I see Expelled’s Nazi-laden rhetoric has rubbed off on you. It’s ironic too, considering the film itself is something Goebbels would be proud of.

The academic equivalent of getting fired is getting fired. That happens too, you know.

There was a colleague of Sternberg’s who emailed his superiors saying he should be terminated for his professional misconduct (which is what sneaking a paper into a journal is, especially when you have a conflict of interest). He was basically told to shut up, and the superiors paid no attention to him. He wasn’t demoted for the scandal either. The position of a Research Assistant requires a supervisor; Sternberg’s original supervisor passed away, and therefore without a supervisor Sternberg was offered a position as a Research Collaborator.

This is a lie reminiscent of Joseph Goebbels. Being denied tenure is the academic equivalent of being fired. Those who have tenure have been badly treated. There were attempts by evolutionists at the Smithsonian to get Sternberg fired–essentially, he was demoted.

myrmecos: “Those scientists who are focused on “finding cures”, as you say, are using evolutionary theory as an essential part of their toolkit.”

Ha ha–nope! Evolutionary theory is totally irrelevant.

myrmecos: “They are used to design flu vaccines.”

Go read the journals again! I’ve actually read some articles about flu vaccines. Flu vaccines are *designed* using last year’s virus. That’s why they only offer marginal protection against the flu. Still, they’re the best we have, though some people think that we should look at trends by various strains–especially migration patterns–and not base vaccines on mere variation of last year’s strain.

myrmecos: “When you muzzle good science, there are consequences for society.”

And when you make bad science public policy, you get Nazi and American eugenics as well as doctors unnecessarily removing organs because “science” has declared them to be vestigial. Doctors still remove appendices unnecessarily.

Speaking as someone who has done experimental science, I know the difference between science that can be tested in the lab and “historical science” which is merely philosophical conjecture. Real science results in technological advancement–which cannot be shown for evolution. There are more than a few creationist geneticists who obviously don’t consider biology reliant upon evolutionary theory–whatever it may be at the moment, since the modern synthesis is under attack by epigenetics and evo-devo.

myrmecos: “We don’t use intelligent design because we don’t know how.”

BWAHAHAHAHA. It’s used all the time in genetics, horticulture, and animal husbandry.

bhave: “Myrmecos makes a good argument.”

I disagree. I think his points are exceedingly weak and ignore how real science is done.

On NP’s blog you left the statement:

“That people are literally wasting their whole lives trying to prove something that has no repercussions on society. We could change the world if all the scientists would focus on finding cures but instead their trying to prove evolution which can’t be proven without a time machine or dying. And in the end if they did prove it, then what does it change?”

Those scientists who are focused on “finding cures”, as you say, are using evolutionary theory as an essential part of their toolkit. You can’t have it both ways- both having scientists drop evolution and have them try to produce the best possible medicine. As it is, evolutionary techniques are used in managing drug regimes for HIV infections. They are used to design flu vaccines. They are used to model and predict the spread of cancer. They are the most successful predictor for the function of newly-discovered proteins- including those involved in disease. They are at the heart of public health measures.

When you muzzle good science, there are consequences for society. Stalin muzzled evolutionary biologists to promote the incorrect ideas Lysenko, and the effect of the non-scientific Lysenkoism for Soviet crop yields were disasterous.

Speaking as a scientist, we don’t use evolution because we are atheists and it fits with our worldview. We use it because it works. It suggests experiments. It makes concrete predictions- some correct, some incorrect- about all sorts of things in biology. And we are people of many faiths, from many cultures and countries.

We don’t use intelligent design because we don’t know how. No one has yet been able to figure out how to test it. It doesn’t make any specific predictions. It hasn’t produced any tangible results. There have been no medical applications, nor anything of significance for agriculture.

However I’m not making the claim that religion can’t be used for bad things, it can and does.

Lastly, in academia rarely are professors fired, not receiving tenure basically screws you over as a professor. The reason it exists is to give scholars the security to stretch the bounds of scholarship without repercussions. If you don’t receive tenure its a nice way of saying you aren’t welcome.

Anyway, the National Center for Science Education has started up a website to counter some of the dubious claims in the film at http://www.expelledexposed.com. I think it’s important to have a more balanced view when seeing this film, especially since it makes no attempt at being objective nor actually engaging in the actual science of evolution.