Blue Collar Scientist

Mark Mathis is one of the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. He was recently interviewed by Jay Davis of Real Detroit Weekly, and if there was really any doubt about it, this establishes pretty well that Mathis is stupid beyond belief.

I confront Mathis with this point [that intelligent design creationism is untestable], and he counters that evolutionary theory is also untestable. This is patently untrue — to give just one example, scientists have witnessed speciation, the arisal of a new species from an old one.

When I point this out, he interrupts me immediately: “Whoa! Wait a minute! Please send me whatever material you have that demonstrates that we can observe speciation because I have not seen anything. I’ve never heard anyone even claim that!”

Is he serious? He’s just produced a film about evolution, and he’s never heard of the fact that speciation has been observed and thoroughly documented in the scientific literature? I’m stunned. I send him peer-reviewed research confirming this fact via e-mail, and he later responds, “This isn’t an important argument for me.”

The interview goes on, with Mathis lying some more about evolution:

“You can’t apply falsifiability to Darwinian evolution. How is it falsifiable?”

I respond by quoting the biologist J.B.S. Haldane: “Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian.”

And it goes on:

Mathis pauses before saying, “If you want to get into the science…” He then trails off and mutters something irrelevant before finally confessing, “Look. You can get into the intricacies of the science on both sides. And I am not qualified.” On that point, we can both agree.

The interview then moves on to the subject of the famous night when Mathis summoned armed security guards to prevent PZ Myers from seeing the film (while not recognizing his companion, Richard Dawkins, and hence letting him in):

No producer who releases a film called Expelled would actually expel an individual who appears in his film from seeing that film. Right?

Mathis laughs before offering two reasons why he told the security guard at the screening not to let Myers in. First, Mathis says, “He has viciously attacked me personally and attacked the film.” Just to clarify, Myers did not break into Mr. Mathis’ house in a drunken rage with a bowie knife—he has simply been critical of Mathis’ arguments.

The second reason? Mathis assumed that the incident would engender “some additional attention” for the film. I’m not joking. He actually called that a reason.

“He was not invited to the screening,” Mathis says. “I don’t have time to read P.Z. Myers’ oral diarrhea.”

“But the screening wasn’t done by invite, was it?” I ask.

“It’s still our screening. I’m still the producer on site. And I still have the ability to say, ‘I didn’t invite you. And you’re not coming.’” Mathis repeats, “I denied him entrance to a film that he was not invited to.”

“But just to clarify, others who weren’t invited were allowed in, right?”

“Done by discretion! Done by discretion!” In case you’re wondering, this means yes. It seems safe to say that discretion is something that Mark Mathis lacks entirely. I let him scream for one more minute.

“We have the option of ex… uh, of kicking, uh, of not allowing P.Z. Myers to come to the film he wasn’t invited to. Okay? Who cares?!”

Ok, that last quote? That’s not even intelligible speech.

I shouldn’t be surprised. That’s exactly what we’re accustomed to getting from creationists.

Hat tip to Joe. Just Joe, again, who apparently reads Pharyngula more often than I do.

Tags: creationism, expelled, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Mark Mathis, Real Detroit Weekly

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 6:05 am and is filed under dimwits, evolution, religious extremism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.