Ben Stein and Intelligence

On a recent Glenn Beck show on the CNN Headline News channel, Ben Stein made an appearance promoting among other things a documentary titled "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". This purports to portray the plight of the poor researchers who have their grants taken away because their area of interest involves "Intelligent Design" (I have no details on this film so I'm going strictly by what was discussed on the show). Of course the conversation quickly degenerated into the "why can't we have a discussion on the two sides of the issue" with Mr.Stein using the tired example of how evolutionists would like to have us believe that out of a lightning bolt hitting a mud puddle we got something of the complexity of a 747. Well, Mr. Beck let me attempt to explain why you can't have a two-sided discussion on this issue (well non-issue, really), when one side is an accepted scientific theory with over 150 years of supporting evidence and the other side is religious mumbo-jumbo wrapped in a lab coat. Needless to say any such attempt would quickly degenerate into nothing more than an Argument Clinic sketch. I believe that's why we have a National SCIENCE Foundation, not a National Faith Foundation (well we do if you want to count the so called Discovery Institute). So Mr. Beck in conclusion let's recap: there are no two sides, there is no "controversy", just a bunch of idiotic, deluded dumb-asses who seriously believe they can take science teaching back to the 14th century.

And Mr. Stein, please, when it comes to science, stick to what you know best: "Bueller... Bueller... Bueller..."

Good Math, Bad Math : Why did Set Theory start with transfinite numbers?

Interesting, although somewhat misstated commentary on Set Theory (from ScienceBlogs)

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