Ben Stein's 'Expelled': movie review

What a weekend! Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed opened on a thousand screens around the country, and the Darwinists are going ballistic. P.Z. Myers and Richard Dawkins accuse Stein of deceit in gaining interviews with them. He denies it. (When did Dawkins, at least, ever miss an opportunity to appear in front of a camera?)

Producers are accused of stealing the animation used in the film to demonstrate the complexity of the cell. Not true, they reply, Premise Media created it. Liberal blogland is erupting with the news that Myers, a blogger, was “expelled” from a preview screening of the film on Good Friday. (Why should the producers give him an opportunity to trash the movie before opening?) Dawkins, like a teenage girl all atwitter at the prom, prides himself on getting in.

The evolutionists are trashing the film, of course, mostly, one suspects, because they don’t come across very well. No doubt they are embarrassed at their own rants. If anyone appears like a religious fanatic in the movie, it’s Richard Dawkins who reads from his book, The God Delusion and sounds like a Baptist preacher attacking Satan, or in this case, the Old Testament God. Dawkins is a true believer who holds his atheism with religious fervor and treats anyone who disagrees with ridicule and contempt. What an ironic delight to see him get some of his own medicine.

While Dawkins and Myers say Stein duped them (They were paid for their interviews, one might add.), they also misrepresent the film as “promoting creationism.” It doesn’t. The film examines the case of three scientists fired and blacklisted because they dared to go against the prevailing, politically correct view that life on earth in all its variety, evolved from a single-celled organism. The scientists’ crimes were to question the inadequacies in evolutionary theory and observe the evidence for Intelligent Design. Isn’t that what scientists do – question and observe?

The first scientist interviewed, Dr. Richard Sternberg, was fired from the Smithsonian Institution for daring to publish a peer-reviewed article that treated Intelligent Design seriously. George Mason University fired Dr. Carolyn Crocker for mentioning Intelligent Design to her second year biology students.

Guillermo Gonzalez, an astronomer with impressive credentials at Iowa State University, was denied tenure and ultimately fired for his views supporting ID. So goes the tolerance of the liberal evolutionary establishment: question the dogma and you are shunned and expelled from the cult.

The movie addresses the issues with humor and examines the views of a number of scientists and others on both sides of the question. It is amusing to see the Intelligent Design scientists refusing to speculate on who or what the “designer” is, while the atheists speculate that life began on a crystal or was “seeded” by alien intelligence. Really!

One thing that comes across loud and clear in the movie is that serious scientists are questioning evolution, or at least they were. Using the Berlin Wall as an image, Stein points out that a wall has been erected to prevent discussion in scientific circles of anything challenging evolutionary doctrine. Those scientists who dare to breech the wall are likely to lose their careers.

Some scientists spoke on camera anonymously. Does scientific inquiry win when questioning is suppressed and people are afraid to speak for fear of retaliation? Keep in mind that big money is involved. Those who question the creed are denied jobs, can not get published (essential for scientists), and are denied research grants. Cutting off jobs and grants is an effective way to suppress a point of view.

Stein’s movie resonates with those who have watched academia’s love affair with political corr