An argument for ID

[sfs]

Modern science has not conclusively determined whether randomness is a result of our lack of understanding or is fundamental to the laws of nature. This is a red herring in any event.

This is true for quantum mechanics, which I explicitly noted was irrelevant to ID when I first challenged you on this point. Aside from that, there are all sorts of interesting philosophical issues one can get into when asking whether classical physics is deterministic or not (including the obvious problem that classical physics is only an approximation to QM), but there is no getting away from the fact that chance, as it usually appears in physical theories, is used to describe systems for which we also have more fundamental deterministic descriptions.

Science does with out a doubt take notice, and account for, the concept of chance as a governor of outcomes. It also recognizes chance as distinct from an event that occurs deterministically. In fact, science even goes so far as to distinguish between the two when both are at play. Statistical thermodynamics is a good example.

Statistical mechanics is exactly the wrong example for you to choose. Classical statistical mechanics describes the behavior of ensembles of systems, all in the same macroscopic state but differing in their microstates. The physics of the microstates, however, is fully deterministic (in this classical description, of course). Thus an atomic physicist might describe in detail the scattering of individual atoms using deterministic equations; take the same atoms and introduce more of them into the system, and a statistical mechanical description is the natural way to describe it, even though the underlying deterministic physics has not changed at all. As I said, different ways of describing the same system, not fundamentally different processes.

In the case of games of chance design can be applied to bias the outcomes. Design, as in the case of pure chance, governs outcomes. I can influence and determine outcomes by applying design. It is very simple.

You're not responding to my arguments; you're just repeating yourself. The shape and weight of the die (i.e. necessity) govern the outcome. You can design a loaded die all you want, but until you change the physical die, nothing changes. Design is not a characteristic of the die, which (whether loaded or unloaded) continues to be a macroscopic physical object obeying deterministic laws, and whose behavior can be described by a probability distribution; "design" says something about the intent of someone who is not part of the system. By observing the behavior of a die, you can deduce its physical characteristics and whether it is loaded. What you can't deduce is whether the bias in a loaded die is the result of design or not, i.e. the physical state of the die does not have that information. (Not unless you find out how it is loaded, and apply other knowledge about manufacturing defects.)

Science disagrees with you. It is prefectly corehent. Evolution depends on it being coherent.

In what way does evolution depend on distinguishing between chance, necessity and design?

 

[shernren]

Modern science has not conclusively determined whether randomness is a result of our lack of understanding or is fundamental to the laws of nature.

Quite the contrary; it is clear from modern science that quantum randomness is fundamental, and classical / macroscopic randomness is a result of our lack of knowledge of initial conditions (not understanding of systemic behavior). The main fuss right now is about where one transitions over to the other and how to deal with it philosophically; but the scientific ideas are fairly well-agreed upon.

This is a red herring in any event. Science does with out a doubt take notice, and account for, the concept of chance as a governor of outcomes. It also recognizes chance as distinct from an event that occurs deterministically. In fact, science even goes so far as to distinguish between the two when both are at play. Statistical thermodynamics is a good example.

Statistical thermodynamics is the worst possible example. Any statistical thermodynamic treatment of a system starts with the microscopic behavior of a component of a system, in full deterministic treatment, and then averages it out over unknown initial conditions. For example, the derivation of the ideal gas law (PV = nRT) starts by considering the recoil of a single atom off a wall of a box containing gas, which is entirely deterministic, and then sums over all the atoms present in the box.

 

[OrdinaryClay]

Could you please tell me why my argument is invalid when yours is valid? Just repeating that mine "lacks a grounding in truth conditions" is not an answer, by the way; postulating an unevidenced intelligent designer lacks a grounding in truth conditions to exactly the same extent as postulating an unevidenced featherless biped.

I did answer. If your argument has no possible set of truth conditions then the conclusion is vacuous. My argument has a possible set of truth conditions that make it possible. That is an answer.

