Sylvia Browne

Sylvia Browne calls herself a psychic. She does a lot of harm. A reliable schtick for her is to appear on a popular television talk show, before an opportunistic host and a gullible studio audience, and tell the parents of a missing child that their child is dead. She gives details of the supposed perpetrator and the locale where the child’s body will be found. She does not identify the criminal or give directions for finding the body. She says things like, “a tall bearded man” or “a bridge over a pond.”

Sarah Palin is Dan Quayle Lite

Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin came to national attention in similar fashions. Both were surprise dark horse choices to be the Republican Vice Presidential candidate. While they may not be two peas in a pod, looking closer reveals some interesting parallels. Unfortunately, Sarah Palin does not seem to live up to the low standard set by Dan Quayle.

Evolution and ID General Discussion

This post is set up to allow people to post comments about evolution and ID. The discussion will take whatever direction the posters want. Please, no bombastic comments and use respectful language. I have the ability and the will to edit out of line comments.

Whither the Tree Kangaroo?

Believe it or not, some kangaroos live in trees! Would an intelligent designer do this to a poor plains-dwelling kangaroo? Perhaps to make up for their awkward living accommodations, God made them irresistibly cute! Some thoughts on what evolutionary changes may be in store for the tree kangaroo follow.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Is It a Success for Creationists?

It looks like Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed made money for theater owners, stands to lose a lot of money for the producers, and was a colossal flop with the critics. If you are interested in these issues, see other posts in this series. In this post, I discuss whether Expelled is a benefit to the creationist cause.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Is It a Success for the Producers?

Movie producers are the deal makers. They find a screenplay or have one written, raise money to make the movie, and hire the director. Once “the film is in the can,” the producers raise the money to distribute it. This may be by making a deal with a company that specializes in distributing movies, or they may raise the money and pay a distribution company to distribute it.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Is It a Success for Theater Owners?

The final box office figures are in for Expelled’s first weekend, April 18-20, 2008. It earned $3.0 million, which made it the 10th largest earner. (The earlier reported $3.1 million and 9th place figures were estimates.) In this post, I discuss how these figures may look to theater owners.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Is It a Critical Success?

That Expelled is a failure with mainstream critics is beyond debate, but I discuss an interesting point regarding user reviews at Meta Critic and IMDB.

Digging in the Quote Mine

“Quote mining” is the practice of misrepresenting someone by selective quotation. It is a favorite technique of creationists. They comb through scientific literature and find a caveat to quote, making it appear that the author holds a view exactly opposite to that expressed when the quote is read in context. You can learn more at Wikipedia and see some current examples at the Panda’s Thumb, and The Questionable Authority.

I had an indirect experience with quote mining on the fly, which you can read about after the break.

The Official Expelled Paternity Test

Thanks to those wild and crazy rationalists at Darwin Central for bringing the world
The Official EXPELLED Paternity Test.

For reliable information on the movie, go to Expelled.