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Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed Written by Dan Boyer on Wed, 11/19/2008 - 05:35
Last Thursday night, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” was shown in Fisher 135 in a charged and even polarized atmosphere. Low-key protestors handed viewers fliers as they entered the auditorium. The movie was disrupted by a man’s attempted disputing with the screen and punctuated by applause from distinct areas of seating. Clueless Ferris Bueller teacher and sometime game-show host Ben Stein’s documentary about the Intelligent Design controversy, however, only marginally supported ID; it was more an exploration of the alleged suppression of this idea in the world of science, and to a lesser degree journalism and in the courts. Stein or others interviewed those who have advocated or investigated ID, who claimed to have had their careers damaged for doing so, and dismissive Darwinists. The former came off better, but there were outlandish moments from nearly every talking head to which some audience members reacted with laughter. (Richard Dawkins’ stammering performance is perhaps the most significant example, and also questionable is the illogicality – perhaps his statements have been narrowed by editing – of part of the apparent support for his atheism being his dislike of the God of the Old Testament.) Seemingly lost on them, however, was the very particular and bone-dry humor that could even be called “Steinian,” threaded through Stein’s travels from Iowa to the Smithsonian, from Seattle to Paris. This humor, appropriately, begins to fade with his sobering and starkly-filmed visit to Holocaust sites in Germany. While American eugenicists who sterilized the mentally retarded and National Socialists who gassed “worthless eaters” were inspired by Darwin’s theories, the movie does not emphasize the essential – that this inspiration was directly contradicted by some of Darwin’s writings, and is actually a profound distortion. Stein never makes his position adequately clear here. While there has been much criticism of “Expelled” for what it includes, the movie could be criticized for what it leaves out. While Paul Nelson of the Intelligent-Design-supporting Discovery Institute denies, rather unconvincingly, that ID is just warmed-over creationism, a broader historical approach could have definitively laid this notion to rest. While stealth promotion of creationism is undoubtedly some ID supporters’ agenda, Aristotle and others who could not possibly have been influenced by Judeo-Christian ideas have been discussing these theories since ancient times. “Expelled” is shot in beautifully oversaturated color intercut with black-and-white footage of Hitler and the Berlin Wall (the latter symbolizing the ghetto-ization of those who have even questioned whether an Intelligent-Design approach might have value). Though sometimes powerful, this editing approach is at times employed intrusively and even in a way that is thuddingly manipulative. Through misfires and overreaching, a provocative “Expelled” is still worth seeing for the uncomfortable and debatable issues it raises. Bookmark/Search this post with:
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What complete nonsense. "Expelled" is categorically not worth seeing. It is a vile piece of propaganda that deliberately and completely falsely associates Charles Darwin with Nazism and eugenics and paints a false dichotomy between practicing science and holding a religious belief. It's case-studies of persecuted academics are largely fabricated and the manner in which prominent evolutionary biologists were mislead into being interviewed for a wholly different movie and then edited to appear absurd was completely reprehensible.
It is deeply disappointing that the Campus Crusade for Christ screened this film at MTU, although I am pleased that the organiser had the grace to apologise to the members of the audience who were insulted and upset by the accusations made and implied during the course of the documentary. I trust that this group will think a little longer and research the films it chooses to show a little more in future.
Please do not reward these irresponsible film-makers with your time or money. At the very least read the description and responses to this film that can be found at Wikipedia and Scientific American:
Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expelled_(movie)
Scientific American's commentary: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=sciam-reviews-expelled
For those who have not yet seen the
Ben Stein documentary:
"EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed"
visit:
http://www.ExpelledTheMovie.com/video.php
to view
3 movie trailers
and a Bill O'Reilly interview.
I recently watched "Expelled," and was pleased only by one item in it. That was where it was admitted that not just anything should be taught or "researched," the flat earth being specifically mentioned. OK, the problems of consensus in science are also real (revolutionary ideas have a hard time breaking through consensus), but they so badly use this issue in support of evidence-free claims that it hardly counts as a plus.
At the point where they admitted that not everything should be allowed in science, they implied that they were going to show that ID was worth consideration in science. Yet as Boyer notes, they didn't do so. The very people who have run into difficulties for their pseudoscience were used as "authorities" for the claim that ID had scientific merit, a glaringly circular form of "reasoning." Besides that, they only used the fatuous old IDist gawp at life's complexity and claimed that life is too complex to evolve without assistance. The fact that this complexity has none of the marks of design that we know, and all of the expected marks of unguided evolution (high conservatism in lineages, with no evidence of "common authorship" in modifications after lines diverge) is something that they did not care to discuss.
Watching young earth creationist Paul Nelson claim that ID isn't creationism was hardly convincing. Nelson himself is a prime example of the dependence of ID upon religion, and not upon science.
The fact that Sternberg apparently shepherded non-scientist Stephen Meyer's unscientific paper through the vetting process that is meant to weed out such tripe was also, of course, not mentioned in the movie. Abusing science as Sternberg did is worthy of the criticisms that he received from his colleagues.
Somehow, the following passage by prominent IDist Michael Behe failed to appear in the movie:
"If a theory claims to be able to explain some phenomenon but does not generate even an attempt at an explanation, then it should be banished. Despite comparing sequences, molecular evolution has never addressed the question of how complex structures came to be. In effect, the theory of Darwinian molecular evolution has not published, and so it should perish."
http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_idfrombiochemistry.htm
The same passage is in his "Darwin's Black Box."
Of course, evolutionary theory has addressed the questions of how complex structures came to be, and continues to do so. Behe's lack of regard for such research was exposed in the Dover trial.
But if we apply Behe's censorious tendencies, ID definitely should be banished, for it has absolutely no explanations for how life came to have the forms that it does.
By itself, "Expelled" is utterly worthless, and it should not be recommended viewing without supplementary rebuttals and context. Only as part of an expose of ID is it worth anything at all, for it left out virtually everything that is important in such a discussion, from ID's inability to show that it has any value in science, to its own desires to censor out evolutionary theory--and because it relies completely upon questionable sources, plus mere incredulity with respect to the competence of evolution, in order to claim that ID deserves a place in science.
Only totalitarian regimes force non-science to be considered as science, such as when Lysenkoism was favored by by Stalin over the neo-Darwinian synthesis that free societies and science were using at that time.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7