Problems with Parentism list, and more names are being added all the time. New evidence is constantly coming in that challenges the parentist model, forcing older kids to reevaluate their outdated beliefs and embrace the theory of external delivery.

Cectic.com

I know I told you guys earlier that xkcd.com was my favorite comic, but I have to take that back. Cectic.com trumps it. Here's a random example from the comic:

A Letter to PZ Myers About When to Trust Authority

Dr. Myers,

I would first like to say that I love your blog. I attend what is probably the most pious public university in America, and your blog is a daily source of sanity in the land of the insane.

That said, I have a question that I was hoping you could answer.

I am an undergraduate mathematics student, heavily loading myself up on biology courses for my electives. I feel in my two years at college I have learned a lot. I work in a biology lab on campus -- I have learned a lot about how science works from working there.

One thing I have come to realize is that no matter how much you personally go out and examine the evidence, you can not possibly do this for everything. There are some things which are easier than others to understand and examine for yourself, such as evolution. I see that the evidence and explanation for evolution is pervasive and accessible. It is easy to come to your own conclusion about this topic with a little help and guidance. I can not see how anyone can come to any other conclusion. Furthermore, the biology authorities are unanimous and unequivocal in their advocacy of the theory.

This is not always the case, however. For instance, with the autism/vaccine controversy you have seemingly credible sources spouting that vaccines are in fact a cause of autism. Browsing the literature I have found no correlation between vaccinations and autism, however I have certainly found articles that describe at a molecular level beyond my current comprehension how mercury is harmful to the body. I know that the amount of mercury in vaccines is in the micrograms, but I do not know what dosage will be harmful to the body. All of this makes the vaccination theory at least seem plausible. I don't agree with the vaccination theory because in studies that I have read, they found no correlation between vaccination and autism. I also don't agree with the vaccination theory because I tend to be fairly trusting of the scienceblogs community. However, the main reason that I disagree with the vaccination hypothesis is the latter -- I trust authority.

As a couple of more examples, homeopathy is all but dead in America, however in India it is far more prevalent. You have many medical authorities granting at least some degree of credibility to homeopathic medicine. I have almost no understanding of medicine -- I only don't believe in homeopathy because of what I have learned watching popular science documentaries and what I have read at scienceblogs. Again, this is simply the fact that I trust a certain authority -- not because I understand something the rest of the crowd doesn't. But the mechanism of homeopathy seems rather implausible anyway. Perhaps an example from physics will better illustrate my point.

If someone were to tell me about special relativity, general relativity, or quantum mechanics and I did not know that these theories were accepted by the scientific community, I would look at them as though they were insane. Inconstancy of time? Curving of space? An entity known as space-time? Quantum strangeness? You must be crazy. I would demand evidence before I were to give them a shred of credibility. I would want to see their experiments, and even after that I would be incredulous. I would try and poke holes in their experiments as best as I could. However, since these are accepted theories by the scientific community I do not demand the same rigor of evidence -- I accept them on the authority of science.

My question to you is, how do you know which authorities to trust? What is an acceptable level of skepticism, and what is taking it too far? As the religious right have demonstrated, parents are obviously inadequate authorities for scientific information. How do you get children to skeptically challenge what their parents say, and not raise chaos in the household?

Pale Blue Dot

I am an avid reader. I read a lot of books. When I have free time from school, I like to pick up a book and read. I would like to present an excerpt from a book by Carl Sagan. Of all the words I have read in my life, none have moved me in quite the same way as what will follow. Of all the God's I can imagine, none of their greatness humbles me quite the way Sagan's words do. I encourage you to read these words. Read them carefully. Read them again and again and again, until what Sagan is trying to convey finally reaches you. It has changed the way I perceive everything.

If you look carefully at the NASA photo below, you will see a little white dot. This minute speck is Earth seen from the Voyager 1 spacecraft as it exits the solar system, nearly 4 billion miles away. The photo was taken back in 1990.



Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

That is from Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.

