Sunday, January 22, 2012

#278: Kevin Miller


Kevin Miller was the screenwriter for the movie Expelled. He has actively attempted to defend the movie (including creationism and the associated persecution complex/conspiracy theories) in online debates by arguments from post-modernism – many (not all) facts are perspectival and subjectively constructed (such as the fossil record); therefore, the creationist interpretation (dismissal) of the evidence is just bringing in an equally valid point of view. It’s all about the worldviews, you see (scroll down to Elsberry’s list of Miller’s arguments – it’s pretty good). Not that Miller has really brought anything to the fossil data; his positive arguments for creationism are consistently “scientists disagree with creationists; therefore creationists are persecuted; therefore they are right” and “I have evidence; I’ll give it to you later. It will convince you. Therefore you should believe me now.”

And then of course there is the quote-mining.

He may have taken an intro course to Philosophy, for he likes to take the Phil of Science angle and claim that it is all about this. No.

Miller’s next movie is “Creation”, concerning the life of Kent Hovind.

Diagnosis: Typical hack who does not, and does not want to, understand science (he and Walt Ruloff took science out of Expelled because they, in their own words, “found it boring”). But he does want to argue against it, since he disagrees with its conclusion for religious reasons – which means your options are to claim persecution and conspiracy, arguments by word salad, and argument by assertion.

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