Ben Stein: Expelled
Not everybody is a fan of Richard Dawkins’ borderline militant brand of atheism, but with over 1.5 million copies of The God Delusion sold, you can’t deny the influence he’s had on the debate. And the creationists have taken notice; they needed a high-profile bulldog of their own, and they came up with fucking Ben Stein. In the new movie Expelled, which hits theaters this spring, Ben apparently exposes the Global Atheist Conspiracy™ to suppress the “evidence” that supports the Intelligent Design (the ten dollar term for ‘goddunnit’) position. But this isn’t just your run-of-the-mill defensive theist propaganda; watch the trailer yourself. Stein adopts the radical Hovindesque stance that evolutionary theory (which the creationists LOVE to call Darwinism) isn’t just incorrect but dangerous, which must be true, because they show stock footage of marching Nazis when they say it. I just grooooaned during the trailer as Stein dutifully erects the creationists’ favorite straw men and knocks them down with that tiresome self-righteous air: “Hey, believe whatever you want! I won’t persecute you if you want to believe that you came from a puddle of mud that was struck by lightning.” You’d think by now ID might be trying a different approach, you know, like maybe an approach that doesn’t highlight the fact that they don’t have a leg to stand on. It’s blatantly obvious the movie brings nothing new to the table; it’s just the same ID bullshit served up in a much glossier package. Only in America, right? A movie like this could only appeal to an American audience, since this is a curiously American debate. For the rest of the developed world, which takes a much more progressive approach to religiosity, this debate has largely been settled for a very long time.
In typical ID fashion, the people behind the movie are having a field day plastering the movie’s website with anti-Expelled sentiment, because they like to think that opposition to their tripe is out of fear of the Intelligent Design movement actually providing evidence or something.
“It’s (EXPELLED) 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% of the American market.” - Atheist blogger and fabulist PZ Myers, on a film he has not yet seen.
Oh, “fabulist” is creationist-speak for “evolutionary developmental biologist,” if you were confused. All Myers is stating is the obvious — that the movie presupposes a LOT — which happens to be a conclusion you CAN draw without seeing it. And don’t act so smug, creationists. In fact, I am reminded of this quote, which made the rounds on the internet recently:
“DONT GO SEE TEH GOLDEN COMPASSSS!!~@#!@” - The entire Christian community, on a film they had not yet seen.
So. One more time, for the people that juuuuust don’t quite get it yet — let’s go over this whole presupposition thing again. In the trailer we hear “What I’m asking for is the freedom to follow the evidence wherever it leads,” as if this is what Intelligent Design is about. They have their answer and they work backwards from there. They know where they want their evidence to lead, and they’re incapable of conducting proper observational science with this mindset. I’m curious where the ID movement would stand if “the evidence” just happened to lead to the confirmation of Islamic doctrine, rather than Christian. Unfortunately for the religious, however, the evidence actually points in quite the opposite direction of design and purpose. In fact, this is where the evidence DID lead, which is why we have the fucking theory! Secular (read: the overwhelming majority of) scientists appear to be stubborn and bullheaded about evolutionary theory because they have a right to be, as the theory is about as close as you can get to a “sure thing” in science. Mountains and mountains of mutually supportive evidence exist from every fucking branch of science, and the folks over at the Discovery Institute just love to call foul when their theories get buried in the avalanche.
Of course, it doesn’t need to be this way, since only literalists take issue here. Millions of faithful people the world over have learned to reconcile the differences between modern science and their religion. The battle against “Darwinism” by (primarily American) religious fundamentalists is almost a non sequitur, as there is nothing in evolutionary theory that specifically states in black and white print “THERE IS NO GOD;” it is merely the conclusion to which the evidence points. Nobody is holding a gun to your head to draw that same conclusion, but denying the theory as a result of not wishing to reach that same end is just plain ignorance.
So there you have it. And because he gets away with straw men, I think I’m allowed an ad hominem: Ben Stein is a fucking douchebag. Be sure to download his bullshit movie for a good laugh when it comes out.
More info here: Expelled
February 13th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
I really wish I would’ve clicked on “Skip Intro.”
February 13th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Oh, but he looks so cute in those ridiculous schoolboy shorts.