Probably the most important conclusion we can draw is that even if the universe were intentionally created, we can discern nothing about that creator that we cannot discern of the physical universe. We cannot say anything about this supposed creator other than it is the sort of creator who would create this particular universe in all its details.

We cannot determine if this being wants to be worshipped or ignored. We can’t tell if it is friendly, hostile or completely indifferent to human, or even terrestrial life. Just believing that such a creator exists gives us absolutely no additional justification for believing that any religious scripture is inspired by this creator. (Indeed the idea that a being capable of creating such a vast universe, of actually creating physics itself, would choose to communicate with its creation by the agency of schizophrenic prophets and parasitic priests in some a remote corner of the ancient world seems vastly less plausible than that all religions are entirely human social constructs.)

We cannot even determine that the existence of life itself was a goal of this creator or a side-effect. Indeed, the relative insignificance of terrestrial life argues for the side-effect interpretation. The mold in the grout in my bathtub is more “significant” by many orders of magnitude to all of human civilization than is terrestrial life to the ~9.2×10²¹ light-year³ observable universe: that specific patch of mold has more justification for believing that all of human civilization has been created specifically and intentionally for its benefit than we have for believing that the entire observable universe has been created for the benefit of all terrestrial life.

In short, the Fine Tuning argument is speculative, probabilistically meaningless, and, even if true, doesn’t establish anything interesting. I think it’s safe to say that, after Pascal’s Wager, it’s the second worst apologetic ever. (The Barefoot Bum)

A well written and thought out exposure of one of the major weaknesses in the arguments for Intelligent Design. The whole concept of ID is poorly supported by any kind of evidence. It displays its religious roots by being illogical and internally inconsistent.

My primary argument against ID is that no one can provide an objective, absolute standard for the concept of “design”. What appears to one person to be a design appears to another as simply a pattern or even a disorganized mess. Until the ID crowd can suggest what they mean by design and offer examples of absolute design, their suggestions can be dismissed easily as nonsense.

 …the film is so intellectually garbled it’s hard to summarize. “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is Summa Theologica compared to “Expelled.”

“Expelled” trots out several martyrs to the Darwinist inquisition. The poster boy is Richard Sternberg, whom the movie says was ousted from his position at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and from his editorship of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington when he published in that publication a peer-reviewed article of scientific evidence that supports intelligent design. There is some dramatic if unfocused footage of Ben Stein being denied admission to the upper floors of the Smithsonian by a security guard when he tries to grill muckety-mucks at the museum about these injustices.

This repression of scientific thought, we can all agree, is horrible if true. But it isn’t true.

This is a dispute among academics. Faults on both sides, I’m sure. Perhaps because there is so little at stake in these fights, they are among the most vicious known to political man. A lot of cyber-ink was spilled over the Steinberg tussle long before Ben Stein got around to it. You can read Sternberg’s version of his persecution here and  a non-ID rebuttal here. It’s even made Wikipedia, which has got to be the high water mark for a bureaucratic pissing match.

The allegations made in “Expelled” are wrong. Sternberg never worked for the Smithsonian, so the Smithsonian couldn’t threaten his job there. He was a visiting scholar with research privileges, assigned an office. He still has both the office and the research privileges. He wasn’t deprived of his editorship. His term as editor had expired so he was stepping down anyway in favor of another editor when the controversial ID article was published.

In short, contrary to the assertions in “Expelled,” Sternberg suffered no harm whatever from the dustup. Which is not to say that he wasn’t criticized. He was. Harshly, rudely and sometimes childishly by fellow scientists. But rough and tumble argument is part of the world of science, whether you’re studying intelligent design, string theory or evolutionary biology.

There are three or four other cases explored in “Expelled,” all of which are presented in black-and-white terms as anti-ID intellectual repression by a Darwinist cabal. Closer examination of the specifics of each reveals pretty ordinary academic backbiting.

After a half hour or so, “Expelled” wanders off to blame the theory of evolution for Communism, the Berlin Wall, Fascism, the Holocaust, atheism and Planned Parenthood. One of the few funny parts of the film, though, is Stein’s interview with British philosopher of science Richard Dawkins. Dawkins’ best-selling book The God Delusion is a clarion call for atheism, making him a bete-noire of the religious right. Ben Stein, marshalling the intellectual resources of Ferris Bueller’s boring teacher, gets the better of him. Dawkins comes out of it looking pretty silly.

There are so many topics picked up, misrepresented and abandoned unresolved by “Expelled” that it is impossible to deal with them all. But they are typical of the intellectual dishonesty of the creationist-Intelligent Design cabal that wants to have this bankrupt hypothesis taught in the public schools.

For instance, the assumption by IDers is that if neo-Darwinian evolution can be shown to be largely incorrect, ID and creationism triumph. But this isn’t so. There are other hypotheses besides design or God or Darwin that could replace it, if they were supported by the evidence. The trouble is that only evolution is so supported. “Expelled” doesn’t try to build up a coherent alternative theory. It simply bashes evolution.

If you’ve had a chance to preview this movie, please leave a comment with your impressions of it.