‘Expelled’s’ Creationism is Bankrupt but Persistent (and Politically Connected)
A look back at the mess that Expelled was and became, and the good news that the company behind it has gone bankrupt:
Consider it proof that the opponents of evolutionary science are not just intellectually bankrupt. […]
And as the blogger, John Rennie, further explains:
Putting so much effort into rebutting Expelled seemed worthwhile at the time because it seemed all too plausible that if the film became a popular success, it might further energize the creationists’ efforts to compromise the teaching of evolution in public schools. In the end, Expelled grossed about $7.7 million, which isn’t bad for a documentary […] but if it turned a profit, it wasn’t enough to keep the holding company that owned it afloat, which is why the movie is now scheduled for the auction block. The schadenfreude doesn’t come any schadenfreude-ier.
And I agree with Mr. Rennie as he points out:
We supporters of good science education should take satisfaction in these victories when we can… but the war is far from over. As Robert Luhn of the NCSE summarizes the situation:
This has been a busy year for creationists. Since January, anti-science legislators in seven states have proposed nine bills attacking evolution and evolution education. Many are so-called “academic freedom” bills, like Tennessee’s HB 368, which allows teachers to “help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.” (For general background on academic freedom acts, go here.
But that’s not all. Some of these bills also target such “controversial” theories as global warming, the chemical origins of life, and human cloning.
Fortunately, of those nine proposed bills, seven died in committee. Tennessee’s HB 368 passed, but the identical bill in the state senate (SB 893) was tabled until 2012. Next year it will return to haunt us. […]
It’s a long haul indeed, to fight for education in the face of willful ignorance. Convincing people of what they don’t want to hear is almost always difficult and takes a great deal of time and patience. And against the delusional escapism of creationism, in whatever form, the change has come in American society over many decades and I suspect it will be many more decades before creationism is truly sidelined in American thought.
