• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Penn & Teller ignorant of Ben Stein's movie

If I remember their session at TAM correctly, Penn did not say he disbelieves in global warming be Al Gore does believe. He said something along the lines of how he backs away from fully supporting it because he's so turned off by Al Gore, which he fully admitted was irrational and he cannot argue against the evidence for global warming. He just is repulsed by Al Gore, and he knows it's a blind spot.

I don't remember him talking about ID at all, although I believe they have taken it on to some degree in ********.

I may be misremembering, because I wasn't completely involved with their talk.

As for not knowing about Stein's movie -- so what? P&T probably have pretty full days and don't spend a lot of time on science blogs. Expelled didn't exactly set the box office on fire, and might not have made a splash in Vegas at all. Before I knew about this film, I would have thought STein was a pretty nice guy who was also quite smart. Having looked into it more, I believe differently, but I bet he can be charming in person.
 
mr. ottle said:
As for not knowing about Stein's movie -- so what? P&T probably have pretty full days and don't spend a lot of time on science blogs. Expelled didn't exactly set the box office on fire, and might not have made a splash in Vegas at all.
Click to expand...

Bingo. P&T are very busy people who lead very busy lives. They don't have time to keep up with every little thing that goes on in Skepticland.
 
It isn't as if "Expelled" was all over the place, hitting every cinema....
 
Last time I checked, Penn & Teller were magicians and entertainers, and not the love childs of Siskel and Ebert.

Why would they necessarily have to know about the Bein Stein movie?
 
I think it is important to remember that Penn and Teller are entertainers: enormously talented ones, IMHO. They have a shtick which involves debunking some of the tricks that other magicians do. This allows them a twist that differentiates them from other magicians of similar skill. It gives them a niche. If they could make more money doing straight magic--making the white house disappear, or bending spoons--they probably would. They are entertainers first and foremost.

To the degree that people actually believe that magicians perform magic, I suppose that their debunking of magic tricks is a service to the skeptical community. I think their greater contribution is revealing magician's tricks that are used by psychics and similar charlatans to separate people from their money.

To make the leap that entertainers of this type would jump with both feet into debunking other pseudoscientific nonsense is asking a bit much from them. I do not recall hearing that they had advanced degrees that would allow them to critically evaluate the data on global warming or the WTC collapse. So to ask them about Sylvia Brown or David Copperfield is reasonable, as this is in their area of expertise. To expect them to have formed an opinion about a creationist movie is unfair.
 
Don't panic, until you are able to ask them this same question next year. Maybe by then they will have seen it, and will have changed their minds.

You know, if I knew nothing about Expelled, at all, I would have commented roughly the same way about how "smart Ben Stein is", myself.
 
Ben Stein's shtick is looking smart. He has made a career out of it. A few more movies like this and his aura of intelligence may disappear completely.
 
wahrheit said:
Why would they necessarily have to know about the Bein Stein movie?
Click to expand...

This comment is why I agree and disagree with Dan's OP and some of the posts to this thread. On the one hand, as phyz noted, one would make a better point if one referred directly and specifically to the movie in question rather than Ben Stein - especially since Stein wasn't the creative force behind Expelled, but rether it's mouthpiece. On the other, since Penn not only is a public face of skepticism and participant in organized skepticism, but an active participant with BS! - a show which addressed the Crevo controversy - he should have at least been aware of Expelled and had an opinion one way or the other on it.

Unlike many of my fellow multiple TAM attendees, I've never actually spoken to Penn so I can't comment on how amenable he is to skeptic "shop talk" in ostensibly private moments, thus, while I think his rhetoric (assuming the transcript was correct) was playgroundesque, the onus is on the person who brings up an issue with him to provide sufficient information for him to aver an opinion on the specific subject.

I think some of Penn's political opinions (AGW for example) cross the line into Libertarian woo, but when it comes to Crevo/CID he would definately come down on the side of prevailing scientific option (IMO).
 
gdnp said:
Ben Stein's shtick is looking smart. He has made a career out of it. A few more movies like this and his aura of intelligence may disappear completely.
Click to expand...

Not to be as contrairian as this might seem, but I know he is smart and intelligent. As Randi and as any number of other magicians and skeptics have demonstrated over the years though, being smart/intelligent is no defense against woo. Succeptability to woo doesn't mean a person isn't smart/intelligent though.

We skeptics need to get over our sense of superiority.
 
gdnp said:
To make the leap that entertainers of this type would jump with both feet into debunking other pseudoscientific nonsense is asking a bit much from them.
Click to expand...
I agree with your main point but thought I'd point out that P&T have (had?) a tv show that attempts what you describe.

To expect them to have formed an opinion about a creationist movie is unfair.
Click to expand...
Agreed.

That said, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Penn cuts Stein slack due to overlap in their nutty libertopian beliefs.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:
[...] On the other, since Penn not only is a public face of skepticism and participant in organized skepticism, but an active participant with BS! - a show which addressed the Crevo controversy - he should have at least been aware of Expelled and had an opinion one way or the other on it. [...]
Click to expand...
Sure, nobody would be suprised if Penn had known about Expelled when the OP mentioned it to him.

I'm just saying that making big drama of the opposite, P&T apparently not being aware of that movie, is a tad over the top.

(Btw, I could even imagine that P&T were just pretending to not know about the movie. Maybe they simply didn't want to talk about it at that time for whatever reason.)
 
Darat said:
Other reports of the event do not support what you are saying.
Click to expand...
It's good to see that Penn has such an enthusiastic apologist working on his behalf. All I can tell you is that I was there and that's what I heard. But please, what do "other reports" say? Clearly, they must be more reliable because they more closely match a description you're hoping for.

Darat said:
Your point is that Penn believes in intelligent design? Have you any evidence to support that?
Click to expand...

Without breaking out the Color-by-Numbers, I'm saying that if you're willing to accept an ad hominem argument against global warming, you're likely to accept a similar ad hominem argument for intelligent design. Was I really being all that subtle?
 
Last edited:
phyz said:
Without breaking out the Color-by-Numbers, I'm saying that if you're willing to accept an ad hominem argument against global warming, you're likely to accept a similar ad hominem argument for intelligent design.
Click to expand...

How do you do that?

"I hate his guts, so I believe his argument"?
 
CFLarsen said:
So, once a logical fallacist, always a logical fallacist?
Click to expand...

No. But if you (knowingly) go with it one way, what's to keep you from going with it the other way? Logical consistency certainly won't stand in your way. Which is good, because Penn doesn't seem to allow himself to be penned in by "logical consistency." He's got Libertarian principles to defend! :duck:
 
phyz said:
Ad hominem is "argument to the man" which can be either pro or con, not just con.
Click to expand...

That might be literally true, but in practice 'ad hominem' is applied when the argument is being discredited by pointing out an (irrelevant) attribute of the person you are arguing against. The opposite case is usually called an appeal to authority (argumentum ad verecundiam).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom