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Intelligent design/creationism News of the Weird Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

File under: “You can’t make stuff like this up”

When you don’t have the facts on your side, can’t get published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, and have consistently failed to make a case for your hypothesis, what do you do? Well, if you’re a real scientist, you might just finally pack it in, admit that you were probably wrong, and move on to another scientific question or to another hypothesis about the same question to investigate.

Not “intelligent design” creationists.

To them, it doesn’t matter just how bad their arguments are, how untestable and incoherent their hypothesis is, or how obvious it is that they are simply rehashing a “God of the gaps” sort of view of science (“if science can’t figure it out right away, God must have done it), they’re like the Energizer Bunny. They just keep going and going and going and going. So what to do? Well, they could make a propaganda film (Expelled!) that once again rehashes revisionist history claiming that Darwinism was a direct path to Naziism and the Holocaust and then goes on to parrot other ideologically-inspired historical revisionism.

Check.

They could hand out bogus “awards” for “Liberty and Truth” from Phillip E. Johnson, one of the originators and driving forces behind ID creationism, and a fundamentalist Christian university.

Check.

They could even give an award for “Liberty and Truth” to the host of this execrable excuse for a “documentary,” Ben Stein.

Check.

I’m telling you, you can’t make stuff like this up. You know, given the penchant of the producers of Expelled! and Ben Stein for blaming Naziism and the Holocaust on “Darwinism,” it’s really hard not to point out that they would have done Josef Goebbels proud with Expelled!, particularly the parts where Stein visits Dachau and, if the trailer is any indication, Auschwitz.

What’s good for the goose…

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

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