 

[OrdinaryClay]

This is true for quantum mechanics, which I explicitly noted was irrelevant to ID when I first challenged you on this point. Aside from that, there are all sorts of interesting philosophical issues one can get into when asking whether classical physics is deterministic or not (including the obvious problem that classical physics is only an approximation to QM), but there is no getting away from the fact that chance, as it usually appears in physical theories, is used to describe systems for which we also have more fundamental deterministic descriptions.

This is still a red herring. Chance does govern outcomes. That is what is important. Philosophical rumination about why we observe chance is irrelevant. We have an entire discipline in mathematics describing how to quantify chance called probability theory, and we have an additional discipline in mathematics describing how to harness chance observations called statistics.

Statistical mechanics is exactly the wrong example for you to choose.

Like I said, it is a good example of why your conflating of necessity and chance are irrelevant, because we recognize both concepts and yet we distinguish between the two models and use probability theory to do the analysis, ergo, using the notion of necessity and chance as a way of viewing how the results in the world are produced is not an "incoherent" view. Far from it.

You're not responding to my arguments; you're just repeating yourself.

I'm not responding to your red herring. You pretended that introducing necessity, chance and design constituted in some vague way an incoherent argument. This is non sense. You introduce a red herring by pleading chance and necessity are ultimately the same. I directly responded to your argument. My example of the dice clearly demonstrates that design is detectable as bias in the game. Someone rigged the dice. This is the fundamental and relevant point.

By observing the behavior of a die, you can deduce its physical characteristics and whether it is loaded. What you can't deduce is whether the bias in a loaded die is the result of design or not, i.e. the physical state of the die does not have that information.

You can infer design. That is the point. No one is claiming there is a physical law that says X was designed. This is an inference, which is done all the time in historical sciences. Inference to the best explanation is a legitimate form of scientific reasoning.

In what way does evolution depend on distinguishing between chance, necessity and design?

The laws of nature allow life as a chemical machine to function. Chance provides random mutations. You know this and I should not have to explain it.

 

[OrdinaryClay]

Quite the contrary; it is clear from modern science that quantum randomness is fundamental,

No, our theories of the quantum world allows us to predict with fantastic accuracy, but we still do not know why the world is the way it is. We do not know if there are yet more fundamental laws which will explain the bizarre world of QM.

and classical / macroscopic randomness is a result of our lack of knowledge of initial conditions (not understanding of systemic behavior).

The problem is not our lack of knowledge of the initial conditions. It is the systems sensitivity to the initial conditions (minuscule variations produce wide results in chaotic systems), and the shear complexity of any real world system. At some slice in time you can pick a set of initial conditions, but the total system is unpredictable and unmodelable because of its complexity. Furthermore, even if a system is chaotic and complex this does not mean that real randomness may not play a role in nature. We can not say with surety that all systems are ultimately deterministic. They may appear to be so at the macro level, but this does not mean the appearance is the full truth.

This is still all a red herring because it is perfectly legitimate to talk of chance as a governing factor in results.

The main fuss right now is about where one transitions over to the other and how to deal with it philosophically; but the scientific ideas are fairly well-agreed upon.

Fuss? Hardly. Modern physics is not "fussing" over a unified theory. They are profoundly stumped! The philosophy of the "whys" of the quantum world are metaphysical questions because of our inability to scientifically answer questions that lie squarely in the realm of science.

Statistical thermodynamics is the worst possible example.

No, it is a fine example of my point, i.e. science recognizes necessity and chance as governing factors.

 

[Dark_Lite]

DNA

And the rest of the universe is not complex enough? Just like with the rest of the physical world, there is no empirical evidence that there is a designer behind DNA. With Occam's Razor alone, we can rule out ID. The whole idea of ID, it seems to me, is an appeal to ignorance. That is, if there isn't a good enough explanation for something, we can simply relegate it to the intelligent designer.

