Thought some might find this interesting...
Darwinians hysterical over 'Expelled'
Posted: May 02, 2008
1:00 am Eastern
© 2008
Ben
Stein is known to many as an actor on Comedy Central. But the funniest part
about his recent movie
"Expelled" is not any clever lines spoken by Stein but the hysterical
way liberals are trying to discourage people from seeing it.
Stein's
critics fail to refute effectively anything in "Expelled"; they just
use epithets to ridicule it and hope they can make it go away. However, it
won't go away; even Scientific American, which labeled the movie
"shameful," concedes that it cannot be ignored.
The
movie is about how scientists who dare to criticize Darwinism or discuss the
contrary theory called intelligent design are expelled, fired, denied tenure,
blacklisted and bitterly denounced. Academic freedom doesn't extend to this
issue.
The
message of Stein's critics comes through loud and clear. They don't want
anybody to challenge Darwinian orthodoxy or suggest that intelligent design
might be an explanation of the origin of life.
Stein,
who serves as his own narrator in the movie, is very deadpan about it all. He
doesn't try to convince the audience that Darwinism is a fraud, or that God
created the world, or even that some unidentified intelligent design might have
started life on Earth.
Stein
merely shows the intolerance of the universities, the
government, the courts, the grant-making foundations and the media, and their
determination to suppress any mention of intelligent design.
The
only question posed by the movie is why, oh why, is there such a deliberate,
consistent, widespread, vindictive effort to silence all criticism of dogmatic
Darwinism or discussion of alternate theories of the origin of life? Stein
interviews scientists who were blacklisted, denied grants and ostracized in the
academic community because they dared to write or speak the forbidden words
Liberals
are particularly upset because the movie identifies Darwinism, rather than
evolution, as the sacred word that must be isolated from criticism. But that
semantic choice makes good sense because Darwinism is easily defined by Darwin's own writings, whereas the
word evolution is subject to different and even contrary definitions.
The
truly funny part of the movie is Stein's interview with Richard Dawkins, whose
best-selling book "The God Delusion" (Mariner Books) established this
Englishman as the world's premier atheist. Dawkins is a leading advocate of the
theory that all life evolved from a single beginning in an ancient mud puddle,
perhaps after being struck by lightning.
Putting
aside the issue of evolving, how did life begin in the first place? Under
Stein's questioning, Dawkins finally said it is possible that life might have
evolved on Earth after the arrival of a more highly developed being from
another planet.
Aren't
aliens from outer space the stuff of science fiction?
And how was the other-planet alien created? According to Dawkins, life must
have just spontaneously evolved on another planet, of course without God.
Stein
spent two years traveling the world to gather material for this movie. He
interviewed scores of scientists and academics who say they were retaliated
against because of questioning Darwin's
theories.
Stein
interviewed Dr. Richard Sternberg, a biologist who lost his position at the
prestigious Smithsonian Institution after he published a peer-reviewed article
that mentioned intelligent design. Other academics who said they were victims
of the anti-intelligent design campus police included astrobiologist Guillermo
Gonzalez, denied tenure at Iowa State University,
and Caroline Crocker, who lost her professorship at George Mason
University.
Stein
dares to include some filming at the death
camps in Nazi Germany as a backdrop for interviews that explain Darwin's considerable
influence on Adolf Hitler and his well-known atrocities. The Darwin-Hitler
connection was not a Stein discovery; Darwin's
influence on Hitler's political worldview, and Hitler's rejection of the
sacredness of human life, is acknowledged in standard biographies of Hitler
Stein
also addresses how Darwin's theories influenced
one of the U.S.'s
most embarrassing periods, the eugenics fad of the early 20th century.
Thousands of Americans were legally sterilized as physically or mentally unfit.
Mandatory
sterilization based on Darwin's
theories was even approved by the U.S. Supreme Court, with Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes writing his famous line, "Three generations of imbeciles
are enough." Stein also reminds us that Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist
who wanted to eliminate the races she believed were inferior.
Stein's
message is that the attack on freedom of inquiry is anti-science, anti-American
and anti-the whole concept of learning. His dramatization should force the
public, and maybe even academia, to address this extraordinary intolerance of
diversity.
Blessings,
Dee