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Flunk This Movie!
Ben Stein's new anti-science movie Expelled is all worldview and no
evidence.
by Ronald Bailey
April 16, 2008
"This is not a religious argument," asserts Discovery Institute
president Bruce Chapman in conservative Hollywood gadfly Ben Stein's new
anti-science propaganda film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The
movie opens this Friday in 1,100 theaters, the largest theatrical
release ever for a do***entary, according to Expelled's producers.
The movie's basic point? To quote a transcript from a Rush Limbaugh show
posted to the movie's offical website: "Darwinism has taken root, taken
hold at every major intellectual institution around the world in Western
Society, from Great Britain to the United States, you name it.
Darwinism, of course, does not permit for the existence of a supreme
being, a higher power, or a God."
Yet despite its topic, the film is entirely free of scientific
content—no scientific evidence against biological evolution and none for
"intelligent design" (ID) theory is given. Which makes sense because
biological evolution is amply sup****ted by evidence from the fossil
record, molecular biology, and morphology. For example, the younger the
rocks in which fossils are found, the more closely they resemble species
alive today, and the older the rocks, the less resemblance there is. In
addition, molecular biology confirms that the more distantly related the
fossil record suggests species lineages are, the more their genes differ.
Instead of evaluating this evidence, Stein spends most of the movie
asking various proponents of evolutionary theory, including Richard
Dawkins, P.Z. Myers, Michael Ruse, and Daniel Dennett, for their
religious views. Neither the producers nor Stein understand that
offering critiques of a theory with which they disagree is not the same
as proving their own theory.
Stein and the film's producers maintain that belief in evolutionary
biology makes societies more likely to suc***b to totalitarianism. The
flick is replete with grim black-and-white shots of Soviet armies, Nazi
thugs, Stalin, Hitler, and concentration camps. The filmmakers ****tray
opposition to teaching ID in universities and public schools as a threat
to freedom on a par with Communist and Nazi repression. But ID
proponents in the academy are not being dragged off to concentration
camps by goose-stepping Darwinist thugs—the worst thing they suffer is
the loss of their jobs. That's not fun, but it's not the gas chamber
either.
This silly, duplicitous film features one associate after another of the
Discovery Institute, the Seattle-based "think tank" that has been at the
forefront of campaign to smuggle intelligent design into science
classrooms and public discourse. This campaign was outlined in the
Discovery Institute's infamous "Wedge Strategy" do***ent in 1998. That
do***ent begins with the sentence, "The proposition that human beings
are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on
which Western civilization was built." The Wedge do***ent goes on to
complain: "Yet a little over a century ago, this cardinal idea came
under wholesale attack by intellectuals drawing on the discoveries of
modern science."
The Wedge do***ent makes it crystal clear what comes first for
intelligent designers, and it isn't evidence. Under activities to
popularize intelligent design, the Wedge do***ent mentions
"do***entaries and other media productions." Expelled is just part of
that propaganda strategy.
The film is being bankrolled by Walt Ruloff, a Christian evangelical
software millionaire. A resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, Ruloff
hooked up with another Expelled producer, Logan Craft, when Craft was
studying with evangelical theologian J.I. Packer at Regent College in
Vancouver. Ruloff claims that he was shocked when one of the leading
genomic researchers in the U.S. told him that as much 30 percent of
research in his field is never published because it points toward
intelligent design theory. Just how this much research is hidden from
view goes unexplained.
The film begins with moody shots of Ben Stein backstage before he
addresses an unidentified audience on the alleged suppression of
scientific research in the name of Darwinian orthodoxy. Stein stalks
onstage and declares that freedom is the essence of America. So far, so
good. Then he muses, What if our freedom was taken away? In fact, Stein
asserts that this is already happening. We are losing our freedom in one
of the most im****tant sectors of our society—science.
As evidence of this loss of freedom, Stein trots out a small parade of
intelligent design martyrs. Let's look at a few cases. In 2004, Richard
Sternberg, who was editor of the scientific journal Proceedings of the
Biological Society of Wa****ngton, published an article by Stephen Meyer
arguing that the "Cambrian explosion" 570 to 530 million years ago in
which most of the body types of animals developed was evidence for
intelligent design. Meyer was then a professor at Palm Beach Atlantic
University where all "trustees, officers, members of the faculty or of
the staff, must believe in the divine inspiration of the Bible, both the
Old and New Testaments; that man was directly created by God."
Sternberg was serving on the editorial board of the Baraminology Study
Group, a group of young-earth creationists. Baraminology is the study of
biblical animal "kinds." Sternberg argued that he was a friendly
outsider advising them against their young-earth views. Meyer is now the
head of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture and
Sternberg is a signatory of the Discovery Institute's A Scientific
Dissent from Darwinism.
Many of Sternberg's colleagues reacted with dismay and the journal
retracted Meyer's article. In the film, Sternberg says he lost his
office at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, was pressured to
resign, and had his religious and political beliefs questioned. Yet, he
still has office space in the Museum and has been reappointed for three
more years. To be sure, probably some of his colleagues are unhappy with
him and don't want to hang out with him anymore. This is far cry from
the concentration camps, or what Stalin did to proponents of
evolutionary biology in the name of Lysenkoism.
