He Blinded Me Without Science
Ben Stein has a message for Darwin: "Fuck you!"
It seems incomprehensible that Stein -- former Nixon speech writer, game show host, eye drop pitchman and Neil Cavuto love interest -- could find a way to further cement his reputation as the smartest dumb person alive, but, bless his heart, he's done it. Today sees the theatrical release of a full-length documentary presented and narrated by Stein: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed casts the man with the velvet monotone as a sort of Michael Mooresque troublemaker -- a mischievous imp out to rankle the establishment and challenge the suffocating status quo, all in the name of getting to the truth that they don't want you to know about.
And against which authority figure is Stein playing the role of the uppity insurgent?
Science.
Feel free to stop reading if you've heard this one before, but Expelled assumes the position not only that the theory of evolution and the faith-based hypothesis known as "intelligent design" are on close-to-equal scientific footing, but that there's an Illuminatian cabal among the science community, no doubt sitting in a Star Chamber somewhere, seeing to it that any developmental view but Darwin's is suppressed at all costs. It's a hell of a parlor trick really, and one the religious right has become admirably adept at exploiting these days: to turn the tables on their adversaries by adopting the tactics and lexicon traditionally associated with the mutinous left, casting themselves as the victimized and oppressed -- the little guys, taking up the fight against (literally, as opposed to an omnipotent deity) "The Man."
In the end though, that's all it is -- a really clever trick, and one that's played to the hilt in Expelled.
Creating controversy where there is none is positively pedestrian by now, but taking it to the lengths that this new documentary does, and doing it with such a salient level of panache, borders on genius. The SNL writing staff, circa 1977, couldn't have created a more audaciously comical premise than Ben Stein -- a man so square he craps cubes -- writing "I Will Not Question Authority" on a blackboard while dressed like Angus Young. Stein is a Dangerous Mind only if you see mark-to-market accounting as a ballsy show of defiance, which makes him the perfect impertinent hero for the God-said-it-I-believe-it set.
Unfortunately, no matter how creative the packaging, the lesson being sold in Expelled remains little more than nonsense. Stein and company can wrap themselves in the American flag and the freedom to question that it provides; they can grab a handful of ostensible pop culture street cred by aligning themselves with the likes of Bono; in the end, it doesn't make so-called intelligent design any more logically sound. It's still a religious assertion, and not a scientific one. It doesn't stand up to even the most rudimentary evidential scrutiny, and while it's always important to ask questions and allow for healthy debate, no matter the topic, at some point a line has to be drawn separating fact from fiction -- or distraction. The truth is important because it's the yardstick by which we measure our reality, and Ben Stein -- or anyone else -- trying to pass off spectacular whimsy as legitimate fact is, yes, damaging. Not everything can be up for discussion, no matter how large a segment of the population might believe otherwise.
And that's the best part of all this: Stein and his supposedly rag-tag little group of freedom fighters are neither rag-tag nor little.
In fact, the idea that we're expected to believe that the religious in this country are few and persecuted is laughable, bordering on offensive.
Last Sunday evening, CNN aired something it called the "Compassion Forum." It was a live event, broadcast from Messiah College in Pennsylvania, in which an entire roomful of religious leaders -- mostly Christian -- were granted an audience with the two Democratic candidates for president, one of whom may eventually be the next leader of the free world. For two hours, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama talked not about war, education and the economy, but about how their faith guides them and, to some extent, who loves Jesus more. The fact that either candidate believes that he or she has the luxury right now to spout metaphysical platitudes is nothing short of staggering -- though certainly not surprising. Just a few days prior to the "Compassion Forum," the entire cast of American Idol, dressed in evangelical white, belted its way through Shout to the Lord not once, but twice on national television. And today, the city in which I live, New York, is at a standstill as thousands crowd the streets -- streets which have been shut down by police -- to reverently welcome an unremarkable man in ridiculous robes and a funny hat who believes that he has a hotline to the creator of the universe and who just wrapped up a meeting with the President of the United States.
In other words, don't even attempt to claim that the religious suffer for their beliefs in this country. Hell, as long as you insist that you're doing it in the name of God, you can swap wives and molest children in The Middle of Nowhere, Texas for years before somebody finally comes and hauls your lunatic ass off to jail.
Ben Stein can rage against the scientific machine all he wants. He can shake his fist and shout, "Don't try to keep me down with your, your gravity, man!" It won't make a spurious assertion -- that intelligent design deserves a seat at the lab station -- any more sound, nor will it make Stein anything more than a rebel without a clue.
