Fighting The Good Fight

by tristero

A new piece of propaganda called Expelled is about to be inflicted on an America that needs more lies the way a dog needs a huge helping of chocolate – if we enthusiastically consume it, it will make us sick and is possibly fatal. This particular movie says that Darwinian ideas are responsible for the Holocaust. It is an insult to millions of educated people, let alone working scientists, to so much as acknowledge, let alone refute such stupid assertions. But this is 21st America, where a person’s bowling style is more important than the planning of torture at the highest level of the US government. So for the record, Darwin’s ideas had less to do with the Holocaust than the rabid anti-semitism of, say, Luther, which is rarely invoked as causing the Final Solution.

Scientists and organizations have decided, perhaps counter-intuitively, to make a big deal out of the release of Expelled, the reasoning being that this is the perfect time to overwhelm the nonsense in the movie – “intelligent design” creationism – with a full court press of science combined with a rhetorical confrontation of outrage at and mockery of the film’s pretenses and makers. It’s a risky strategy. By deliberately “engaging” the film in withering criticism, you are, of course, helping publicize it and Expelled’s producers are hoping to bank on that. Scientists are betting that, at least in this case, bad publicity is, in fact, bad publicity. And so far, Expelled has received rotten reviews from mainstream media and also from some extreme right media such as Fox News.

I think it is the right thing to refute Expelled and do so loudly; I think it will work. And if it does, even those liberals and moderates who don’t care that much about the issues at play over the teaching of evolution should pay attention. It just might elicit other ways to marginalize the toxic junk food of far right nonsense that has made mainstream political discourse in this country so bitterly unpalatable.

[UPDATE: A mixed metaphor was unscrambled.]