Last night I had an opportunity to see Ben Stein's "Expelled." I brought business cards to distribute printed with the Expelled Exposed web address but I did not end up giving any out at the film. I'm a little disappointed that I was not able to educate anyone about the lies perpetuated by the movie, however, my excuse is strong: I'm glad to report that zero tickets were purchased for last night's screening.

Before "Expelled" was released I was concerned that it would inspire a push from the scientifically illiterate, but politically active, religious people. Fortunately, it appears, the film has been largely ignored. The only exception has been an (apparantly) coordinated effort to introduce "academic freedom" bills in states across America including my own. Here in Michigan house representative John Moolenaar has introduced House Bill 6027, a bill designed to undermine academic standards and allow legal protection for science teachers to teach scientifically unsupported positions like intelligent design and global climate change denialism. This bill is the third in a series of attempts Moolenaar has made to get Darwin out of the science classroom. ANYONE LIVING IN MICHIGAN: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE write to the Michigan House Education Committee and ask them to dismiss this bill. And be prepared to write to your representative should this bill return to the floor.

Expelled Exposed

Well, Ben Stein's Expelled did worse than expected at the box office. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a rating of 9/100. I'm glad 91/100 movie reviewers like reality.
The Expelled myspace page ran a poll asking whether or not intelligent design should be taught in public schools. I took a screen capture of the results because I had a feeling that once someone from the film noticed what they were the poll would be taken down. Sure enough, the poll is no longer available on the page. Nonetheless, here are the results:Although I'm not surprised, it is a little funny that a film claiming to be taking the moral high road by defending "free speech" would expel a poll simply because it shows results contrary to what it wanted.