In another case of alleged persecution, George Mason University (GMU)
did not renew a teaching contract with Caroline Crocker, an adjunct
biology lecturer who believes in ID. She says that she only wanted to
teach students to question scientific orthodoxies. "I was only trying to
teach what the university stands for—academic freedom," she says in the
Stein's film. Since GMU let her go, she says that she can no longer find
work. In the film, Crocker insists, "I did not teach creationism."
Interestingly, Crocker apparently delivered the same offending lecture
at a local community college later. It didn't turn out to be a
"balanced" presentation of evidence for and against biological
evolution. Why not? "There really is not a lot of evidence for
evolution," Crocker said.
Assistant professor of astronomy and ID proponent Guillermo Gonzalez was
denied tenure at Iowa State University in 2007. In 2004, Gonzalez was
coauthor, with theologian and Discovery Institute fellow Jay Richards,
of The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for
Discovery. The publisher's press release claims that the authors
"demonstrate that our planet is exquisitely fit not only to sup****t
life, but also gives us the best view of the universe, as if Earth—and
the universe itself—were designed both for life and for scientific
discovery." Gonzalez is arguing that the Earth is precisely positioned
to enable researchers like him to make scientific measurements. But is
this so? An Iowa State colleague, associate professor of religious
studies Hector Avalos, disagrees and neatly skewers this conceit. To wit:
This rationale is analogous to a plumber arguing that if our planet
had not been positioned precisely where it is, then he might not be able
to do his work as a plumber. Lead pipes might melt if the Sun were much
closer. And, if our planet were any farther from the Sun, it might be so
frozen that plumbers might not exist at all. Therefore, plumbing must
have been the reason that our planet was located where it is.
Did Gonzalez fail to get tenure because of his ID views? Although the
university denies it, my guess is probably yes. Why? On the evidence of
The Privileged Planet, Guillermo's colleagues could reasonably worry
that his ID views weren't likely to lead to fruitful research results.
Gonzalez was not thrown into a concentration camp for his views. He just
didn't get tenure.
The most egregious part of the film is the attempt to link evolutionary
biology with Communism and Nazism. The claim that Communism was
motivated by Darwin is just plain silly. Official Soviet biological
doctrine was Lysenkoism, which was opposed to the findings of the modern
synthesis of genetics and evolutionary biology. In fact, evolutionary
biologists and geneticists were denounced as "Trotskyite agents of
international fascism" and actually thrown into the Gulag for their
scientific sins.
As for Nazism, the film interviews mathematician and Discovery Institute
fellow David Berlinski who says, "Darwinism is not a sufficient
condition for a phenomenon like Nazism, but I think it was a necessary
one." To visually illustrate the alleged totalitarian temptations of
evolutionary biology, Stein wanders through the Nazi death camp at
Dachau. Berlinski and other Discovery Institute denizens are basically
claiming that scientific materialism undermines the notion that human
beings occupy a special place in the universe. If humans aren't special,
goes this line of thinking, then morals don't apply. This is a variation
of the adage, "If god is dead, then everything is permitted."
[Adolf Hitler endorses Creationism in _Mein Kampf_.--DC]
Of course, this overlooks the fact that people down through the
millennia have found all sorts of justifications for why they are
permitted to murder each other, including plunder, tribal competition,
and, yes, religion. Meanwhile, insights from evolutionary psychology are
helping us to better understand how our in-group/out-group dynamics
contribute to our disturbing capacity for racism, xenophobia, genocide,
and warfare. Evolutionary psychology is also offering new ideas about
how human morality developed, including our capacities for cooperation,
love, and tolerance.
Near the end of the film, Stein asks Dawkins, author of The God Delusion
and arguably the best-known living evolutionary biologist on the planet,
if he could think of any cir***stances under which intelligent design
might have occurred. Incautiously, Dawkins brings up the idea that
aliens might have seeded life on earth; so-called directed panspermia.
This idea was suggested by biologists Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel
back in the 1970s. In the film, Stein acts like this a great "gotcha"
and is the silliest thing he's ever heard. Of course, the irony is that
this is precisely what proponents of intelligent design are
claiming—that a higher intelligence created life on earth. Only, they
don't want that higher intelligence to be a race of purple space squids.
(By the way, Dawkins says that he is not a proponent of directed
panspermia.)
The film's close returns to Stein's speech in which he declares, "There
are people out there who want to keep science in a little box where it
can't possibly touch a higher power." Earlier in the film, Warwick
University "science studies" sociologist Steve Fuller archly poses the
question: Which comes first, worldview or evidence? Fuller aims his
question at the proponents of evolutionary biology. However, as this
dreary film itself makes it painfully clear, the question is far more
relevant to the sup****ters of intelligent design theory.
If ID is all worldview and no evidence, here's something else to ponder.
At an April 15 press conference for bloggers held at the conservative
Heritage Foundation in Wa****ngton, D.C., the movie's producers said that
they plan to use the movie as part of a campaign to roll out legislation
in states—so-called "freedom bills"—that would forbid anyone from
"puni****ng" teachers and professors who question "Darwinism." Walt
Ruloff noted that the science standards of about 26 states are currently
in play and that Florida was likely to pass such a "freedom bill."
Asked if the movie's makers expected any friendly interest from
scientific journals, Ruloff noted that Scientific American had savaged
Expelled, adding, "I would expect that any other 'science rag' would do
exactly the same thing."
"What's happening here is politics," lamented the film's star, Ben
Stein, at Heritage. "Politics in the halls of science and that needs to
be stopped."
I couldn't agree more.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
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Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"
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