Here is a good web page on cranks, fringers, et al.:
http://www.crank.net/

If this isn't the silliest thing I've seen in years ... a protest against the film Battlefield Earth because they might be using subliminal persuasion techniques, now completely proved to be totally ineffective. Still, since it is Scientology one is tempted to play along and encourage the protestors!

Following this posting from the American Atheists is a review of the film from Roger Ebert. This has to be one of his all time nastiest pans. What fun!

Now on the American Atheist websites...

* Opening Of "Battlefield Earth" Ignites Controversy, Calls For Boycotts

The sci-fi thriller "Battlefield Earth" opens this week, and some critics of the Church of Scientology call for a boycott. Others say the flick will "sink like a rock," despite claims that it is a "recruiting film" for the controversial religious group. Visit http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/hubbard1.htm for the latest on this story!

* Boycott, Ignore, Check It Out -- What To Do When "Battlefield Earth" Comes To A Theater In Your Town...

Some say boycott it, others insist they will check out the movie based on the novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. What about you? Should the religious, political or personal beliefs of writers, actors and others be a consideration when heading to the box-office? Visit the latest American Atheist Magazine On-line poll and let us know. Answer our survey questions, learn more about "Battlefield Earth" and the Church of Scientology, and leave your opinion for others to read.

Visit us at http://www.americanatheist.org

Battlefield Earth / 1/2 * (PG-13) May 12, 2000

Terl: John Travolta
Jonnie Goodboy: Barry Pepper
Ker: Forest Whitaker
Carlo: Kim Coates
Robert the Fox: Richard Tyson

Warner Brothers presents a film directed by Roger Christian. Written by Corey Mandell and JD Shapiro. Based on the novel by L. Ron Hubbard. Running time: 117 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for intense sci-fi action).

By Roger Ebert
"Battlefield Earth" is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way. The visuals are grubby and drab. The characters are unkempt and have rotten teeth. Breathing tubes hang from their noses like ropes of snot. The soundtrack sounds like the boom mike is being slammed against the inside of a 55-gallon drum. The plot... .

But let me catch my breath. This movie is awful in so many different ways. Even the opening titles are cheesy. Sci-fi epics usually begin with a stab at impressive titles, but this one just displays green letters on the screen in a type font that came with my Macintosh. Then the movie's subtitle unscrolls from left to right in the kind of "effect" you see in home movies.

It is the year 3000. The race of Psychlos has conquered the earth. Humans survive in scattered bands, living like actors auditioning for the sequel to "Quest for Fire." Soon they leave the wilderness and prowl through the ruins of theme parks and the city of Denver. The ruins have held up well after 1,000 years. (Library books are dusty but readable, and a flight simulator still works, although where it gets the electricity is a mystery.)

The hero, named Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, is played by Barry Pepper as a smart human who gets smarter, thanks to a Pyschlo gizmo that zaps his eyeballs with knowledge. He learns Euclidean geometry and how to fly a jet, and proves to be a quick learner for a caveman. The villains are two Psychlos named Terl (John Travolta) and Ker (Forest Whitaker). Terl is head of security for the Psychlos and has a secret scheme to use the humans as slaves to mine gold for him. He can't be reported to his superiors because (I am not making this up) he can blackmail his enemies with secret recordings that, in the event of his death, "would go straight to the home office!" Letterman fans laugh at that line; did the filmmakers know it was funny?

Jonnie Goodboy figures out a way to avoid slave labor in the gold mines. He and his men simply go to Fort Knox, break in and steal gold. Of course it's been waiting there for 1,000 years. What Terl says when his slaves hand him smelted bars of gold is beyond explanation. For stunning displays of stupidity, Terl takes the cake; as chief of security for the conquering aliens, he doesn't even know what humans eat, and devises an experiment: "Let it think it has escaped! We can sit back and watch it choose its food." Bad luck for the starving humans that they capture a rat. An experiment like that, you pray for a chicken.

Hiring Travolta and Whitaker was a waste of money, since we can't recognize them behind pounds of matted hair and gnarly makeup. Their costumes look like they were purchased from the Goodwill store on the planet Tatooine.