Expelled: A review

Expelled was absolutely detestable. It is a perfidious movie that has been haphazardly thrown together. Not only is this movie a bore, it is the quintessence of hypocrisy. There is absolutely nothing good I can say about the movie. I would have gained more from watching shit putrefy. The olfactory stimulation from that would be far more intellectually satisfying than the incessant drawl of the senile narrator, or the constant visual bludgeoning from the cutaway shots interlaced throughout the entire movie.

I had originally planned on summarizing the movie, however after watching the movie it seems rather frivolous. The movie is so grossly littered with fabrications, exaggerations and distortions that it actually makes it seem like Richard Dawkins accepts the idea of intelligent design as somewhat valid. If I turned this post into a summary of the movie, I would have to turn this post into a massive rebuttal of the movie. There is already an excellent site that does that.

Essentially, Ben Stein speaks with many pro-ID charlatans and paints them as martyrs. He then talks to many venerated pro-evolution scientists and paints them as bullies. He, of course, avoids discussing the facts behind evolution and the (non-scientific) controversy this whole time. He simply singles out a few IDists, talks them up, and then claims scientists are expelling them. What he fails to point out is the reason scientists ignore IDists is because they fail to produce anything of substance.

The most egregious part of the movie, though, was the insinuation that there is an association between Darwinism and Nazism. This was a particularly specious argument, and I'm afraid that this may actually carry some weight with those uninformed about what evolution is. But all this did was really clarify that there was no objective inquiry in this movie -- simply propaganda. Save your money. Go see Forgetting Sarah Marshall instead if you want to see a movie this weekend. At least that movie has some comical value.

Bensteinian Rhapsody

Thanks to John Lynch for introducing me to this:

Is this stuff real science?
Or is it just fantasy,
That belongs in a place like
Bob Jones University?
Just close your eyes,
Don’t think, just accept ID
I’m a game show host,
I don’t know biology,
But this sleazy bunch, told me so,
It could be lies, how would I know?
So long as the check clears, it doesn’t really matter to me,
To me.

Anyone? I just filmed a sham,
Put some lies into your head,
Libelled Darwin, coz’ he’s dead,
Honor, you know I once had some,
But now I’ve gone and blown it all away-
Anyone? ooooohhhhh
Was it mean to tell those lies?
You’d learn more science by watching Rocky Horror-
Anyone? Anyone? My reputations now in tatters-

Too late, my crime is done,
Dembski told me I did fine-
Behe’s squirming, (he’ll be fine),
Goodbye science lessons-you’ve got to go
Gonna leave your kids behind and hide the truth
Adolf, oooooh (a shame he wasn’t atheist)
I’ll just have to lie,
I’ll just pretend that he wasn’t Christian at all-

- guitar solo -

I’ve got a little animation of a cell,
When in haste, copy paste, yes indeed that was the plan, though-
Copyright infringement lawsuit noose is tightening on me-
Sternberg’s ethics, (they’re a shocker)
How ‘bout Crocker, (off her rocker)
And what to say of Guillermo ? Guillermo-oh-oh-oh
I’m without tenure, and nobody loves me-
He’s just a headcase, embarrassing his faculty-
Spare us the whines of this mediocrity-
Please I pray – on my soul, Will you make it so-
Guillermo! No-, we will not make it so - make it so-
Guillermo! No-, we will not make it so - make it so-
Guillermo! we will not make it so – make it so
Will not make it so- make it so
Will not make it so – make it so
No,no,no,no,no,no,no-
That Eugenie, she’s a meanie, but there’s much worse godless foe!
Beelzebub sent Dick Dawkins and his friend, PeeeeZeeee- PeeeeZeeee, PeeeeZeeeeeeee!

So you think you’ll teach children, maybe open their minds,
Study nature, alter stem cells for cures of all kinds -
Or maybe, stop Gods plan that’s HIV,
Well if I had my way, I’d close you all down out of fear!

Science it doesn’t matter,
Lets teach theology,
Just pray when cancer strikes you,
Just pray there'll come a cure from ID

I should have stuck to game shows…….

Scientologists are more disliked than atheists!!!

Thanks to Matt Nisbet for pointing this out.

