Posted on 04/17/2008 10:54:25 AM PDT by Boxen
...about intelligent design and evolution
In the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, narrator Ben Stein poses as a "rebel" willing to stand up to the scientific establishment in defense of freedom and honest, open discussion of controversial ideas like intelligent design (ID). But Expelled has some problems of its own with honest, open presentations of the facts about evolution, ID—and with its own agenda. Here are a few examples—add your own with a comment, and we may add it to another draft of this story. For our complete coverage, see "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed—Scientific American's Take.
1) Expelled quotes Charles Darwin selectively to connect his ideas to eugenics and the Holocaust. When the film is building its case that Darwin and the theory of evolution bear some responsibility for the Holocaust, Ben Stein's narration quotes from Darwin's The Descent of Man thusly:
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
This is how the original passage in The Descent of Man reads (unquoted sections emphasized in italics):
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The producers of the film did not mention the very next sentences in the book (emphasis added in italics):
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.
Darwin explicitly rejected the idea of eliminating the "weak" as dehumanizing and evil. Those words falsify Expelled's argument. The filmmakers had to be aware of the full Darwin passage, but they chose to quote only the sections that suited their purposes.
2) Ben Stein's speech to a crowded auditorium in the film was a setup. Viewers of Expelled might think that Ben Stein has been giving speeches on college campuses and at other public venues in support of ID and against "big science." But if he has, the producers did not include one. The speech shown at the beginning and end was staged solely for the sake of the movie. Michael Shermer learned as much by speaking to officials at Pepperdine University, where those scenes were filmed. Only a few of the audience members were students; most were extras brought in by the producers. Judge the ovation Ben Stein receives accordingly.
3) Scientists in the film thought they were being interviewed for a different movie. As Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Eugenie Scott, Michael Shermer and other proponents of evolution appearing in Expelled have publicly remarked, the producers first arranged to interview them for a film that was to be called Crossroads, which was allegedly a documentary on "the intersection of science and religion." They were subsequently surprised to learn that they were appearing in Expelled, which "exposes the widespread persecution of scientists and educators who are pursuing legitimate, opposing scientific views to the reigning orthodoxy," to quote from the film's press kit.
When exactly did Crossroads become Expelled? The producers have said that the shift in the film's title and message occurred after the interviews with the scientists, as the accumulating evidence gradually persuaded them that ID believers were oppressed. Yet as blogger Wesley Elsberry discovered when he searched domain registrations, the producers registered the URL "expelledthemovie.com" on March 1, 2007—more than a month (and in some cases, several months) before the scientists were interviewed. The producers never registered the URL "crossroadsthemovie.com". Those facts raise doubt that Crossroads was still the working title for the movie when the scientists were interviewed.
4) The ID-sympathetic researcher whom the film paints as having lost his job at the Smithsonian Institution was never an employee there. One section of Expelled relates the case of Richard Sternberg, who was a researcher at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and editor of the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. According to the film, after Sternberg approved the publication of a pro-ID paper by Stephen C. Meyer of the Discovery Institute, he lost his editorship, was demoted at the Smithsonian, was moved to a more remote office, and suffered other professional setbacks. The film mentions a 2006 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report prepared for Rep. Mark Souder (R–Ind.), "Intolerance and the Politicization of Science at the Smithsonian," that denounced Sternberg's mistreatment.
This selective retelling of the Sternberg affair omits details that are awkward for the movie's case, however. Sternberg was never an employee of the Smithsonian: his term as a research associate always had a limited duration, and when it ended he was offered a new position as a research collaborator. As editor, Sternberg's decision to "peer-review" and approve Meyer's paper by himself was highly questionable on several grounds, which was why the scientific society that published the journal later repudiated it. Sternberg had always been planning to step down as the journal's editor—the issue in which he published the paper was already scheduled to be his last.
The report prepared by Rep. Souder, who had previously expressed pro-ID views, was never officially accepted into the Congressional Record. Notwithstanding the report's conclusions, its appendix contains copies of e-mails and other documents in which Sternberg's superiors and others specifically argued against penalizing him for his ID views. (More detailed descriptions of the Sternberg case can be found on Ed Brayton's blog Dispatches from the Culture Wars and on Wikipedia.)
5) Science does not reject religious or "design-based" explanations because of dogmatic atheism. Expelled frequently repeats that design-based explanations (not to mention religious ones) are "forbidden" by "big science." It never explains why, however. Evolution and the rest of "big science" are just described as having an atheistic preference.
Actually, science avoids design explanations for natural phenomena out of logical necessity. The scientific method involves rigorously observing and experimenting on the material world. It accepts as evidence only what can be measured or otherwise empirically validated (a requirement called methodological naturalism). That requirement prevents scientific theories from becoming untestable and overcomplicated.
By those standards, design-based explanations rapidly lose their rigor without independent scientific proof that validates and defines the nature of the designer. Without it, design-based explanations rapidly become unhelpful and tautological: "This looks like it was designed, so there must be a designer; we know there is a designer because this looks designed."
A major scientific problem with proposed ID explanations for life is that their proponents cannot suggest any good way to disprove them. ID "theories" are so vague that even if specific explanations are disproved, believers can simply search for new signs of design. Consequently, investigators do not generally consider ID to be a productive or useful approach to science.
6) Many evolutionary biologists are religious and many religious people accept evolution. Expelled includes many clips of scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, William Provine and PZ Myers who are also well known as atheists. They talk about how their knowledge of science confirms their convictions and how in some cases science led them to atheism. And indeed, surveys do indicate that atheism is more common among scientists than in the general population.