Travolta can be charming, funny, touching and brave in his best roles; why disguise him as a smelly alien creep? The Psychlos can fly between galaxies, but look at their nails: Their civilization has mastered the hyperdrive but not the manicure.

I am not against unclean characters on principle--at least now that the threat of Smell-O-Vision no longer hangs over our heads. Lots of great movies have squalid heroes. But when the characters seem noxious on principle, we wonder if the art and costume departments were allowed to run wild.

"Battlefield Earth" was written in 1980 by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. The film contains no evidence of Scientology or any other system of thought; it is shapeless and senseless, without a compelling plot or characters we care for in the slightest. The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why.

Some movies run off the rails. This one is like the train crash in "The Fugitive." I watched it in mounting gloom, realizing I was witnessing something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies. There is a moment here when the Psychlos' entire planet (home office and all) is blown to smithereens, without the slightest impact on any member of the audience (or, for that matter, the cast). If the film had been destroyed in a similar cataclysm, there might have been a standing ovation.

Copyright Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

This courtesy of David Wald at Caltech

ASLA 00-12 Evolution Opponents Hold Congressional Briefing

On May 10th, a House Judiciary Committee hearing room was the site of a three-hour briefing on paleontology, biology, and cosmology. Although presentations were at times quite technical, the speakers were not there to discuss the latest research in these fields. They were on Capitol Hill to promote intelligent design (ID) theory, to debunk Darwinian evolutionary theory, and to expose the negative social impact of Darwinism. Entitled "Scientific Evidence of Intelligent Design and its Implications for Public Policy and Education," the briefing was sponsored by the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank (http://www.discovery.org), and its Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. The afternoon briefing was preceded by a private luncheon in the U.S. Capitol for Members of Congress and was followed by an evening reception.

Until now, the creation-evolution debate has primarily been active at the state and local level, but this event may represent the start of a new effort to involve Congress in efforts to oppose the teaching of evolution. Whether by chance or by design, the briefing took place as the Senate entered its second week of debate on overhauling federal K-12 education programs. Both houses are expected to work throughout the summer on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. More information on that subject is on the AGI website at http://www.agiweb.org/gap/legis106/ike106.html.

Creationist and Congressional Heavy Hitters
The briefing featured a number of the leading lights in the ID movement, including Lehigh University biology professor Michael Behe, author of "Darwin's Black Box;" Whitworth College philosophy professor Stephen Meyer, who directs the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture and is a former ARCO geophysicist; Discovery Institute Fellow Nancy Pearcey, co-author with Chuck Colson of "How Now Shall We Live?;" and Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson, author of "Darwin on Trial." Behe and Meyer spoke first, focusing on a scientific explanation of ID theory and discussion of the weaknesses of Darwinian theory. The second two speakers, Pearcey and Johnson, focused on social and political implications of the competing worldviews represented by these two theories.

Approximately 50 people attended the briefing, including a handful of congressional staff and several Members of Congress. The chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Rep. Charles Canady (R-FL), provided the room. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) made remarks comparing the current Kansas social controversy over evolution to the one spawned by abolitionist John Brown. More significant was the appearance of Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI), who warmly introduced several of the speakers. Petri is slated to become chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee in January, replacing retiring chairman Bill Goodling (R-PA). Other congressional co-hosts listed on the press release included House Science Committee members Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) and Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), and Education Committee member Mark Souder (R-IN).

Empirical Evidence for Design
Despite the presence of congressional heavy hitters, Johnson disavowed any intention of playing the Washington power game (something he accused scientists of doing) and emphasized that he and his colleagues were there only to open minds which had been kept closed by an elite scientific priesthood. All of the speakers emphasized that this was a debate among scientists, not between science and religion. They stressed that the idea of design is entirely empirical, that we recognize it all the time in everyday life and can make the conclusion of design based wholly on the physical evidence. However, they also recognized that intelligent design theory has theistic implications.

Unlike some other creationists, ID supporters accept deep time and indeed argue that the cosmological big bang is evidence for the existence of something beyond nature. Like other creationists, however, they argue that the diversity and complexity of life could not have come about through undirected processes of natural selection.

