Upcoming and Ongoing Events By Megan Ferguson
Noah Penner's Random Movie Review Of The Week Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed - Half star out of four
Ben Crane Illustrator Webinar When: June 3 Location: Blackboard Collaborate Classroom. (Log in with the participant link found on Ning, or contact Mrs. Davies) Who: Grades 6-9. About: “This class is for Grades 6-9. Ben will show samples of his artwork, tell some of the stories behind the paintings, and demonstrate the step-bystep process he uses to paint digitally in Photoshop. He'll also talk about how cool it is to keep humour clean and positive. Ben will wind it up by singing you a few of his crazy songs.” –Mrs. Pippa Davies 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM Pacific Time. Poetry Competition When: Competition runs from April 9 Where: Post your submissions and view fellow students’ poems in the Poetry Competition group on Ning. (Deadline is the end of May) Who: Everyone is welcome! Notes: Prizes will be awarded.
Expelled is a documentary hosted by Ben Stein that focuses on the "controversy" between intelligent design and evolution, which the film for some reason refers to as "Darwinism." Frankly, I've never heard anybody refer to relativity as "Einsteinism" or the Big Bang theory referred to as "Hawkingism," so I'm calling this one a cheap shot. That's the ultimate problem with this movie; it doesn't play fair. It lies, cheats, and blissfully twists the evidence with ridiculous editing. For example, when the film mentions directed panspermia, Ben Stein (a terrible Michael Moore wannabe) simply says "I thought we were talking about science!" while the film plays footage of 1950s sci-fi films. No talk about what makes this theory ridiculous, just a simple brushing off. The irony is that the film doesn't mention the widely accepted fact that it's currently impossible to scientifically prove that God exists, which the film could easily brush off by Stein saying the same thing and showing pictures of God sitting on a cloud! The film also fails to mention people like Francis Collins (who said he was denied an interview for the film) who successfully combine their views of evolution and religion without conflict. Of course, no evidence is given in the film as to why evolution is a widely-accepted idea, even though all it's evidence for intelligent design consists of Stein effectively pointing at fancy pictures of cells and saying "Look! It's just too complex to have possibly evolved! God did it!" The claim is also made that evolution helped cause the holocaust. I say, if "Darwinism" really caused the holocaust, then Hitler clearly didn't understand that evolution isn't about being overall better, it's about adapting to your environment better, and that also according to Darwin, the "better adapted Aryan race" would simply replace the "less adapted Jewish race" over time with no intervention required. Intelligent Design also isn't represented well in the film. The definition given is that it involves looking for patterns in nature that must've been placed there by a intelligent agent, no matter the method of how everything else was created. This makes perfect sense; even Richard Dawkins agrees with it later in the film, which Stein jumps on! If that's the case then, why does ID in real life comprise mostly of giving reasons why evolution is wrong? According to William Dempski in the film, ID can still be compatible with evolution! Sadly, it all fits perfectly into the idea that ID is nothing but rehashed creationism bundled into a nice package, which is obviously the exact opposite intention of those who support it. It saddens me that people take this film so seriously when it distorts such information. Nobody in the film lost their job due to speaking about ID (one teacher's contract simply expired, other simply threw hissy-fits at losing their jobs), and evolution is gravely misrepresented in the film. The film may look nice, but on the inside, it reeks of wasted opportunities for a good film about the interesting and legitimate ideas of intelligent design. Shame.