Here is one way. Kolmogorov complexity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While I'm not entirely sure if computational complexity theory can be applied to things like DNA or "the universe" in the first place, let's assume it can be. So, you have a way to measure complexity. Now what? Is there a specific number where things automatically become "intelligently designed?" Is it modeled on some mathematical function where only certain things are intelligently designed?

Intelligent Design is nothing more than a hypothesis. There's no actual evidence for it. The central claim of irreducible complexity has no real testability, partly because it's so vague and partly because because it has been proven wrong over and over. The other central claim of specified complexity continues the use of the vague language, and also uses mathematics improperly to form its argumentative base.

BTW - What is your avatar? What does Dark_Lite mean anyway?

My avatar is Anakin from Star Wars Episode III. My name is just something I made up many years ago at a Starcraft fan site for their forums. Nowadays, it has a nebulous retconned symbolism that doesn't really mean anything. But, it keeps some people guessing.

 

[OrdinaryClay]

And the rest of the universe is not complex enough? Just like with the rest of the physical world, there is no empirical evidence that there is a designer behind DNA.

As I explained many times already everything that is complex is not also specified.

With Occam's Razor alone, we can rule out ID.

Occam's razor does not apply here.

The whole idea of ID, it seems to me, is an appeal to ignorance. That is, if there isn't a good enough explanation for something, we can simply relegate it to the intelligent designer.

No. It does not rely on the lack of an alternative. It actively reasons based on evidence. This means it is not an argument from ignorance.

While I'm not entirely sure if computational complexity theory can be applied to things like DNA or "the universe" in the first place, let's assume it can be.

Kolmorgorov Complexity is not a measure of computational complexity. It is a way to measure complexity based on a theoretical computation. Computational complexity theory uses other measures such as Big O.

So, you have a way to measure complexity. Now what? Is there a specific number where things automatically become "intelligently designed?" Is it modeled on some mathematical function where only certain things are intelligently designed?

These are good and pertinent questions. Now you are referring to Dembski's work. I'm in the process of digesting the mathematics. I'm aware there are many vague claims about the invalidness of Dembski's work(I read the wikis too). There are also some actual papers claiming to demonstrate errors in his mathematics. I need to get his book No Free Lunch. As I have stated before I'm just now getting into ID. I like what I have read so far. Once I've dug deeper I'll probably strike up a debate on another site.

Suffice it to say that Dembski's work is statistical in nature. This means just like any statistically tested hypothesis it does not prove something. It provides plausible reason to believe it with a mathematical basis. You understand the notion of a statistical test correct?

Intelligent Design is nothing more than a hypothesis. There's no actual evidence for it.

False

The central claim of irreducible complexity has no real testability, partly because it's so vague and partly because because it has been proven wrong over and over.

I'm reading Behe's book now. I plan to read his second book also. My opinion of irreducible complexity is yet to be formed. The irreducible complexity of DNA certainly has not been proven wrong.

The other central claim of specified complexity continues the use of the vague language, ...

It is no more vague then the theories of why the Cambrian Explosion occurred.

and also uses mathematics improperly to form its argumentative base.

Well that is the claim, but I'm not convinced. The argument made in Signature in the Cell does not depend on Dembski's mathematics.

My avatar is Anakin from Star Wars Episode III. My name is just something I made up many years ago at a Starcraft fan site for their forums. Nowadays, it has a nebulous retconned symbolism that doesn't really mean anything. But, it keeps some people guessing.

Guessing about what?

 

[Dark_Lite]

As I explained many times already everything that is complex is not also specified.

So why is DNA specified? Just because it happens to link together in certain patterns? All chemicals do that. Is every single chemical intelligently designed?

Occam's razor does not apply here.

How so?

Kolmorgorov Complexity is not a measure of computational complexity. It is a way to measure complexity based on a theoretical computation. Computational complexity theory uses other measures such as Big O.