A recent Gallup poll shows how Americans view certain religions.



It's interesting to note that approval ratings for most of the high-ranked religions are down from 2006, whereas atheists and scientologists have not moved much. Islam declined quite a bit, though. Here's what Gallup had to say about it:

Gallup first asked Americans to rate these religious groups in this fashion in an August 2006 panel survey, and since then, there have been declines in positive ratings for many of the more favorably viewed religious groups. For example, the net positive score for Catholics was +44 in the 2006 survey, compared to the current +32. But there were also declines in the net positive scores of Jews (from +54 to +42), Baptists (from +45 to +35), and Methodists (from +50 to +45).

It is unclear why the net positive ratings for most groups have declined, unless Americans are just less positive about religion overall today than they were two years ago. Groups such as atheists and Scientologists that rated negatively in 2006 are still rated negatively today, with similar scores over time in most cases. One exception concerns Muslims, who saw their net rating tumble from -4 in 2006 to -17 in the current survey.

Goodbye Edwards Lorenz

Edward Lorenz, a 90 year old meteorologist at MIT who fathered the butterfly effect and chaos theory, passed away today. Here is what the MIT press had to say about it.

Edward Lorenz, an MIT meteorologist who tried to explain why it is so hard to make good weather forecasts and wound up unleashing a scientific revolution called chaos theory, died April 16 of cancer at his home in Cambridge. He was 90.

A professor at MIT, Lorenz was the first to recognize what is now called chaotic behavior in the mathematical modeling of weather systems. In the early 1960s, Lorenz realized that small differences in a dynamic system such as the atmosphere--or a model of the atmosphere--could trigger vast and often unsuspected results.

These observations ultimately led him to formulate what became known as the butterfly effect--a term that grew out of an academic paper he presented in 1972 entitled: "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?"

Lorenz's early insights marked the beginning of a new field of study that impacted not just the field of mathematics but virtually every branch of science--biological, physical and social. In meteorology, it led to the conclusion that it may be fundamentally impossible to predict weather beyond two or three weeks with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Some scientists have since asserted that the 20th century will be remembered for three scientific revolutions--relativity, quantum mechanics and chaos.

"By showing that certain deterministic systems have formal predictability limits, Ed put the last nail in the coffin of the Cartesian universe and fomented what some have called the third scientific revolution of the 20th century, following on the heels of relativity and quantum physics," said Kerry Emanuel professor of atmospheric science at MIT. "He was also a perfect gentleman, and through his intelligence, integrity and humility set a very high standard for his and succeeding generations."

Born in 1917 in West Hartford, Conn., Lorenz received an AB in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1938, an AM in mathematics from Harvard University in 1940, an SM in meteorology from MIT in 1943 and an ScD in meteorology from MIT in 1948. It was while serving as a weather forecaster for the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II that he decided to do graduate work in meteorology at MIT.

"As a boy I was always interested in doing things with numbers, and was also fascinated by changes in the weather," Lorenz wrote in an autobiographical sketch.

Lorenz was a member of the staff of what was then MIT's Department of Meteorology from 1948 to 1955, when he was appointed to the faculty as an assistant professor. He was promoted to professor in 1962 and was head of the department from 1977 to 1981. He became an emeritus professor in 1987.

Lorenz, who was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1975, won numerous awards, honors and honorary degrees. In 1983, he and former MIT Professor Henry M. Stommel were jointly awarded the $50,000 Crafoord Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, a prize established to recognize fields not eligible for Nobel Prizes.

In 1991, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize for basic sciences in the field of earth and planetary sciences. Lorenz was cited by the Kyoto Prize committee for establishing "the theoretical basis of weather and climate predictability, as well as the basis for computer-aided atmospheric physics and meteorology." The committee added that Lorenz "made his boldest scientific achievement in discovering 'deterministic chaos,' a principle which has profoundly influenced a wide range of basic sciences and brought about one of the most dramatic changes in mankind's view of nature since Sir Isaac Newton."

