Intelligent Design

I previously noted that none of the cases of alleged persecution of intelligent design advocates in the film “Expelled” come close to the case of political persecution of an advocate of evolution, Chris Comer, who lost her job at the Texas Education Association for sending an email announcing an academic talk by a critic of intelligent design. Troy Britain now lists some additional cases where intelligent design advocates are the persecutors: Nancey Murphy of the Fuller Theological Seminary, who said she faced a campaign to get her fired because she expressed the view that intelligent design was not only poor theology, but “so stupid, I don’t want to give them my time.” Murphy, who believes in evolution, said she had to fight to keep her job after one of the founding members of the intelligent design movement, legal theorist Phillip Johnson, called a trustee at the seminary and tried to get her fired. ...

Tom Gilson closed the comments at his Thinking Christian blog post about P.Z. Myers calling in to the presenter line on an “Expelled” event conference bridge, preventing me from posting this comment: The claims of “Expelled” about individuals who have allegedly been persecuted are bogus–Gonzales was denied tenure because he wasn’t publishing research, Sternberg wasn’t persecuted at all, and Crocker simply didn’t have her contract renewed (and deservedly so–she was both a bad teacher and was making horrible creationist arguments, as has been documented with her PowerPoint slides online). On the other hand, Chris Comer really was removed from her position as Director of Science at the Texas Education Agency for simply sending out an email announcing that Barbara Forrest was giving a talk about “Creationism’s Trojan Horse.” The ID advocates have no case of persecution that approaches that in severity.He also deleted a link that Norman Doering included in a comment, and banned Norman from his blog. Norman’s comment was this: ...

[UPDATE (April 15, 2008): See the NCSE’s “Expelled Exposed” website for a look at the deceptive tactics of the filmmakers and the real facts that they aren’t showing you.] [UPDATE (April 18, 2008): Further updates on “Expelled” theater counts, box office take, and ratings are here.] “Expelled” was originally claimed to be opening in February 2008, and I recall seeing claims that it would be on 4,000 screens. Its website has subsequently been claiming an April 18 opening date (“in theatres nationwide”), and somewhere I’ve seen an estimate of about 1,000 screens. (UPDATE: This was said by John Sullivan, an “Expelled” producer, on the Expelled blog in December 2007, as the estimated screen count for a February 2008 release.) But for some reason, the film is not listed on April 2008 distribution schedules: IMDB April 18 releasesRottentomatoes.com upcoming releases Launchingfilms.com April 2008 releasesFilm-releases.com upcoming 2008 releasesPopculturemadness.com April 2008 releases I only found it listed with an April 18 date at AOL’s MovieFone, with no photo or trailer. Movieweb.com lists it with “To Be Announced 2008” as the release date. (UPDATE: It’s also at movies.go.com with an April 18 release date, and a poll to grade the movie. It’s polling at 85% “F,” 11% “A,” 2% “D,” and 1% each for “B” and “C,” with 474 votes.) Is it really going to show in theaters at all on April 18? Or are they just going to continue with these “private screenings” and then go direct to DVD, suitable for church and homeschool distribution? The distributor for the film is Rocky Mountain Pictures (formerly R.S. Entertainment) of Salt Lake City, UT, distributor for the following