‘Expelled’ producers accused of copyright violations
A new documentary-style movie about Intelligent Design , Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed starring Ben Stein, is scheduled to debut April 18th, but several different sources have accused the film’s producer of copyright violations.
On April 9th, a cease-and-desist letter was sent to the producers of Expelled, alleging that an identical copy of XVIVO’s, created in partnership with Harvard University entitled The Inner Life of the Cell, infringed on XVIVO/Harvard’s property. Shortly after, a letter was sent by David Bolinsky of XVIVO who wrote that Expelled misuse of XVIVO/Harvard is harmful to their work.
On April 16th the The Wall Street Journal reported that Expelled producers did not receive permission to use John Lennon’s “Imagine” from Yoko Ono, who possesses the copyright on the music. At the same time, it was noted that the producer also did not receive permission from The Killers for their song “All these Things That I Have Done.” In addition, atheist blogger PZ Myers, who appeared in the film, believes Expelled copied material without permission from WEHI-TV and Public Broadcasting Service’s video The Central Dogma Transcription of DNA to RNA.
The film has not been without controversy as the scientific community does not believe intelligent design is science and has panned the movie as “anti-science.” Furthermore, the film received attention a month ago when Myers was asked to leave a free screening of the movie by Mark Mathis, the movie’s Associate Producer. However, Mathis did not notice atheist activist Richard Dawkins standing next to Myers who subsequently saw the film and wrote critically of it.
In a press release, Mathis wrote that both Dawkins and Meyers “applaud the fact that throughout the nation, professors are fired from their jobs and permanently excluded from their profession for questioning Darwinism.â€
“I hope PZ’s experience has helped him see the light,†wrote Mathis. “He’s distraught because he could not see a movie. What if he wasn’t allowed to teach on a college campus or was denied tenure? Maybe he’ll think twice before he starts demanding more professors be blacklisted and expelled simply because they question the adequacy of Darwin’s theory.”
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April 17th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Expelled is anti-science / pro-religious propaganda, pure and simple. Please look at http://www.expelledexposed.com to see the many ways in which Expelled is wrong.
Similarly see http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/04/richard-sternbe.html to see one of many articles on Panda’s Thumb explaining the lies behind Expelled and the lies its supporters and defenders continue to tell.
On the other hand, Expelled comes out tomorrow. Go see it for yourself. If it convinces you that Darwin was more responsible for Hitler than was Martin Luther…I’m sorry. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Jews_and_their_Lies )
April 18th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Awwww. I just can’t leave this one alone. It’s just too funny!
Who was more responsible for Hitler? Let’s look at the picture and the painter.
Paul points out the faults in the movie he claims is pro-religious propaganda. Clearly he’s not for the movie and must therefore fall on the side of the Darwiniacs.
Next, paul sites a source to support his position: “…/On_the_Jews_and_their_lies”. Sounds like HItler’s home page.
So, the Darwiniac cites an anti-semitism page as a source to support his position.
Yea. I think the point was made. The movie stands UNcorrected.
Point 1 for Expelled.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Lurk, expressing mind-boggling ignorance, said: “Next, paul sites a source to support his position: “…/On_the_Jews_and_their_lies”. Sounds like HItler’s home page.”
Sounds more like you fit the Expelled demographic perfectly.
Did you even look at the Wikipedia article? Martin Luther wrote “On the Jews and their lies” centuries before Darwin or Hitler were born – read what he proposed doing to the Jews and compare it with what Hitler did. And see if you can find anything comparable that Darwin wrote.
Yet Expelled holds Darwin more responsible for Hitler than Luther.
Lurk, have you even looked at http://www.expelledexposed.com? Or Panda’s Thumb? Or are you just blindly accepting Expelled’s lies? If so, are you accepting them for scientific reasons or religious reasons?
There’s a reason that essentially all the supporters of Expelled and intelligent design creationism have a religious – not scientific – reason for their support. What do you think that might be?
April 18th, 2008 at 10:19 am
I do fit the demographic, though I’m not so sure that I’m perfect, but thanks anyway.
Ever hear of the Aryan race? A sort of concept for improving the “species”. Very Darwinistic, especially with the artificial interference.
Anyway I find it amusing that you can’t say Intelligent Design without adding Creationism. Is it possible that you don’t believe anything is Intelligent without Creationism?
