Comments on: Flunked, Not Expelled: What’s the Difference Between Peppered Moths and Pepperdine Students?

By: Austringer

Austringer — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:10:56 +0000

I don’t think that Heddle has expressed a liking for the Ben Stein movie.

By: paul fcd

paul fcd — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 05:14:08 +0000

heddle

“I don’t know about this one..” “I haven’t seen that clip…”
“As I said, I haven’t seen it”.

Sorry for quote mining you, but.. why show up here to post?

To tell us all how much you liked the movie?

paul fcd

By: Henry Neufeld

Henry Neufeld — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:13:21 +0000

David, as a Christian, I think it is incredibly important to our integrity to hold ourselves to any standard to which we try to hold others. Certainly staging scenes is acceptable, though I would question it if it tends to represent a specific event differently than it was when it took place.

But this standard in terms of illustrations has been repeated time and again by creationists. If those creationists believe in the standard to which they are holding others then they should both practice it, and notice when their own side fails to uphold it.

By: Dave Wisker

Dave Wisker — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:27:55 +0000

Wells used staged photos in the video for his book “Icons of Evolution”. But then, as Philip Kitcher wrote, consistency is not the hobgoblin of the creationist mind.

By: David Marjanović

David Marjanović — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:49:56 +0000

Remember, this is what “Jonathan” Wells has said:

He [Sun Myung Moon] frequently criticized Darwin’s theory that living things originated without God’s purposeful, creative activity…

Father’s words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.

And this is what the Right Irreverend Moon has said:

So telling a lie becomes a sin if you tell it to take advantage of a person, but if you tell a lie to do a good thing for him that is not a sin. Even God tells lies very often; you can see this throughout history.

In other words, these people openly and proudly quote-mine their very own Bible: “Thou shalt [...] lie.”

By: Austringer

Austringer — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:53:55 +0000

Wells would be inconsistently and hypocritically crying wolf for the one and making excuses for the other, then. Wait, he’s already done that.

By: Bad

Bad — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:38:54 +0000

Yeah, I think the key distinction on the Pepperdine thing is how much play they give the audience. If they are just background, well, that’s filmmaking. If they show faces and make a big deal out of it being a real lecture, that’s a little shady.

But still not a particularly big deal. I have no doubt that Wells would just brush it off as the difference between claimed scientific evidence (even though the pictures weren’t) and good entertainment moviemaking techniques.

By: slpage

slpage — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:50:30 +0000

Not only are we seeing the old double standard, but Wels’ charge of ‘fraud’ in the peppered moth pictures is just stunningly over the top. They are for illustrative purposes, for crying out loud. It is sad, but it seems that false charges of fraud by creationists is about the best thing they have to offer for their cause.

By: Austringer

Austringer — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:30:21 +0000

David, the point was about Wells’ apparent standards for crying “fraud”. I don’t recall you yelling “fraud” in relation to illustrating crypsis in peppered moths, and your reluctance to cry “fraud” in the instance of the Pepperdine “students” is of a piece with that.

By: Cheryl Shepherd-Adams

Cheryl Shepherd-Adams — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:52:08 +0000

Excellent comparison. The smell of hypocrisy in the mornin’!