Posted on 04/19/2008 12:17:00 PM PDT by cornelis
I like rebels, especially ones who go against type. Take Ben Stein in his latest film, Expelled, which comes out this Friday. Dressed in a sport coat, tie, and tennis shoes, he’s not who you expect — the deadpan, monotone-voiced but ever-likable teacher he portrays in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Wonder Years.
Stein retains his characteristic deadpan affect, but this time he’s playing himself — a deceptively erudite and well-educated interviewer, who is passionately skeptical of evolutionary biology and its leading proponents.
The film’s endeavor is to respond to one simple question: “Were we designed, or are we simply the end result of an ancient mud puddle struck by lightning?”
Big science doesn’t like that question because they can’t answer it. Underneath their antagonism toward explanations that suggest an intelligent cause, lies a fundamental egoism. Science wants to deny any evidence of a supreme being precisely because it wants to be a supreme being. Moreover, representatives of big science in the film are unsettlingly snippy, suggesting that they feel threatened by rival opinions, rather than assured of their own.
To make this point, the film introduces teachers and scientists who are shunned, denied tenure, and fired for questioning dogmatic Darwinism. The film’s producers spent two years traveling the world, talking with more than 150 educators and scientists who say they have been persecuted for questioning Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
Dr. Richard Sternberg, a biologist, publishes a peer-reviewed paper, which posits evidence for intelligent design (ID) in the universe. For his efforts, Sternberg’s bosses at the Smithsonian Institution trashed him so badly that it led to a congressional investigation.
Iowa State University denied tenure to Guillermo Gonzalez, an accomplished astrobiologist. University officials admitted that Gonzalez’s work on ID is a factor.
For Richard Dawkins, by contrast, job security is not a problem. To this superstar Oxford University evolutionary biologist, and devout atheist, intelligent design is nothing more than an “ideological cousin of creationism.”
The highlight of the film features Ben Stein interviewing Dawkins, who concedes that an intelligent being may have created life on earth. But that being cannot be “God.” Instead, he suggests it may be an alien, itself a product of “Darwinian evolution.” Oh, the scientific imagination — there’s nothing like it on God’s green earth.
Dawkins has since complained that the interview was set up under false pretenses, and that he didn’t even know who Stein was. It is rather astonishing that it did not occur to the world’s smartest atheist to look up Ben Stein on the Internet, where he might have readily discovered numerous examples of his writings that are critical of Darwinism.
Dawkins dismisses the Emmy-winning actor as having “no talent for comedy.” He believes during the interview Stein is an “honestly stupid man, sincerely seeking enlightenment from a scientist.” A lawyer, a law professor, an economist, and a speechwriter for both Nixon and Ford, Stein hardly seems to fit the description “honestly stupid.”
In the end, the film isn’t really about intelligent design as much as about a relentless attack on an authentically free inquiry. As Ben Stein points out, “Freedom of inquiry has been greatly compromised, and this is not only anti-American, it’s anti-science. It’s anti-the whole concept of learning.”
— Dave Berg is a senior segment producer at The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
When one makes a public posting on a public message board one opens themselves up to responses from any registered user.
Private messages are there for those time you wish to not make a public pronouncement.
and 99% of it will be garbage...
You say this why?
ID Ping!
Wrong. The Nazis killed as many Christians as they did Jews. Nazism was Pagan at its core.
What I really said. Please refrain from quote mining my posts in the future.
‘You imply that my account will soon be canceled which, in civilized circles, is a threat.
The Nazi movement also used Christianity to advance their cause. *** Is that the fault of Christianity? I say no - ideas and knowledge aren’t a fault when the insane and crazy use them to commit evil.***
Those that commit the evil are wrong. Not Christianity and not Darwin.’
Thank you so much for that information! Gosh, to think I’ve been a FR member for about 7 years longer than you and never realized that. So, in answer to your question of “Why?”...I’ve read your posts, have no interest in dialogue with you, wasn’t talking to you, and it’s none of your business.
bump
I didn’t ‘quote mine’. You said that the Nazis used Christianity to advance their cause, even though it wasn’t Christianity’s fault. The Nazis didn’t use Christianity at all. They had their own philosophy, and didn’t abide any other.
Do you blame what the nazis did on evolution?
David Coppedge is a scientist. He explains things that I and others cannot. If you read with an open mind, and not by the rigid evolutionary way, you will see scientists and researchers using unfounded beliefs and their imaginations, to explain evolution. It's a good website for daily viewing.
Don't let your fellow evolutionists know that you are reading Creation Safaris.com. They won't forgive you.
Let it be know that I have viewed the site creationsafaris.com in the past and I did so again before posting this.
That is a YEC site. Do you know how many different scientific disciplines have to be wrong for YEC to be correct?
The late S.J. Gould referred to the fact of evolution and the theory of evolution as two different concepts. I have thought that "the fact of evolution" would be better called, "the facts of earth history", which includes the history of life on earth with its succession of ages dominated by entirely different plants and animals. This succession as discerned in the fossil record is "the fact of evolution".
It seems that with ID, the focus is on the origin of life on earth, so that one might suppose that they would be happy with the idea that an "Intelligent Designer" introduced blue green algae, or something, but of course their program goes far beyond that.
Cause I was you and what a hollow empty existance. You have no absolute truth, no morality, only moral relativism in that you decide what is right and wrong, good or evil. Your truth is always moving while mine is always the same in God’s Word.
Millions have died at the hands of Darwin/Atheists who believed any means justified their ends. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Light. Your life has none.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Just saw it. Loved it. I highly recommend it.
“Structures that are shared by species on the basis of descent from a common ancestor are called homologies. Homologies alone are reliable indicators of evolutionary relationship.”
This is clearly circular logic. No serious scientist would tolerate such a ridiculous statement but you will find similar statements in almost every text on the subject. With the gigabytes of information available on evolution, why resort to trying to trick unsuspecting students into thinking that homologies support the theory of evolution? I have no doubt that if there was better evidence than circular logic, it would have been included in my text instead.
Please read “Icons of Evolution” for many examples of how high school and college text books are full of distortions, lies and circular logic.
Never mind the label of YEC. This website has plenty of explanations of the fallacy of evolution. Don't fall for the evolutionist's smear tactics - YEC has nothing to do with biological explanations. If you do find an article on young-earth creationism, then JUST SKIP IT. But be honest, don't avoid the website, then point to fellow freepers and accuse them of a lack of scientific knowledge. I've asked a former freeper (banned during the Great Evolutionist Purge of 2007) how many years of study would it take a typical person to have a sufficient understanding of biology, archeology, geology, etc. to be able to refute him. He would not answer.
All of your questions on evolution, biology, etc can be answered at this site, www.creationsafaris.com.
I have no scientific background, but I can understand David Coppedge's explanations of the fallacies of evolution.
To answer the question, I do not know how many. Except for biology, and of course evolution (which is NOT a serious scientific discipline, it is a belief system for scientists). If you want, you can give a ballpark number.
“If you want, you can give a ballpark number.”
Can I field this one? How about all of them.
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