…to see Expelled!
In perhaps the funniest incident I can recall involving a fellow ScienceBlogger since there has been ScienceBlogs, earlier this evening scourges of “intelligent design” creationism P. Z. Myers and Richard Dawkins went to see a screening of the antievolution pro-ID creationism movie Expelled! in the Minneapolis area. The guards recognized P.Z. and wouldn’t let them in the movie.
They apparently didn’t recognize Richard Dawkins and did let him in to see the movie.
Let’s get this straight. The producers scheduled a screening in the Minneapolis area on the same weekend that the 34th Annual National Conference of American Atheists was being held there. Not only that, but Richard Dawkins had been invited as a speaker and just so happened to be in town. The producers apparently somehow got wind that Myers might show up or just made a lucky guess that because he was within a few hours’ drive from Minneapolis he might want to see the film. Consequently they appear to have circulated a picture of P.Z. Myers to the guards and theater employees and told them not to let him in. P.Z. was stopped, but no one recognized Richard Dawkins, and he passed unmolested–the one person in the whole world that they probably least wanted to see the movie before it is released to the general public! Even better, they demonstrated their hypocrisy in an unmistakable way: Making a whole movie that is in essence nothing more than a whine about scientists’ fearing to debate ID advocates and even going so far as to “expel” them, and then the producers themselves go to great lengths to expel any skeptics they find going to their screening.
Truly, the producers’ incompetence and hypocrisy know no bounds. I can’t wait to read what Dawkins has to write about the movie.
There’s actually a screening in my area next week. I’m seriously tempted to see if I can manage to get my name on the list and get in to see the film (that is, if I can get off work early enough; the screening’s at 7 PM). I’m just worried that the top of my head might explode, as in Scanners. But, heck, if Richard Dawkins can take it, I should be able to as well.
ADDENDUM:
1. Update from P.Z. here.
2. Desperate and gut-wrenchingly funny and pathetic spin from one of the writers here.
3. An account from a fundamentalist named Stu Blessman posted here.