Big-O specifically measures algorithmic efficiency. The Kolmorgorov Complexity theory is from computer science. Specifically, it measures the amount of computational resources needed for calculations. Sounds like computational complexity to me.

Suffice it to say that Dembski's work is statistical in nature. This means just like any statistically tested hypothesis it does not prove something. It provides plausible reason to believe it with a mathematical basis. You understand the notion of a statistical test correct?

The problem with the statistical nature of his work is that the statistics are dubious, as is his math.

False

Why is it false? Where's the empirical evidence besides "DNA has patterns?"

Guessing about what?

I don't really know.

 

[OrdinaryClay]

So why is DNA specified? Just because it happens to link together in certain patterns? All chemicals do that. Is every single chemical intelligently designed?

I explained this several times in a couple of threads. DNA is specified because it matches a predetermined pattern. The pattern is that it encodes the nano machines of cellular biology. Obviously, any random collection of chemicals do not do that.

How so?

Occam's Razor allows you to reduce an explanation iff the resultant explanation does not loose explanatory power. Shaving off explanation just because you don't like the explanation is not the proper use of Occam's razor.

Big-O specifically measures algorithmic efficiency. The Kolmorgorov Complexity theory is from computer science. Specifically, it measures the amount of computational resources needed for calculations. Sounds like computational complexity to me.

Not quite. It is true people use the term "efficient" loosely in these contexts, but O(n*2) can be written efficiently or inefficiently and it is still O(n*2) - because O(k) is zero. When someone says that an algorithm is O(n*2) they are telling you something about the upper bound of the algorithm's time complexity not its efficiency. In other words Big O describes something fundamental to the algorithm not about how it was written. If I tell you an algorithm is P or NP this is telling you something fundamentally true about the algorithm itself(within the limits of knowledge of current computational complexity theory). Because these characteristics are fundamental to the algorithm and independent of any possible implementation it is a measure of complexity.

Kolmogorov complexity uses computational algorithms to measure complexity, but it can be used on any sequence or "string". Obviously DNA is a sequence. Just because the most common source of strings of interest are computational strings does not mean that the method is limited to these types of strings.

The problem with the statistical nature of his work is that the statistics are dubious, as is his math.

I suppose you have verified this personally. I have not. I plan to. Just a minute ago you did not appear to even understand that it was statistical in nature. I am skeptical of claims by everyone in this area. I believe there is a tendency for people to project what they want to be true as opposed to what is true.

Why is it false? Where's the empirical evidence besides "DNA has patterns?"

Where is the empirical evidence proving that a fluted stone is the product of a hominid?

DNA has specified complexity. http://www.christianforums.com/t7405456/#post53055770

I don't really know.

I don't understand why you would want them guessing about something you are not sure what they are guessing about. Doesn't this kind of leave the guessing wide open? I would think we don't want people guessing.

 

[Dark_Lite]

I explained this several times in a couple of threads. DNA is specified because it matches a predetermined pattern. The pattern is that it encodes the nano machines of cellular biology. Obviously, any random collection of chemicals do not do that.

Random collections of chemcials match predetermined patterns. We always know that combining two atoms of oxygen and one hydrogen will give us water. It always happens. The complex chemical structure hydrocarbons will always produce the same thing. They form naturally and into patterns. Are they intelligently designed? This argument of course extends to much more complicated compounds (i.e. DNA).

Occam's Razor allows you to reduce an explanation iff the resultant explanation does not loose explanatory power. Shaving off explanation just because you don't like the explanation is not the proper use of Occam's razor.

But there is nothing lost when getting rid of ID, except for a few people, apparently.

Not quite. It is true people use the term "efficient" loosely in these contexts, but O(n*2) can be written efficiently or inefficiently and it is still O(n*2) - because O(k) is zero. When someone says that an algorithm is O(n*2) they are telling you something about the upper bound of the algorithm's time complexity not its efficiency. In other words Big O describes something fundamental to the algorithm not about how it was written. If I tell you an algorithm is P or NP this is telling you something fundamentally true about the algorithm itself(within the limits of knowledge of current computational complexity theory). Because these characteristics are fundamental to the algorithm and independent of any possible implementation it is a measure of complexity.

