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.”

Well, in one of her appearances on the Montel Williams Show, Sylvia Browne told the parents of Shawn Hornbeck that he was dead, killed by a man matching a description that she gave, and that his body would be found in the woods beside two boulders. But there is good news! Contrary to what Browne said, Hornbeck and another boy had been kidnapped and cared for fairly well, certainly not killed. They were found healthy and reunited with their families in early 2007.

Charlene observes that “…if you were to compile all of Sylvia’s predictions, you would find she has been right only 6% of the time. That’s 6 out of every 100 predictions.” On what authority does Browne tell parents that their child is dead?

Robert S. Lancaster is a hard working skeptic who has kept the heat on Browne. He had a web site debunking Browne until a serious illness resulted in his losing the domain name. The new owner put up a site that suggests that psychics are legitimate (they are not), but that Browne is a fake.

Fortunately, Lancaster’s web site has been recreated at Stop Sylvia. Please take a look at it to inform yourself about one of the most popular psychics in the United States, who has made a fortune by telling vulnerable parents that their child is dead.

Here are couple of other links:

Harm done by psychics: http://whatstheharm.net/psychics.html

Did Browne cause a man to kill himself? http://unusualkentucky.blogspot.com/2008/10/erica-fraysure-case.html

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.

Both Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin were young and short on experience when they were chosen. Quayle was 41. However, before that he was twice elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and twice elected to the U.S. Senate. Both times he was reelected, he won by a relatively large margin. His first House term began in 1976 and he served in the House and Senate until he was chosen as George H. W. Bush’s (Bush-41’s) running mate in 1988, two years into his second Senate term. Today, members of the U.S. House of Representatives represent about 700,000 residents. Senators represent entire states; Indiana’s current population is 6,300,000.

Palin was 44 when tapped by John McCain to join him on the ticket. Palin’s entry to politics was in 1992 when she was elected to the City Council of Wasilla, Alaska, a suburb of Anchorage. Following service in a second two-year term as councilwoman, Palin was twice elected mayor and served six years in that capacity. In 2000, during Palin’s second term as mayor, Wasilla had a population of 5,500.

In 2002, Palin tried and failed to win election as Alaska’s lieutenant governor, but was then appointed
chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission, an office she held from 2003 to 2004. Palin was elected governor of Alaska in 2006 and took office on December 4. She had served one year and nine months when selected to run for vice president. Alaska has a population of 680,000, the same as the Springfield, Massachusetts metropolitan area. North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming are the only states with fewer people.

Let’s tally the score after Round 1, Age and Experience.

Both were about the same age when picked, so let’s score that: Quayle 1; Palin 1.

Quayle had 12 years of experience in national office, representing as many as several million people.
Palin had about 15 years of experience in small-town and small-state (small population-wise) politics, representing one-thousandth to one-tenth as many people as Quayle. Let’s score experience: Quayle
2; Palin 1.

So, at the end of Round 1, the total score is Quayle 3; Palin 2.

Both Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin are intellectual pantywaists. Quayle was famous for his ignorance. Take
his comment when asked about the recently adopted goal of putting Americans on Mars. He said, “Mars is essentially in the same orbit [as earth]….Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is
very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.”

Palin has revealed herself, to the embarrassment of educated and law-abiding Alaskans, to be a dupe of
the creationist publicity campaign. In a debate during her 2006 bid for the governorship, she said, “Teach both [evolution and creationism in pubic schools]. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.” Apparently, then-candidate Palin did not know that the teaching of creationism has been repeatedly found to violate the Constitution’s prohibition of promoting religion. (more) “Teach both” is illegal.

How shall we score Round 2, Intellect?

As vice president, Quayle had an amazing track record of intellectual imbecility which is only sampled here. Although she has only had a short time to disprove her cognitive competence, she already has one demerit. It is only one demerit, however, so we must give Palin one point for intellect. Stay tuned. This candidate shows a lot of promise for eventually equaling Quayle’s cerebral incompetence.

The score for Round 2: Quayle 0; Palin 1.

Both Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin are members of a privileged elite. Quayle came of age during the Viet
Nam war, graduating from college in 1969. He was at risk of being drafted and sent to Viet Nam to be cannon fodder. It is widely believed that he circumvented the draft by using the political connections of his wealthy family to land a position in the Indiana National Guard. At that time, it was very unlikely that a national guard unit would be deployed to Viet Nam, and indeed, Quayle’s was not.

