Ben Stein Movie: "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"

on January 02, 2009 at 6:31 AM, updated January 02, 2009 at 6:37 AM

In the middle of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," Ben Stein's movie about the assault on Intelligent Design by the intellectual "gatekeepers" in the nation, a prominent evolutionist tries to explain just how mud might have turned into the first cell.

"One popular theory is that it might have started on the back of crystals," says Michael Ruse.

I laughed out loud, but Stein, unflappable, keeps a poker face.

"I don't get," he deadpans, "how you get from mud to a living organism."

"I've already told you," Ruse continues, apparently unaware of just how silly he sounds.

Such is one of the telling moments in the movie, which came out last year, and is now available in video stores.

As the second half of the school year is starting across New Jersey and the nation, it is worth visiting this movie just to see one perspective on how the battle of evolution versus intelligent design is being waged.

(It also serves as a lead-in to some of the fun we're going to have on this blog debating that issue.)

Ben Stein makes three telling points:

First, there are huge holes in the Darwinian explanation of how we got here.

Second, the scientific establishment, with the complicity of the media and other "gatekeepers," is suppressing legitimate criticism of that monopoly on thought. That, Stein says, is contrary to what makes America great.

And third, the Darwinist way of thinking helped contribute to a mindset that made the Holocaust possible.

When the film hit movie screens, evangelicals, in general, loved the movie. Secular critics panned it.
Rotten Tomatoes, the movie review web site, was not subtle.

"Consensus: Full of patronizing, poorly structured arguments, 'Expelled' is a cynical political stunt in the guise of a documentary."

The New York Times simply described it as the "sleaziest" documentary it had seen in a long time. The Star-Ledger reviewer didn't like it, either.

But let's look at each of Ben Stein's points in turn.

First, as the movie explains, the word "evolution" must be explained. There's no doubt that "microevolution" occurs - minor variations within species. Anybody who breeds dogs understands that. That's why Darwin's famous "example" of evolution (changes to beaks on finches on the Galapagos Islands) is so silly.

Okay, students, parents and teachers across New Jersey: how many textbooks in your schools use those finches as "evidence" of evolution? Lines are open, write me now.

But Darwin claims that dogs and cats and humans have a common ancestor. Where's the evidence for that?

How solid is Darwin's explanation for the vast diversity of life? Darwin never tried to explain how life began; he starts with the assumption that species already exist. And, as Ruse so unwittingly demonstrated, Darwinists are clueless about how life could possibly have begun.

Then, as scientist David Berlinski explains in the movie, Darwinism is a nice-sounding story, but it's so vague and nebulous that it lacks all scientific rigor. How can you scientifically test a theory that says that one species turns into another?

As Berlinski adds, Darwin assumed that cells are just blobs of tissue. But recent advances have shown the enormous complexity
of the cell.

As one scientist says, the jump from Darwin's understanding to the modern one is like going from a mud hut to a spacecraft. It's pretty tough to randomly assemble that.

Ben Stein illustrates this through Richard Dawkins playing (and losing) a "lottery of life," showing the infinite odds against the building blocks of life randomly assembling themselves.

Why not allow intelligent design as a possible explanation? Why not go where the evidence leads? Why exclude that explanation, out of hand, before considering the evidence? Even if it causes a paradigm shift (away from a purely random, mechanistic, universe, to one designed), as other scientific revolutions have?

Such forward thinking has been suggested by some scientists, but they have been ostracized by the scientific establishment. (Stein illustrates this with a picture of the Berlin Wall, which also shut out heretical ideas.)

It is that shunning that has outraged Ben Stein.

Here are some of their names. Richard Sternberg. Guillermo Gonzalez. Robert Marks.

Investigate their stories for yourself.

Finally, the movie lays some of the blame for the Holocaust at the feet of Darwinist thinking. It is this claim that so upset critics.

The historical causation was not an ironclad cause and effect; there were other factors, of course.

But, as Stein mentions, Darwinist ideas about competition among races to be "superior" were popular in the writings of leading scientists in the 1910's and '20's. Those ideas were adopted by the Nazis, who liked the concept, and preached that it was their "race" that was "superior."

The original full title of Darwin's book was "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."
(The name was shortened in a later edition.)

But it is Stein's visit to a concentration camp that is most poignant. Stein and his guide are mostly silent, letting the stark concrete walls tell the story.

Speaking with the guide, and later when interviewing the author of "From Darwin to Hitler," Ben Stein asks the right questions. Did Darwin have anything to do with this?

Sadly, the author replies, science can be used to rationalize a lot of wicked things.

Anyway, don't believe me. Check out the movie. And then, investigate for yourself.