Note: This is one of the places that I learned the lesson I am trying to share with other self-proclaimed skeptics today. So, if your kids are fearing sculptures of DNA, now’s your chance to learn well the lesson of Poe Read below for more details.
(Article Updated below!)
I’ve advocated boycotting stores that support evangelical right-wing fundamentalist entities,1 and I firmly believe in doing everything possible to remove the taint of religion from the decision-making process of government and its presence in our law, public schools, and courthouses. I’ve also asked the question, how far should we rational thinkers go in countering religion?2
Today, I ask, should we also figure out who the brainless are, and boycott them, even if they’re not politicians or evangelists or school board members?
What if you were fond of a certain actor’s work, and you read an interview where that actor was asked, “When was the earth created?”, and the actor responded, “about 4000 B.C., but possibly 10,000 years ago”? Would you seriously consider not watching movies in which that actor starred? Take, for example, Tom Cruise, who, at least publicly, asserts the belief in the existence of an alien being god-equivalent, and all the other nonsense with which Scientology brainwashes its victims.3 Certainly, he got some heckling and negative reaction to his odd behavior and beliefs, but that didn’t incredibly diminish his standing as a Hollywood A-Star. Where he truly got criticized, though, is when he tried to tell others how to live their lives — don’t take pharmaceuticals; don’t see psychiatrists, etc. That imposition on his part was the equivalent, to many, of an offense.
Something gave me a slight shock today. It was the same shock I endured when I read about Ben Stein (whom I actually enjoyed as the brainiac on Win Ben Stein’s Money) extolling the virtues of his pro-Creationist movie Expelled. I had thought to myself, “This must be a joke.” After I was convinced that it wasn’t, I told myself that I’d do my best to avoid ever sending that man a dime. Today’s shock was similar, and I’m curious as to whether there is or should be a distinction that would discourage me from employing the same reaction.
Q. When was the earth created?
A. Archbishop James Usher, working out a chronology from the Bible, calculated in 1654 that the earth was created on the night of October 23, 4004 B.C. Other timetables reach back as far as 10,000 years.
Who answered this way? A priest? An evangelist? Sarah Palin? It could have been any of those, and more. But what’s shocking is that it was uttered, as it were, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning American film critic and screenwriter Roger Ebert.
“What about oil and coal…?”, he’s asked. “They are evidence of a Great Flood,” he replies. Apparently he firmly believes that a fossil claimed to be 200 million years old shows a shoe print, proving that all layers of sediment were laid down all at once, about 4,400 years ago.
Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon Man? “Created at the same time as man.”
And 600-year-old Noah had an Ark filled with pairs of 5,400 land-based mammal species, plus eight people (from whom we are all descended). Dinosaurs walked the earth with man, but drowned in the Flood. 4
At first, again, I thought this was a joke. This couldn’t be Roger Ebert’s own website! I opened a new browser window, typed in “rogerebert.com” and clicked my way back to the Commentary. Okay, it could be a hack attack, sure, but this time, there’s no Rickroll, and it coincided with Ebert’s Roman Catholicism. Fine. He’s a young-earther. The question, though, is whether I should ever listen to the man’s suggestions again. It’s not like I was previously an Ebert fan, but I did occasionally catch his show and I listened. Now he has books and other writings about movies.
Should my rejection of his beliefs as being brainless give me reason to reject everything about him? If yes, then is it my responsibility to determine the world view of anyone with whom I interact, in order to accept or reject that person? If no, then where do I draw the line, and why? I know that when I see a Televangelist, I reject that person by changing the channel (and usually by griping). Someone like Sarah Palin, who is oh so objectionable for many other reasons, I initially reject based on her biblical literalism. Even if she appeared experienced and wise in other matters, I probably wouldn’t want her visiting my home or serving as Vice President if she outwardly (and more frighteningly inwardly) believed in and advocated belief in Creationism.
So, is my line a finely drawn one, based exclusively on whether a person is using belief to infringe upon my way of life, or is it a broader, grayer line that also includes rejection based on affiliation as well as infringement? Is the latter sort of line an acceptable one for someone who purports to be a rational thinker? Perhaps I favor the latter because the mere existence of those who believe in such nonsense are a potential threat, whether direct or indirect (I mean, they make lots of babies, and they indoctrinate those babies in “the way,” so the threat of suffocation by superpopulation could warrant some reaction). I think I honestly could use a bit of guidance on this issue.
UPDATE:
Invisible Quotation Marks
This seems to be a Poe’s Law trend. I wonder why.
Apparently, on his online journal, Roger Ebert has written a scathing rebuttal to the criticism and misunderstood responses filling the web full of vitriol over his pro-Creationism FAQ, stating that his purpose in writing the apparently facetious FAQ was to “to discuss the gradual decay of our sense of irony and instinct for satire, and our growing credulity.”5
Bravo?
It seems Ebert was more than disappointed with evolutionists, who took him at his word (how dare we!), when he concluded, “The adventure with the Creationism article has been enlightening, and a little depressing. I expected better from evolutionists.”
To his credit, however, he did admit not being aware of that little nugget of emoticonology that would have made the distinction between what’s commonly accepted as blind faith and extremely subtle satire, described by Poe’s Law. Ebert wrote, “A postscript and confession. As I said, everyone has blind spots. Many of my supporters cited Poe’s Law, which I was completely unfamiliar with.”