Quayle, at least, was forced to register for the draft on his eighteenth birthday. Palin avoided even that, thanks to her privileged status. As an aspiring politician, Palin could have demonstrated her patriotism, courage, and integrity by volunteering for the armed forces, but she did not.

How do the candidates measure up in Round 3, Military Service?

Even though he avoided the draft, Quayle did serve. He deserves a point for that: Quayle 1; Palin 0.

That concludes our scoring of the parallels in the public lives of Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin. What
are the totals?

Quayle: 4; Palin: 3

Quayle wins!!

Sarah Palin is Dan Quayle lite. I wonder if she knows how to spell “potatoe?”

Links:

McCain-Palin Official Web Site

Office of the Governor of Alaska

More Links

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.

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.

Tree Kangaroo Picture, click here.

Aren’t they cute? In some poses, they resemble a chunky cat. Maybe that is because cats are somewhat adapted for climbing. In their spare time, tree kangaroos pose for toy makers.

Kangaroos are marsupials, an early-evolved form of mammal. Kangaroos and similar animals are known for having big feet and hopping. Their big, narrow and long, feet are adapted to locomotion on grassy plains. The plains-dwelling kangaroos cannot walk! They have to hop! At low speeds, this is not very energy efficient, but at 10 km/hr and faster, they recover energy from leg tendons that stretch and rebound during hopping.

Kangaroos evolved from (p. 58 ff.) a (cute) marsupial something like the living pygmy possum, an Australia native that shares some unusual features with the kangaroo. The kangaroo ancestor, unlike the pygmy possum, was arboreal–lived in trees. They evolved into ground-dwelling kangaroos during the Eocene Epoch, roughly 45 million years ago. Although their unique foot evolved very early in their history, it was later that hopping evolved.

Tree kangaroos (also see: tree kangaroos) live in Australia, New Guinea, and nearby islands. They are about two feet (70 cm) tall and weigh about 25 pounds (11 kg). The 12 or so species of tree kangaroos have a hand-over-hand, foot-over-foot gait; they don’t have to hop. Along with well developed front claws and a big tail for balance, this makes them agile climbers. They evolved from ground-dwelling kangaroos who returned to life in the trees. It is unknown whether the parent species hopped or walked and ran.

Although they are comfortable on the ground, tree kangaroos are quite skilled arborealists. They can leap from limb to limb over a distance of 20 ft. Their big tail helps them maintain balance while airborne. They also have the remarkable ability to jump to the ground from a height of 60 ft without being hurt!

It is interesting to look at other tree-dwelling animals and speculate about what might evolve from the tree kangaroo. What lives in trees now? Well, I can think of monkeys, chimpanzees, lemurs, tree sloths, squirrels including flying squirrels, sugar gliders. and Teletubbies. There are plenty more, from microscopic no-see-ems of all sorts to macroscopic insects, but these forms are not likely to be taken by kangaroos in the foreseeable future. It is noteworthy that birds and bats frequent trees.

With their herbivorous (vegetarian) diet and climbing and leaping skills, tree kangaroos seem to occupy the same ecological niche as monkeys and lemurs. It may be that tree kangaroos are so well adapted to this niche that there is no room for new animal forms (probably at the Family level) to evolve in it. More species of tree kangaroo may be possible in this niche. On the other hand, their rear feet don’t look optimal for living in a tree. Monkeys, chimps, lemurs, and sloths all have proportionately smaller, hand-like rear feet. Maybe the tree kangaroo will enter new ecological niches by adaptive radiation.

It looks like there are a couple of avenues open for further adaption to life in the trees. Tree kangaroos might go the “slow” route and develop hanging around to a high art, as sloths have done. Or, they could go “fast” and become the flying squirrel and sugar glider of the future. Leaping, as they do, from tree to tree and 60 ft to the ground, it sure seems like some built-in parachuting would lend a competitive advantage. Since they don’t have feathers, further evolution into a bird is quite unlikely, but what comes next after flying squirrel or sugar glider? Might they not evolve into bat-like creatures? I wonder if they would still be cute?

And can it be far from flying squirrel, sugar glider, and bat to PTEROSAUR?

Evolution is undirected, and consequently, cannot be predicted. It might not even be predictable if we had full knowledge of environmental conditions and evolutionary mechanisms. Chance just might have too large a role.

The undirectedness of evolution gives many creationists a problem. They want to believe that their lives are looked over (they might say “shepherded”) by a loving God who is in control of the Universe. The thought that human beings evolved from an ape-like ancestor by chance, rather than being created from the dust of the earth, is disturbing to them.

I doubt that creationists look to the future to wonder what people could evolve into. Our ancestors may have come down from the trees to the African plains. Like the tree kangaroo, we may develop strong arms with long claws, a large tail, and an irresistible cuteness, and return to the trees!

]]> http://rockymeanders.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/whither-the-tree-kangaroo/feed/ 1 rocky8979 http://rockymeanders.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/expelled-no-intelligence-allowed-is-it-a-success-for-creationists/ http://rockymeanders.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/expelled-no-intelligence-allowed-is-it-a-success-for-creationists/#comments Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:16:57 +0000 rocky8979 http://rockymeanders.wordpress.com/?p=18 ]]>

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 is a contemptible propaganda movie that trumpets fallacious reasoning that readily can be disproven. Accepting evolutionary theory does not require that one be an atheist. Nazi atrocities were not caused by the acceptance of evolution. All decision-making personnel involved with this movie either knew these claims were false, or should have known.

It has been encouraging to read critics’ reviews. They do get it. As English majors who avoided as many science and math classes as possible, I was doubtful about their ability to see through the malarkey that is Expelled. I will have to revise upward my expectations of movie critics!

I suspect that their understanding was enhanced by the informative Internet responses from scientists, such as those from NCSE, Panda’s Thumb, and Pharyngula. Scientists should praise these efforts! I know I do! Praise be to NCSE, Panada’s Thumb, Pharyngula, and all the other science bloggers, commenters, and otherwise posters who countered Expelled‘s pernicious content!

Those opposing Expelled are mainly highly educated and liberal-leaning, if not far out in left field. We (I include myself in that category) have a tendency to dismiss this movie because it so scurrilously shills for its perspective, ignoring the normal rules of reasoned discourse, like, say, telling the TRUTH! and representing opponents’ positions FAIRLY!

While scientists (and, I am glad to say, movie critics!) will not be convinced by this reprehensible movie, with all due respect, I would like to point out that they are not the target audience.

A typical movie in wide release plays at around 3,000 theaters. Expelled only played at 1,052 on its opening weekend. That was because the movie was targeted to less-urban areas where educational levels are relatively low (fewer college graduates) and conservative attitudes prevail. The specious reasoning and emotional pleading in Expelled is designed to appeal to high school graduates and dropouts who do not have the analytical thinking skills of college graduates.

With its target audience, I am afraid, it will be a highly influential tool for shaping beliefs. For one thing, the mere fact that this movie was made and publicized causes the “lightly educated” and uncritical believers to whom it was targeted to believe that there is some doubt about the validity of evolution.

Beyond that, around 420,000 people saw the movie on the first weekend. It is a good guess that between 1 million and 2 million will have seen it before it ends its theatrical run. Every conservative church in the land, and plenty of liberal ones, will have several congregants who have seen the movie, sing its praises, and disperse its offal.

Furthermore, this movie will circulate on DVDs for decades. While the “lightly educated” are often averse to printed materials, they will watch television. This movie will be played innumerable times in church discussion groups and “educational” programs. Watch for the DVD, after a short initial full cost run, to be distributed at a greatly reduced price that only covers the costs of copying it. Before long–less than a year–I think they will be giving it away to church groups and encouraging believers to make their own copies.

One success scored in the run up to the movie and during the opening weekend is the movie got people using the term “Darwinism.” No, scientists won’t adopt the term at work. However, the “lightly educated” target audience will use the term freely. Even movie critics who detest the film are saying “Darwinism” and “Darwinist.” The point is to associate “Dawinism” with communism and Nazism. All three are pigeonholed as destructive social movements to which one might subscribe or not, as suits one tastes.

I’m afraid that Expelled is a win for the creationists, both in its short term and long term effects.

I am also afraid that the sterling response made before and during the movie’s release will not be built upon for the long term. There is talk of a film to be made in response to Expelled, but I am afraid that will turn out like a PBS or BBC nature program, most appealing to the college educated. There is already a lot of stuff like that out there!  Please! if you have to make a movie like this to exorcise some evil spirit that blinds your insight, do so the least expensive way!  Start with a bunch of those PBS and BBC docs and cut and splice them to make a new film.  Add some narration and Voila! you’ve got yerself a response to Expelled.