films: Akira (1988, lots of distributors)Carman: The Champion (made 2001, released 2 March 2001, grossed $1,743,863, $769,080 opening weekend)Race to Space (2001, released 15 March 2001)Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 (made 2001, released 21 September 2001, grossed $5,974,653, $1,573,454 opening weekend)Manna from Heaven (made 2002, grossed $505,675, shown in 5 cities, made $5,340 opening weekend on 4 screens)Elvira’s Haunted Hills (made 2001, released 31 October 2002)Luther (made 2003, released 30 October 2003, grossed $5,791,328, $908,446 opening weekend)Unspeakable (made 2002, released 27 February 2004)End of the Spear (2005, released 20 January 2006, grossed $11,703,287, $4,281,388 opening weekend)These guys are clearly not a blockbuster powerhouse of distributors–their biggest film ever was back in 1988 when they were one of many distributors, they specialize in small independent films, mostly “family films” and often with an explicitly Christian theme, and they have rarely seen their films have an opening weekend of over $1,000,000. The two partners in Rocky Mountain Pictures are Ronald C. Rodgers and Randy Slaughter. Rodgers got his start in film with Sunn Classic Pictures in 1968, which made and distributed movies in the seventies and eighties like bad documentaries about Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, The Bermuda Triangle, psychics, space aliens, conspiracy theories, and Noah’s Ark, several of which were written by David W. Balsiger. Balsiger was the ghost author of several fabricated autobiographies, such as those of alleged Ark-finder Fernand Navarra, phony ex-Satanist Mike Warnke, and phony faith healer Morris Cerullo. (See my 1993 Skeptic magazine article on George Jammal’s Noah’s Ark hoax, which Balsiger helped foist upon the American public along with a whole slew of bogus claims.) Slaughter has had a more mainstream career with bigger studios and distributors and working for a Texas theater chain. “End of the Spear” was financed by Philip Anschutz, founder and former head of Qwest Communications who also funded “The Chronicles of Narnia” (and has also been a contributor to the Discovery Institute). “End of the Spear” received some extra publicity because lead actor Chad Allen, who plays the lead in the film, came out as gay. (He told the producers before his contract was signed in 2003, when he came out publicly, and they did the right thing and continued with him in the project anyway). I suspect “Expelled” will have trouble doing anywhere near as well as “End of the Spear,” which appears to be the best Rocky Mountain Pictures has done to date. I’ll offer five predictions for “Expelled”–if it opens in theaters at all on April 18, it will (1) be on fewer than 500 800 screens, (2) will have an initial weekend box office of less than $2 million, with (3) a per-screen take of less than $2,500, (4) won’t break the top ten despite it being a slow opening week, and (5) will make less than $10 million in box office take by the end of 2008 (though it may make more than that through DVD sales). Note that Philip Anschutz owns the Regal Entertainment Group, which Wikipedia says is “the largest theater chain in North America” with “6,423 screens in 529 locations in 41 U.S. states.” He may well push the film, but there’s no way he’s going to allow it to get in the way of making profit, but I’ll adjust my prediction (1) to be fewer than 800 screens on the assumption that Anschutz might put the film into each of his theaters. (UPDATE: Chez Jake has found and commented below that Anschutz is only showing “Expelled” in 141 of his 529 locations, which he