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Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Timothy H.
Ben Stein's recent new movie has attracted quite a bit of controversy. As a result, I decided to go to my local movie theater, where I haven't been in almost three years, to see what all this ruckus was all about. I bought my tickets online on Wednesday and went to the movie theater to pick them up today. As I entered the theater, it was moderately packed, and as a result my two companions and I had to take some seats which were placed in an awkward position. One of the first scenes in the movie involved Ben Stein speaking to a group of students about the film's main topic, which was freedom, more precisely, academic freedom. We are then treated with a few clips of figures such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet giving their opinion on science and religion.
The film then focuses to the systematic oppression and censorship of intelligent design, with Stein interviewing scientists who lost their jobs for their association with the ID movement. One such person lost her job for just mentioning ID in her classroom. The film likens intellectual suppression to the Berlin wall, with one half of the wall allowing for freedom while the other half of the wall suppressing all freedom. Darwinism is on the first side and Intelligent design on the latter side.
It then turns its attention to the Intelligent design movement, intending to dispell the myth that Intelligent design advocates are quite frankly, idiots. Stein visits the Discovery Institute, which is the group that first started this movement. He then interviews prominent figures in the movement such as Jonathan Wells, Stephen C. Meyer, William A. Demkski, and others. The film then seeks to establish the validity and credulity of the ID movement by focusing on it's scientific proof. The origin of life is a target of specific focus, with the complexity of the cell being the focal point of the discussion. Stein interviews the noted Darwinist Michael Ruse and asks for his thoughts on the origin of life. Ruse states that it could have happened "on the backs of crystals." At that point the film begins to ridicule Ruse's comment because of its absurdity. At a later point in the movie, when Richard Dawkins is interviewed about the same question, he replies that he nor anyone else knows the answer to the question. A stunning computer animation is then presented detailing the complexity of the cell. Up unto that point, I had realized that the cell was extraordinarily complex, but not as complex as it really was!
Then the film shifts to a the topic of Darwinism and it's consequences. Stein interviews David Berlinski, who comments that although Darwinism is not a sufficient condition for Nazism and such, it is a necessary condition. Moral atrocities such as eugenics and the Holocaust in particular are linked to Darwinism. Stein visits a facility where the Nazis carried on their systematic elimination of Jews and reflects on the consequences of Darwinism. Other consequences of Darwinism include: no meaning to life, no objective morality, and no human free will. A Darwinist professor is interviewed whose life is robbed of any meaning because of his beliefs. It is shown that Darwinism is a a very bleak belief system which has led to great moral atrocities such as Hitler's Holocaust, which was primarily influenced because of Darwinist ideology.
As the movie winds down, Stein conducts a long interview with Richard Dawkins, whom the movie likens to the spokesperson for atheism. Richard Dawkins emerges out of the interview looking like a total idiot. When Stein asks Dawkins the question "Who created the heavens and the earth", Dawkins responds by asking that Stein is begging the question because he presupposes that a Creator made the universe. He then says that the word "what" is a better term to use instead of "who." When asked to account for the enormous complexity of life, it appears that Dawkins presupposes that life is complex! But rather than say that God designed life, Dawkins falls back to Francis Crick's theory of directed panspermia. Dawkins now himself begs the question of "who designed the aliens?"
The focal point of the film is the suppression of academic freedom. Expelled shows how our Darwinist dominated society attempts to suppress any notion of an intelligent Designer. The Nationial Center for Science Education is featured as a a watchdog group who serves as part of the infrastructure which engages in the suppression of ID. The movie features several levels of suppression, ranging from the institution to watchdog groups, the media, and even courts.
Though the film is largely positive, I have to issue a warning concerning the ID movement. First, it does not identify the God of the Bible, it only identifies a general Designer. Hence the movement has had much support from other religions because the Designer could be Allah, Vishnu, or any whatever one chooses to associate with the Designer. Second the Intelligent Design Movement may accept a Designer who designed initial life, but many proponents believe that evolution took over once the complex life was designed.
Overall, the list of people interviewed by the film includes the following:
-Richard Dawkins
-Richard Steinberg
-Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers
-Michael Shermer
-Caroline Crocker
-Michael Engor
-Robert J. Marks
-Guillermo Gonzalez
-Eugene Scott
-William A. Demski
-Stephen C. Meyer
-Jonathan Wells
-David Berlinski
-Michael Ruse
-Alister McGrath
The movie ends with Stein encouraging us to speak up about this academic suppression with the hopes that freedom will eventually win. As the movie ended, the audience seated around me broke out in applause. Such a fitting end to an good movie. I'm giving Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, 5/5 stars. Despite the criticism I offered, the film has an overly Christian theme to it, even though Stein himself is Jewish.
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