No word yet on a release date for The Unbelievers, the forthcoming Richard Dawkins-Lawrence Krauss documentary/buddy film. Judging from the trailer, the two famous atheist scientists go on the road, give speeches about science and religion and talk to other celebrities of a similar persuasion. I can’t wait for this one — it should be good.
One of the icons of scientific materalism who feature in the movie is Cameron Diaz, who is very pretty and talented as an actress but…well, watch for yourself. Following a preview screening of The Unbelievers at Arizona State University, where Krauss teaches, she held forth at great length. I won’t try to transcribe her comments — that would be mean, as well as time-consuming — but note the new proof of Darwinian evolution she offers: the fact that a baby grows up into an adult.
As she explains this, Dr. Krauss is nodding his head vigorously in apparent agreement and other participants on the stage, who are all men — including Dawkins and novelists Ian McEwan and Cormac McCarthy — listen with rapt attentiveness. You see, it’s really true that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution, including pediatrics. And we have this now on the authority of Miss Diaz.
On the other hand, another participant in the film, magician Penn Jillette, is clearly a very smart man. And honest. He was not on the stage with Dr. Krauss and Cameron Diaz but he did go on the Glenn Beck program with my friend Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Watch this clip in which Rabbi Lapin, arguing that it’s mistaken to lump together all faiths as if they were interchangeable, poses the question to Jillette: What if all the earth’s Muslims converted en masse tomorrow to Evangelical Christianity. Would the world be a better place?
There follows a very, very long silence as Jillette considers. Silences like that don’t happen on TV very often. There are any number of ways that Jillette could have dodged, as one can easily imagine Dawkins doing, but no: he mans up and answers directly and truthfully. It’s priceless: