The other day I happened across, in a post on FriendlyAtheist, a book by Ray Comfort. For those of you who don't keep up with the minutiae of arguments between atheists and theists, Ray Comfort is the man who brought us the Banana Argument for God: essentially, that the banana is so perfectly formed, it has to be evidence of Yahweh. He is surely a man of formidable intelligence.

An entertaining aside: I just went to Fandango.com to reserve tickets to see Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. I've been having second thoughts about this whole review idea, as just reading the abstract makes me retch. But that isn't the funny thing.

I recently discovered that the Harvard video The Inner Life of the Cell may not be the only material ripped off by the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed for their antiscientific purposes. Allegedly, some sequences of gene replication were stolen from a PBS program on the topic,ERV reports.

Academic freedom is the byword for modern creationism. In Dover and other areas Intelligent Design was incorporated into school curricula with the justification that they were "teaching both sides" of a controversy. The forthcoming movie Expelled makes the charge that "design proponents" are being expunged unfairly from academic institutions and that academic freedom is suffering as a result.

In response to this week's April 18th, formerly April 15th, release of the creationist propaganda flick Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, I shall be blogging on the subjects of evolution, science and creationism for this next week in my own one-man Festival of the Naturally Selected. Why? Here's a few reasons.

1. The topics are important to me.
2. I want to join the chorus of voices on the Internet speaking out against the attempts of theocrats to cajole and coerce their dogma down our collective throats.
3. I feel like it (see above).

One thing that's been annoying me recently are the prolific advertisements on the web for Mark Mathis and Ben Stein's upcoming movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Needless to say, I haven't seen it, nor do I know if I want to see it, given that it is in essence a creationist propaganda film that one reviewer (to whom I haven't linked) said would "make Goebbels proud."

I find myself disgusted with the political climate today. Apparently, evolution was mentioned at the Republican debates of late, and now there is debate amongst conservatives about whether or not the theory supports their values or no. An article from the New York times addresses this issue. For those of you who do not posess subscriptions, here are some excerpts of note: