Talk:Expelled: Leader's Guide/Archive1

cover story
Please do not archive this section

I think this is very close to deserving rotation as a cover story. Reserving nomination until after one more round of everyone editing it. human  19:39, 27 March 2008 (EDT)
 * Sounds like a good idea to me! (And I'm not saying this just because it contains some of my intemperate raving. :)  --Gulik 03:07, 28 March 2008 (EDT)
 * Thirded. I think that for the next couple of months, or for however long the movie remains "relevant", it would be worth having a permanent link on the front page to this.--Bayesyikes 10:57, 28 March 2008 (EDT)
 * Yes, it seems a natural. In fact, when everybody has finished snarking it up, is there any way we could whore it round the internet?--Bobbing up 11:04, 28 March 2008 (EDT)
 * A superb article, well done to those who've built it.  But it's such an obvious one for us, I think we need to make it solid, bulletproof, the best thing on the topic on the net, period.   It still seems a little weak and ad-hom'y in places.   It's 98% brilliant though, and that's quantifiable FACT.  DogP  12:23, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Re: Bayes - better idea. One day we can just "cover story" it, but for the interim, it should be a permanent front page link in the top left box. IMO. human  12:26, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

I think this has now reached Cover Story quality, so I say Yes. DogP  21:17, 2 April 2008 (EDT)
 * How do you feel about my idea, DP? To hold off on mixing it in with the others and literally feature a hard link to it on the main page for a bit? Apart from that idea, I agree. It is teh awesome. human  21:41, 2 April 2008 (EDT)
 * Oh absolutely, I say sock it right up there in plain view, full-time, for a while. It's turned out great, and the movie publicity machine will no doubt start cranking up soon.   Or not.   DogP  21:51, 2 April 2008 (EDT)
 * Cool. Tomorrow let's experiment with where to put the link and how to word it (gittin' tired ;)).  Let's pull the cover nominee thing for this phase - as you say, the movie is in its "big publicity phase", and that's the time frame I think we should keep it there.  Do you think we ought to ask permission for this at talk main? human  22:32, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

I'm going to post at talk main about what I think we should do. human  21:10, 3 April 2008 (EDT)

pikchures
Some photos would be a nice touch. CЯacke ® 18:17, 6 April 2008 (EDT)

"Permanent" non-random front page thing expiration date
Anyone have any good ideas about how we will figure out when to put this in normal "random rotation"? IE, when will no one really give a rat's ass about Expelled anymore? human  17:14, 27 April 2008 (EDT)
 * Do we still want this set up as a permanent front page entry or is it time to just "cover story" it? Has the froofraw died down yet?  Should we analyze the article's traffic (ask Trent?) and see how many people come from elsewhere and how many click through from the main page? human  14:18, 7 May 2008 (EDT)
 * Yeah--it's time, methinks. It's a beautiful page, and definite cover story material, but is becoming less timely....  Sterilexx 14:27, 7 May 2008 (EDT)
 * Uhuh, yep, move along folks, nothing to see here.  It can be retired to regular Cover Story rotation, I believe.   DogP  14:43, 7 May 2008 (EDT)
 * Aye, its down to 662 theaters and $100 a screen half of what it was at release. Yoko Ono's lawsuit means they can not up the screen even if they could find someone that wants it. The movie lasted less than a month, ouch. 14:50, 7 May 2008 (EDT)
 * OK, thanks for chiming in. I'll do both steps now. human  14:53, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

Weird off topic
"Talkpage" is acting up - where it says "new" there is a good link to Archive1 that Elassint created, that should be at "1", and "new" should link to editing Archive2. Anyone know whazzamatta? &mdash; Unsigned, by: Human / talk / contribs
 * Dunno. -- Elassint Hi! ^_^ 23:04, 9 April 2008 (EDT)
 * After some quick poking around, my guess is that talkpage is confused by the "extra" colon after Expelled. I think it's trying to find a namespace that isn't there, so it doesn't know that an archive page exists.  Or something like that.  I don't really know.  I've never messed around with anything that complicated in whatever language the templates use though (is it MediaWiki specific?), so I don't think I'm the one to fix it.--Bayesyikes 23:53, 9 April 2008 (EDT)
 * Good thought. I'll try to hack around that sometime (rename the archive path to drop the colon, if that succeeds it will be transparent to deal with in the future). human  14:48, 10 April 2008 (EDT)
 * It didn't foob template:archivelinks so I just switched to that for now. human  15:02, 10 April 2008 (EDT)

