Ed Brayton is pretty excited and so are the readers over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. Calm down guys, it's a friggin' movie ... you know, love scenes, car chases, ... that sort of thing. It ain't gonna be another "Inherit the Wind." Instead think "Contact."
I can see it now. There'll be a character from NSCE like Nick Matzke (that's him on the left of the photograph) or Wesley Elsberry (second from the left). The hero will be an atheist. (Sorry Nick and Wes.) Paramount should get Antonio Banderas (a real agnostic) to play Nick. (Incidently, the other handsome dude in the picture is John Harshman. Steve Steve is sitting on the table.)Nick will fall in love with a sexy Christian school board member, played by Madonna. There'll be a car chase when some of the local yokels try to run Nick off the road. At the end of the movie Nick has to leave town realizing he can never make it with the Christian, ... but there will be at least three attempts. The trial itself will be irrelevant.
This is not something that evolutionists should look forward to. First, it's about one of our biggest failures—a situation were we completely failed to get our message out to the general public and had to rely on lawyers and legal trickery to defend evolution. Second, it's likely to be very sympathetic to the Christians, just like "Contact." The story will end with the audience thinking that good Christians can triumph over atheism. Nick the movie character might even convert to theistic evolution.
12 comments :
The movie will be a comedy- just like the trial.
"we completely failed to get our message out to the general public and had to rely on lawyers and legal trickery to defend evolution"
There was no "legal trickery" involved, though the DI has been peddling that line. There was evidence and reasoned argument. Now, what was that other other endeavour people undertake that involves evidence and reasoned argument? Starts with an 's'.
Larry, you're missing out on why I'm excited about it. Of course the movie will be inaccurate. But Wesley and I are working on a book to tell the real story of the trial, and this would be a great way to promote that book if the movie actually gets made (much like Edward Larson's book capitalized on the success of Inherit the Wind).
Ed, I can understand why you're interested in the trial if you think it will help promote your book.
But be careful. The movie could easily backfire on us. I'm not sure that it's a good idea to trust Hollywood to advance the cause of rationality over superstition. They don't have a very good track record.
Mike says,
There was no "legal trickery" involved, though the DI has been peddling that line. There was evidence and reasoned argument. Now, what was that other other endeavour people undertake that involves evidence and reasoned argument? Starts with an 's'.
Of course there was legal "trickery." That's why you had to have a trial in the first place. Several million dollars were spent trying to prove that; (a) Intelligent Design Creationism is religious (duh!) (b) the constitution of the United States says you can't teach religion in public schools (what?).
The constitution says no such thing but there have been several generations of lawyers who have earned a good living proving otherwise. At some point in the future the lawyers are going to present "evidence" and "reasoned" arguments in favor of teaching anti-science and they'll win one of the cases. The constitution will be re-interpreted by the Supreme Court once again. What are you going to say then—I'm betting you'll complain about legal trickery.
No civilized country in the world would have such a ridiculous trial.
Of course there was legal trickery involved:
1) ID has nothing to do with religion.
2) Intelligent Design is NOT Creationism
That people came away from the trial thinking the above is incorrect is evidence for that trickery.
As for a book about the trial, read "Traipsing Into Evolution"...
Will Wayne Knight be playing Matzke? How about Thom Bray as Elseberry?
I would just like to point out that Madonna is old enough to be my mom (18 years older).
But put a 30-year old superbabe in there and Larry's summary of the movie sounds just ducky to me.
Nick
Congratulations on the new blog - I got here via Pandas...
My main comment: Can Angelina Jolie (Atheist BTW) play Barbara Forrest?
pz myers: Unfortunately, one of the lessons of the book is that the creationist opposition, including the DI, were utter idiots.
Yes, it would have been nicer to have beaten out a bunch of nefarious geniuses, but geniuses are not as likely to be IDiots. It's a sweet victory anyway, and I look forward to reading the forthcoming books on Dover.
Why would Darwin be credited with the two best books? If you rate your books by audience then the Bible will likely top ur list, If you rate your books by influence on global image then perhaps the Bible will still top it, If you rather take the greatest scientific literature then clearly Newton's works and Einstein's writing will take the cake or even perhaps some earlier literature seen in foreign languages like greek and arabic, and if you rather stick with modern scientific influence on our thought through evolutionary ideas then clearly Systema Naturae by Linnaeus will top ur list as its classification system is trully the evolutionary concept we use the most, and finally if you are simply looking for the most influencial writing on today's platform it would obviously go to glamor magazine or playboy with our society. Im sorry to say prof. but I believe your obsession is not with Evolution but with Darwin! I dont understand why the concept of evolution is so ingrained into Darwin's work, perhaps thats why so many "bigots" as you say don't acknowledge it. Its time for all of us I believe to give credit to other evolutionary ideas aside from remaining on Darwin's feet, maybe we need to aknowledge other's work too and refrain from being the "bigots" we despise.
This is entirely the wrong thread to be talking about the thread about science books. I replied to your comment on the L-gulose thread, so you should probably read that first. At any rate, forward ho!
1) The Bible is not a science book.
2) Einstein, to my knowledge, did not write any books. He wrote scientific papers. And letters, which people later catalogued.
3) Modern influence, as you mentioned, is the criterion at issue. Thus, Linnaeus's work about taxonomy, while influential on the subject of classification, is not the most important concept behind evolution. If anything, it has very little to do with evolution. I would have assumed you took BIO150 before I read your statements.
4) I think it would be beneficial for you to read as to why Prof. Moran is not a Darwinist, and perhaps review BIO150 (a whole YEAR on evolution and ecology). If you do, you would realise that Darwinism is NOT the modern take on evolution, that it underwent a synthesis with Mendelian genetics (i.e. the Modern Synthesis), after which biologists realised that natural selection cannot be the only mechanism of evolution (cue in genetic drift), and maybe you will realise that biologists DO accept evolutionary ideas aside from Darwin. If you meant alternative ideas such as creationism/ID, that's a whole other run-on sentence. Please please please just read up about evolution before you start espousing equality between ideas-- you do not have to take a theoretical biology course to understand evolution. Heck, I think I'm in your BCH class.
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