During leaves of absence from MIT, he held research or teaching positions at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.; the Department of Meteorology at the University of California at Los Angeles; the Det Norske Meteorologiske Insitutt in Oslo, Norway; and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

An avid hiker and cross-country skier, Lorenz was active up until about two weeks before his death, his family said.

Lorenz is survived by three children, Nancy, Edward and Cheryl, and four grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 20, at the Swedenborg Chapel, 50 Quincy St., Cambridge. The MIT News Office will update this announcement as more details become available.

What has NPR been smoking?

NPR recently did a story with a pretentious 16 year old who runs a website detailing why she's skeptical about anthropogenic global warming. Superficially, this seems like a bright young girl dissenting from the scientific consensus after objectively evaluating the evidence for herself. If this was the case, I would exuberantly commend her efforts. Skeptical inquiry, even against accepted science, is necessary for scientific progress. Alas, this is not the case.

There seems to be a more malicious undertone to this story. Has this girl honestly examined all the evidence, or has she put on blinders? It appears to be the latter. According to the story, when the girl got confused on the technical data she consulted her stepfather. Her stepfather then elucidated the data. According to the story, "when her determination sagged, [her stepfather] encouraged her." One must ask, if her stepfather is the one clarifying the data to her, what credentials does he have. The story does not say. This story seems less and less to be a story about a free-thinking teen, and more and more like a story about a girl who is being proselytized into the anti-science right-wing ideology by an overzealous stepfather.

What's even more baffling is why NPR would run this story. Am I supposed to be impressed by another teenage denialist mimicking the canard of mostly ignorant, anti-science curs? Am I supposed to rush over to her website to be stupefied by the same inane drivel I have read and heard hundreds of times? This piece is absolute rubbish. It's frivolous. The only purpose this piece might serve is to consolidate the global warming denialists. And if that is the case, one has to ask, what has NPR been smoking?

One of the injustices of this piece is that it gives the girl too much credit without challenging her. This girl may have turned around to become a budding young scientist. Instead, this sort of publicity is just motivation for her to stay the course. Her head must be inflated beyond all belief right now.

Furthermore, for the uninformed public, this may make them believe that these global warming denialists have some scientific credibility if this story is on NPR, especially if the girl goes unchallenged. If you're going to do a story on global warming do it right. If this girl is in the ring with the big boys, the kid gloves must come off. If such a story was to be run, she should have been aggressively challenged. Of course, then it would have just looked like NPR was beating up on a little girl. It's a lose-lose situation. Once again, it seems like NPR had something potent in their pipe.

Here is the most distressing paragraph from that article:

Mainstream scientists would argue that many of the issues on her Web site are red herrings or have been put to rest — and Kristen did get emails from people challenging her science. But after a few exchanges, she says, her opponents backed down. "A few of them gave up and figured they can't win against a 15-year-old," she says. Mike laughs as she says this.

The hubris of the ignorant is unmatched!

We're the ones Expelling People?

The conniving liars at Expelled would have you believe the canard that it's scientists who are Expelling people, when in actuality it is quite the opposite. The NCSE just came out with their first video, showing who's really doing the expelling...



By the way, check out NCSE's webstie expelled exposed. And link to it on your own blogs if you have them!

Expelled Exposed

The National Center for Science Education's site Expelled Exposed is up. This site is basically a rebuttal to the fictitious propaganda spewed by the expelled crowd.

Getting a Group on its Feet

A few months ago, I started a meetup group in College Station. Now, for those of you that don't know, College Station is located in the heart of the bible belt. I would be willing to put my money that this is the most religious, conservative public university in the country. That said, our group still consists of thirty-six people. Considering our location and size, I'm pretty happy with that.

We generally get together once a month for dinner. Unfortunately, attendance to our meetups has dwindled as of late. I do not know what I can do to get it up again. A member of mine suggested doing other things than just a monthly dinner, but I have no idea how we could be active and appeal to other atheists.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Paula Kirby's Interview with Richard Dawkins

This was an excellent interview between Paula Kirby and Richard Dawkins. I like how Paula Kirby acts like she does not know how Dawkins will respond. Also, the questions section is very interesting.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


Part 7


Part 8


Part 9


Part 10


Part 11


Part 12

An Ode to Ben Stein

Here's a neat little limerick written by Greg Laden about Ben Stein.