Although we don’t need another nature documentary, a couple of responses are needed. One should be directed at the Expelled target audience of “lightly educated” believers who hate evolution because their pastors said that it is bad. The response to this group needs to begin where they are, “evolution is bad,” and take them to the point of understanding the basics of evolutionary theory, that evolution does not lead to negative social movements, and that acceptance of evolution does not require one to be an atheist. It is probably too much to attempt to convert them from their anti-evolution stance. Their guide in this journey should be a religious leader.

The Expelledists have already shown their screed to members of several state legislatures. Another response should be directed at state and Federal legislators and other politicians, and local school board members. These people are mostly college educated, with the possible exception of school boards in very rural areas. They have different concerns than the general populations, and they are able to understand more information and more complex issues. They need to learn the same material as the Expelled target audience, plus legal issues, plus the disservice done to students by omitting evolution from the curriculum.

The response to Expelled need not be a film or only a film. Whatever it is, I hope we get it right.

Rocky

Links for the posts in this series:

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

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

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

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

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.

(Caveat emptor! I have no connection to the movie industry. This post is based on snippets of information I have accumulated as a movie fan and on wild speculation!)

“Distribution” includes making deals with theaters, advertising, making prints of the movie (for Expelled: 1-1/2 hours of 35 mm color film at 24 frames per second times 1,052 theaters–a major expense), and getting the prints to and from theaters.

For distributors, it would be better if Expelled opened in more than 1,000 theaters (2,500 to 3,500 theaters is typical for a wide release). They are satisfied, however, because they are paid for the services they render and do not have much of a stake in the success of the movie.

With a typical movie, the producers have everything riding on the movie’s financial success. Producers, like the director, writer, and principle actors, get a percentage of the profits. Unlike the others, they only get a percentage of the profits.

Although most producers have a production company that pays them a salary, the real money is in the profits. The first weekend, the theater only keeps around 20% of the money it takes in. Each week they keep a little more, until after four or five weeks, they keep most of it.

A movie that cost $25 million to make and distribute, as does an average movie today, could bring in far more than $100 million–or lose everything. Prom Night (2008), which is just as bad a movie as Expelled, cost an estimated $18 million to make and distribute. In it’s first weekend, it brought in $21 million, and after two weeks it had earned in $32 million! The producers are rolling in the dough!

Expelled brought in $3.0 million in its first weekend. About 80% of that, $2.4 million, went to the producers and the people they pay a portion of the profits to (distributor, director, actor)

IMDB does not have budget figures for Expelled, but I read somewhere it cost $3.5 million to make. [I don't know how reliable that figure is, but it sure looked like it would be cheap--talking heads, stock footage, and simple (mostly) animations.]

The advance screenings used to promote the movie were very inexpensive. All the producers paid for were travel expenses for one or two people for a few weeks–maybe a hall rental here and there. Presumably, they lost no income from people who stayed away from the movie because they had seen an advance screening. I say that because the purpose of these screenings was to generate publicity, that is, to bring in more people than they kept away. I assume they know from research or experience that the gains would outnumber the losses.

The producers paid nothing at all for the free attention the movie got as a result of the controversy it generated. In fact, the shouting and name-calling from well educated liberals must have fed the ardor of many “lightly educated” conservatives among the target audience. (Note that I did not say they should not have vociferated about this movie.)

Expelled was advertised nationwide. I saw one commercial on a major cable network (USA?), but I don’t know what advertising may have been done on other networks or in other media. I don’t know how much cost to assign to advertising. I’m going to make a blind guess that $5 million would pay for a nationwide multimedia campaign directed at half the population. I say “half” because Expelled was released in 1,052 theaters while the usual wide release is to 2,500 to 3,500 theaters.

I also don’t have figures for the cost to distribute a film. Let’s guess $1,000 per screen or $1 million total.

So the unreliable figures for costs are: $3.5 million to produce, $5 million to advertise, and $1 million to distribute, for a total of $9.5 million–may as well round up to $10 million.

At separate points in the movie, Expelled contains 25 seconds of the John Lennon song Imagine and about one minute of animation that closely duplicates animation produced by XVIVO. Yoko Ono has filed a lawsuit to stop distribution of the movie, so long as it contains the Lennon piece. Presumably, XVIVO will also.

The producers of Expelled claim that the quote from Imagine is subject to the Fair Use Doctrine because the quote is brief and they are using it in a work of criticism. If I recall correctly, the movie played only two lines, or 8% of lines, from the 26-line song: “Nothing to kill or die for; And no religion, too.” Looked at another way, the copied passage lasts 25 seconds, or 14%, of the song’s 184 second playing time. I’m no lawyer, BUT, I think 10% is the usual criterion for “brief” in Fair Use cases. On the other hand, “criticism” usually means applying literary criticism to the quoted work, which the movie does not do. It looks to me that Ono is likely to win the lawsuit, but that it is not a sure thing.

