Chris Mooney gets it right

He knows exactly why I want to give PZ and his crew a group hug.

Comments

[Rich]

But is it ethical, Kevin?
Does it make you proud?

[Nullifidian]

Ah, yes, the old "I meant to do that" defense.

If any publicity is good publicity, then you might as well have handed Ben Stein a semiautomatic and told him to go to town on the Friday night shoppers in the Mall of America, rather than screening the film. It would definitely raise the profile of the film, get guaranteed coverage, including the "holy goddamn New York Times", as they put it in Network, and it would certainly cause a stir of controversy.

There is a reason why organizations have PR firms, and it's to ensure that things like this *don't* happen. All you've managed to convince reasonable people of is that you're petty and vindictive hypocrites who would rather throw someone who is *thanked* in your film out because he's said some 'mean' things about the producer.

Yes, maybe some committed creationists will hear about the movie and see it, but they're not going to be convinced of anything since they're already true believers. People on the fence, however, have an innate sense of fair play and know that you've just violated that egregiously.

[Norman Doering]

Oh really?

If you're so hot for publicity why don't you invite all those scientists you interviewed to a screening of the film with a press conference afterwards so they can tell the media what they thought of how you used their footage?

Why throw them out? Don't they deserve to see it and comment? To correct any abuse of how you edited them? To clarify their thoughts?

[Dan]

I'm confused Kevin. Could you explain why you went through all that trouble to deceive and misrepresent the positions of others, when you could clearly accomplish more by actually talking to (and about) scientists, honestly.

[MattP]

Kevin:

In an earlier comment, you said "The big news that everyone is missing from the PZ story is that neither he nor Dawkins were invited to the screening. It was a private screening for invited guests only."

This seems to be at odds with the PZ's account that he had registered to attend the screening through the film's public web site.

I asked about this in the previous post, but perhaps you missed it. Was he crashing an invitation-only screening, or was he kicked out despite going through a legitimate process for attending the screening?

[Karl Mamer]

According to Dawkins, when he asked you (was it you?) why PZ was thrown out, you claimed it was because he was a gate crasher. But PZ applied for a ticket in the prescribed manner. Didn't you purposely mislead the audience with your answer? Someone out to champion truth I sure hope wouldn't simply tell a bald faced lie to his public. Neh?

[Andrew Waring]

Keven,
Do you deny that PZ had honestly registered online using the correct means? I'm curious to know who is lying as there is a very quick and easy way to check.

It seems to me that throwing out a person who actually appears in the film is shifty whether or not they were actually invited or not. I mean how honest can the film be if an interviewee is barred from seeing it?

[Duae Quartunciae]

Guys... Kevin has already apologised and retracted his remarks about gatecrashing. Kevin states that PZ Myers got in through the proper channels.

Just look back in the blog. The apology is "I REPENT!!" http://kevinwrites.typepad.com/otherwise_known_as_kevin_/2008/03/i-repent.html

[J. J. Ramsey]

"He knows exactly why I want to give PZ and his crew a group hug."

Yes, he does, but it doesn't reflect well on you. The reason that "PZ and his crew" might be good for you is that the public may remember the attention paid to you but forget your hypocrisy, or worse remember your spin about supposed "gatecrashing" and forget your backtracking. Essentially, you are relying on the public to forget what you should be ashamed of.

[Anon]

I am confused. You stated yesterday that:

"2. We have not lied about a Nazi-Atheism connection. If you actually watch the film, you'll see we don't even address that topic. However, we do address the Darwin-Hitler connection."

But the EXPELLED website states that:

" In fact, Nazi Germany is the thread that ties everything in the movie together. Evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany."

Which is it? Is evolution tied to nazism or not?

[Bad]

"He knows exactly why I want to give PZ and his crew a group hug."

i.e. because you know you can't win on the evidence or the soundness of your arguments. So "OMG an ATHEIST!" is all that's left.