There once was an actor named Ben
He wrote speeches for Nixon and then
Drank too much kool-ade
While on a crusade
He managed to become a has-been.

Richard Dawkins on Bill Maher

It's a pretty interesting video. Nice to see the response Dawkins gets from the audience. He has his elegant and comical disposition as usual.

Monique Davis Apologizes

At least Monique Davis apologized about her tirade against atheists.

State Representative Monique Davis is apologizing a week after she blasted an atheist activist during a hearing over a million dollar grant for a South Side church.

Because of Davis' rant, she was named Tuesday night as the "worst person in the world" --a dubious award doled out daily by news commentator Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's "Countdown" program.

Rep. Davis told atheist Rob Sherman that, "What you have to spew and spread is dangerous" and that "This is the land of Lincoln where people believe in God."

But, after being on the receiving end of a week’s worth of public criticism, Davis called Sherman yesterday to apologize.

Sherman says Davis told him she "took out her frustrations and emotions on me and that she shouldn’t have done that." Sherman says Davis' explanation was "reasonable" and that he forgives her.

According to Sherman and State Rep. Jack Franks….Davis claims her outburst was triggered by learning shortly beforehand…that there’d been another Chicago Public School student killed.

State Rep. Jack Franks was chairing the hearing that day and says Davis’ outburst was uncharacteristic, adding "she was having a bad day."

I doubt I'll ever have much respect for the lady, but at least she got one thing right. Blaming it on school shootings seems to be a petty excuse, but otherwise I'd say the apology was all in all a good thing.

But where are all the transitional fossils?

Don't you love it when creationists say there aren't any transitional fossils? It's like their ultimate trump card. Lets entirely overlook the fact that they are unequivocally wrong. They can't be wrong! The more ardently one bolsters his ludicrous notions of the universe, the more veracious! The logic is infallible! How did I not see it before.

Bahh. I could rant on and on about what creationists do and have to say. The important point is, I'm sure you've all heard that distinctive strident shriek that only comes from the creationist basking in his self-confidence. Nothing seems to inflate a creationist's self-confidence like his transitional fossil drivel. Since most of us aren't walking encyclopedias, it's no wonder that we can't name transitional fossils off of our head.

Anyway, today BBC has an interesting article about a transitional species of the sort whose existence is vehemently denied by creationists. Essentially, what it describes is a snake with hind legs. The species is known as Eupodophis descouensi.

Here are a few more common transitionals you may want to familiarize yourself with if you're into that thing:

Indohyus
Archaeopteryx
Tiktaalik

There are plenty of others. Here's a list on wikipedia. Of particular interest may be transitional species to human development. Talk origins has a great article on the evolutionary history of the whale. Talkorigins is a great site as it is. I would recommend browsing it if you haven't.

Anyway, I just wanted to highlight the BBC article, and reemphasize that creationists are pretty full of shit.

Last post on Expelled for now

Here's a website by the National Center for Science Education challenging many "Expelled" claims. Check back every so often, they are planning on doing a pretty full rebuttal on the 15th.

http://www.expelledexposed.com/

Gift Wish

Dawkins has a new book coming out. It's kind of like the Portable Atheist except instead of atheistic writing, it has science writings. It's basically a collection of some of the most profound science essays.

http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Book-Modern-Science-Writing/dp/0199216800/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3788JFM2TS6AL&colid=3DOCE0HGZLS69

The Worst Person in the World!

Monique Davis, who thinks atheists shouldn't be able to express their views, who thinks it's dangerous for children to know about our philosophy, of which she undoubtedly knows nothing, was Keith Olbermann's worst person in the world yesterday.

More on Expelled

You know the movie has to suck when even Fox news gives it a negative review. What's even more amusing is that the Mariah Carey album is given more importance than Expelled by Fox. You'll have to go below the Mariah Carey article to read up on Ben Stein's joke of a movie. Read that review here. Read what Michael Shermer has to say about it here and what Scientific American has to say about it here here.

