Expelled – The New Ben Stein Movie

I always look forward to anything that has Ben Stein attached to it. Movies, articles, books, what have you. And in keeping with that tradition this movie is going into my “must see” list:

From the few reviews I have read of the movie from those who saw the still raw version at CPAC it appears the main thrust of the movie is academia intolerance. Science should always be about the research of new ideas and free debate. But when the film makers have to hide the faces of scientists who dare discuss ID in a rational way you know that this freedom doesn’t exist.

As for Intelligent Design, I don’t discount it. I’m sure there are some in the ID community who want to push the creationist version of life but to me ID could very well explain evolution. Who is say that a higher being didn’t put that first cell on this planet to set off evolution? Maybe, or maybe not. But at least let the free flow of ideas get thrown about in academia.

Ed Morrissey, who saw the film with a few thoughts:

the film does an excellent job of demonstrating atheism as a belief system. Atheism as represented by Richard Dawkings and others in this film gets exposed as exactly the kind of belief system they claim to despise. They can’t prove God exists — and they can’t prove God doesn’t exist. They make the common fallacy of arguing that absence of evidence amounts to evidence of absence.

Amusingly, Stein asks people how the first cell came to be. None of the scientists could give him a straight answer. Dawkins himself admits he doesn’t know and that no one else does, either — but postulates that aliens could have brought life to this planet, and then postulates that another alien civilization could have brought life to that planet, and so on. He then concedes that one entity could have been the original source … but insists that entity could not possibly have been God. For this he gives absolutely no evidence at all, relegating it as a belief system somewhat akin to Scientology.

Overall, though, the film presents a powerful argument not for intelligent design as much as for the freedom of scientific inquiry. If scientists get punished for challenging orthodoxy, we will not expand our learning but ossify it in concrete.

The producers delve a bit more into the subject matter:

Darwinian evolution theory is a viable scientific theory. Author of The God Delusion Richard Dawkins has stated that Darwin’s evolution theory has provided atheists with “intellectual fulfillment.” If you grant that, then you must also grant that it has given a great many racists “intellectual fulfillment,” too.

Here is how Darwin himself translated his own gloomy scientific theory into an even more disturbing worldview (from the Descent of Man)

‘At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropological apes… will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state…even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla’.

Now, before you protest the analogy, consider that Professor Dawkins himself understands full well the analogy – to the extent that he’d prefer to just side step it:

In his “The Ancestor’s Tale,” he posed the Welfare State as a challenge to Darwinism. When asked by an Austrian journalist in an interview (Die Presse -July 30, 2005) how he would justify that challenge?

Dawkins: “No self-respecting person would want to live in a Society that operates according to Darwinian laws. I am a passionate Darwinist, when it involves explaining the development of life. However, I am a passionate anti-Darwinist when it involves the kind of society in which we want to live. A Darwinian State would be a Fascist state.”

Or, in other words, “I really don’t want to think about it!”

The new film, ” EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed” does not presume to bury the theory of evolution… but it declines to praise it, either. As a worldview…no thinking person (certainly no moral person) can view a scientific theory of life based on an undirected, purposeless and random process as anything but pessimism. Certain people, and many scientists are drawn to pessimism, and thus pessimistic scientific theories. But that does not make their theories, or them, for that matter, any more attractive or intelligent.

Pessimism is a malady to be overcome, not encouraged – and it is certainly not a quality (or a theory) to be celebrated. As history teaches us – inherently pessimistic scientific theories, like all decadent theories (socialism, communism) eventually give way to those that actually work.

The sixteenth President of the United States believed what our country’s founders believed and that The Bill of Rights so clearly stated – that all men were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That’s a “theory” that works.

Choosing to believe in but one scientific theory that effectively negates the whole notion of an intrinsic intelligence, a higher power, an intelligent designer – is fine, if pessimism is what floats your boat.

But that is your choice – or at least it should be a “choice” – for there is ample scientific evidence accumulating under the theory of Intelligent Design that presents an equally compelling – and much more optimistic scientific perspective on life’s “origins.”

But currently, Big Science is still enamored with only the gloomy, 150-year old theory originally developed by Darwin, the man who believed that “superior” races would eventually wipe out the “inferior” races. The problem is…the scientific theory justifying that repugnant view is being forced on all of us, to the exclusion of any other scientific theories, in our nation’s public schools and taxpayer-funded government science institutions.

Abraham Lincoln ended slavery in America forever, to put to bed the whole notion of “inferior” races. And to be fair – the gentle Mr. Darwin himself did not favor slavery – even of those whom he described as being of the“savage races.”

Should the theory of Intelligent Design be allowed to be debated alongside Darwin’s depressing 150-year-old theory of Evolution? Should scientists who want to explore Intelligent Design Theory be shunned, ostracized and even fired from the teaching profession?

If you have to ask the questions – perhaps you don’t understand the difference between academic freedom… and the State-sponsored pessimism that is currently all but mandated by Big Science.

“EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed” is a new film that will open your eyes to the scientific evidence that challenges Darwin’s lurid theory of life. It reveals the distinctly non-scientific agenda that is driving Neo-Darwinism today. It also presents exciting new evidence accumulating behind the theory of intelligent design.

But most importantly – it will also remind you of the importance of maintaining the values of freedom and hope that Abraham Lincoln championed, and that some folks wish to deny us by fiat.

Pessimism is sort of a simplistic way to view it but they get the point across. If scientists who dare to embrace, or at least discuss ID are forced out of the academic world we know something has gone terribly wrong. Just as in the global warming field Ben Stein sees that many almost have to suppress a competing theory on how we got here because they owe their livelihood to the accepted version.

Ben Stein:

if they are Darwinists and they owe their jobs to being Darwinists, they are not going to challenge the orthodoxy because that would challenge the whole basis of their jobs and their lives. So they are not going to challenge the ideology that has given them lush positions in real life.

Curt

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