"Survival of the fittest"
In the third paragraph of the Leader's Guide under The Theory of Darwinian Evolution, it might be worthwhile, toward the end of distancing the theory they seem to be talking about from Darwin himself, to mention that Darwin himself never used the term "survival of the fittest." Just a thought.

19:58, 10 April 2008 (EDT)
 * Did that come from Descent of Man? Or is it just a common language adaptation of the ideas of natural selection? <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms">human  21:06, 10 April 2008 (EDT)
 * The term is not used in the first edition of Origin of the Species published in 1859 (I have a facsimile at home), but appears to have been introduced in the 1872 edition.  Rational Ed faith 21:39, 10 April 2008 (EDT) This link associates the term with the 6th edition.

Survival of the fittest did not originate with Darwin, but he later wrote about the subject. Google the phrase "survival of the fittest" and you'll hit the jack pot. &mdash; Unsigned, by: 76.187.190.208 / talk / contribs
 * No! Well I didn't know that! 23:13, 13 May 2008 (EDT)

You got Digg'd
Hey I found your article thru a link on Digg - man, this is good stuff! Congratulations on a fine article. I didn't know if you knew you got Digg'd as I see no ref to it here, so I thought I'd let you know. Bye, and best of luck with it. &mdash; Unsigned, by: 208.53.157.22 / talk / contribs
 * I, for one, didn't know. Cheers. Also, yay! :D -- AKjeldsen Godspeed! 13:47, 13 April 2008 (EDT)
 * Cool!  Thanks, bunchanumbers - why don't you sign up and join the bun fight?   <font color="#00F0A20">DogP  13:52, 13 April 2008 (EDT)
 * That damn Digg link didn't attract much action, did it - it seems it has gathered a paltry 10 clicks.  Send your families, friends and walruses there to click on it!   Maybe the Expelled 'furor' has died down....   <font color="#00F0A20">DogP  16:30, 27 April 2008 (EDT)

Other links
Here's another argument against Stein, video this time. <font color="#00F0A20">DogP  13:38, 16 April 2008 (EDT)
 * Put it at the movie article EL section with a brief description? <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms">human  13:53, 16 April 2008 (EDT)
 * Done.  <font color="#00F0A20">DogP  14:02, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

Good news everyone!
I just talked with a PR guy for a couple liberal organizations, incl. the NCSE, and I gave him this link.- 17:58, 16 April 2008 (EDT)
 * D-Day? the Ides of April? Should we send People Very Important E-mails? Should we send someone out for drinks because company is coming?PFoster 18:00, 16 April 2008 (EDT)
 * Yeah, I'm worried I'll sound like Kenny boy by boosting this, but could be good for the site.- 18:03, 16 April 2008 (EDT)
 * Old school it was called "selling-out". High time, too I think. Do original cabal members get a %age?CЯacke ® 18:25, 16 April 2008 (EDT)
 * I haven't sent anyone an important e-mail in some time Sterilexx 13:35, 23 April 2008 (EDT)
 * I got an important email once, but I deleted it.  <font color="#00F0A20">DogP  16:28, 27 April 2008 (EDT)

Scientific method
While observation comes first in science, hypothesis may come before or after "rigorous testing".  Rational Ed evidence
 * Yes - usually "before", since it is the hypothesis that is being tested. However, pre-hypothesis, there may be another form of "rigorous" - rigorous observations to accompany the more casual ones to make sure there is a phenomena to hypothesize about in the first place.  (Example: "I observe all USAians are male" - better increase my sample size to greater than two before worrying about a hypothesis though) <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms">human  12:53, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

Information
i think it's worthwhile to point out how the term "information" is mis-used. The ID view is that the information comes first and is then stored in the DNA specifically created to store that information. Whereas in biological systems the DNA comes first, and if a mutation of a particular combination of base pairs results in a useful protein, only then can it be considered to contain "information"; if no protein can be generated, then there is no information contained.

