Did Bill Dembski make an appearance in the movie?
"The Lynching of Bill Dembski"
Yeah. He was featured somewhat. One of maybe half a dozen or so of the "expelled" scientist.
There was a lot of hit and miss stuff for me in the movie. There was no hard sell for ID which I was glad of but there was almost no scientific explanation of either ID or Darwinism or anything else which was a disapintment.
It was a "hit" IMO as far as it was a poke in the eye to the establishment. It was also, and knowing Ben Stein I should have seen this comming, downright hilarious at times. (particularly the first half of the movie) The biggest hit though was the movie leaves one (me anyway) provoked into wanting to go out and learn more.
It was a "miss" IMO in the heavy use of some of the imagery. For example, it's fair to say that the Nazis were Darwinist and euginics was the "science" advocated partly in his name. (Americans who promoted euginics are also covered somewhat) However this hand was way overplayed.
Expelled was careful to say that Darwinist are not Nazis but the movie still uses the Nazis were Darwinist point way out of proportion to the debate on academic freedom. There was also a fascinating (perhaps?) computer animation of the complexity of even a single celled organism but the animation played w/o any explanation of what was going on. (I'm a layman and only recognised the DNA structure, maybe some proteins of the High School chemestry variety)
All in all, the film does not make you feel more educated on the facts. It succeeds greatly though, in creating a desire to get educated. One of the better points made (and I'm paraphrasing) was that Darwin himself was anti-establishment and would have a very difficult road ahead of him in todays academic climate.