I am well aware of what Big-O is. I am a computer scientist. "Time complexity?" Sounds like efficiency to me. Sounds like we are arguing semantics here. But Big-O is pretty much unrelated to this.

Kolmogorov complexity uses computational algorithms to measure complexity, but it can be used on any sequence or "string". Obviously DNA is a sequence. Just because the most common source of strings of interest are computational strings does not mean that the method is limited to these types of strings.

Ok. Lots of things in the world are sequences.

I suppose you have verified this personally. I have not. I plan to. Just a minute ago you did not appear to even understand that it was statistical in nature. I am skeptical of claims by everyone in this area. I believe there is a tendency for people to project what they want to be true as opposed to what is true.

I haven't exactly verified it personally. However, when multiple other people publish papers that thoroughly destroy every argument put forth in an ID paper and show why the mathematics is wrong, there's a very likely chance that it's wrong. It's not on part of some conspiracy in academia, and it's not because ID is some radical new discovery that hasn't been able to take root in the science world yet. It's because ID is yet another attempt to get creationism to not sound like creationism.

Where is the empirical evidence proving that a fluted stone is the product of a hominid?

DNA has specified complexity. http://www.christianforums.com/t7405456/#post53055770

This entire thread shows why that argument is invalid. The entire thing hinges on the definition of "specified" and "complex." Research in the field of abiogenesis provides strong evidence the other way in showing how DNA could have arisen naturally. That gets rid of the "specifiedness" and reduces the argument (once again) to "because DNA has a pattern, there must be an intelligent designer." And of course, the definition of "complex" part has already been touched on.

I don't understand why you would want them guessing about something you are not sure what they are guessing about. Doesn't this kind of leave the guessing wide open? I would think we don't want people guessing.

But the guessing is half the fun.

 

[sfs]

I did answer. If your argument has no possible set of truth conditions then the conclusion is vacuous. My argument has a possible set of truth conditions that make it possible. That is an answer.

Yes, you answered, but your answer was wrong, and it continues to be wrong every time you repeat it. Trying to carry on a discussion with you is a little frustrating, since all you do is keep repeating the same wrong answer, without ever responding to my arguments.

Still, I will try once again. Your argument has exactly the same possible set of truth conditions as my argument. My argument requires the existence of an featherless biped when DNA originated. Your argument requires the existence of an intelligent being when DNA originated. Neither an intelligent being nor a featherless biped is known to have existed at the time, nor is there any direct evidence for the existence of either. The only known intelligent beings arose long after DNA came into existence, as did the only known featherless bipeds; in fact, they arose at the same time, because they are the same creatures.

Now, could you please tell me why your truth condition is possible and mine isn't?

 

[sfs]

This is still a red herring. Chance does govern outcomes. That is what is important. Philosophical rumination about why we observe chance is irrelevant. We have an entire discipline in mathematics describing how to quantify chance called probability theory, and we have an additional discipline in mathematics describing how to harness chance observations called statistics.

And we have an entire approach to probability and statistics, which many would argue is the only coherent interpretation of probability, wholly based on the idea that probability is a measure of our uncertainty, rather than a statement about a physical system. That's what Bayesian statistics is.

I have been pretty explicit about why I think talking about chance governing outcomes is incoherent. You have yet to give a coherent explanation of what you mean by the phrase, so simply repeating it is not going to advance your argument at all.

Like I said, it is a good example of why your conflating of necessity and chance are irrelevant, because we recognize both concepts and yet we distinguish between the two models and use probability theory to do the analysis, ergo, using the notion of necessity and chance as a way of viewing how the results in the world are produced is not an "incoherent" view. Far from it.