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Addendum, April 26, 2008: Excellent discussion of the Fair Use Doctrine in relation to Expelled will be found at Shots from the Battery.

April 27, 2008: An excellent and very readable discussion of Fair Use comes from Stanford University.

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The internal workings of the cell are almost too complicated to comprehend. To make this animation, XVIVO had to leave out most of what is happening in the cell. The copy of the XVIVO animation (click on Animation > Medical Education > Inner Life of the Cell) changes colors and makes minor changes in the positioning of the features depicted. The odds that Expelled and XVIVO would independently include the same small fraction of cell activities, and furthermore, illustrate the remaining activities in the same way, are nil. The changes that Expelled made are trivial. Expelled plagiarized the XVIVO animation and should pay. (For a chuckle and a better understanding of the issue, see The Official Expelled Paternity Test.)

So, the producers will need to deduct the judgment from at least one, and probably two lawsuits from their profit. How much will they have to pay? In these cases, the plaintiffs are likely to forbid Expelled from using their works at all, plus ask for payment for the stolen work. If they succeed, this will leave Expelled with 1,000 prints of their film that cannot be used until the offending parts have been replaced by splicing replacement film in. (I assume splicing would be less expensive that making new prints.) This might cost (blind guess) $200 per print and they might have 500 prints fixed for $100,000.

Judgments usually in this type of case are usually for damages plus a punitive judgment. The damage is the amount of money that the owners would have earned if Expelled had payed reasonable usage fees. Let’s guess that that might be $1,000 per second or $25,000 for Imagine and $100,000 for the XVIVO animation. In cases of egregious violations, as the XVIVO copy seems to be, punitive damages usually top out at about three times actual damage. So this might mean a $400,000 judgment for XVIVO.

The Imagine case is more marginal. They might be judged to have quoted a brief passage, and the judge might be lenient, assuming that they made an honest mistake based on errant legal advice. Maybe the punitive judgment would equal the damages, making my guess at the settlement for Ono $50,000 plus legal fees.

Of course, Expelled might settle out of court, dramatically reducing, and hiding from public knowledge, the amount of the settlements.

So, let’s tally up the expenses and income. I already guessed (above) that production cost $10 million. Add to this the guess that lawsuits will cost $450,000 (plus legal fees, let’s say, $100,000) and the cost of removing the plagiarized portions from 500 prints, $100,000. That yields a guess at total costs of $10.65 million.

As I guessed above, the producers received perhaps $2.4 million from the first weekend. The usual drop in revenue from week-to-week is about 1/3. That would give a prediction of about $1.6 million for the second weekend and $1.1 million for the third. Because of the heavy emphasis that promotion placed on attending the movie in the first weekend, expenses and revenue can be expected to drop precipitously in coming weeks. I doubt that the movie will be in theaters very long. In fact, I would bet that a lot of theaters do not carry it for three weeks. So, I am being charitable the above figures to get a guess at in-theater revenue of $5.1 million.

With costs of more that $10 million and revenue at something like $5 million, the producers are going to take a hit at the end of the theatrical release.

Will they care? Expelled is not a typical movie. It is propaganda produced, it is safe to guess, by wealthy, conservative, Christian zealots; why else would their identities be kept secret? The producers may consider $5 million to be a bargain price for all the attention they brought to their cause.

Well educated liberals may think that the movie is insignificant because it did not prove its points. However, it is the “lightly educated” conservatives who were targeted by this movie. Their doubts about evolution have been reinforced merely by the fact that this movie was made, and those 500,000 or more who will have seen it, will have had their anti-evolution positions hardened by its deceitful rhetoric.

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Added May 1, 2008: “Nearly $4 million was spent on producing the movie and “a multiple of that” in distribution and marketing so far, Mr. Craft says.To make a profit, Expelled needs strong enough attendance to land an all-important DVD deal. Mr. Craft says six companies have approached Premise so far.”

Source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/columnists/chall/stories/DN-Hall_27bus.ART0.State.Edition1.4655452.html

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Rocky

Links for the posts in this series:

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

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

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

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

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 played in 1,052 theaters, mostly outside the big cities. Wide releases usually open in 2,500 to 3,500 theaters. Here in the Charleston, W.Va. area, my ticket for a Saturday evening showing was $8; matinées at the same theater are $6. So, figuring the average ticket cost was $7, gives a total audience of around 420,000.

