So there’s a little tidbit of information I ran across yesterday that gave me quite the laugh. And then I never got around to posting it here because, well, my science is working and when it’s working, you just gotta roll with it.

I’ll be posting a lot of links here, but do yourself and favor and actually follow them. They’re all great.

The gist of the story that made me laugh so hard yesterday is summed up nicely here.

Basically, evolutionary biology and creationism critic PZ Myers was escorted off the premises of a screening of the intelligent design propaganda movie Expelled. For doing nothing more disruptive than signing up for the screening online and standing in line to get in. With his family and a guest. His family and guest were allowed to attend the screening, and here’s where it gets hilarious and ironic at the same time. Because his guest? It was Richard fucking Dawkins.

(I found the fact that Myers and Dawkins were actually in town for the American Atheist Convention even more hilarious.)

Dawkins sat through the movie (which, btw, both him and Myers were conned into participating in – which makes it even more sketchy that Myers was thrown out), then made his presence known during the following Q&A session – pretty brave when you consider the entire audience was full of sympathetic viewers. His account of it all (wittily worded) can be found here.

(Best comment I found on Dawkins’ blog: “I still believe that Dawkins has undisclosed Ninja skills which allowed him to go unnoticed by security.” Dr. Dawkins, please teach me those skills…)

I just don’t get it. The so-called “purpose” of the film is to bring to light all the scientists that are supposedly losing their jobs/being denied tenure because they believe in creationism/intelligent design/religion. Because, it’s not like the director of the NIH is religious or anything. But to make a film about people being expelled from the field for their views, and then to, erm, expell someone from the screening of your movie because of…you guessed it, their views…is just, well, HYPOCRITICAL. Which is an adjective that just seems to follow right-wingers and religious folks around these days.

But without getting too deep into my beliefs about God/the universe and organized religion (and yes, you can believe in the former without subscribing to the latter), I just want to put forth the only argument that should be necessary to stop the teaching of creationism/intelligent design in science classes:

CREATIONISM IS NOT SCIENCE

Is that clear enough? In the movie Expelled, Ben Stein narrates:

“There are people out there that want to keep science in a little box where it can’t possibly touch god.”

Yeah, that box? It’s called EVIDENCE. It’s called THE MOTHERFUCKING SCIENTIFIC METHOD. Science is based on testing hypotheses. You can’t test the existence of God. There is no definitive evidence that God exists. That’s why it’s called FAITH.

However, you can test the theory of evolution (btw, it’s not the “fact” or “law” of evolution because science doesn’t use those terms anymore). And it’s been tested, many times over. And as someone much more intelligent than I once said, “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”

But if you’re still curious, here’s the trailer for the movie, seemingly composed entirely of statements taken out of context (what all good journalists do!):