suggests indicates a 27% level of confidence in the film by Anschutz.) (For my previous comments about a film’s opening weekend, see my blog post on the film “Untraceable." In the comments there, I offered this bet to the film’s insiders who showed up at my blog to defend the film: “How about a deal–if it gets a ‘cream of the crop’ freshness percentage above 70% at rottentomatoes.com (say, by a week after release, when there are at least a dozen or so reviews), I’ll agree to watch it, if you’ll agree on a percentage of below 30% to post here that you were wrong, and it really does suck. Anywhere in between, we can agree to disagree.” Needless to say, I didn’t have to see that movie, as it ended up with a “freshness” rating of 15%.) UPDATE (March 28, 2008): Using Reed Esau’s excellent suggestion of using the theater locator on the Expelled website, here’s the current number of theaters where it’s planned to be showing per state: AK: 1 AL: 15 AR: 10 AZ: 5 CA: 52 CO: 10 CT: 3 DC: 0 DE: 0 FL: 51 GA: 11 HI: 3 IA: 6 ID: 6 IN: 19 IL: 21 KS: 4 KY: 6 LA: 2 MA: 0 MD: 0 ME: 0 MI: 11 MN: 7 MO: 6 MS: 3 MT: 5 NC: 4 ND: 1 NE: 1 NH: 1 NJ: 0 NM: 2 NV: 6 NY: 2 OH: 9 OK: 5 OR: 6 PA: 11 RI: 0 SC: 5 SD: 1 TN: 17 TX: 62 UT: 3 VA: 3 VT: 0 WA: 16 WI: 17 WV: 5 WY: 1 Total U.S. theaters: 435 UPDATE (March 28, 2008, 6:00 p.m.): The numbers have changed a bit: AK: 2 (up from 1) AL: 17 (up from 15) AR: 9 (down from 10) AZ: 7 (up from 5) CT: 2 (down from 3) DC: 1 (up from 0) FL: 50 (down from 51) GA: 17 (up from 11) IA: 7 (up from 6) IL: 18 (down from 21) KS: 7 (up from 4) KY: 7 (up from 6) LA: 6 (up from 2) MD: 7 (up from 0) MI: 10 (down from 11) MN: 10 (up from 7) MO: 16 (up from 6) MS: 4 (up from 3) MT: 3 (down from 5) NC: 17 (up from 4) NH: 0 (down from 1) NM: 1 (down from 2) NY: 1 (down from 2) OH: 13 (up from 9) OK: 8 (up from 5) OR: 7 (up from 6) PA: 6 (down from 11) SC: 10 (up from 5) TN: 16 (down from 17) TX: 61 (down from 62) VA: 16 (up from 3) WI: 14 (down from 17) WV: 1 (down from 5) All the others have remained the same. That’s a net increase of 55 theaters to a new total of 490. UPDATE (March 31, 2008, 2:45 p.m. PDT): AK: 1 AL: 20 AR: 12 AZ: 8 CA: 60 CO: 11 CT: 3 DC: 1 DE: 3 FL: 58 GA: 19 HI: 3 IA: 9 ID: 6 IN: 20 IL: 23 KS: 10 KY: 7 LA: 6 MA: 0 MD: 8 ME: 0 MI: 20 MN: 13 MO: 18 MS: 6 MT: 5 NC: 35 ND: 2 NE: 1 NH: 1 NJ: 3 NM: 5 NV: 6 NY: 12 OH: 19 OK: 9 OR: 7 PA: 27 RI: 0 SC: 16 SD: 1 TN: 23 TX: 63 UT: 3 VA: 24 VT: 0 WA: 19 WI: 19 WV: 5 WY: 1 New total: 651 theaters. UPDATE (April 4, 2008, 7:13 a.m. PDT): AK: 1 AL: 20 AR: 12 AZ: 17 (up from 8) CA: 65 (up from 60) CO: 11 CT: 5 (up from 3) DC: 1 DE: 3 FL: 60 (up from 58) GA: 29 (up from 19) HI: 3 IA: 9 ID: 7 (up from 6) IN: 22 (up from 20) IL: 29 (up from 23) KS: 11 (up from 10) KY: 10 (up from 7) LA: 12 (up from 6) MA: 2 (up from 0) MD: 11 (up from 8) ME: 1 (up from 0) MI: 27 (up from 20) MN: 23 (up from 13) MO: 20 (up from 18) MS: 8 (up from 6) MT: 5 NC: 38 (up from 35) ND: 2 NE: 4 (up from 1) NH: 2 (up from 1) NJ: 8 (up from 3) NM: 8 (up from 5) NV: 6 NY: 18 (up from 12) OH: 24 (up from 19) OK: 13 (up from 9) OR: 11 (up from 7) PA: 31 (up from 27) RI: 0 SC: 18 (up from 16) SD: 1 TN: 28 (up from 23) TX: 75 (up from 63) UT: 3 VA: 31 (up from 24) VT: 0 WA: 23 (up from 19) WI: 20 (up from 19) WV: 6 (up from 5) WY: 1 New total: 795 theaters (up 144 since March 31). UPDATE (April 6, 2008, 12:45 p.m. PDT): I checked again after seeing Kevin Miller claiming that the film is now set to open on 1,000 screens. There must be several theaters planning to show it on multiple screens, then. AK: 2 (up from 1) AL: 20 AR: 12 AZ: 17 CA: 64 (down from 65) CO: 11 CT: 5 DC: 1 DE: 3 FL: 