Are ID proponents being silenced?

We can only hope. (Kidding)

I suppose the IDbots have a right to their say. But I think things like the creationist propaganda movie "Expelled" are what's meant when people refer to the downside of free speech being the attempt to push irrational and stupid ideas into the mainstream.

Amanda Gefter of New Scientist recently went to a screening of "Expelled", and given the chance to explain themselves, the ID proponents don't do a very good job of it:

"I had another question to ask and held my hand up high, but Mathis called on anyone and everyone else who appeared to be more sympathetic. Finally, he looked at his watch and said, "Well, I think that's all the time we have," and began to walk out. I followed him out into the lobby to speak with him.

I said that the film spent a lot of time making the point that proponents of evolution can't explain how life arose from non-life, and asked how intelligent design explains it. It doesn't, he acknowledged.

"Then don't you think it's strange that you tried to pin that on the scientists?" I asked. "Well, it's a real hole in their theory," he said.

"Actually, it's not - the theory of evolution never purported to touch on the issue of how life arose from non-life, it's about how species arose from other species." I said that in science, criticising someone else's theory doesn't make your theory right, and that the film never bothers to say how intelligent design explains anything at all.

He countered that intelligent design says there are things that are too complex to be explained by natural selection.

I asked how ID explains the complexity, but he said, "I don't have time for this," and walked away." (emphasis mine)

Huh. And "Up is up means I win, nyeah nyeah nyeah".