Editor's note: This story is part of a series "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed--Scientific American's Take."
On March 28, 2008, some of the editors of Scientific American watched a screening of Expelled at our offices and had a discussion with the associate producer* of the film, Mark Mathis. This is the entire recording of the discussion, uncut. The first voice you hear is John Rennie, the editor in chief of Scientific American.
*Note: Mark Mathis was originally identified as the associate editor of Expelled.
Other voices you will hear are
- Steve Mirsky
- Phil Yam, News Editor for Scientific American Magazine, at 39 minutes, 46 seconds (5:17 of Part 2)
- Dan Schlenoff, Copy Editor, at 40:53 (6:24 of Part 2)
- Aaron Fagan, Copy Editor, at 67:46 (33:17 of Part 2)
A couple of notes:
At 63:11, (28:43 of Part 2) Rennie is reacting to Mathis, who turned to the rest of the editors and silently mimicked Rennie as he spoke.
One point requires response here. Mathis charged that some 92 percent of the judge’s decision in the Dover intelligent design trial was copied directly from papers filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). We said we would follow up and find out the truth. We did. In fact, Mathis was wrong in three ways. One, even the Discovery Institute’s own charge is that the judge copied 90.9 percent of ACLU material for one specific section in the judge’s decision. Second, a correct statistical workup finds that the number is as low as 35 percent, depending on whether you include material filed that is not included in the decision and the length of word strings. But the most important point is one that I guessed at in the conversation. We spoke to actual legal experts who told us that when the sides in a trial file their facts, it is with the hope that they make the case strongly enough for the judge to incorporate their texts into the finding of fact section of the decision. Therefore the charges that Mathis makes against Judge Jones are both incorrect in detail and spurious in spirit. For more information, you can go to footnote 88 in the Wikipedia entry on the Discovery Institute. There’s more info on the permissibility of using filed facts in a decision at The Panda’s Thumb Web site, pandasthumb.org. It’s an entry called "Weekend at Behe’s" dated December 12, 2006.
References:
http://vangogh.fdisk.net/~welsberr/kvd/
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/12/weekend-at-behe.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Institute_intelligent_design_campaigns
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13 Comments
Add CommentI've so far only listened to part one of this podcast. The amount of time that Mark Mathis allowed for discussion was far from sufficient for a reasonable discussion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is incredibly grating to hear that Mathis talk about scientific institutions and scientific methodology, of which he obviously knows nothing about. He doesn't understand evidence and neither does he understand evolution. Furthermore, that Atheism is a requirement for science, and that it has an agenda. Lack of God does not make a religion.
I do feel that ID has a place in academics, but it is in the humanities. There it would not have problems being "explored."
'come ooonnnn' Those IDists have got a nerve drumming up that video of Richard Dawkins supposedly being stumped when answering a question. What about this bumbling whining idiot? er...... oh..... ah..... 'come ooonnnn, you've been talking more than I have'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--
Edited by JayUK84 at 04/10/2008 8:39 AM
Mark Mathis is a master of PR. He wrote a book entitled, "Feeding the Beast: An Easy Recipe for Great Publicity" and also heads his own PR firm called Mathis Media. His ability to 'pass the baloney' was stripped naked in this conversation with SciAm's Rennie and Mirsky.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA great exercise in backpedaling, excuse-making and general bamboozlement from Mr. PR himself. Mathis slips back and forth between supreme credulity of ideas he agrees with and then imposing massive incredulity to those with which he does not.
Anyone wanting to go into PR should take lessons from Mathis on how to stay cool when being shown to be disastrously mistaken and misleading in his role as Associate Producer. That is, until the end, when he keeps going "oh, come on" and then mocks Rennie quietly like a child.
This was a great conversation - pure 'fact vs. rumor' gold.
Thank you one and all for exposing Ben Stein for being an absolute slave to ideology. Now -- spread the word!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI really do appreciate people pushing for fairness and good journalism. For consistencys sake, however, I eagerly expect Scientific American to start promoting the same view for the play Inherit the Wind , which is actually a great candidate for this effort and runs over and over in schools around the country every year.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs Chuck Norris is to the roundhouse kick, John Rennie is to critical analysis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJohn Rennie eliminates wooliness so effectively, he's a danger to sweaters.
John Rennie has a special "spidey sense" for impending bullshit.
If Tops released a line of "Good Guy" cards for kids to trade and collect, John Rennie would be the Hank Aaron of the set.
Way to go SciAm!
I am so proud of you guys.
As I said on the SGU, Rennie and Mirsky et al just went up about 10 notches on my cool-ass-o-meter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell that was interesting, to say the least. I thought this was handled quite well. Mathis was quite flustered by the end. Good job taking him to task, though I do feel that no one was going for the kill. I suppose that they wanted to keep him, and didn't want him to just walk out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThose who dish out propaganda deserve to dine on mockery. Well done, SA.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAtheism is a religion?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen I guess not collecting stamps is a hobby.
I'm dizzy from all of Mathis' spin.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisboth mp3's in this article are part 1, part 2 is missing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe thing that I find so frustrating about this appeal to fairness on the part of the creationist movement, is that the Natural Philosophers among us so seldom answer the question. We try to explain what Science is, as method whereby we assay the value and truth of our explanations to understand the natural world. Sadly, the mindset of the theist, i.e., God exists, thus only supportive facts are real, can admit no such rational because as it conflicts with the only rule of theism. It is an absurdity to their unique logic. Which is precisely why every creationist will immediately ask the same question again, directly on the heels of that answer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo… Why not give this exquisite answer: Science has always looked at all available evidence, avidly searching for any reproducible fact or phenomenon that seems to violate the natural laws that we seek to better understand. For the first twenty–five hundred years we did this, the rational were usually stoned, or poisoned, or otherwise executed in the spirit of fairness. Still we looked. For the next twelve to thirteen-hundred years we were burned at the stake, in a spirit of inclusion. Yet undeterred, still others took their turn, and for the next hundred and fifty years or so, we were merely fired , or jailed, or in a few cases hung/beheaded, and all for the continuing heresy of finding that there was no proof.
For thousands of years theology was was fundamental to, and inseparable from, all forms of natural inquiry. For hundreds more, any deity might have presented some evidence, and this in spite of the definitions of gods excluding them from logical testing, even unexplained evidence would have been recognizable, and recorded, and studied, even if it remained explainable.
Their paradigm was included. The proposition failed. Four-thousand years was fair enough. Four thousand years of persecution and homicide, all in the spirit of love and kindness, is far more than enough.
We face serious problems. In a time when the vast majority of the population are so under-educated, and scientifically illiterate, that they can not even tell that there is no intersection between the seminal finding in the Biological Sciences and their fondly admired theology - they actually seek to thwart the work and training of the few left among them who might actually be able to develop some solutions. It's now more than an annoyance. It's despicable.
Coffey3C