Okay, okay, we all know that Expelled is supposed to suck anyway, right? But here's some news you may not have heard: they are being threatened with a lawsuit by XVIVO -- you know, the producers of the video Inner Life of a Cell -- the one that the Expelled producers tactlessly copied. Here is a draft of the XVIVO letter:

April 9, 2008


Chairman
Premise Media Corporation
Suite K
1850 Old Pecos Trail
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

Re: Copyright infringement in "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"

Dear ______:

This letter will constitute notice to you, as Chairman of Premise Media Corporation, of the copyright infringement by your corporation, and its subsidiary, Rampant Films, of material produced by XVIVO LLC, in which XVIVO holds a copyright.

It has come to our intention that Premise Media and Rampant Films has produced a film entitled "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," which is scheduled for commercial release and distribution on April 18, 2008. To our knowledge, this film includes a segment depicting biological cellular activity that was copied by computer-generated means from a video entitled "The Inner Life of a Cell." XVIVO holds the copyright to all the models, processes, and depictions in this video, and has not authorized Premise Media or Rampant Films to make any use of this material.

We have obtained promotional material for the "Expelled" film, presented on a DVD, that clearly shows in the "cell segment" the virtually identical depiction of material from the "Inner Life" video. We particularly refer to the segment of the "Expelled" film purporting to show the "walking" models of kinesic activities in cellular mechanisms. The segments depicting these models in your film are clearly based upon, and copied from, material in the "Inner Life" video.

We have been advised by counsel that this segment in your film constitutes an actionable infringement of XVIVO's intellectual property rights, as protected by federal statutes, including Section 106 of the Copyright Act, the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998. Each of these statutes provides for judicial enforcement of their provisions, with substantial civil penalties for their infringement.

We have also obtained legal advice that your copying, in virtually identical form, of material in the "inner Life" video clearly meets the legal test of "substantial similarity" between the copied work and our original work.

This letter will also serve as notice to you that XVIVO intends to vigorously and promptly pursue its legal remedies for your copyright infringement, unless and until Premise Media, Rampant Films, and their officers, employees, and agents comply with the following demands:

1) That Premise Media, Rampant Films, and its officers, employees, and agents remove the infringing segment from all copies of the "Expelled" film prior to its scheduled commercial release on or before April 18, 2008;

2) That all copies of the "Inner Life" video in your possession or under your control be returned to XVIVO;

3) That Premise Media notify XVIVO, on or before April 18, 2008, of its compliance with the above demands.

We have been advised, by a telephone conversation with Mellie Bracewell of Premise Media on April 8, 2008, that an e-mail transmission of this letter to her will be promptly forwarded to you. A hard copy of this letter, on XVIVO stationary, will also be sent to you today by express delivery.

We are sure that you will want to avoid legal action in this matter, and urge you to promptly notify us of your compliance with the above demands. You may do so by return e-mail, directed to ___________, followed by a hard-copied letter indicating your compliance with the above demands.

Sincerely,

Does anyone else think Expelled may not be coming out on the 18th?

The Expelled Fiasco

Heard of Ben Stein's movie expelled? You know, the new movie coming out about how "big science" is not allowing novel ideas into the classroom narrated by some nasally, drawling charlatan? I wrote about the producer's employing some insidious methods in order to extort interviews with certain people in October. Apparently, these producers are even more inept than I imagined.

In order to gain support for their movie, they have been allowing people to go to early screenings of the movie as long as they reserve seats ahead of time. The producers, of course, have been mainly pandering to their targeted audience: credulous fundamentalist Christians. PZ Myers, a scientist who was illicitly interviewed, attempted to attend the March 21st screening of the movie along with his family and some friends; all of whom he had reserved seats for. Guess what happened? He got expelled. From Expelled. Now that I have smashed your face with the hypocrisy mallet, get ready for the irony mallet. PZ's guests were allowed in; among them: Richard Dawkins. While they expelled PZ, they entirely missed the most famous atheist and proponent of evolution alive.

