Ran out to see Expelled this afternoon, the movie I referenced a few days ago. I liked it. I feel like I gained a better appreciation for the kind of folks who populate the mainstream scientific faculties in major universities -- pretty unappealing for the most part. They were (generally) closed-minded, hostile, and not interested in dialog about Intelligent Design. The ID proponents, on the other hand, seemed friendly, courteous, and desirous of dialog. (This is an obvious oversimplification, based on the interviews the director chose to include in the movie.)
Ben Stein is Jewish, so this wasn't a movie about evangelical Christianity or the Christian right or getting biblical creation into schools. I don't recall "Jesus Christ" ever being mentioned, and Christianity only rarely, usually by the evolutionists who claim that ID is a smokescreen by the Christian right to get the Bible back in schools. I've never seen such well-educated folks, on both sides of the issue. I recall seeing several double-doctorate holders on the ID side.
Stein used an interesting metaphor to frame the entire movie from beginning to end: the Berlin wall that was put up by East Berlin to shut off all contact and dialog with the West. He likened that wall to the kind of closed-mindedness seen among evolutionist scientists. The movie was made interesting by frequent decades-old film footage of the Berlin situation, and later of Nazi Germany. A good bit of time was spent showing how committed Hitler was to Darwinism, and how evolutionary principles like natural selection were used by Hitler as justification for cleansing Europe of "weak" minority species like Jews, Gypsies, the mentally ill, the aged, homosexuals, and others. And how some of the same eugenic principles have made their way into today's Planned Parenthood -- all based on Darwinistic evolution (wittingly or unwittingly).
Stein's point was not to condemn the theory of evolution, but the attempts by mainstream scientific communities to shut off debate on any ideas that don't comport to Darwin's framework, and to oust and shun those scientists who dare to step outside the lines in their research, writing, or teaching.
It's a conservative film -- Ben Stein is a conservative, after all, and believes in preserving the right to free speech in every venue. But it's not a religious film at all, for which I was glad.
Finally, the most interesting thing to me was the evolutionist scientists' utter lack of explanation for how the evolutionary process began. (After all, as one of the ID guys pointed out, Darwin's book was titled On the Origin of Species, not On the Origin of Life. Darwin didn't know either.) They don't have a clue how life began, and admit as much. I thought Richard Dawkins', England's Arch-Atheist, explanation was the most unbelievable. He finally admitted, in a conversation with Stein, that ID might have happened -- that a superior intelligent race of beings from another planet, who of course were the result of evolution, came to earth and seeded a life-form of some kind in earth's primordial soup, beginning the evolutionary process.
Puh-lease. I can't prove it didn't happen, but is that what we're supposed to call science? For a group of people who condemn ID proponents for their lack of scientific methods, the evolutionists sound at times more like science fictionists than scientists.
A creative, interesting film, following Stein in his travels around America and Europe interviewing the best and brightest on both sides of the debate. I have to say the ID guys came out looking the best -- but I'm sure that's what Stein intended to happen. After all, it's his film.
Ben Stein is Jewish, so this wasn't a movie about evangelical Christianity or the Christian right or getting biblical creation into schools. I don't recall "Jesus Christ" ever being mentioned, and Christianity only rarely, usually by the evolutionists who claim that ID is a smokescreen by the Christian right to get the Bible back in schools. I've never seen such well-educated folks, on both sides of the issue. I recall seeing several double-doctorate holders on the ID side.
Stein used an interesting metaphor to frame the entire movie from beginning to end: the Berlin wall that was put up by East Berlin to shut off all contact and dialog with the West. He likened that wall to the kind of closed-mindedness seen among evolutionist scientists. The movie was made interesting by frequent decades-old film footage of the Berlin situation, and later of Nazi Germany. A good bit of time was spent showing how committed Hitler was to Darwinism, and how evolutionary principles like natural selection were used by Hitler as justification for cleansing Europe of "weak" minority species like Jews, Gypsies, the mentally ill, the aged, homosexuals, and others. And how some of the same eugenic principles have made their way into today's Planned Parenthood -- all based on Darwinistic evolution (wittingly or unwittingly).
Stein's point was not to condemn the theory of evolution, but the attempts by mainstream scientific communities to shut off debate on any ideas that don't comport to Darwin's framework, and to oust and shun those scientists who dare to step outside the lines in their research, writing, or teaching.
It's a conservative film -- Ben Stein is a conservative, after all, and believes in preserving the right to free speech in every venue. But it's not a religious film at all, for which I was glad.
Finally, the most interesting thing to me was the evolutionist scientists' utter lack of explanation for how the evolutionary process began. (After all, as one of the ID guys pointed out, Darwin's book was titled On the Origin of Species, not On the Origin of Life. Darwin didn't know either.) They don't have a clue how life began, and admit as much. I thought Richard Dawkins', England's Arch-Atheist, explanation was the most unbelievable. He finally admitted, in a conversation with Stein, that ID might have happened -- that a superior intelligent race of beings from another planet, who of course were the result of evolution, came to earth and seeded a life-form of some kind in earth's primordial soup, beginning the evolutionary process.
Puh-lease. I can't prove it didn't happen, but is that what we're supposed to call science? For a group of people who condemn ID proponents for their lack of scientific methods, the evolutionists sound at times more like science fictionists than scientists.
A creative, interesting film, following Stein in his travels around America and Europe interviewing the best and brightest on both sides of the debate. I have to say the ID guys came out looking the best -- but I'm sure that's what Stein intended to happen. After all, it's his film.
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Ok, I can't resist a comment. Thanks for the review of the movie. I am glad to hear it was fun and worth the while. I want to both appreciate the divisive and exclusionary ways of human communities (science being one type of community) that Stein so antagonistically displays for the world to see while resisting the positive claims of intelligent design from a scientific standpoint. And, I think that can be done without taking a stand on whether alternatives to evolution should be taught in schools; that's a practically important issue not a matter of theory. Below is more a matter of theory.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Dawkin's point: (alien life and creation of life on earth) he is making a similar claim that Hume (another famous British atheist) made many years ago. The claim is that the evidence under-determines (doesn't motivate or make reasonable) any one answer to the question of origins. So, given the evidence, Hume, via the character Philo in DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION, invents wildly implausible stories about how a designed system might come about. His interlocutor is unable to show how the evidence fits "Designer" any better than many other stories. Ultimately Philo is willing to say this much: "something" happened. So, at least that places Dawkins comment into a tradition of responses to someone who wants to assert that the evidence proves "designer" and all the content associated with that concept better than other accounts. The response by the Hume/Dawkins crowd is generally to offer other accounts and then ask the intelligent design folks to show how the "evidence" motivates one conclusion over another. It's tongue and cheek-with a bite. Dawkins doesn't think that story makes sense. He wants everyone to see that there are no reasons to take the "Design" story any more seriously, right?
Qualification, I am not urging atheism as much as resisiting the possibility of scientific knowledge (knowledge based on experimental evidence) about God. But that's another conversation. There, that's what you get for having a philosophy instructor for a son...
Daniel
PS- I am sure Behe, Stein, you and others would have a field day with my comments. But I couldn't resist.