60 GA: 29 HI: 3 IA: 9 ID: 7 IN: 22 IL: 29 KS: 11 KY: 10 LA: 12 MA: 2 MD: 11 ME: 1 MI: 27 MN: 23 MO: 20 MS: 8 MT: 5 NC: 38 ND: 2 NE: 4 NH: 2 NJ: 8 NM: 8 NV: 6 NY: 18 OH: 24 OK: 14 (up from 13) OR: 12 (up from 11) PA: 31 RI: 0 SC: 18 SD: 1 TN: 28 TX: 74 (down from 75) UT: 3 VA: 31 VT: 0 WA: 23 WI: 20 WV: 6 WY: 1 New total: 796 theaters (up by one theater since Friday). UPDATE (April 12, 2008, 8:16 a.m. MST): AK: 3 (up from 2) AL: 23 (up from 20) AR: 12 AZ: 18 (up from 17) CA: 105 (up from 64) CO: 19 (up from 11) CT: 7 (up from 5) DC: 1 DE: 3 FL: 79 (up from 60) GA: 38 (up from 29) HI: 4 (up from 3) IA: 12 (up from 9) ID: 7 IN: 28 (up from 22) IL: 46 (up from 29) KS: 12 (up from 11) KY: 13 (up from 10) LA: 14 (up from 12) MA: 12 (up from 2) MD: 14 (up from 11) ME: 1 MI: 36 (up from 27) MN: 25 (up from 23) MO: 20 MS: 8 MT: 5 NC: 45 (up from 38) ND: 2 NE: 4 NH: 3 (up from 2) NJ: 24 (up from 8) NM: 8 NV: 9 (up from 6) NY: 26 (up from 18) OH: 35 (up from 24) OK: 14 OR: 17 (up from 12) PA: 32 (up from 31) RI: 1 (up from 0) SC: 20 (up from 18) SD: 2 (up from 1) TN: 28 TX: 80 (up from 74) UT: 14 (up from 3) VA: 33 (up from 31) VT: 1 (up from 0) WA: 30 (up from 23) WI: 20 WV: 8 (up from 6) WY: 1 New total: 1022. They now have theaters in every state, and clearly have more than 1,000 screens, falsifying my prediction (1). At this point, I think my prediction (4) may also be falsified, but prediction (3) has probably become more likely since their audience will be diluted across a larger number of theaters and screens. UPDATE (April 14, 2008): “Expelled” has finally shown up in the “opening” category at Rotten Tomatoes (and was never listed as “upcoming”), with a 0% fresh (i.e., 100% rotten) rating. The only review counted at the moment is Variety’s review. UPDATE (April 16, 2008, 7:00 p.m. MST): AK: 2 (down from 3) AL: 23 AR: 12 AZ: 19 (up from 18) CA: 110 (up from 105) CO: 19 CT: 9 (up from 7) DC: 1 DE: 3 FL: 81 (up from 79) GA: 42 (up from 38) HI: 5 (up from 4) IA: 12 ID: 7 IN: 29 (up from 28) IL: 47 (up from 46) KS: 12 KY: 13 LA: 14 MA: 16 (up from 12) MD: 13 (down from 12) ME: 1 MI: 37 (up from 36) MN: 24 (down from 25) MO: 22 (up from 20) MS: 8 MT: 5 NC: 43 (down from 45) ND: 3 (up from 2) NE: 4 NH: 4 (up from 3) NJ: 26 (up from 24) NM: 8 NV: 9 NY: 27 (up from 26) OH: 36 (up from 35) OK: 14 OR: 16 (down from 17) PA: 34 (up from 32) RI: 1 SC: 20 SD: 2 TN: 28 TX: 81 (up from 80) UT: 14 VA: 33 VT: 1 WA: 31 (up from 30) WI: 19 (down from 20) WV: 8 WY: 1 New total: 1,049 theaters, up from 1,022 despite a few states losing a theater here and there. (The big drop will come next week.) Reviews are starting to show up at Rotten Tomatoes; it’s currently scoring one positive review and six negative, for a 14% freshness rating and an average rating of 2.8/10. UPDATE (April 18, 2008, 8:10 a.m. MST): It’s opening day, and further updates on theater counts, ratings, and box office will be posted here (and won’t include state-by-state breakdowns). The-Numbers.com reports that “Expelled”’s opening theater count is three more theaters than Wednesday’s total, 1,052. ...

Scott Hatfield looks at the backgrounds of “Expelled”’s producers. * Troy Britain and Jon Voisey recount the ever-changing stories of why P.Z. Myers was expelled from “Expelled." * Ed Brayton shows that “Expelled” co-writer and funder, software multimillionaire Walt Ruloff, lied about Myers’ expulsion. * P.Z. Myers responds to today’s press release from “Expelled”’s producers. And I’ve been continually updating my original post about P.Z. Myers being refused admittance to the screening of the film; you can find the above links there and many, many more.

Amanda Gefter, opinion editor at New Scientist Blogs, attended a screening of “Expelled” and has reported on the Q&A session with producer Mike Mathis that followed. She notes: He began calling on others in the crowd, who asked friendlier questions. But Maggie and I quickly realised that we’d seen some of these people before - earlier that evening, in fact, working at the movie’s registration table. These friendly audience members worked for the film? Had Mathis planted questioners?Another amusing bit: Another man in the front row wondered about the film’s premise that supporters of ID are being silenced. He pointed out that a recent trial about the teaching of intelligent design held in Dover, Pennsylvania, gave supporters of intelligent design all the time in the world to make their case, but most of the ’leading lights’ of ID didn’t even show up. When Mathis was responding, the guy asked another question, and the producer shot back, “How about you let me finish talking?” Then, a security guard for the film approached the calmly seated man and told him, “I may have to ask you to leave." “Does anyone else see how ironic this is?” the guy asked. “Shut up!” someone shouted from the back.And she ends with: I asked how ID explains the complexity, but he said, “I don’t have time for this,” and walked away. Throughout the entire experience, Maggie and I couldn’t help feeling that the polarised audience in the theater was a sort of microcosm of America, and let me tell you - it’s a scary place. I also couldn’t help thinking that the intelligent design folks aren’t being silenced, so much as they’re being silent. Because when it comes to actually explaining anything, they’ve got nothing to say. Read the whole thing.

Although the “Expelled” RSVP page mysteriously dropped all upcoming screenings after the media coverage of P.Z. Myers being barred from a screening in Minnesota, a few cities have appeared on the list again and Phoenix is one of them. This could be a chance to see the film without giving its dishonest producers any money–I’ve signed up. (Free is the only way I’ll bother to see this film.) The site now explains the cancelled screenings as follows: Due to unavoidable changes in the travel plans of the producers of “Expelled”, several of our screenings have been canceled or are being rescheduled to a new date or time.While that may be true, I wonder if it’s merely an excuse to drop all of the existing registrants and do more stringent screening of who is allowed to be admitted. ...

Allen MacNeill, who teaches introductory biology and evolution at Cornell University, reports that he and Will Provine were also interviewed by “Expelled” producer Mark Mathis under false pretenses last year. Unlike P.Z. Myers, Dawkins, and Eugenie Scott of the NCSE, however, his interview was not used in the film. (Corrected: Provine was used in the film. Provine argues that evolution is evidence in support of atheism, which is probably why he was used in the movie.) Why not? Because they invite ID proponents to give presentations in their classrooms. Yet Mathis claimed that he was setting out to present an even-handed presentation, not propaganda. Personally, I think it’s quite reasonable to talk about ID and creationism in college-level courses, provided that you actually evaluate their arguments. I occasionally included some creationist readings in critical thinking courses I taught at the University of Arizona, as exercises for spotting fallacies. ...

P.Z. Myers of Pharyngula, who is actually featured in the dishonest Ben Stein intelligent design propaganda movie “Expelled,” was denied admittance to a screening and asked to leave the premises. His guest, however, was permitted to attend, and was apparently, quite astonishingly, unrecognized–Richard Dawkins. (Myers provides a few more details here.) The New York Times contacted “Expelled” producer Mark Mathis about it, and he claimed that Dawkins was intentionally allowed in and insinuating that Myers would cause trouble at the screening. (Anyone who has met Myers in person knows this is ridiculous.) Here’s video of P.Z. Myers and Richard Dawkins describing their respective experiences. Jeffrey Overstreet gives what appears to be the spin that will be used to respond to this event, based on the clearly mistaken description of Myers’ removal from student Stuart Blessman: I just happened to be standing directly in line behind Dawkins’ academic colleague. Management of the movie theatre saw a man apparently hustling and bothering several invited attendees, apparently trying to disrupt the viewing or sneak in. Management then approached the man, asked him if he had a ticket, and when he confirmed that he didn’t, they then escorted him off the premises. Nowhere was one of the film’s producers to be found, and the man certainly didn’t identify himself. If a producer had been nearby, it’s possible that he would have been admitted, but the theatre’s management didn’t want to take any chances.Myers points out: ...

