Stein takes on Darwinism

As you may have heard, Ben Stein (remember Ferris Bueller's Day Off?) is trying his hand at documentary filmmaking with the April 18 opening of “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.”

The film is bound to have the intelligent design community buzzing, as it criticizes what Stein sees as Darwinism’s monopoly on academia.
In an interview with Newsweek, Stein says, “Darwinism is a brilliant theory, but to say it has all the answers would not be truthful or sensible. And today’s students aren’t learning that.”  Stein focuses on scientists and professors who have been fired, denied tenure, and passed over for grants for suggesting intelligent design as a plausible theory. You can read more and see the trailer at http://www.expelledthemovie.com.

Sounds interesting. I know the movie was promoted over at Bryan, so I’m interested in your thoughts. Should intelligent design be presented as a plausible theory in secular classrooms? Should we expect scientists, who study the physical world, to factor the metaphysical into their theories? 

I've heard that Stein comparies Darwinism to Nazism. Do you think that's a fair assessment? I know that social Darwinism has been used to justify some horrible human rights atrocities, but couldn't you say the same thing for Christianity?

More broadly, how do you feel about intelligent design? Is it just another name for creationism? Is it a “God in the gaps” approach to science? Or is it the most effective argument in support of a Creator?

Just starting a conversation here. Let me know what you think!


Mandy M
Comment
hmm
Reply #1 on : Thu April 10, 2008, 11:35:23
Hey Rachel
I am a little bothered by the concept of having intelligent design in the educational system. We are a country founded on religious freedom…which is rightly reflected by the insistence of most public schools to adhere to science, allowing for religious beliefs to remain deeply personal.
The idea of teaching evolution alongside intelligent design, or teaching ID in the place of evolution might come across as….dare I say…unconstitutional.
Teaching ID could make some feel as though their freedoms were being reduced.
And while I know many Christians who would prefer that Christianity be taught and integrated into the public education system. I think it is introduced, but not as a replacement for evolution or natural seleciton.
Although it would be lovely to expose children to Christ at a young age, many schools already do this in some way (when I went to Dayton City School, we had many, many Christian events. We had Bryan College students doing hand puppet shows about Christian living, and we prayed. A lot.). Schools can find ways to include Christian beliefs and concepts without disavowing evolution.
Some might argue that evolution is just a “theory,” but genes mutate and change with each generation, and over time populations and species change to adapt to their environment. Although some might see this as a challenge to some core religious beliefs…it doesn’t have to be.
It’s upsetting to see the rift between evolution and creationism/ID has caused in American life, politics, and education.
Jason
Comment
Re: Stein takes on Darwinism
Reply #2 on : Fri April 25, 2008, 11:10:13
Dr. R. Kirk Kilpatrick wrote an excellent summary of this topic. Please enjoy.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Time to Question the Scientific Establishment)

If you haven't seen Ben Stein's documentary yet [Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed] then you are missing out on why so many blogs are busy trying to do damage control. Richard Dawkins, atheist extraordinaire and one of the leading proponents of Neo-Darwinian thought, believes in Intelligent Design... at least that some intelligent aliens may have seeded our world with the first living cells... [blush, uncontrollable laughter, attaboy!].

Crystals?? Aliens?? Is this New Age mumbo jumbo or is it what "real" scientists think? You really have to see it to believe it.

In this documentary, Stein rightly lays the sins of Hitler at the feet of Charles Darwin. Darwin's theory fills Hitler's magnum opus, Mein Kampf, and was the blueprint for the systematic genocide of the Nazis. While others have made this connection for decades, it is quite powerfully and convincingly made in this film.

The fear... almost panic of the Neo-Darwinian web community is breathtaking. Blogs favorable to evolution went to defcon one. Whole websites were put up to counter the film. Dawkins himself quickly moved to try and rewrite what happened, all the while resorting to ad hominem attacks on Ben Stein (see: http://richarddawkins.net/article,2394,Lying-for-Jesus,Richard-Dawkins). Watch the documentary and see if you believe Dawkin's version of what happened in this interview.

On April 18th Dawkins wrote a piece on the eve of the film's debut to try and buffer what he knew was coming. He wrote, "Nevertheless, despite their [proponents of ID] notorious dishonesty, I sometimes hand an olive branch to these people by pretending to take their 'space aliens' political ploy seriously" (http://richarddawkins.net/article,2480,Gods-and-earthlings,Richard-Dawkins). In this article, Dawkins cited other evolutionists who had offered the theory that he put forward to Stein in the interview:



The distinguished molecular biologists Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel advanced a version of the notion, probably tongue in cheek, called "Directed Panspermia." Life, they argued, could have been "seeded" on the early Earth by a spacecraft packed with bacteria.

During the interview with Dawkins, he reads from his own book to clarify his hostility toward the God of the Old Testament:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Regarding the film, I find myself in basic agreement with L. Brent Bozell:

Now that the film is complete, the evolutionist prophets featured in the film are on the warpath inveighing against it, and the alleged idiots who would lower themselves to watching it. Richard Dawkins laments how the film will solicit "cheap laughs that could only be raised in an audience of scientific ignoramuses." Minnesota professor and blogger P.Z. Myers predicts the movie is "going to appeal strongly to the religious, the paranoid, the conspiracy theorists, and the ignorant —— which means they're going to draw in about 90 percent of the American market." Myers and Dawkins now both complain they were "duped" into appearing in the movie (for pay).

Everyone should take the opportunity to see "Expelled" — if nothing else, as a bracing antidote to the atheism-friendly culture of PC liberalism. But it's far more than that. It's a spotlight on the arrogance of this movement and its leaders, a spotlight on the choking intolerance of academia, and a spotlight on the ignorance of so many who say so much, yet know so very little. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20080418/cm_uc_crbbox/op_235852).

Stein's film will be a classic in my opinion. It is a wake up call for America and the rest of the world. In the west, the sleeping dragon of Social Darwinism may fully awaken in the next generation. What is taught in the classroom today will influence the philosophy of the government tomorrow. Abortion and euthanasia are just the first steps in the logical application of this godless, materialistic philosophy.

Which side of the wall are you on? The side that receives research grants and the accolades of academia... or the side vilified, despised, ridiculed, and relegated to academic oblivion? I hope that tens of millions heed Stein's call to question the scientific stranglehold that exists today.

Please see the movie... (and bring your biology teacher!): http://www.expelledthemovie.com/

Oh, and ask your friends to read a book that is not an ad hominem attack on any evolutionist, but has real substance:

Spetner, Lee M. Not by Chance: Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution[http://www.amazon.com/Not-Chance-Shattering-Modern-Evolution/dp/1880582244/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208928582&sr=8-1].

Also, here's an interesting ecard: http://www.buzzplant.com/illustra/ecard2/

The movie Expelled is a must see (http://www.expelledthemovie.com/); and Spetner's book does what the title indicates.
barry
Comment
Re: Stein takes on Darwinism
Reply #3 on : Tue May 06, 2008, 01:10:32
What does the ethical rightness of Social Darwinism possibly have to do with the intellectual correctness of Evolution?

If we are convinced some offshoot of Christianity is incorrect, should we then dismiss Christianity itself without regard for it's own merits, just because the offshoot is too dangerous of a "sleeping dragon"?

If we are going to start holding people accountable for the actions of idiots who later twist their words, it would seem that Jesus is in more trouble than anyone.

Seriously?

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