So, the scoreboard for Roger Ebert looks a bit confusing. +10 for decent movie reviews, -10 for wacky Creationist rhetoric (without even a hint of invisible quotation marks visible to anyone but six of his loyal readers?), -10 for insulting the rest of us for not “getting it”, +10 for admitting that maybe we had a pretty good reason for not “getting it” (via our dutiful nod to Poe’s Law), and perhaps +5 for taking the time to explain his reasoning in a lengthy and descriptive journal entry. So, Mr. Ebert, I leave you with +5. And I probably won’t boycott you, since I think your intentions were ultimately good.
One thumb up, one thumb kinda sideways, unsure of where to point.
What’s even more enlightening is the variety of responses to Ebert’s journal entry, ranging from “Oh, I knew what you were doing,” to “I honestly thought you might be telling the truth.” I’ll quote a few excerpts (all from the same page):
As you mention in your article, I did see the quotation marks in your article. But it was based on a ridiculously thorough reading of your previous writings (I haven’t taken the time to search your reviews for the term ‘Creationism’ but I am positive you’ve slighted the concept previously). I knew enough to think “This is so inherently ridiculous that Roger does not need to add any text stating so.” But I will confess that if I stumbled upon the article without a diploma in Ebertology, I’d have been duped. The old adage “Consider the source” made me look smart.
Oh, and in later the same thread, I bemoaned your use of an emoticon as the fall of the last bastion of grammatical holdout. Now I see that it may have been a concession to the above. -Mike S.
Mr. Ebert:
Point taken.
You actually had me going for a while.
However, the problem as I see it is that your satire was indistinguishable from the real thing. Creationists actually believe this nonsense, and they repeat it constantly.
As such, there was reason to believe that you actually believed what you wrote. Especially for someone like me, who had no idea about your actual position on the matter.
You could of course counter with “why didn’t you research it, then?”, to which I reply: Because, again, what you wrote was what a creationist would have written. -Wapper
The problem with the article is that it mimics claims made by Creationists perfectly. That’s not satire. Satire contains an element of the absurd; Creationism is already absurd, recited with a straight face.
By your own standards, we should regard Ben Stein’s EXPELLED as satire. After all, we have a preconceived notion of Stein from his Comedy Central game show. Shouldn’t we expect him to be reasonable? I did. I think my preconceived notion of Stein was valid, which explained the almost universal surprise when his movie came out. Nobody expected Stein to take up such an insane stance. My reaction to your own article was the same: I can’t believe it, but I’ve seen smart people say the same dumb things before. -John W.
I’ll admit, Mr. Ebert, I was so busy worrying about the thought that one of my favorite intellectuals had gone over to the academic dark side that I missed the quotation-marks. I think Poe’s Law is a very apt observation (second in importance to all-wise Godwin’s Law). When such an emotionally charged issue as fundamentalism vs. empiricism arises we tend find ourselves blinded by our gut reaction, forgetting there’s probably a “wink wink, nudge nudge” in there somewhere. In retrospect, I can look over the article and crack a grin at the absurdity of believing that you had jumped the fence. Comments like Noah’s age, and your “steadfast” belief in the story of the Ark, combined with your assertion that man and dinosaur had roamed the Earth at the same time should have slapped me into awareness given your past articles. -Gene D.
Do you really believe that any of what you have written is outlandish enough to pass as satire in an age when 67% of Americans believe in the existence of angels and you have a woman running for vice president who’s a member of a cult that speaks in tongues ?
I say you are entirely out of touch with the reality of relgious thinking in this country. -Issitoq
One need only look at the reaction to the recent New Yorker cover featuring the painting of the Obamas to see that we’re living in a world where irony, sarcasm, and satire are no longer appreciated. As an Obama supporter, I thought it was a brilliant counterattack against the types of people who believe and perpetuate the crazy rumors about the Obamas, and I was sure the readers of the New Yorker would feel the same. But, I quickly realized that many didn’t get the joke, and many of those who did were still incensed because they felt that the Obama detractors wouldn’t—and would just use the cover to further their own cause. I just sighed with disappointment as I wrote this. -Jason
so basically you were trolling. How “clever” of you. And yes, i meant you to see the quotation marks there. -Ian Rennie
Roger, I’ve been a devoted and regular reader of your site since I was 13 years old. I know full well what you think of creationism and your love of all things Darwin since you’ve mentioned it many times- and your article confused and shocked ME!
You really had me worried for a few minutes and I knew what you thought of evolution vs. creationism and figured it *had* to be satire- so you can’t blame other readers.
Now, I knew that you must have been being ironic since I knew you couldn’t possibly be serious but I didn’t see the joke, try as I could. It sounded like you were being serious.
Except for the moose line, that is.
It’s not a good joke if even people who know you have to be kidding don’t understand it. -Agatha
- Don’t Buy Their BS, and Don’t Buy Their Stuff, http://www.stateofprotest.com/2007/12/07/dont-buy-their-bs-and-dont-buy-their-stuff/ [<]
- How Much is Too Much? http://www.stateofprotest.com/2008/08/15/how-much-is-too-much/ [<]
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cruise#Scientology [<]
- Roger Ebert quotes from RogerEbert.com, http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080921/COMMENTARY/809219997 [<]
- http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/09/this_is_the_dawning_of_the_age.html?swift [<]
Imagine, if you will, the diversity in that group photo! The History Channel’s 2005 documentary, Ape to Man, attempts to recreate just that in a handy, 100 minute film. We learn of the struggles of the dedicated men who sought to answer some of the most fundamental questions of human existence… Who are we? Who are our evolutionary ancestors? Where on Earth do we come from? As the film explains within the first few minutes, for ages, we had no scientific explanation for these questions. That is, until the discoveries made over the last century by the scientists who risked much to bring us such revelations.