The first part of the paragraph is correct. We distinguish two concepts, two models, as two ways of viewing the same events. So we describe exactly the same system as either the result of chance or of necessity, depending on how we choose to view it. That is perfectly coherent.

What's not coherent is what you are attempting to do, which is to view chance and necessity as mutually exclusive attributes of the events themselves. Or at least you have yet to offer an explanation of how that is coherent, given what we know about physics.

I'm not responding to your red herring. You pretended that introducing necessity, chance and design constituted in some vague way an incoherent argument. This is non sense. You introduce a red herring by pleading chance and necessity are ultimately the same. I directly responded to your argument. My example of the dice clearly demonstrates that design is detectable as bias in the game. Someone rigged the dice. This is the fundamental and relevant point.

And I told you why your example didn't work. I'm sorry, but contradicting your central claim premise is not a red herring. You have to make an argument for chance, necessity and design as mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories; that's something you haven't done. What I did do was show that in your own example, chance, design and necessity were overlapping categories.

You can infer design. That is the point. No one is claiming there is a physical law that says X was designed. This is an inference, which is done all the time in historical sciences. Inference to the best explanation is a legitimate form of scientific reasoning.

Sure, you can infer design. But as a suggested earlier, we almost never infer design by the process you've claimed. Instead we infer design based on known properties of the designer, often combined with detailed knowledge of the possible behavior of the materials in question.

The laws of nature allow life as a chemical machine to function. Chance provides random mutations. You know this and I should not have to explain it.

You didn't answer my question. How does evolution depend on distinguishing between chance, necessity and design. (And note that you did not mention the third one here.)

 

[shernren]

No, our theories of the quantum world allows us to predict with fantastic accuracy, but we still do not know why the world is the way it is. We do not know if there are yet more fundamental laws which will explain the bizarre world of QM.

Perhaps, but we do have constraints on what "more fundamental laws" if they exist must do: they must replicate Bell's inequalities and hence there can be no local determinism.

The problem is not our lack of knowledge of the initial conditions. It is the systems sensitivity to the initial conditions (minuscule variations produce wide results in chaotic systems), and the shear complexity of any real world system. At some slice in time you can pick a set of initial conditions, but the total system is unpredictable and unmodelable because of its complexity. Furthermore, even if a system is chaotic and complex this does not mean that real randomness may not play a role in nature. We can not say with surety that all systems are ultimately deterministic. They may appear to be so at the macro level, but this does not mean the appearance is the full truth.

This is still all a red herring because it is perfectly legitimate to talk of chance as a governing factor in results.

I nearly broke out in a rash when you said "chaos". I suffer from buzzword-itis: the tendency to react violently when people throw around buzzwords they don't understand. And most people here who invoke chaos have no idea what it is.

1. Many systems are not chaotic. Cars do not blow up every day on the freeway, because the behavior of a few gazillion air molecules in a piston is on the macroscale entirely predictable.

2. Quantum systems are for the most part not chaotic. The time evolution of quantum systems is exactly governed by differential equations that are linear in their solutions (anything non-linear is normally an approximation): this decouples the fundamental source of randomness in nature from chaos.

3. Chaotic systems have complete causal models. In fact, we can't possibly identify a chaotic system unless we have a model for it. For, how exactly do you think we determine that a system has "sensitive dependence on initial conditions"? That's right, we plug in a set of initial conditions, see where the system goes, plug in another set, see where that goes, plug in a third set of initial conditions ... which requires that we have a completely deterministic model for how the system works.

4. Model reduction often creates chaos where nature does not have it. An ideal system of pendula is chaotic; however, a real pendulum with damping forces is not.

I hope the picture is clear: randomness often results specifically from lack of knowledge of initial conditions; and chaotic systems in which such randomness is most acutely demonstrated are completely deterministic.

