Science and Culture Today | Page 1328 | Discovering Design in Nature

Richard Dawkins has got himself in a bit of a pickle and, in an effort to wash off the brine, now appears to be in a bit of a lather. In an op-ed this morning in the L.A. Times (see here), he is at pains to distance himself from remarks he made in the newly released movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Toward the end of the film, in an interview with Ben Stein at the British Museum, Dawkins confesses he has no idea how life originated on earth — nor does anyone, he admits — but, as Nobel laureate Francis Crick once theorized, it could well be explained by having been seeded here by an alien intelligence. Of course, he Read More ›

[Update: A certain Iowa astronomer who shall remain nameless has alertly pointed out that the opening I refer to here was in Ames, not Des Moines.]

Across the country this weekend, people did a rare thing and turned out in droves for a documentary. In Des Moines Ames, Iowa the line to get into Expelled stretched around the block Friday night. In Seattle theaters were crammed with students — on a Saturday afternoon, no less.

[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]

I saw “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” the controversial new documentary film by Ben Stein on the intelligent design debate, at one of the private screenings that was part of the grassroots marketing for the film, and I was disappointed. That’s right. Here I made a trip all the way to Louisville, Kentucky from my home in Danville (almost 2 hours away), I go get a big bag of popcorn and a drink, climb the steps in the stadium seating at the Tinseltown Theater for the private screening and, as it turns out, not a single, solitary Darwinist tried to sneak past the big, scary looking octogenarian security guards to try to get in.

So I watched the movie instead, which was excellent. Now I know why the Darwinists are having such a fit–and spending so much time and effort throwing it: This is a powerful expose of academic intolerance. If this one gets wide exposure, they get a well deserved black eye.

“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” is effective in its presentation of its views. It is by turns funny, ominous, clever, illuminating, and entertaining, which is more than you can say about some of the reviews of this movie which are merely hostile. Apparently their strategy is to convince people that the movie is not very good, something they have spilled a lot of ink trying to do.

There are several things the critics are saying to accomplish this apparent objective, some of which have nothing to do with the quality of the movie at all.

The frustration level at The New York Times over Ben Stein’s new documentary Expelled can be gauged by the tone of its movie “review,” which might be described more accurately as a tantrum. It opens: One of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” is a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry. One of the sleaziest documentaries in a very long time? This comes from the same paper that hailed Michael Moore as “a credit to the Republic” and praised his dishonest Fahrenheit 911 as “achieving an eloquence that its most determined critics will have a hard time dismissing.” And it comes from the same movie reviewer who just last month lavished praise Read More ›

The movie theater screening Expelled in the home town of Iowa State University (ISU) apparently couldn’t handle all the people who showed up last night, and the audience responded with a standing ovation for ISU astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, who was denied tenure by ISU because of his pro-ID views. According to The Ames Tribune, A line for the 7:10 p.m. premiere showing of “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” at the Varsity II theater on Lincoln Way stretched back five storefronts to the Bali Satay House Friday… Those who made it into the theater before it filled up generally responded positively to the film. They greeted the ending credits with applause and, after Gonzalez wrapped up a brief discussion following the film, Read More ›

[Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman just asked me to post this on his behalf:] Discovery Salutes Expelled by Bruce Chapman The producers of Expelled have high hopes as the film opens today. Practical questions of theater exposures and audience awareness are things that we, as a think tank, cannot assess, of course. But we are cheering the filmmakers on. First signs look positive. The over-the-top attacks of most official reviewers–offended by the film’s message, not its quality–may turn out to help in some quarters. These are the exact same reviewers who commonly tell us not to object to offensive Hollywood products, but just to judge a film for its production quality. By now a large share of the population is Read More ›

David Klinghoffer has this up at Jewcy today: Hitler understood something about Judaism that even many Jews today don’t grasp.I mention this because you’re soon going to be hearing a lot about a new movie, Expelled, which understands something about Hitler that, in turn, many Jews and non-Jews don’t or don’t want to understand.Starring comic actor Ben Stein, Expelled is a snarky theatrical documentary about the suppression of American scientists who dissent from Darwinist evolutionary orthodoxy. Controversial stuff. What’s really turning critics apoplectic, though, is the case made in the film that Darwinism inspired the Nazis. Read the rest here.[Note: For a detailed defense of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]

David Berlinski has this piece in Human Events: One man — Charles Darwin — says: “In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals. …”Another man — Adolf Hitler — says: Let us kill all the Jews of Europe.Is there a connection? Read the rest here.

In an illuminating irony, not one but two theatrical documentaries open today that trace the genealogy of the Holocaust back to earlier literary texts. One is Expelled, in which Ben Stein touches upon the use Hitler made of Darwinism. The other documentary is Constantine’s Sword, based on the bestselling book of the same name, by James Carroll.
Carroll tells the history of the Christian churches from the perspective of their countenancing of anti-Semitism. As Carroll argues, it all goes back to “the Jews hatred we so easily detect in the New Testament, and that would flower in anti-Jewish violence.”

Now which of these films do think has been savaged in the liberal press, and which has gotten raves? Clearly, to blame Christianity for Auschwitz is an industry standard in the mainstream media, while considering the role that Darwinism played is simply forbidden.

In previous posts this week, I’ve demonstrated Hitler’s debt to Darwin. The extermination of a supposedly inferior people for purposes of advancing racial hygiene is an idea with roots in Darwin’s Descent of Man. I said yesterday that the only major element in Nazism with no blatant reference point in Darwin’s literary corpus is the hatred of Jews in particular.

Today on the Jewish hipster website Jewcy, however, I uncover the deeper Darwinian logic of Hitler’s Jew-hating obsession. Not, I emphasize, that Darwin himself ever said a word against the Jews.

Brent Bozell III’s column at Townhall says he was invited to preview Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, the Ben Stein film that screens for the public at a reported 1000 theaters this weekend. “I went into the screening bored,” he writes. “I came out of it stunned.” This makes a point that needs underscoring. Anybody who is bothered by the malign conformity of contemporary politics and culture in academia and the media should be paying attention to the evolution debate. It isn’t marginal. It’s central. The refusal to allow debate and the reckless determination to punish dissent aren’t limited to the sciences, but they are crucially present there. Materialist science is being allowed to define all reality far too often and, Read More ›