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Laurie Pycroft
sqrrl101
02 May 2008 @ 05:14 pm
Fuck you, Ben Stein  
You've probably heard about the documentary "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" by Ben Stein which purports to decimate the weedy and slanderous arguments of the evil, materialist minority of scientists out there who actually believe in that silly little ("only a") theory of evolution. I wish I was using hyperbole here, as this seems to be what Stein actually believes.

"Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people."

Stein seems a little mixed up there. Now, of course, I'm not claiming that atheists are universally great people or that all religious people are hell-bent on murder, but let's take a few seconds to consider how many conflicts based either directly or indirectly on religion or the collectivism it inspires- Israel Vs. Palestine, troubles in Ireland, the crusades, 9/11 and the ensuing American jingoism, etc. Compare that to the number actually based on any kind of scientific agenda- none. Sure, Hitler used his own distorted brand of eugenics and communist regimes are non- or anti-religious, but atheism has nothing to do with that. It's all down to people abusing power and encouraging collectivist mindsets. Fundamentally, though, even if every single war ever started could be directly linked to "Darwinism", it would say nothing about the theory's truth. The truth can be determined by careful consideration of the evidence, and when it comes to that, Stein just doesn't have a clue:


I can't be arsed to debunk the movie (which seems to be a 2-hour extended reductio-ad-hitlerum) point-by-point but, luckily, Richard Dawkins has saved me the job. Another good anti-Stein site is situated here.

EDIT: Also, take a look at Wikipedia's section on people presented in the film. It's amusing to see the comparison between what Stein purports, and what really happened.


In local election news, I went out and voted yesterday but, seeing how all of the candidates in my area are either morons, in complete disagreement with me, or both, I spoiled my ballot.


Oh, and the NYTimes has a good article on PETA's in-vitro meat prize. It seems that there's a bit of a schism in their offices due to the fact that, apparently, they're massively retarded. Obviously, I despise their methods and dislike their goals, philosophy and pretty much everything else about them, but disagreeing over this seems ludicrous. Beyond a "yuck" factor (which, admittedly, many PETA-types seem to base their entire world-view on), there isn't a single negative aspect to the vat grown meat, from either my or PETA's perspective. It'll be safe, clean, produce practically no pollution and be free of any animal suffering. Any self-professed environmentalist who opposes this technology's development is an idiot. It really is that simple.
 
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jordan179[info]jordan179 on May 2nd, 2008 06:30 pm (UTC)
Vat-grown meat would in fact be far less environmentally-destructive (and, of course, far more humane) than ranched meat. This is because the only required inputs would be energy and elemental feedstocks; the energy could come from some environmentally-friendly source such as nuclear or solar. By contrast, ranched meat requires the sequestration of vast tracts of land for the purpose, which must be denuded of all competing megafauna and megaflora.
Laurie Pycroft[info]sqrrl101 on May 2nd, 2008 07:16 pm (UTC)
Precisely. Also saves on the energy needed to grow non-useful tissues such as bone and ligaments, the energy expended by the animal during the its life, transport and fuel costs, cost of slaughtering apparatus, etc. Emissions from cattle farming are astonishing, primarily due to the fact that cows emit large amounts of methane- a gas which is many times more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.