To me this raises serious issues with the so-called "explanatory filter". After all, if the "separate categories" of necessity and chance aren't really separate categories, what are the chances that "design" isn't a separate category either? In fact, a moment's thought shows that, since no designer ever gets to break the laws of physics and chemistry, there is in fact a fundamental connection between "design" and "necessity" too, and the entire filter framework is thrown into disarray.

Some brief thoughts about Kolmogorov complexity - it seems to me that it's the worst possible measure of ID "information". Suppose I flip a coin 2,000 times and encode the result in a binary string. There is a good chance that this string will be mostly or entirely incompressible, and so the most random string is also the most "complex". On the other hand, strings with apparent randomness that are produced by deeply deterministic processes, such as the decimal expansion of pi or DNA strings, should have surprisingly small Kolmogorov complexity.

 

[LiturgyInDMinor]

Now this is an in-depth thread.

**keeps reading**

 

[lukeman]

There seems to be a large misunderstanding surrounding how science infers causality in the case of non-reproducible historical events. The argument is made that ID does not provide an explanation because "it is not science". I think this is a demonstration of not understanding historical science.

Here is a paraphrase of an argument Myers makes in Signature in the Cell Chp 17.

Premise 1:
There have been significant attempts made to discover a natural mechanism through which the information contained in the DNA in Prokaryote cells could have arisen through natural mechanisms. None have succeeded.
Premise 2:
We know through observation that complex collections of specified information always arise from intelligence.
Conclusion:
We can through an inference to the best explanation conclude that the DNA in the first Prokaryote cells was a product of intelligent design.

watch "Expelled No Intelligence Allowed" it's a great documentary. Here's a clip from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZsND1RIoAQ

 

[Papias]

A great documentary? You've got to be kidding. Expelled is simply dishonest in both it's production and it's final form. It violates the 8th or 9th commandment (depending on which of the different versions of the ten commandments you use), and was a box office flop, even after some fundamentalist groups paid people to go see it.

I of course can't know exactly how much damage it has done to Christianity, but I'd guess that a lot of people who see Expelled end up thinking Christianity is pretty stupid if it inspired Expelled.

If you want to start a thread on the train wreck called Expelled, feel free - but seeing that expelled is mainly a political film, it doesn't seem to be central to the cellular idea of the OP.

Papias

 

[laconicstudent]

Expelled is utter garbage. They use an interview that was done with Dawkins to make it sound like he was supporting panspermia (movie equivalent of quote mining), it employs all the same old fallacies....

But Expelled's producers decided to go one better by stealing a multi-million dollar microbiology animation from Harvard and XVIVO (an animation company).

"Expelled"’s Copyright Woes | NCSE

Cease and desist letter: http://ncse.com/files/pub/creationism/EXPELLED-Letter.pdf

But here is the text of the formal notification

1


April 9, 2008

Logan Craft
Chairman
Premise Media Corporation
Suite K
1850 Old Pecos Trail
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

Re: Copyright infringement in “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”

Dear Mr. Craft:

This letter will constitute notice to you, as Chairman of Premise Media Corporation, of the copyright infringement by your
corporation, and its subsidiary, Rampant Films, of material produced by XVIVO LLC, in which XVIVO holds a copyright.

It has come to our intention that Premise Media and Rampant Films has produced a film entitled “Expelled: No Intelligence
Allowed,” which is scheduled for commercial release and distribution on April 18, 2008. To our knowledge, this film includes a
segment depicting biological cellular activity that was copied by computer-generated means from a video entitled “The Inner
Life of a Cell.” XVIVO holds the copyright to all the models, processes, and depictions in this video, and has not authorized
Premise Media or Rampant Films to make any use of this material.

We have obtained promotional material for the “Expelled” film, presented on a DVD, which clearly shows in the “cell segment”
the virtually identical depiction of material from the “Inner Life” video. Among the infringed scenes, we particularly refer to the
segment of the “Expelled” film purporting to show the “walking” models of kinesic activities in cellular mechanisms. The
segments depicting these models in your film are clearly based upon, and copied from, material in the “Inner Life” video.

