My Review of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"

I went and saw Expelled today, and I can tell you I am sickened and fired up. I’ve known all along that the Creationists, and that is what they are, are shameless, but they have really undercut my lowest expectations with this one. Well, not really, because my expectations were really that low.

The premise of this film is that within the scientific community there has been such a crackdown on intellectual freedom that for any one but anyone to challenge the theory of Darwin is for them to put their reputations and job on the line. They then show a series of about ½ dozen people who have lost their job in some academic institution or another and claim that it was because of their view on intelligent design that they were fired. All the evidence given for these claims is shots of letters where you are not allowed to actually see the whole letter (not long enough to read it at any rate) but only shown a few highlighted remarks about ID. None of these stories are reported on or examined in any sort of depth or detail. These folks just say they lost their job due to ID, and that is good enough for Stein. They do, at least, mention that the decision makers at all these institutions deny it all. Humm . . . I wonder why that is?

At some point in the film they mention the Scopes trial and how ‘Evolutionists’ consider that to be a victory. But no, it was a loss for them because the law against teaching evolution was upheld in Tennessee and Scopes was found guilty. Now, where is their upholding of academic freedom? A teacher being barred for teaching ID is being persecuted, but if a teacher is prosecuted for teaching evolution it is the upholding of the law? I smell a double standard.

After this the majority of the film is a mishmash of emotional manipulation confusing social Darwinism with the scientific Darwinist theory and basically blaming Darwin for the Holocaust. Someone Stein interviewed even said that while Darwinism was not a sufficient condition for the Holocaust, it was a necessary condition. Hold on just a moment. Is he saying that all the centuries of the persecution of Jews in Europe was not sufficient in itself? Martin Luther lived long before Darwin and you can already see serious signs of the hatred of Jews in European Christendom long before Martin wrote his “The Jews and their lies.” I have provided a links regarding this in the sidebar. I also have provided a link to the Expelled Exposed site which shoots down the “Darwin leads to Eugenics” argument. Also, check out the other material on their site—they examine the Expelled augments in much more depth than I do. At this point I’ll let the historians pick this argument apart.

There were also other little subtle things I picked up on. For one thing, Stein goes to great length to explain that all this Intelligent Design stuff is not about just about God, but in the end it’s all about God. And of course, Evolution necessarily leads to atheism. That is really what this is all about, after all. And He claims that ID has been misrepresented in the media as saying stuff like “life is to complicated so god must have done it” but a few scenes later he and his friendly interviewees go on the record as really saying exactly that! They use a cell animation to boggle the minds of their audience with the vast complexity of the inner workings of the cell and say, “this is too complicated to have come about without an intelligent designer.” Like the in the example of the Scopes trial above, they again show their hypocrisy.

Not that I expect their followers will not question anything they say. But then again, some of those followers just might question. I, after all, was weaned on creationist propaganda—even in my home school high school biology textbook. A major bit of what lead me to my atheism was learning about all the lies and shameless distortions the creationists use to advance their cause. So, to all of those out there who really think that Ben Stein and co have made some good points—don’t just believe everything they say. Read, research and find the answers for yourself. Do what Ben Stein claims he does. QUESTION AUTHORITY AND GET TO THE TRUTH!!!


http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Luther_on_Jews.html
http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.php/the-truth/hitler-eugenics