Given Hoyle’s calculations, Chandra Wickramasinghe’s support and now Dawkins, too, it would appear the Moron Aliens deposited life on this planet. Sure they’re capable of intersteller travel, but they were never Intelligent and they were most definitely careless (they wouldn’t drop life on a planet with intent).
Darwiniacs are so busy hating the idea that there could be something more intelligent in the universe than they are, that they forget their own simple basic principles: Cause and Effect. Without it, science falls apart completely.
And yes, I will see the documentary this evening.
As to blind acceptance, I never do that. This is the reason when some fool says “We don’t know how life got here, or how the Universe began, but it sure wasn’t God.”, I know not to blindly follow. Before you eliminate a complete tract (Intelligent Design -not necessarily Creationism), you better come up with something better than “Has anyone seen Him?” I haven’t seen the aliens or evidence of their existence either, but it seems more comfortable for some to believe in that than to believe in something that might have expectations of them.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:27 am
In the November 20, 2006 edition of Britain’s Sunday Herald, atheist celebrity and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins said that Adolf Hitler was responsible for staining the good name of eugenics –the selective breeding of human beings for "good" traits.
"In the1920s and 1930s, scientists from both the political left and right would not have found the idea of designer babies particularly dangerous – though of course they would not have used that phrase. Today, I suspect that the idea is too dangerous for comfortable discussion, and my conjecture is that Adolf Hitler is responsible for the change."
Wikipedia’s summation says that eugenics is a "a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention" – thereby ameliorating human misery.
It is easy to understand why an evolutionary biologist might think eugenics a sound idea. "If you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?"
But Dawkins is not alone. Biologist Dr. Rebecca Reiss also defends the new eugenics "movement":
"The eugenics movement shows how dangerous it is to provide scientific justification for any religious perspective, which is the source of my scientific outrage. Not only am I a geneticist, but some of my ancestors were among the 12 million people exterminated in Germany; this is the source of my moral outrage.
".
Professor Dawkins is likewise wary of the association of eugenics with Nazism, and explicitly denies the past excesses of the eugenics movement…
April 19th, 2008 at 5:38 am
Paul Burnett said,
Lurk, have you even looked at http://www.expelledexposed.com? Or Panda’s Thumb? Or are you just blindly accepting Expelled’s lies?
Paul, I’m sure you are going to go see Expelled for yourself, right? Or are you going to just accept that it’s full of lies?
You don’t want to be thought of as a total hypocrite do you?
April 19th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Is Atheism to be our new state religion? It seems the true believers in Darwin have that aim, and have nearly achieved success.
April 19th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Squiggy wrote: “Paul, I’m sure you are going to go see Expelled for yourself, right?”
I don’t go to the movies much – but I do want to see it. I may just wait for the free DVDs that all of the right wingnut fundamentalist churches will be giving away free in a few weeks.
But Expelled sure is tearing up the box office, isn’t it? Looks like it will finish in 8th or 9th place, which is definitely a dismal failure for an opening weekend: http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/forbidden_kingdom_edging_out_sarah_marshall_at_friday_box_office
It looks like all the free screenings, limited solely to churches and religious organizations, sealed its fate – all the True Believers have already seen it, and nobody else cares.
April 19th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
8th or 9th for a documentary? WOW! That’s phenomenal!
Just as an off the cuff observation, the theater was roughly half filled. Normally, when I hit opening weekend, if the movie is’n't a blockbuster like Lord of the Rings, the movie is not very crowded for the between 5:00 and 6:00 pm showing. At least, not for this theater. I like the time slot for that reason and because it qualifies for matinee pricing.
Is there a http://www.ExpelledExposedExposed.com? Just curious. After all, how do I know that ExpelledExposed is telling any truth either?
So far, my experience on the evolution topic discussions has been pretty consistent. “We don’t know … but we do know it’s not God, but we can’t prove it because we can’t prove aliens don’t exist either.” When I hear a coherant argument against the existence of God from a scientific perspective, then I’ll pay attention to them a little better. Until then, I’ll listen but I’ll continue to expect them to back up their position with verifiable facts just as I expect anyone else to do.
When you say “I don’t know”, you don’t get to say “but I know it isn’t…” until you can prove “it isn’t”.
The other very significant thing that I believe is something my countries founders believed. Each and every one of us has the right to believe what we want to believe, even if it is wrong. We have the right to question every statement and every finding, every theorem and every proof.