Follow Chez Pazienza on Twitter: www.twitter.com/chezpazienza
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I can't imagine or accept an intelligence that designs excruciating diseases suffered by infants and toddlers.
I also can't accept intelligence in a designer who interacts with humanity via homicidal nitwits.
Get real. Faith is based only in faith and nothing else. Only the terminally arrogant conclude that anything they can't understand or analyze must be therefore attributed to a supernatural force.
Teaching intelligent design in a science class is just as ridiculous as teaching science in a religious class. One is test-based logic and one is belief.
Darwin was a man, evolution is a theory, Intelligent Design is for Sunday School. It can't get any clearer than that. 80 or so years ago America had this argument it was called the Scopes monkey trial and the religious fundamentalists lost. Exactly what has changed?
Why do we pay attention to America's religious fundamentalist extremists. These are the people who think:
Tinky Winky is gay
Sponge Bob is gay
9/11 happened because we like gays
Katrina happened because we dont kill gays
The tsunami happened because we like condoms
George W Bush is the second coming
Ronald Reagan should be a saint
add more here the list never ends.
Sponge Bob is gay
Well yea, he is pretty gay. And that is as close to being a fact as... doG
Unlike the Pope, Sponge Bob doesn't wear white dresses.
Actually, Scopes lost his trial, he was found guilty of teaching evolution illegally. I agree that in the broader context, the strict creationist argument lost due to ever-mounting evidence of an old earth, and more and more scientific findings supporting evolution and natural selection, but on that day, Wm Jennings Bryan actually won in the courtroom.
Which makes even more ludicrous the premise of Stein's movie, that Creation is an underdog fighting the establishment; the truth is the fundies have been in charge for centuries, and they always remain hostile to scientific challenges to their view of the universe, as they do to progressive challenges to their view of society.
I take heart in the realization that once democracy and liberty are put in place, history becomes an inexorable erosion of fundamentalist thought by progressive principles; just as progressives fought for abolition, and suffrage, and civil rights, and worker's rights, and gay rights, scientists are forced to fight for acceptance of their findings against a fundamentalist foundation with an investment in keeping the status quo.
Scopes lost, but was only fined $100. His conviction was overturned on appeal, though and Darrow won argument in the media.
Its funny, they use the question "But how did it all start?" in the ad to show that Darwinism doesnt have all the answers. What they dont say is that in the movie, they dont even approach the question. Poor logic skills abound.
It's a standard bait-and-switch tactic of ID opponents. Evolution is the description of how existing species change and adapt to their environment over time and how new species arise from older ones through adaptation and mutation. It has nothing to do at all with how life initially began. The theory that life began spontaneously from a primordial is the theory of abiogenesis. Ben Stein is allegedly smart enough to know the difference between the two theories. I can only guess then that he's being willfully dishonest.
Ugh. That should have read "ID PROponents". I'm tired.
Thank you so much for making this point, I heard Ben Stein give an interview on the radio and that is exactly what I was thinking. It drives me crazy when people attack evolution or "darwinism" because it can't prove where life originated. Obviously it can't, that's outside the scope of the theory. And this helps demonstrate why we need better education concerning evolution in school, so that the misconceptions can stop propagating.
Intelligent design? The prostate gland is intelligent design? Tell that to my husband the fourth time he gets out of bed to pee. Dogs only live for fifteen years tops, but sponges live for a hundred? Scorpions sometimes sting themselves?
I am not so uncharitable that I would saddle God with the blame.
The intelligent design of childhood cancer is a fascinating study topic. The intelligent design of permitting guns and explosives to fall into the hands of homocidal maniacs could also be a wonderful study topic. The creation of homocidal maniacs in itself must be considered a premier product of intelligent design. So much inteeligent design scares me. May we have some dimwitted design please?
"So much intelligent design scares me. May we have some dimwitted design please?" I thought that was the role TV played, at least that is true in this country with its ever increasing number of stupid morons.
Oh dear! you are forgetting Satan! There are evil spirits in our midst, leprechauns, faries, imps and gremlins doing evil deeds. Among the many mysteries of faith is why God allows such creatures to tempt and challenge our faith to see if we are really worthy of his love. If we are worthy, when jesus finally returns and all our ancestors rise out of their graves we will ascend into heaven leaving all the unworthy behind. Heaven, by the way, is like a giant cocktail party where the ice never runs out and the mayonaise never goes bad.
I want ID to explain my favorite grafitto:
"Why do men have nipples?"
Christians have hit a new low with their religious rape houses in Texas. America is sick of the Salt Lake City values crowd. It is not intolerence to expose Christian criminals for their evil lies and abuse. The only thing that Intelligent Design proves is that some fools will believe anything in order to preserve their bigoted view of the world.