Here is PZ's recollection of why he was kicked out:

I went to attend a screening of the creationist propaganda movie, Expelled, a few minutes ago. Well, I tried … but I was Expelled! It was kind of weird — I was standing in line, hadn't even gotten to the point where I had to sign in and show ID, and a policeman pulled me out of line and told me I could not go in. I asked why, of course, and he said that a producer of the film had specifically instructed him that I was not to be allowed to attend. The officer also told me that if I tried to go in, I would be arrested. I assured him that I wasn't going to cause any trouble.

I went back to my family and talked with them for a while, and then the officer came back with a theater manager, and I was told that not only wasn't I allowed in, but I had to leave the premises immediately. Like right that instant.

I complied.

In another post he gave more details:

This was a private screening with no admission charge, and you had to reserve seats ahead of time; you also had to sign a promise that you wouldn't record the movie while you were there, and they were checking ID. Everyone in my family reserved seats under our own names, myself included. There was no attempt to "sneak in", although apparently the producer, Mark Mathis, accused me of doing so in the Q&A afterwards (Mathis, of course, is a contemptible liar). We followed the procedures they set up, every step of the way, and were completely above board in all our dealings.

Mark Mathis was there at the screening, and apparently spotted me and gave instructions to the guard to throw me out. I asked the guard why I was being evicted, and he explained directly that the producer had given him that instruction.

They were well within their rights to exclude anyone. When I was told I would not be allowed in and threatened with arrest, I told the security guard that I would not cause any trouble. I stopped to talk with my family when they came over with a theater manager to evict me; again, I left peacefully. Apparently, the guards were talking about carrying out further measures when they saw me standing outside the theater, and speculated that I was going to harass other attendees. This was not true; I'd just had to leave my friends and family behind, and all I really wanted to do was tell them where I'd be. The last thing I wanted to do was spend two hours hanging around a movie theater.

Anyway, anyone reputable who has reviewed this movie has stressed that the movie is vapid. This movie is probably going to be damaging to your intellect, so anyone who cares about that should probably skip this movie. You can read Dawkins' review of the movie here.

Atheists and Biologists have a rap song!

Don't fuck with the Dicky D', yo!

After all, they are scientists; much smarter than you!

Faith trumps Science

I am dismayed that both Clinton and Obama have declined to debate in science debate '08, however will debate "policies related to moral issues" at the Compassion Forum. A message I received this morning from the organizers of science debate '08 read:

. . . I thought you should know that after declining our invitation to debate science in Pennsylvania, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton yesterday agreed to attend "The Compassion Forum," a forum of "wide-ranging and probing discussions of policies related to moral issues." CNN will serve as the exclusive broadcaster of the "presidential-candidate forum on faith, values and other current issues" at Messiah College near Harrisburg, Pa., April 13 at 8 p.m. You can read more here.

Perhaps among the moral issues discussed should be whether they have a moral obligation to more fully engage on science issues, since the future viability of the planet may hang in the balance, for starters. Is there a larger moral imperative? How about the future economic health of the United States and the prosperity of its families? Science & engineering have driven half our economic growth since WWII, yet but 2010 if trends hold 90% of all scientists and engineers will live in Asia. Then there are the moral questions surrounding the health of our families with stem cell research, genomics, health insurance policy, and medical research. There's biodiversity loss and the health of the oceans and the morality of balancing destruction of species against human needs and expenses, there's population and development and clean energy research, there's food supply and GMO crops and educating children to compete in the new global economy and securing competitive jobs. Science issues are moral issues.

I would encourage you to write letters to the editor, emails to the campaigns, and blog postings pointing this out. And if you can, support our ongoing effort to turn this country around.

While ethical issues are certainly important, so are science issues. The public deserves to know, and should demand to know where the candidates stand on such issues.

My Lack of Updates

I haven't been blogging lately, because quite frankly I haven't got the time. School has pretty much consumed my life. Mostly, labs have pretty much consumed my life. That said, I have an hour and a half before my next class starts, and idiotically I forgot some of the homework I could be doing in my free time at home. So I'll weigh in on a few things over that time.