Suddenly, we have people shutting down avenues of investigation, shoving words in other peoples mouths, and silencing people that dare to question. That is not the American way. It conflicts with our freedoms.
And I still don’t get the whole ID blocking thing. Noted scientists, researchers and other such that investigate the origin of life on this planet keep arriving at the same conclusion. It could not have happened sponteneously. Abiogenisis has been shown again to be impossible. The indication continues to be an outside influence. Something not of this world. Was it intelligent? Was it by design? We don’t know, but we do know for sure it’s not Intelligent Design. :^
April 20th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
[...] Expelled Exposed Further exposing the films unprofessionalism, the producers of Expelled have been cited for copyright [...]
April 21st, 2008 at 11:42 am
[...] Moore movie, they might also be looking at legal trouble. Expelled’s producers have also been accused of copyright violations — they’re said not to have secured the rights for the use of John Lennon’s [...]
April 27th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Ben Stein spoke at the University of Vermont last Friday. Reportedly, he asked if anyone had seen Expelled. Almost no hands. “Good,” he said, “because I don’t want to talk about it.” He then reportedly spent a great deal of time distancing himself from the film claiming that he “had nothing to do with it.” ( http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/i_get_email_18.php )
Expelled is doing so badly that its own star is disowning it. Now let’s see how long it takes the Dishonesty Institute to start saying they had nothing to do with it.
April 27th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
RE #12 above – the comment is unfair. See this post on scienceblogs for context:
Sounds like Expelled is doing well at the box office, despite PB’s misleading comment above.
April 27th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Let’s see … hard hittint evidence … Sombody’s daugheter text messaged them about Ben Stein not wanting to talk about the movie. Uncoroborated. Uninvestigated. And taken as fact by the scienceblog… or just som eof the posters. Is this the state of scientific inquiry and evidential procedure? “Hey. That’s something I want to believe. I’ll quote it as evidence.”
Don’t you think if it was really happening that the atheists would have a front page field day with it?
Thanks for not disappointing. and thanks Mike for reading through the stack of opinions and anecdotes presented as evidence.
April 28th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Lurk commented: “Sombody’s daugheter text messaged them about Ben Stein not wanting to talk about the movie. Uncoroborated. Uninvestigated.”
Please note I repeatedly said “reportedly.” I wasn’t there (and neither were you) so I said it was reported.
Let’s try something different: John Derbyshire starts off reviewing Expelled in today’s National Review Online. The article is titled “A Blood Libel on Our Civilization” – see http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGYwMzdjOWRmNGRhOWQ4MTQyZDMxNjNhYTU1YTE5Njk=&w=MA
Some choice quotes:
“When talking about the creationists to people who don’t follow these controversies closely, I have found that the hardest thing to get across is the shifty, low-cunning aspect of the whole modern creationist enterprise. Individual creationists can be very nice people, though they get nicer the further away they are from the full-time core enterprise of modern creationism at the Discovery Institute. The enterprise as a whole, however, really doesn’t smell good. You notice this when you’re around it a lot. I shall give some more examples in a minute; but what accounts for all this dishonesty and misrepresentation?”
“The “intelligent design†hoax is not merely non-science, nor even merely anti-science; it is anti-civilization. It is an appeal to barbarism, to the sensibilities of those Apaches, made by people who lack the imaginative power to know the horrors of true barbarism.”
April 28th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Jeepers! I wasn’t there? I didn’t evene think that I insinuated that I was. Nor did I insinuate that you were. but, if you must have something to be right about … that can be it.
And now, just to further the cause, we get another opinion piece (based entirely on the titel and your quote). I still cannot accept it as evidence any more than a real scientist can accept opinion as evidence.
Proof is required. Proof for or against. Stack up some evidence. None of this it hasn’t been seen so it doesn’t exist crap. We all know that according to science in the multi-billion years of existence most of what we know exists today was not even dreamed to be seen or even imagined.
The biggest hole in the entire process is the foolish assumption that evolution could not have been created. The fact of the existence of a system does not negate the creation of a system. And evolution is still not fact in case you care to drag me out of context.
No normal rational person looks at a working system and immediately declares “Se the system. It sustains itsel. Therefore it did not require creation, design or even building.” The premise is a hoax.
Opinion is moot.