Posted on 04/01/2008 12:21:24 PM PDT by Zender500
"The shot heard round the world" that started the American Revolution came on April 19, 1775. On April 18 this year, a seriously funny documentary is scheduled to hit 1,000 theaters across America and fire a shot that will go unheard if debate-phobic Darwinists get their way.
The 100-minute documentary, Expelled, is perfect for adults and children of middle-school age or above: It should be rated R not for sex or violence but for being reasonable, radical, risible, and right. (It is rated PG for thematic material, some disturbing images, and brief smoking.) The expelling of Intelligent Design (ID) proponents from universities is not a laughing matter, but star Ben Stein is amusing as he walks, in dark suit and bright running shoes, from interview to interview with scientists and philosophers on both sides of the evolution debate.
Expelled rightly equates Darwinian stifling of free speech with the Communist attempt to enslave millions behind the Berlin Wall. One Expelled scene shows Stein, mathematician David Berlinski (a sophisticated Paris resident), and nuclear physicist Gerald Schroeder (wearing a yarmulke), all now ID advocates, discussing the importance of freedom as they visit a remnant of the Wall. All three are Jewish, and they don't look or talk like the hicks portrayed in Inherit the Wind.
Stein, giving the Darwinists he interviews plenty of time to make their case, is particularly effective in his conversation with Richard Dawkins, atheistic author of the best-selling The God Delusion. Dawkins astoundingly admits that life on earth could be the result of ID, as long as the designer was a being from outer space who was himself the product of atheistic evolution. No God allowed!
Expelled's showing of the connection between evolutionary doctrine and Nazi eugenics has already infuriated some in academia and the media: University of Minnesota professor P.Z. Myers blasted Expelled as "ludicrous in its dishonesty," and Orlando Sentinel reviewer Roger Moore raged about "loaded images, loaded rhetoric." But since a movie is not a dissertation, films show linkages by juxtaposing clips rather than pages of footnoted type. The real question is: Did Darwinism bulwark Hitlerian hatred by providing a scientific rationale for killing those considered less fit in the struggle for survival?
The answer to that question is an unambiguous yes. When I stalked the stacks of the Library of Congress in the early 1990s, I saw and scanned shelf upon shelf of racist and anti-Semitic journals from the first several decades of the last century, with articles frequently citing and applying Darwin. If you read an anti-Expelled review that dodges the issue of substance by concentrating merely on style, you'll be seeing another sign of closed minds.
April 18 will bring an interesting test of whether Expelled, or any other documentary so conceived and so dedicated, can endure in movie theaters past the first weekend. Michael Moore's fatuous documentaries have done good box office with the help of sympathetic reviewers and network news producers. Ben Stein's excellent one might rely on evangelicals and others who are tired of being ridiculed by the closed minds of the Evolution Establishment.
That is why there was Gould and his magic evolution.
I love Ben Stein.
I understand that Ben Stein is a smart man, and quite knowledgable about various subjects. I don’t know if he is qualified to debate Evolution, however.
Hubris.
I wouldn’t mind if they brought back “Win Ben Stein’s Money”. That was an entertaining show, and I like his articles on yahoo.com’s finance page.
It was a great show. Did you know the money the contestants won was actually his? Saw him on an interview, and thats what he told the host. Except the shows I watched he never lost.
He doesn’t debate, he narrates and hosts the movie. He let’s the Darwinists and neo-Darwinists string themselves up on their own words.
I don't think its fair to the Darwinists to lump them all in with nut jobs like Dawkins.
The only people that are allowed to debate evolution are those who have already committed to a philosophy which assumes naturalism and are committed to evolution.
Those who don’t, obviously aren’t qualified to debate it....
Am I "qualified" to debate global warming?
Why don’t I just make this easier on everyone and get this out:
“Ben Stein is an idiot lackey for a bunch of dumb a&*$ creationists.”
There.
Now that that has been said, those of you who were dying to say that can just move along.
The rest of us can discuss this rationally.
Anyone seen the movie? I have. It is fantastic.
You Tube Super Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGCxbhGaVfE
Very nice def.
It is all clear now ;>)
Heh. Yeah. And that is pretty much the conclusions of the atheists in the movie.
You should see it. You will find yourself laughing out loud at them. Stein doesn’t have to trick them or anything. He just lets them talk, and they look like fools.
Kind of like the interviews with the Code Stinkers.
When your opponent is in the process of destroying himself, don’t stop him.
Absolutely.
Darwinism helped them philosophically, just as the combustion engine helped them build tanks. It doesn't necessarily mean that Darwinism always supports evils such as Nazi eugenics. What it does is show that it lends itself to support such evil.
An objective philosopher or scientist should not object, unless they have some kind of unexamined emotional attachment to Darwinism...which it turns out many do, as is commonly manifest by them getting offended when this obvious connection is pointed out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.