The best spot to insert this may be under the heading Molecular Genetics (subheading The Living Cell). Ginckgo 02:34, 13 May 2008 (EDT)
 * I tried to edit in those ideas but I could not find a place where it would fit naturally. Feel free to do it yourself if you want however. - Icewedge 20:33, 13 May 2008 (EDT)

Wikipedia links here
By the way: Wikipedia's Expelled article links to this article -- 16:26, 15 May 2008 (EDT)
 * Cool! And that EL ought to survive, even in wikipedia-world. <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms">human  16:32, 15 May 2008 (EDT)
 * It didn't last a year. Removed by a Godbotherer. 15:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * By a Godbotherer who has (partially) quit Wikipedia because it was stopping him bothering God by the looks of it... 15:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Odds of the existence of a cell argument
Under the "The Living Cell" section, the "Leader's Guide" argues that cells must have been designed because the odds of them coming into existence randomly are near zero. Ignoring that "coming into existence randomly" is a gross oversimplification of what really happened (as is their wording), haven't we already refuted this class of argument with the Paulos quote? Saying that something was extremely unlikely to happen is not an argument for or against anything after the event has already happened. All we need is that the chance of the event is not zero (and they concede that it is not), and previous probability has no bearing on what has already happened. Why don't we mention the Paulos quote about the bridge hand here? OneForLogic 15:08, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

Ok, and the next one, Frederick Hoyle's argument: isn't this basically the same, a prior-probability argument? And how contrary to the style of RationalWiki would it be to just call the whole blind-people-solving-a-Rubik's-cube argument stupid, which it is? That seems like it would fit with most of the stuff you guys write. OneForLogic 15:12, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

Quote Mining
It seems to me it would be useful to put Dennett's Quote (as provided by the Guide) in context because it does sound quite damning on its own. If I can find the quote in context, I'll provide it. But perhaps someone else already has it?--WaitingforGodot 15:26, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

"Testable theory"
In the commentary accompanying the fourth paragraph of the "Leader's Guide," the author suggests that ID proponents come up with a "testable theory." Strictly speaking, theories are untestable -- they generate hypotheses which can be tested. Theories can be falsified, but not directly tested. In the spirit of the piece, this isn't a major quibble, but I think it's worth noting nonetheless.--Gonzoid 00:02, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

"Most americans believe"
Introductions includes line "Despite the fact that most Americans believe that God created life, the only “origin of life” theory taught in the majority of American schools is Neo-Darwinism"

