Directory:What the Bleep Do We Know!?
What the Bleep Do We Know!? (also written What tнe #$*! Dө ωΣ (k) πow!? and What the #$*! Do We Know!?) is a film made in 2004 (released in an extended DVD version in 2006) that has provoked a storm of controversy for its misrepresentation of mysticism as science. The film tells the story of a deaf photographer struggling with her life after divorce and depression. It is mixed with clips presenting scientific facts in an educational or documentary manner (including interviews with genuine experts), together with philosophical interpretations of these facts by non-experts, as well as claims, presented in the same documentary style, that are not factual at all. The film concludes with an affirmation of the existence and of the centrality of God and of the freedom of the human spirit.
The film proved enormously popular, playing to full houses across the United States and winning several independent film awards before being picked up by a major distributor[1] eventually grossing over $10 million.[2]It was praised by Madonna as "incredibly thought-provoking and inspiring," and won widespread support and acclaim in the New Age community. However, it has been criticised as fraudulent for presenting speculation and unsupported opinion as if it were established science, mixing mainstream scientific views with mysticism, and exploiting people's fascination with and belief in science while at the same distorting and falsifying its claims. One of the experts interviewed in the film complained that his interview had been edited in such a way as to completely suppress (and indeed to reverse) his actual views. Sceptics such as James Randi described the film as "[a] rampant example of abuse by charlatans and cults." The Committee for Sceptical Inquiry dismissed it as "a hodgepodge of all kinds of crackpot nonsense". A BBC reviewer described it as "a documentary aimed at the totally gullible." [3]
Wikipedia version
The article on this film was the subject of a long and protracted editorial dispute between sceptics and new age types, running from 2005 to the time of writing (July 2008). The result was the usual Wikipedia hodgepodge: a laundry list of pros and cons, festooned with citations and sources and with no discernible thread.
Notes
- ^ Tom Huston, "Taking the Quantum Leap... Too Far?", What is Enlightenment? Magazine, Retrieved January 25, 2008
- ^ http://www.einsteinyear.org/bleep/ einstein year, What the Bleep do we Know? Retrieved December 28, 2007
- ^ Review at BBC Movies