We have been advised by counsel that this segment in your film constitutes an actionable infringement of XVIVO’s intellectual
property rights, as protected by federal statutes, including Section 106 of the Copyright Act, the Visual Artists Rights Act of
1990, and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998. Each of these statutes provides for judicial enforcement of their
provisions, with substantial civil penalties for their infringement.

We have also obtained legal advice that your copying, in virtually identical form, of material in the “inner Life” video clearly
meets the legal test of “substantial similarity” between the copied work and our original work.

This letter will also serve as notice to you that XVIVO intends to vigorously and promptly pursue its legal remedies for your
copyright infringement, unless and until Premise Media, Rampant Films, and their officers, employees, and agents comply with
the following demands:

1) That Premise Media, Rampant Films, and its officers, employees, and agents remove the infringing segment from all
copies of the “Expelled” film prior to its scheduled commercial release on or before April 18, 2008;

2) That all copies of the “Inner Life” video in your possession or under your control be returned to XVIVO;

3) That Premise Media notify XVIVO, on or before April 18, 2008, of its compliance with the above demands.

We have been advised, by a telephone conversation with Mellie Bracewell of Premise Media on April 8, 2008, that an e-mail
transmission of this letter to her will be promptly forwarded to you. A hard copy of this letter, on XVIVO stationary, will also be
sent to you today by express delivery.

We are sure that you will want to avoid legal action in this matter, and urge you to promptly notify us of your compliance with
the above demands. You may do so by return e-mail, directed to @ xvivo.net or @ xv ivo.net, followed by a hard-
copied letter indicating your compliance with the above demands.

Sincerely,

David Bolinsky
Partner and Medical Director
XVIVO LLC

Michael Astrachan
Partner and Creative Director
XVIVO LLC

Cc: Peter Irons, Esq.
Attorney at Law
2551 North Valley Road
Greenville CA 95947

Apparently, Expelled's directors then thought it would be ethical to preemptively sue Harvard and XVIVO in a Texas court and ask for a "Declaratory" judgment, which would apparently burden the defense with the legal costs. The suit was dropped as it had become unfeasible for Harvard and XVIVO to seek damages as a result.

So basically, every time you watch Expelled, you get treated to this clip, which is really the property of Harvard, that Expelled flat-out stole. BioVisions


What an adorable film. Not only do they make all the same fallacies and use the same dishonest tactics, they blatantly stole other people's work.

Copyright controversies of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Oh, also, lets be honest. Expelled was a terrible film. Everyone hated it. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/expelled_no_intelligence_allowed/

 

[The Barbarian]

"Expelled No Intelligence Allowed" it's a great documentary.

Not only was it a flop at the box office (at the end, Stein was reduced to offering kick-backs to churches willing to steer their members and youth groups to go see it) but it was a mammoth dishonesty.

Stein, for example, banned any scientists who were theistic evolutionists from his film. No intelligence allowed? You betcha.

At one point, he's pretending to speak to a student group on a university campus. But he had to hire extras to come in and pretend to be students in order to get a crowd to listen to him.

His dishonesty was so egregious when it came to his claims that scientists were behind the Nazi death camps, that the Anti-Defamation League felt compelled to issue this warning:
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]New York, NY, April 29, 2008 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today issued the following statement regarding the controversial film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

The film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed misappropriates the Holocaust and its imagery as a part of its political effort to discredit the scientific community which rejects so-called intelligent design theory.
Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people and Darwin and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler's genocidal madness.
Using the Holocaust in order to tarnish those who promote the theory of evolution is outrageous and trivializes the complex factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry.

​

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
[/FONT]Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Stein threw his own people under the bus in his fruitless attempt to harm science.

 

[laconicstudent]

It also is generally considered the single worst film of the year, for what its worth.