It should be mentioned that despite fact most Americans believe God created life, only 45 % (not most!) - don't believe evolution. It makes difference, anti-evolutionists don't make up the biggest part of American society.
 * Unfortunately, data on this sort of thing that we could reference is really difficult to interpret and reliable data is hard to come by. It's something that's extremely suseptible to the wording used in the questions. Take "I believe in evolution: YES/NO" or "There are problems with the Theory of Evolution: YES/NO" or "I believe that random chance caused us to be here: YES/NO", it's an absolute minefield of bias so there's no wonder that they all conflict with each other. And in the US in particularly, there's a fairly sizable geographical correllation for YEC beliefs so any survey done would need to be very wide and have to take this into consideration. In short, I don't think anyone truely knows what the figure for "belief" in evolution is so we can't say either way on that point with any conviction. 16:13, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I wish to address the phrase: Also, note the completely false assertion of "incredible support" for their ideas. This is not a completely false assertion, it is a true assertion. The support for their ideas is not credible. They have incredible support. 76.185.63.93 06:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Behe and ad hom
Regarding: Behe, of course, is a vehement wedge strategist, and has built a small side-career to his professorship publishing books aimed at the popular market full of lies and misdirection about evolution and so-called intelligent design. This appears to be ad hominem. Behe may in fact be all of those things, but you still haven't refuted what he just said. 76.185.63.93 06:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * He is, and we haven't? Where or where not? Keep in mind we have other articles addressing his tripe directly, which cover our ass on what a liar and loser he is.  06:59, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * My apologies. Here's the full paragraph.
 * Expelled says: Dr. Michael Behe (Professor of Biochemistry, Lehigh University) says, “Molecular evolution is not based on scientific authority. There is no publication in the scientific literature—in prestigious journals, specialty journals, or books—that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred.”
 * RationalWiki's response: Behe, of course, is a vehement wedge strategist, and has built a small side-career to his professorship publishing books aimed at the popular market full of lies and misdirection about evolution and so-called intelligent design.
 * This appears to me to be ad hominem. I don't actually care if it happens to be true, it lowers the value of our argument to make such a statement here. This is more appropriately placed on a special page about him. Here we should instead demonstrate that molecular evolution is based on scientific authority, and reference a publication of scientific literature which describes how complex biomechanical systems might occur. Then the reader won't have to take our word based on faith that Behe is an idiot or that by virtue of him being an idiot his argument must be wrong. His argument is wrong for being wrong, not because he is an idiot.
 * 76.185.63.93 15:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Still not ad hom as such... add the evidence after this, but this really is a pretty good summary of why no one should ever listen to Behe. WazzaHello? Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me... 15:20, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Side-by-side
Does this need converting into the new format? 12:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * DPL 1.7.4 can't properly include tables, that's why I've unapproved Behe:The Edge of Evolution, Interview. This one doesn't break as spectacularly as that did, but It'd be nice to convert it to wikitables anyway. I'm upgrading DPL to 1.7.8, a slightly newer version that fixes the bug with table inclusion, but doesn't have the parser problems introduced in the rewrite after that Nx (talk) 12:08, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Ken: get jealous
We're #1 on Google (UK) for the title Expelled leader's Guide with and without quotes. just sayin'. 13:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Charles Townes quote
I did a bit of research on this guy, since the quote seemed off to me. It seems to be genuine, but I think their use of it is disingenuous: he's discussing the universe as a whole, and his idea of "ID" has nothing to do with life on Earth. Should this be added to the appropriate section? Wehpudicabok 02:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, especially if you can provide better context and write it well ;) 03:19, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Criticism on Peter Singer
You say that Peter Singer's ethics aren't based on darwinism. Look at the quote from singer right next to that, where he says "we're only just catching up to Darwin." You actually don't answer that.

Furthermore, you don't answer the question, "If we are only evolved animals, why should I have to act a particular way towards other people?" The movie made clear that darwinism is a necessary, not sufficient condition for the holocaust. You act as though the movie said, "all darwinists are nazis." The whole problem is, if Hitler puts this twisted darwinism into use, the darwinist has no way to say that it is wrong, because Hitler can just say, "says who?"

And finally, all your insulting words are just the ad hominem fallacy at work. --Idiot number 59 (talk) 06:10, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your input. 06:25, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * This time I was serious. You must answer my questions and not pretend that there aren't any problems with the article just because it was idiot # 59 who pointed these problems out. --Idiot number 59 (talk) 07:07, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Um, no, this is a pretty good article. I'm happy with the way it stands.  07:56, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I suppose you are. But I pointed out that a) You don't answer Singer's quote "we're only just catching up to Darwin." b) You misrepresent the movie (as though the movie said, "all darwinists are nazis.") c) If we are only evolved animals, why should I have to act a particular way towards other people? The article doesn't answer that d) If Hitler puts this twisted darwinism into use, you have no way to say that it is wrong, because Hitler can just say, "says who?". The article does not offer any solution. e) All your insulting words are just the ad hominem fallacy at work. --Idiot number 59 (talk) 08:36, 3 August 2010 (UTC)