Intelligent design is no more far out there than Darwinism. I like both. Why not combine them and come up with an "Intelligent Opinion"? Your politics makes you intolerant of the opinions and beliefs of others. It isn't "The Man" imposing "Intelligent Design" on you. It is "The Man" imposing "Darwinism" on you. You go to government funded schools with government funded professors who tell you that the only truth is what they consider "Science". Don't be intolerant! Why not consider it instead of dismissing it out of hand like those you accuse of being intolerant supposedly do? I thought you all were smarter than that!
Go to a common sense website and leave an article or just a comment on the "Contact Us" page.
http://djg
Cant wait to hear from you!
Intelligent design is not science. It is word games. When someone proposing intelligent design can come up with a physical explanation for how this "design" is implemented - how it gets from "the creator" into the cells of living critters - does it travel as a wave form? a particle? what organelle in the cell, or organ in the critter, recieves this message? how is it translated into physical changes in matter? - then we can talk about scientific theory - then we can subject intelligent design to the same scrutiny that evolution has withstood, and we'll see how eager we are to talk any more about intelligent design. Until then, teach your kids intelligent design at home if you think they need to know it, but leave it out of the science class room.
Religion and science are two different entities. If the intelligent design folks want to go out and create a new field....m
Maybe you ID people need to come up with some evidence for your "theory" which is currently lacking. What's the matter, too lazy? Then stop whining abou it. Its not Science yet, it is an empty assertion. Its not my problem that you don't understand the difference between science and nonsense, and until you do nothing you say is going to mean anything to real scientists. You guys crack me up. Go back to school, study science for a couple decades, and then you might be qualified to enter this debate. Unitl then--Buh Bye
"Why not combine them and come up with an "Intelligent Opinion"? "
There is a practical reason for not doing this. I'm a scientist. I do experiments. I cannot design an informative, useful experiment based on 'faith'. I must plan and execute the next set of experiments on the most recent credible set of data that I have, not on hunches or opinions.
When the day comes that someone can experimentally prove any facet of intelligent design, I (along with most of the world's scientific community) will accept it as true. So far this hasn't happened.
Good points, I wonder how many of these believers in ID would fly in a plane that you didn't experiment with and prove that it would fly safely but one that you merely stated you had faith that it would fly safely? Such a plane would be about as full with ID followers as would any military transport plane being full of necons flying to IRAQ to volunteer.
When the day comes that someone can experimentally prove that life and evolution came from nothing, I (along with most of the world's common sense community) will accept it as true. So far this hasn't happened.
http://djg
"Don't be intolerant!"
I suppose you also think it intolerant that Abyssianian cats aren't allowed in the Westminster Dog Show, that there is no Hail Mary pass in the game of baseball, and that the New York Philharmonic can't play a Jackson Pollock painting.
... Well said, Chez! For Stein to launch a crusade (pun intended) against science seems almost quaint and provincial, especially in light of his 'education'. He's fallen far down the ladder of 'funny' since "Win Ben Steins Money" left the airwaves..
Knowing lots of trivia doesn't make one an expert at analysis.
Stein could win a game show but couldn't run a scientific experiment.
Sadly few Americans can define the scientific method.
True; true!
Hmm! When every living thing on earth is busily trying to kill every other living thing on earth in order to survive, it is surprizing when God supposedly tells us thou shalt not kill. When this even goes as far as tree's, fungus, bugs, blades of grass and us it is very hard to promote the idea of an "intelligent" design.
Amen to that, Brother!
I guess the creationists haven't heard that the genome projects proved evolution a few years back.
Doesn't matter! Their "proof" is better!
No, God put those DNA details there. He put those dinosaur fossils there. He put all those asteroids and galaxies there. He put all the oil and coal there. All around 6000 years ago.
Yeah!
Then that big flood happened that created the Grand Cannon!
No sure how many years ago the flood was, but Noah made a big boat and brought two of everything on there and and.....
mercy.....
Somewhere down South (not too far from where John Scopes was on trial for teaching subversive ideas about 80 years ago) there is a creationist museum where Adam and Eve can be seen cavorting with the dinosaurs. Yes, as Mr. Pazienza says, teach intelligent design if you feel your children must learn it- or better yet, let them watch "The Flintstone
Ah, right . . . . the "God's a tricky bastard theory"
I don't think they report news like that on Fox News, so no, they haven't heard yet. Besides, they're so busy burning books, protesting abortion and worrying about gay people, they don't have time to keep up on current events (read the last two hundred years of science.
I heard that too on http://www
http://djg
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