This project was begun for the purpose of exploring and
investigating the possibility of deception or misinformation in the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Having
now concluded that investigation, I believe there is a very strong case for rampant
misinformation, and at least some clear cases of willful deception. Some of
these instances have been documented by others already, but I have expanded on
them, and have tried to find more and better sources of evidence than some other
reviews have made. My original intention was by no means for this project to be
of such a large scale; it’s only because of the enormity and severity of the
deceit, misinformation, and manipulation evident in the movie that this grew to
such an immense size (over 40,000 words, not even counting the footnotes).
I’d like to clarify what I mean when I say deceit, and how
an intent to deceive can be knowable. If an informational movie like this
communicates information which turns out to not be true, then that doesn’t
necessarily mean that they had a specific willful intent to deliberately
deceive the audience. It may simply be that they themselves were misinformed. The
only way to know that somebody was being deliberately deceptive is to find out
whether they knew that the way they were representing the information was false
at the time they represented it. In some cases, all I can do is find evidence
of misinformation, without any way to know whether the people making the movie
were aware of its falsity or not (but if they weren’t, it speaks very ill
indeed of their research quality, which should be essential to an informative
piece like this). In other instances, however, a strong case can be made that
they knew exactly how false the information was as they were conveying it.
I suppose it might also be necessary to briefly discuss the
nature of evidence. I’ve tried as much as possible to provide overwhelming
evidence for my position, so that nobody can claim that I’m simply making
dogmatic, a priori assumptions that
the movie is false. I have over two hundred footnotes (some of which have more
than one link, providing multiple points of independent verification), and the
sources are pretty much all on the internet, so you don’t have to hunt down
some book to double-check my evidence.
So that speaks to the quantity of evidence; now let’s talk
about the slightly more iffy subject of quality. In the early days of the
internet, a research paper (for that is what this ultimately amounts to) with
nothing but internet links would be considered an absolute garbage dump of
shoddy, lazy research. Fortunately, these days, pretty much every major
newspaper (and most minor ones) have a significant online presence, as do many
scientific journals (though you often have to pay for those) and other
reputable sources. So screw the proper MLA style for how to cite a newspaper
article; now we can just paste in a URL, and it takes you right to where you
need to go (as long as the link stays alive). But even among such reputable
sources as major newspapers, there is still the capacity for human bias. There’s
not really much I can do to present evidence so indisputable that an
incredulous reader won’t be able to throw some of it out as being purely the
product of bias. It is a common and understandable human reaction to
subconsciously dismiss evidence from the other side of an argument purely
because of its implications, and not because of any qualitative failing.[2]
However, I want to make the point that I didn’t throw out
the “evidence” of this movie’s claims purely because it was on the other side
of the argument from me and I didn’t like the implications. The only reason I’m
now able to so confidently dismiss the claims of this movie is because I have
built up such a large amount of evidence against it. So, if you have a
suspicion that something printed in a New York Times article was not wholly
accurate, then I encourage you to look for evidence to support that suspicion. But
I must say, if somebody casually dismissed a piece of evidence printed in a
liberal newspaper (or whatever other sources they think might have reasons for
bias) only because those facts would
point to someone on their side being a liar, then I don’t think they’re approaching
this issue very rationally.[3]
Even so, I have made an effort to provide
independent/redundant sources wherever possible. It’s harder to discredit the
claims made by two independent sources, unless you really believe in a vast,
global, multigenerational conspiracy to foist evolution on the unsuspecting
public. To that I would say, if such a conspiracy were real, why did they ever
let this movie get released? Furthermore, there are some instances where I was
able to support my case with sources that would have no motive to fabricate
this information. A good example is the fact-check of Caroline Crocker, where I
was able to refute the movie’s claims using only a news article that seemed very
sympathetic to her side of the issue, and an article from the Discovery
Institute itself. In the case of Richard Sternberg, I found a page from his own
website which directly contradicted
the claims he made in the movie.
Ultimately, there’s a danger of what I might call an
“infinite regress of incredulity.” If
one were determined to believe that everything in this movie were the Gospel
Truth, one could suggest that the statement on Sternberg’s website were an
elaborate hoax, or that the Discovery Institute was somehow tricked into
posting an article that would later help falsify a movie that hadn’t even come
out yet (or maybe the movie had already come out, and somebody hacked the DI website
and posted the article with a false date). All these things may be technically possible, but I’m not gonna
lose any sleep worrying about that. Like I said, I have over two hundred links.
If you want to toss out a few of them, fine, go ahead. I’ll still have plenty
more, which show a distinct pattern that this movie consistently presents false
and misleading information.
But if you’re going to toss out every single piece of
evidence I provide through such an extraordinary process of mental gymnastics,
then I really think you should ask yourself why you’re not applying the same
level of skepticism to this movie, as you are to my sources.
[3] I
originally wrote this piece in 2015, before the rise of Donald Trump and his hypocritical
siren call of “fake news.” It seems somewhat inadequate now that we’ve seen
just how willing people are to summarily ignore or dismiss any sources which go
against what they already believe, but I really don’t think it’s worth my time
at this point to devote a whole additional section to making the rational case
for not dismissing sources purely because they reach conclusions you don’t
like. I would simply reiterate the point I made in the original paragraph; I didn’t
ultimately reach this place of utter contempt for Expelled because I didn’t like the claims it was making. I got here
by assembling an overwhelming body of evidence that the information being
presented in the movie is false. I have challenged people who claim that the
mainstream media is a hopeless morass of liberal bias to present their best
evidence, and when they do, it’s extremely thin and subjective. So as it stands
now, I see no evidence-based reason to exclude something like the New York Times
as a credible source for this research project.
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