The March 2008 issue of Fortean Times has an interesting article by Rupert Sheldrake titled “Richard Dawkins calls.” In it, he describes his meeting with Dawkins for the filming of a segment originally planned to be part of Enemies of Reason, broadcast in August 2007. Apparently very little was filmed and nothing was used of the meeting. Sheldrake was to be interviewed as a defender of scientific evidence for telepathy, which Sheldrake has studied with empirical research, and written and published papers about. (Sheldrake is perhaps best known for his theory of morphogenetic fields, which he wrote about in his book A New Science of Life, which a reviewer for Nature called “the best candidate for burning there has been in years.” He believes that the more an idea is used, the easier it becomes for others to think of–along the lines of the “hundredth monkey” phenomenon which was a myth originated by Lyall Watson and promulgated by Ken Keyes, Jr., and debunked by philosopher Ron Amundson.) According to Sheldrake, he was promised that “this documentary, at Channel 4’s insistence, will be an entirely more balanced affair than The Root of All Evil? was” and that “We are very keen for it to be a discussion between two scientists, about scientific modes of enquiry." But when the meeting occurred, it quickly came to an end because, according to Sheldrake, Dawkins said “I don’t want to discuss evidence. … There isn’t time. … It’s too complicated. And that’s not what this programme is about.” (A charitable and likely accurate reading of what “that” refers to is specifically evidence for telepathy, though Sheldrake seems to suggest Dawkins means evidence of any kind.) Sheldrake reports that Russell Barnes, the director, also “confirmed that he was not interested in evidence either.” (Again, probably referring specifically to evidence for telepathy, rather than evidence in general.) Sheldrake responded that “If you’re treating telepathy as an irrational belief, surely evidence about whether it exists or not is essential for the discussion. If telepathy occurs, it’s not irrational to believe in it. I thought that’s what we were going to talk about. I made it clear from the outset that I wasn’t interested in taking part in another low-grade debunking exercise.” To which he reports that Dawkins responded, “It’s not a low-grade debunking exercise. It’s a high-grade debunking exercise.” I don’t see how anyone can reasonably disagree with Sheldrake’s statement. Sheldrake told them he had received assurances that this would be “a balanced scientific discussion about the evidence,” and when Barnes asked to see the emails in question, he showed them. Sheldrake writes, “He read them with obvious dismay, and said the assurances she had given me were wrong. The team packed up and left." UPDATE (April 25, 2008): Rupert Sheldrake has posted “Richard Dawkins comes to call” on his website, which looks to be more-or-less the same as the FT article. William Dembski has pointed to this article as evidence that Richard Dawkins has done the same kind of duping that he has complained about when the producers of “Expelled” did it to him, but I don’t think they’re quite the same in a number of respects. While Dawkins was (to his discredit) uninterested in the scientific evidence underlying telepathy that Sheldrake wanted to discuss, footage from Sheldrake wasn’t used in the final documentary. The case would have been parallel if Dawkins had pretended to be interested in the scientific evidence, completed the interview, and then used the footage in such a way as to criticize and ridicule Sheldrake. And it would have been parallel to how P.Z. Myers’ footage was used in “Expelled” only if Dawkins had conversed with Sheldrake about the scientific evidence for telepathy and then used excerpts from it in a film on another topic that hadn’t been mentioned. (Myers wasn’t asked questions about intelligent design, only about the relationship between religion and science.) UPDATE (June 8, 2008): P.Z. Myers has weighed in on this controversy at Pharyngula, arguing that Sheldrake’s evidence (which hasn’t been discussed, so far as I can see) doesn’t count as evidence because of a lack of a plausible mechanism. I disagree that lack of a mechanism means that anomalous data doesn’t count as evidence–it is reason to reject a proposed explanation, but it’s not a reason to deny that there is anomalous data. UPDATE (June 15, 2008): Sheldrake responds to Myers: [W]ith such a farrago of prejudice, ignorance and arrogance, it’s hard to know where to begin. It doesn’t really seem worth replying to people who aren’t interested in the facts but simply in venting their rage. ...

The National Center for Science Education has put up a website, ExpelledExposed.com, to respond to the dishonest intelligent design movie featuring Ben Stein, Expelled. The current content is links to news coverage and reviews of the movie, but I expect the site will become more interesting when the movie is actually released on April 18. geo (2008-03-09): It should be noted for the benefit of fair minded readers here that...every one of the allegations made on the "EXPOSED" site are...false. Not merely inaccurate, but intentionally so.Fortunately, the film EXPELLED will serve as its own refutation of these allegattions. The lies will in fact corroborate the main point of the film, which is a chronicle of the depths to which Big Science will sink, when it is questioned in the harsh light of day.geo ...