Behe and Meyer emphasized two keystones of ID theory: (1) that an intelligent designer is the only way to explain irreducibly complex natural systems, which defy explanation by Darwinian processes; and (2) that information is a third fundamental entity separate from matter and energy, and information can only come from a mind. Meyer used this second concept to link ID theory to the new knowledge-based economy where value comes from information not material resources. Nearly all the speakers cited a quote by Bill Gates equating DNA with extremely complex computer code.

The speakers portrayed ID theory as the logical outcome of the advancement of science. Both Behe and Meyer repeatedly noted that scientists have been enormously surprised by the complexity they find in nature -- whereas Darwinism may have worked within the limited scope of 19th-century scientific understanding, it cannot handle the much greater complexity that scientist now recognize.

Confronting the Darwinian Worldview
Nancy Pearcey spoke on the worldview implications of Darwinism, noting that many people apply Darwinism to every walk of life. She cited the book A Natural History of Rape, which portrayed rape as an evolutionary adaptation strategy rather than a pathology. She found this example helpful in spelling out the logical consequences of Darwinism. The key battleground is education, which in the hands of Darwinists is no longer a search for truth. Instead, ideas are now merely problem-solving tools.

Pearcey asked what this means for religion, answering that for the Darwinists, god becomes merely an idea that appears in the human mind. For Darwinists, religion must give way to a new science-based cosmic myth with the power to bind humans together in a new world order. She then asked what this means for morality and argued that people were right to be concerned that all the above would undercut morality. She cited a recent popular song urging that "you and me, baby, ain't nothing but mammals so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel."

Pearcey went on to explain that the US legal system is based on moral principles and that the only way to have ultimate moral grounding for law is to have an unjudged judge, an uncreated creator. Nothing else can take his place. All else can be challenged in a grand "says who?" She pointed to arguments made by Michael Sandel of Harvard in his book Democracy's Discontent in which modern society is portrayed as a struggle between those who think morality is up for grabs and those who view it as given.

Creation Myths and Priesthoods
Phillip Johnson explained that Darwinism is not so much a scientific theory as a creation story. Every culture has a creation story jealously guarded by a priesthood. The triumph of Darwinism is the replacement of one priesthood -- the clergy -- with another of scientists and intellectuals, a process now complete in Europe but still being contested in the US. According to Johnson, the Darwinian creation story finds its essential support in certain philosophical rules, the main one being that natural selection has enormous creative power from bacteria to redwood trees to people. He called it a marvelous story but asked what it has been seen to do? Change the size of some finch beaks in the Galapagos Islands? He argued that it has never been seen to create anything.

Johnson argued that the scientific priesthood has banished god from allowable discussion, leaving Darwinism as the only game in town. Intelligent design cannot be considered because it includes an unevolved intelligence. For the scientists, it is an offensive thought crime to suggest something other than Darwinism. Johnson quotes from an ABA Journal article that "to consider ID in biology would be as blasphemous as Satan worship in church." A curious repeated theme among the speakers was their surprise at the receptivity in official Chinese media to ID theory. The point was then made that in China one can question Darwinism but not the government, whereas in the US one can question the government but not Darwinism.

Johnson argued that in order to have an open discussion about the logic of Darwinism, the question needed to be redefined in order to get beyond the stereotype of biblical literalists; a genuine intellectual issue needed to be articulated. As Johnson sees it, the problem is that there are two definitions of science in our culture: (1) science is unbiased empirical testing and observations that follow the evidence wherever it leads without prejudice; and (2) science is applied materialist philosophy which, like Marxism or Freudianism, is willing to impose its authority.

In Johnson's view, scientists get public support because they wrap themselves in the first definition. Supporters of ID theory need to flush out the scientists true colors by identifying situations where their philosophy of materialism says one thing but the evidence tells a different story. Once that is on the table, then the scientists' game is over.

What About Religion?
All four speakers were exceedingly cautious in responding to questions about how ID theory relates to religion. Meyer emphasized that the issue is about two different scientific theories with large implications for theistic and naturalistic worldviews. When asked if he was being too tentative about ID theory not being a proof of god, Meyer replied that using the principle of uniformitarianism -- that the present is the key to past -- naturalism is insufficient, and a designer is thus needed. Johnson added that we cannot conclude from scientific inquiry whether the intelligent designer is indeed the God of the Bible. The speakers repeatedly emphasized that ID theory is a big tent that includes Jews and agnostics but all united by the belief that there is objective truth.