Nevertheless, the film is wrong to imply that understanding of evolution inevitably or necessarily leads to a rejection of religious belief. Francisco Ayala of the University of California, Irvine, a leading neuroscientist who used to be a Dominican priest, continues to be a devout Catholic, as does the evolutionary biologist Ken Miller of Brown University. Thousands of other biologists across the U.S. who all know evolution to be true are also still religious. Moreover, billions of other people around the world simultaneously accept evolution and keep faith with their religion. The late Pope John Paul II said that evolution was compatible with Roman Catholicism as an explanation for mankind's physical origins.
During Scientific American's post-screening conversation with Expelled associate producer Mark Mathis, we asked him why Ken Miller was not included in the film. Mathis explained that his presence would have "confused" viewers. But the reality is that showing Miller would have invalidated the film's major premise that evolutionary biologists all reject God.
Inside and outside the scientific community, people will no doubt continue to debate rationalism and religion and disagree about who has the better part of that argument. Evidence from evolution will probably remain at most a small part of that conflict, however.
I’m probably going to get flamed for jumping on this thread, but ignorant viewpoints like yours are the reason that conservatives are demonized in popular media.
There are many conservatives (some here, including me) who do not subscribe to intelligent design theory. Now you may come back at me and say “It’s not a theory.” Well...it is. There weren’t any of us there when it happened. Noone that is alive today witnessed creation, no matter how it happened.
Now, intelligent design (as postulated by the religious, I’m not going to go into all the different variations on it here) requires an assumption that can not be proven, that is the belief that God exists. That goes against the scientific method.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not anti-religious. I’m not a religious person myself, and I find no need for it, but if you need to believe to get through your day, go ahead. I won’t stop you. That being said, many of these “athiests” that you talk about aren’t actually athiests. They just don’t share your viewpoint so you demonize them just like the left does to those of us who think firearms should be unregulated.
For some reason there are many here who demonize science and scientists. Without scientists we wouldn’t be able to organize on this forum, so you may want to rethink your position. Science is not about politics, when you get right down to it. Numbers don’t lie (unless they’re statistics, but that’s another post). People do put their own personal biases into their interpretation of the data, but the data doesn’t lie.
All in all, I think many here need to re-think their viewpoints on science in general. Some of those here who go on complaining about “Scientific America” need to look inward to their own viewpoints and the hypocrisy contained therein. Don’t fall into the trap of being dragged down to their level because they’ll beat you with experience.
I’m off to don my asbestos underwear.
intently = intensely
I was not aware that Pope John Paul II was a member of the "Liberal Elite."
That's fine, but the people who were and are in favor of eugenics and the Holocaust definitely pointed back to Darwinism as part of the justification of their ideas.
To the extent that Darwin himself disagreed with them, they'd simply say that he was being inconsistent, and they weren't.
I thought the major premise was those who believe in Intelligence design being discriminated against.
Sounds like Michael Moore type tactics. However, I don’t think that expelled bills itself as a documentary, or not completely. Either way, I won’t see it. I’ll be one of those non-creationist conservatives who will be cringing at home.
He should really check in on the pro-death industry that is with us today.
It is all about a "quality of life" now whether you are terminal, bored, unable to care for yourself, or an inconvenient pregnancy.
Sure. Like Michael Moore gets credit for simply speaking out against the health care industry.
I think you might be confusing the words “premise” and “conclusion.”
Who knew that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was a documentary? I thought it was a fictional piece, one in which the rules of ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ were in full force.
I think you are suggesting that Ben is a documentarian in the style of Michael Moore, or even Borat.
“Science teaches us how God created the world; the Bible teaches us why.”
Best comment in the entire thread. Worth repeating.
If God did not create the universe, then:
(A) God does not exist
(B) God exists but operates independent of our creation
(C) God evolved along with the space dust and this leaves open the possibility for other gods to also have evolved.
The mechanism of that “creation of life” is not the key component to believing in ANY idea of creationism. It hinges on whether you believe God played a role or not.
So those who deride all notions of creationism should really state what ideology they hold that denying any possibility of “creationism” does not deny the existence of god (forcing the “no god” god of atheism on the “deniers”).
Atheism is not the absence of religion. It is a faith too. Agnostics are the ones who say “we cannot know these things”.
I don’t see the point to teaching any theory as fact. That’s how we get the junk science of Man Made Global Warming in the circulum.
Odd too that science is unwilling to declare WHEN life begins even though there are millions of prenancies to observe but they are quite sure of the latest theory of HOW life began.
bump for later
I’m a pro evo and I cannot wait to see it.
You are absolutely correct. This movie (I hope to see it soon, but I don’t know if it is even playing around here) is not about evolution so much as it is about bias and inhibiting free speech on college campuses, where, if anywhere speech should be at its freest.
As for the scientists who say they thought they were being filmed for another movie, are they saying that they would have changed their answers (i.e., lied) if they knew the true reason for the film?
I have no real interest in seeing a film that makes a scientific or even a faith-based assessment of evolutionary theory. I wouldn’t mind seeing a film about a scientific basis for the origins of life, but I doubt THAT movie will be made anytime soon.
This film could be about any number of forbidden areas of speech and belief at our so-called liberal arts colleges and universities.
I’m not a professional debater(a “master” debater, if you will) or anything, but techinically, I think that might be what is called an ad hominem attack. You are attacking the manner of the arguer, not the argument itself.
Ben Stein gets props from me for making another comedy and calling it a "documentary."
"Expelled" Best Comedy of the Year!
I dumped Scientific American in the 80’s for being liberally biased.
So, have they done a point by point dissection on Al Bore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth?”
Inquiring minds want to know.
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