Because theaters have a fixed number of screens, theater owners are concerned about how much they earn per screen. Except during the first week or two of a blockbuster release, movies run on one screen in the less-urban areas.

Rotten Tomatoes gives the per theater revenue as $2,824. A movie as bad as this, playing outside big cities, would only run on one screen in the large majority (like, maybe 100%) of theaters, so we can take this as the per screen figure. This performance per theater is better than the 8th and 9th ranked films, (Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who and Leatherheads) which brought in $1,300 and $1,100 per theater, and in all likelihood, per screen.

The 4th and 5th ranked films (88 Minutes and Nim’s Island) brought in $3,200 and $1,700 per theater (number of screens unknown). So, although Expelled didn’t earn much money nationwide, it made 1,000 theater owners happy. They realized the revenue of a 4th or 5th ranked movie and only had one screen tied up.

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[I did the calculations in the second paragraph with many significant digits. Any apparent discrepancies are due to rounding the results to two significant digits. It may look like $7 has one significant digit, but, being an assumption, it is exact, with an infinite number of significant digits. Aspiring scientists should know all about significant digits/figures. To learn, try this: Significant Digits or this: Significant Figures .]

Rocky

Links for the posts in this series:

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

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

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

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

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.

As of this writing, Rotten Tomatoes has Expelled’s Tomatometer reading at 11% and its Average Rating as 3.1/10, both based on 27 critics’ reviews. Meta Critic gives it an average 23/100 for 12 critics’ reviews, and an average of 3.1/10 for 84 user reviews. User reviews at IMDB are similar to Meta Critic’s, 3.7/10, based on 2,132 user ratings. For comparison, Speed 2: Cruise Control has a Tomatometer reading of 4% and Zombie Strippers scores 41%

The distribution of user ratings at Meta Critic and IMDB are quite interesting! Both are strongly bimodal. Indeed, the histograms form a U-shape. At IMDB 33% of users rated it 1, 2, or 3 (good), while 61% rated it 8, 9, or 10 (bad). That only leaves 4% who gave moderate ratings. At Meta Critic, scores assigned by all 84 of the users who rated the movie are not shown, but of the 50 ratings that are shown, ratings are either 0, 1, and 2 (bad), or 8, 9, and 10 (good). This seems to point to posturing or lack of sophistication in one or the other set of reviewers. (As more users rate the movie, the above figures will change a little.)

MRQE doesn’t calculate average ratings, but it links to a dozen reviews that range from 0/4 (Slant Magazine) to 5/5 (Christian Spotlight on the Movies).

Expelled Exposed links to negative reviews, some of which comment on the scientific problems with the movie.

Rotten Tomatoes and Meta Critic, linked to above, have links to 27 and 12 critics’ reviews.

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Addendum, April 26, 2008: Two reviews, one by a conservative is what you would expect. The other, by a theologian, criticizes the content, rhetoric, and theology of the movie. Read them (at least the latter one) at To the Source.

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Rocky

Links for the posts in this series:

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

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

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

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

“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.

It was the early 80’s, before laptops were invented and before PCs were in wide use. I accompanied a biologist as he debated Dr. Henry M. Morris. Morris was a well regarded hydraulic engineering (canals, locks, dams, etc.) professor at Virginia Tech. He wrote a widely used textbook. With John C. Whitcomb, Morris also wrote The Genesis Flood, published in 1961. This book eventually evolved into “scientific creationism,” which Morris created. In 1972, Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research, which he headed for many years. Now it is lead by Dr. John D. Morris, Henry’s son.

The debate (creationist debates are debates in name only; they would be more accurately called lectures) alternated between the two speakers. While the biologist was speaking, Morris sat at a table flipping through 3″ x 5″ index cards. He had brought a huge leather briefcase from which he pulled two trays of cards. It has been a long time, but I would guess that he had 8,000 cards!

These cards each contained a quote that Morris had culled from the scientific literature or other source. He was listening to the scientist speak when one of his quotes was useful for undermining a point, he would pull the card and add it to his growing stack. When it came time for Morris to speak, he punctuated his talk with quotes from the cards. Like his writing, Morris’ talk was shamelessly peppered with mined quotes.

Does anyone know which creationist introduced quote mining? Does it go as far back as George McCready Price, or even before?

Rocky

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.