Asked if there was a critical mass yet of ID supporters among scientists at universities, Johnson stated that you do not convince the priesthood but generationally replace them. He argued that demographics are on ID's side -- polls show skepticism about Darwinism so the public at large is sympathetic but has been disabled by the stereotypes and mind games of the scientific elite. The people need to be empowered and that is what is happening with the Internet and talk radio, which takes away control from the scientific gatekeepers. Johnson's stated objective was to get thousands of young people in the classroom asking questions of dogmatic professors, and he said that it is already happening.

AGU's position statement on the teaching of evolution can be found on AGU's Science & Policy web page at http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/sci_pol.html. Contributed by David Applegate, Director, AGI Government Affairs Program Questions or comments about ASLA? Need to change your e-mail address? Contact pfolger@agu.org

For decades, neurologists have talked of the uncanny ability of some brain-injured patients to sense when someone was lying, even though they perceived the liar's words as gibberish.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks even wrote in his bestseller, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," that it was all but impossible to lie to patients who have lost their speech-recognition abilities. Now, scientists have experimental proof to back up the claims, with a study showing that people who suffer from aphasia apparently sniff out liars by reading subtle facial expressions.

"They're picking up nuances of facial expression, a momentary expression that flashes by quickly in the presence of a masking smile, a fake smile. They're picking up on these leaks of emotions," said Nancy Etcoff, a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who led the study published in today's issue of the journal Nature.

The study involved patients who suffered a stroke or other trauma to the left side of their brain, the site of speech-recognition functions.

The patients in the study could not understand full sentences delivered at conversational speed but could comprehend single words and simplified speech like that used to communicate with a child. All could express themselves to various degrees and could read and write.

The researchers showed 10 such patients videos in which women described watching pleasant scenes such as a tropical sunset.

Each woman made two videos. In one version, she was actually viewing a relaxing scene on a TV screen and commenting on its beauty. But in the other version, she had to lie about what she was seeing because she was actually watching ghastly images of burn victims and amputees.

The aphasic patients used agreed-upon signals such as raising a hand to indicate when they thought the woman was lying.

Non-aphasics had only about a 50-50 chance of spotting when the woman was lying. But the aphasics spotted the liar 73 percent of the time, showing the kind of skill that could make for expert poker players or police interrogators.

"People have told me, 'These patients should be on juries or in customs lines at the airport.' There's been a lot of jesting," Etcoff said. "The fact is that some people are really good at this who are not aphasics, but for the rest of us, it's just chance. We're just not very good at it."

All but one of the patients were shown the videos more than a year after they suffered their injuries. The patient tested within a year of his injury performed no better than the normal group.

That suggests the damaged brain slowly "rewires" itself to deal with speech, said Dr. Elliott Ross, a professor of neurology at the University of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City.

Ross said it is the first study in a major scientific publication to demonstrate clearly that aphasics can sense deceit in speakers.

"It shows very nicely that when you have damage to the left side of the brain you increase your ability to capture deceitful behaviors. It's really breaking new ground," he said.

Earlier research has suggested that across most cultures people learn at an early age to control their facial expressions so as to conceal their unhappiness or unease, particularly in awkward social situations.

Ross said other studies have indicated that when a person lies, his or her true emotional state is betrayed by upper facial expressions, while the area around the mouth projects the intended, fake emotional state.

Ross' own research suggests that the brain's right hemisphere the one undamaged in aphasia patients is better than the left half at detecting emotions conveyed by the evocative upper facial area.

Besides speech-recognition deficiencies, many aphasia patients also suffer from the inability to form words and to read and write.

But they also have an edge in some respects, Sacks said Wednesday. He recounted the story of a cousin who became fond of travel after suffering a stroke that left her with aphasia. The condition gave her an edge over other travelers who didn't speak the native tongue.

"In Mexico, when no one in the family could understand Spanish at all, she became sort of the interpreter," Sacks said. "This stroke was 20 years ago and she still sees through me. She sees through everybody."

On the Net: National Aphasia Association: http://www.aphasia.org