[Kevin Miller]

Anon: What is the link 4 this statement on the expelled blog?

[Norman Doering]

Anon wrote:
"Which is it? Is evolution tied to nazism or not?"

The long history of Christian and even Martin Luther's anti-antisemitism probably contributed more to the holocaust than Darwin's theory:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/04/if-hitler-was-darwinist.html

Does the film ever mention that possibility?

And how could atheism lead to Nazis if Hitler repeatedly asserted his own Christianity:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/04/if-hitler-was-atheist.html

Does the film ever mention that Hitler said things like:
"We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
- Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933

[Anon]

Norman: Exactly. As anybody that has actually read (the very booring, but scary) book "Mein Kampf" knows: it mentions faith, god and christ, but never evolution. That antisemitism is a good bit older than Darwin, I (naivly?) thought was common knowledge.

The question was really directed to Kevin, about what his message with the movie really is, but thanks anyway for the clarification!

[Norman Doering]

Anon wrote:
"That antisemitism is a good bit older than Darwin, I (naivly?) thought was common knowledge."

It's apparently not common knowledge among fundies since people like Kevin seem to be in the business of lying to them.

[Anon]

Kevin: Go to www.expelledthemovie.com ,click on "Skip Flash", click on "News", click on "Continue" below the "Lead Story" heading, scroll to the end, highlight the (invisible) text after the words:

"SPOILER!! Proceed and highlight text below only if you want to know more about the film’s specific content.",

where you find the the following:

"Many scenes are centered around the Berlin Wall, and Ben Stein being Jewish actually visits many death camps and death showers. In fact, Nazi Germany is the thread that ties everything in the movie together. Evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany."

[Norman Doering]

And Kevin, when you're done explaining why you lied to Anon you might want to respond to Richard Dawkins' review:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,2394,Lying-for-Jesus,Richard-Dawkins

He says:
"The alleged association between Darwinism and Nazism is harped on for what seems like hours, and it is quite simply an outrage. We are supposed to believe that Hitler was influenced by Darwin. Hitler was ignorant and bonkers enough for his hideous mind to have imbibed some sort of garbled misunderstanding of Darwin (along with his very ungarbled understanding of the anti-semitism of Martin Luther, and of his own never-renounced Roman Catholic religion) but it is hardly Darwin's fault if he did."

[Kevin Miller]

Anon: Is that an official statement from the web site or someone's review of the film? Sounds like a review I remember reading at some point, not the official line from the filmmakers.

[Norman Doering]

Kevin,

Why would a reviewer of your film think that "Nazi Germany is the thread that ties everything in the movie together and that evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany" if your film didn't lead them to that conclusion?

If it's a commonly wrong conclusion, then why would you exploit it?

[QED]

Literary prostitution...nice profession you've chosen.

[phantomreader42]

So, Kevin, you love publicity. You don't care if you're publicly exposed as a hypocrite and a liar, as long as your name gets mentioned. You don't care that the movie is utter garbage, full of lies, and peppered with interviews obtained under false pretenses, as long as you get famous.

You really don't care about the truth, or basic human decency. You don't give a damn about the millions of holocaust victims whose memory you defiled to make a cheap attack. You just want to spread your foul propaganda as far as possible.

People like you are a major part of why I am no longer a chrisitan. No god worthy of the name would allow himself to be represented by such vile and despicable liars.

[Anon]

Kevin: As it is posted under "News" and "Lead story", I read it as an official statement. There is nothing indicating that it should be read as an independent review (.e. no reference to where it then comes from.) So yes, I read it as an official statement from the films producers/publishers.

[Anon]

Kevin: But the question from me to you was really: Which of the two statements cited above is correct? They seem to be contradictory.

[phantomreader42]

Anon, how many times have you tried to get this liar to justify defiling the memory of Holocaust vicitms? Has he even tried, or just dodged the question?

[Bill]

Kevin, you might want to get your pants off fast before you suffer third degree burns on your bottom.