The Atheist Blogger

Comedy website Something Awful have a load of photoshopped reverse magazines that PZ Myers pointed out. A “reverse magazine” is the process of taking a well known magazine (New Scientist etc) and rewording the title / front cover so it covers exactly the opposite of what it should. There are quite a few religion / belief based ones which I found amusing.

1. New Scientist to Old Scientist, with the great science behind Flat Earth. Alas the last gathering of online Flat Earthers (or FE’rs as they liked to be called) have abandoned ship, but their website and forums can still be viewed in the Wayback Machine.

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It seems that the Creationist organisation Discovery Institute is attacking Richard Dawkins over his involvement in the Louisiana “academic freedom bill” which allows teachers to discuss theories that oppose Evolution. Simply put, it is allowing Intelligent Design into the classrooms.

The Discovery Institute reported that Barbara Forrest, leader of LA Coalition for Science has written an article on the Richard Dawkins website, pleading people to contact the Louisiana Governor and stop this bill being passed. The Institute rather snobbishly remarked:

Newsflash for Richard, we’re not a British colony anymore.

Well pointed out, but of course they forget that Richard Dawkins runs The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, a charity registered in both the UK and the USA. They also seemed to overlook the fact that his website isn’t tied to any specific country and as such has a large majority of American visitors. Forgetting as well that the article in question wasn’t even written by Dawkins but by a citizen of the United States, and their accusation that Richard Dawkins is somehow trying to “dictate education policy” to the U.S falls completely apart.

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What’s the best way to support the theory of Evolution? Make a 2 hour Creationist propaganda film packed with every lie every told about the theory. You may think you have heard all the idiotic arguments that try to undermine Evolution, but I bet there are still some in this documentary that have eluded you.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2783773121996810582

The movie is quite old so you may have seen if before, or seen parts of it (the Peanut Butter bit on YouTube), and if you haven’t yet seen Expelled, this movie is probably just as funny.

Matt’s Notepad has a great article in which he debunks some of the most well known Creationist / ID arguments concerning Evolution.

The arguments can be found here: http://mattcbr.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/repeated-ignorant-creationistid-arguments-a-solution/

Some similar arguments that debunk Creationism have been written by Talk Origins, and Richard Dawkins has a list of “Debate Points” that cover Evolution, atheism, and faith that you might find interesting.

It seems that Expelled is generating a load of publicity recently, and not because of it’s release today. So far, the list of items Expelled has stolen is this:

• “Inner Life of the Cell” made by Harvard professors
• Music from John Lennon
• Music from The Killers

Could breaking web design licenses also be on that list? After a bit of poking around I found that the blog theme used on the Expelled site (http://expelledthemovie.com/blog - I’m not making it a hyperlink for very good reasons) is the same theme I use on my personal blog, albeit very edited.

Editing this theme isn’t against the license it has on it, but is has this very specific line:

A link back to N.Design Studio must be retained in the footer (either modified or unmodified)

The theme in question is GlossyBlue by the N.Design Studio mentioned, and it is a very good theme, being both attractive and XHTML compliant. I have contacted the designer to enquire whether Expelled purchased a license for the theme (which would enable them to remove the link), but considering they didn’t bother to pay for most of the rest of the film content, I really wouldn’t be surprised if they “overlooked” this as well.

On a related note, it seems the Expelled producers are denying making a copy of the animation (the similarities are hopefully enough to be prosecuted). This statement was place on their website:

Editor’s Note: Questions have been raised about the origination of some of the animation used in our movie EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed. Claims that we have used any animation in an unauthorized manner are simply false. Premise Media created the animation that illustrates cellular activity used in our film.- The Producers of “EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed”