I knew that Ben Stein would find a way to discuss the subject of intellectual elitism in a way that was cerebral and humorous. My teenaged daughters and I went to see the movie Expelled tonight.
Simply put, the movie Expelled is excellent!
Its scholarship is excellent! This is not your usual defense of Intelligent Design. It's thoughtful, raises questions and then seeks to answer them.
The photography is stunning. The usage of old black and white footage is so completely apropos to the script! The visual imagery is very impactful.
The movie begins with stunning photos of the building of the Berlin wall. For those of us who are history buffs, we can begin to image from the start that this is an image of thought police whose duty it is to seclude certain ideas from seeing the light of day. But as the film progresses, this anaology is taken to a higher plane as the ideas that Darwinism spawns begin to have implications in Eugenics and the Holocaust (and I would add, though the film didn't go there, Bosnia, Dafur and the Forgotten Holocaust of Manchuria in the 1920's and 30's).
In their own words, evolutionary scientists will tell you, and believe, that life started here by being planted as seeds from an alien, or on the backs of crystals. Their suppositions are hilarious and have nothing to do with scientific thought, which is repeatable and observable.
This is a tremendous film that I pray everyone will go see and encourage all you know to see this intelligent, witty film.
What a blessing to have this to refer people to as we cannot all be so persuasive or convincing.
The audience I believe was mostly Christian guessing by their reaction to various points of the movie. It also got a standing ovation at the end. This audience really appreciated the movie.
After some sleep I'll probably update my comments, but these stand for now.
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11 comments:
Just a simple question:
Does the movie ever mention the fact that Stalin rejected evolution because he thought it led to capitalism?
If not, why do you think that is?
No, the movie didn't have time to go into every nuance.
But Stalin was different in that he didn't exactly hold to the true Marxist/Leninist ideaology. Stalin sought to jump start communism in Russia by skipping the necessary "decline" into capitalism by replacing it with socialism thereby industrializing Russia without capitalistic exploitation.
Marx posited that communism was a NATURAL occurance which would replace capitalism much as capitalism had replaced feudalism. Marx's theory was that this would occur WITHOUT FORCE.
One can hardly say that Stalin's regime was without force, for the blood of too many cry out. Stalin may have pubically stated that he opposed eugenics and evolution, but his regime practiced it daily. His actions showed his true thoughts, not his words.
Now, ME -- I'm willing to continue this discussion but only if you come out of the shadows. I do not make it a habit to discuss anything with anyone who is unwilling to do so without the cover of anonymity.
And since, in this particular section of the blogosphere (meaning on my blog) I get to make the rules, you are now so informed.
Wow! Just makes me want to see it more. Funny--last night right after I read that you were going, Husband walked into the room and said, "I want to go see that Expelled movie."
Good job amusedmomma! I like how you handled that. A lot. I am taking notes.
Yes, come on out of the shadows "Me."
@AmusedMomma: Stalin did NOT practice evolution. As I said, he outright rejected it.
As did Hitler. Hitler based his ideology on his religion as well as Pasteur and Koch. Does that make pasteurization evil?
It’s too bad that the film falls flat on its face for several reasons:
1. The so-called “expelled” people in the film weren’t actually expelled. Sternberg, for example, wasn’t fired. His tenure was over at that time anyway! So why does the film lie about this?
2. The ID movement itself is extremely censorship happy. Have you ever looked at Dembski’s own blog? He actively censors comments and bans people who don’t agree with him. What was that about freedom of speech again?
3. The film sets up a false dichotomy between evolution and religion, and it only shows you one side of the story. It does not show you all the christians who accept evolution, as that would have shown the premise of the film to be flawed. In fact, when asked why well known christian biologist and evolutionist Ken Miller wasn’t interviewed, producer Mark Mathis candidly admitted that it “would have confused the message of the film unnecessarily”.
4. Even the leaders of the ID movement admit that they have no real research. So why do they want to circumvent the scientific process and force their religion into science? If they want to be taken seriously as scientists, they need to produce research!
Then you have things like the fact that both Hitler and Stalin rejected evolution, so why are they mentioned at all? Furthermore, what does it matter? Evolution doesn’t become more or less correct depending on whether Hitler or Stalin accepted ir or not.
In the end, Expelled is a dishonest hit-piece which seeks to undermine science and replace it with religion. It lies about things like the Sternberg case. It makes false claims about academic freedom (the problem with the ID movement is that it wants to be considered scientific without doing all the hard scientific research). And so on.
Johann --
Could you provide me with something more than your word that Stalin didn't practice eugenics (ethnic cleansing) and the elimination of the weak among his countrymen and those he sought to rule over (Poland as an example)? My research supports that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of too many based on his idealogy of ethnic cleansing and power to the elite.
Again, same with Hitler. You say it is fact, so please provide me with these facts.
I do not deny that people of faith have done things in the name of religion that are heinous. But I cannot think of any incidents in history that compare in scale to those of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and others whose idealogy resulted in murdering tens of thousands of people. Can you really argue for that?
1. Tenure... perhaps we have different definitions of that. My definition is this: "a status granted to a teacher usually after a probationary period that protects him or her from dismissal". Are you trying to say that people who have tenure are regularly removed from their positions? Could you tell me how often that happens? As for Sternberg, as I recall, he was the man who was fired from the Smithsonian after publishing an article that mentioned ID and was critical of neo-Darwinism. The article was by Stephen Meyer as I recall. So I'm uncertain what your tenure remark is in relationship to Sternberg.
2. I cannot speak for the ID community. But I do know that blog owners have within their perogitive the ability to set the rules for their blog. I have had to eliminate comments from my blog that were in my opinion nasty and full of foul language. After a couple of incidents of that, I started approving my comments as a way to protect my readership from those kinds of remarks. I do not mind discussing opposing ideas with others, but I would like to do so in a civil manner and absent the use of objectionable language or attitudes. Sarcasim rarely advances communication although it may express your frustration.
If you are going to hold the ID community to the standard of allowing all comments, I hope you will also support that all neo-Darwin blogs also do the same.
As for me, I believe people have the right to manage their blogs as they see fit.
3. I saw the point of the film differently than you did. You did see the film? Otherwise, you are going by heresy, which isn't always a good thing to rely upon. I did not see a dichotomy between religion and evolution. I saw a film that presented how a particular idealogy was being suppressed. I've asked others and I'll ask you, what are you so afraid of? If ID is so bad, why not just have at it in debates and allow research to finally allow it to be thrown in the trash heap of other unproven hypotheses? Attack the ideas, not the person with the ideas.
The point of Hitler in the film was to show where ideas can lead. Ideas have consequences.
I do not see where ID completely jibes with religion. Creationism does, but not ID. Linking the two to me isn't quite a faite accompli.
ID just says there was an intelligent cause for the origin of life.
Creationism says life was created by God.
Evolution says it was a series of changes in molecular structure that became increasingly complex while simultaneously eliminating the unsurvivable.
Even the evolutionary proponents in the movie admit we do not know because we were not there. Since we cannot know, then each theory requires people to believe in them because the evidence cannot be "proven."
Amusedmomma - Johann correctly points out that Stalin did not accept Darwinian evolution. He ascribed to a theory known as Lysenkoism.
I think Johann is also using tenure in the other sense of the word i.e. the term during which a position was held. He is correct in saying that Sternberg was NOT fired. As far as I know, the film doesn't make that claim either.
Also, while ideas do have consequences, to the extent which Hitler was influenced by Darwin (and this is debatable), it was a misappropriation of Darwin. In fact, eugenics and genocide precede Darwin by hundreds of years. I would invite you to read what ID proponent DaveScot had to say about the Nazi references in the movie.
Furthermore, the reason why people continue to refer to ID as creationism and not science is because it "evolved" from so-called "scientific creationism". This was very well documented at the Dover trial, where it emerged that early drafts of the Intelligent Design textbook "Of Pandas and People" used the word "creationism" instead of "intelligent design".
I am dubious about your last paragraph. Not being able to time travel does not make science a faith-based endeavour. Furthermore, no scientific theory can be "proven". There is always some degree of uncertainty, although often it is an unreasonable degree of uncertainty. Even Newton's Laws of Mechanics were found to be problematic in some scenarios, which is why Einstein developed his theory of relativity. Yet even that has some problems. But nobody says we require "belief" to know that in most situations Newtonian mechanics holds true.
NP - http://www.galafilm.com/afterdarwin/english/glossary/lysenkoism.html
Perhaps I'm reading this wrong, but this site says that Lysenkoism was an ideology that was trying to improve on Darwinian thought. So it accepted Darwin's ideas and then tried to improve on them. I don't think you can completely divorce one from the other.
Nazi ideology being tied to Darwinian thought is supported here http://www.thedarwinpapers.com/oldsite/number13/number13.html
and here http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v27/i4/nazi.asp and here http://www.trueorigin.org/holocaust.asp and here http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26092.
Now for each of these that I've put up, I'm sure you'll be able to counter with sites that support your idea that Hitler's Nazi Germany was a distortion of Darwin or based on Hitler's own twisted ideas. But like Lysenkoism above, Darwinian thought served as a foundation to begin upon.
But let's not take other people's opinions of Hitler; let's go to the source to see what Hitler said. In Mein Kampf Hitler says, "The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he after all is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development of organic living beings would be unthinkable."
And this quote, "Historical experience offers countless proofs of this. It shows with terrifying clarity that in every mingling of Aryan blood with that of lower peoples the result was the end of the cultured people. North America, whose population consists in by far the largest part of Germanic elements who mixed but little with the lower colored peoples, shows a different humanity and culture from Central and South America, where the predominantly Latin immigrants often mixed with the aborigines on a large scale. By this one example, we can clearly and distinctly recognize the effect of racial mixture. The Germanic inhabitant of the American continent, who has remained racially pure and unmixed, rose to be master of the continent; he will remain the master as long as he does not fall a victim to defilement of the blood."
And this lovely quote, "All who are not of good race in this world are chaff."
(The above quotes were taken from http://www.crusader.net/texts/mk/mkv1ch11.html as my books of Mein Kampf are in storage.)
Even Richard Dawkins said he would not like to live in a society shaped by Darwinian thought because it would be fascist.
I think we all can agree that ideas have consequences. Perhaps you are sincere in your efforts to disassociate Stalin and Hitler from the foundations established by Darwin, but to me it feels like a distraction from the main point of the film, which is suppression of thought and ideas at the scientific and academic levels.
Since you're uncertain whether or not the film states that Sternberg was fired or not, I gather you have not seen the film. How can you argue about a film you haven't seen? Well let's skip that for now and talk about Sternberg and tenure. Was he not the man who was an editor of a magazine put out by the Smithsonian? This information comes from the Executive Summary of the US Congressional Committee Report: INTOLERANCE AND THE POLITICIZATION OF SCIENCE AT THE SMITHSONIAN PREPARED FOR THE HON. MARK SOUDER, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, December 15, 2006
In January 2005, an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal first raised public awareness about disturbing allegations that officials at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) had retaliated against museum Research Associate (RA) Richard Sternberg because he allowed publication of an article favoring the theory of intelligent design in a biology journal.1 A well-published evolutionary biologist with two doctorates in biology, Dr. Sternberg claimed that after publication of the article, his colleagues and supervisors at the NMNH subjected him to harassment and discrimination in an effort to force him out as a Research Associate.
In November of 2004, Dr. Sternberg filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the agency charged with “protecting federal employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices, especially reprisal for whistleblowing.” The OSC eventually found evidence to corroborate Dr. Sternberg’s complaint, concluding that “[i]t is... clear that a hostile work environment was created with the ultimate goal of forcing” Dr. Sternberg out of the Smithsonian. Despite this finding, the OSC was unable to pursue its investigation due to a question of jurisdiction. In August of 2005, subcommittee staff initiated their own investigation into the possible mistreatment of Dr. Sternberg by the Smithsonian. During their investigation, staff met with Dr. Sternberg and senior Smithsonian officials, and reviewed internal emails provided by the Smithsonian in response to requests from the subcommittee.
The staff investigation has uncovered compelling evidence that Dr. Sternberg’s civil and constitutional rights were violated by Smithsonian officials. Moreover, the agency’s top officials—Secretary Lawrence Small and Deputy Secretary Sheila Burke—have shown themselves completely unwilling to rectify the wrongs that were done or even to genuinely investigate the wrongdoing. Most recently, Burke and Small have allowed NMNH officials to demote Dr. Sternberg to the position of Research Collaborator, despite past assurances from Burke that Dr. Sternberg was a “Research Associate in good standing” and would be given “full and fair consideration” for his request to renew his Research Associateship. 2 The failure of Small and Burke to take any action against such discrimination raises serious questions about the Smithsonian’s willingness to protect the free speech and civil rights of scientists who may hold dissenting views on topics such as biological evolution.
I do not believe that tenure is a problem here. Being "expelled" from his work environment is.
These next comments are not directed at those who have commented here, just some general thoughts of mine about all of this.
Those who are thinking about Expelled and the reaction it is receiving from opponents to it are wondering the old adage from Shakespeare, “Me thinks thou dost protest too much.” I am amazed at the firestorm this one movie has caused in the blogosphere. I am wondering why the massive over-reaction. If I am to believe those who support evolutionary thought, then I am to assume that ID has nothing to support it. If that is the case, then WHY this colossal effort to dispel the idea. If something is of little consequence then it shouldn’t raise a furor. Obviously this has touched a nerve.
But my main pondering at this point is: have at it! Discuss the idea, don’t dismiss it. The best way to determine if it has teeth is to bring it all to the light of day and do what scientists do and what academia does – disprove the theory. Some will say you cannot prove a negative. Ok. Then present empirical evidence of your theory of the origins of life. Allow it to be discussed, debated and researched. We shouldn’t be afraid of ideas. We don’t support our side by attacking the other side in a personal manner (known in debate circles as ad hominem). Support your idea with clear, irrefutable evidence.
The argument often made is that Hitler was following principles of natural selection. Lysenkoism rejects natural selection. In fact, if you are going to continue with that line of reasoning, you have to understand that even Intelligent Design is influenced by Darwin. Therefore it's hypocritical for an ID film to blame Darwin simply because certain ideologies might have been influenced by his work.
Furthermore, eugenics had a long history that preceded Darwin dating back to ancient Greece. People already understood hereditary principles and Darwin's contribution was not to our understanding that parents will pass on certain traits to their progeny. Breeding and artificial selection have been ongoing for centuries - Darwin was just the first to apply this understanding to evolution (which was also already known, due to the discovery of fossils) and to posit that there is common ancestry for all living things.
The idea that one race of people was superior to another also preceded Darwin by centuries. In fact, you can find instances of it in the Old Testament itself. When Darwin posited his innocuous theory of evolution by natural selection, it was swept up by the rampant colonialism and racism that dominated the ideological landscape.
Ultimately, attempting to tie Hitler to Darwin is a desperate attempt to disparage evolutionary theory. How somebody misuses or misunderstands a scientific theory has no bearing on the validity of it. We don't say that atomic theory is dangerous or wrong because of Hiroshima. Why is evolution treated differently?
By teaching evolution, nobody is suggesting that it should have any bearing whatsoever on anything other than our understanding of biological diversity.
If the main point about the film has to do with academic freedom, then why did they make a horrendous claim about Darwin being one of the causes of the Holocaust? The real causes behind the Holocaust existed before and in spite of Darwin.
Sternberg was not fired. The only reason he was "demoted" was because the position of a Research Assistant which he previously held requires a supervisor. His supervisor had passed away. So without a supervisor, he was offered a position as Research Collaborator - it had nothing to do with him sneaking Meyer's paper into the journal. I don't know why the Souder report doesn't mention this, but I can guess.
As far as the blogosphere's reaction to the film goes, it's a win-win for the producers. If nobody says anything, people will assume that there is nothing to be refuted and few people will raise awareness about the extreme bias of the film. If people react, the producers claim that its because they are being defensive. Many of these bloggers are scientists, educators or students who feel that films like Expelled are not only misleading the general public, but that they promote a political and religious movement that has a history of trying to subvert the scientific process. What makes you think none of the claims made by ID advocates has ever been entertained and refuted? Michael Behe has continually been shown that irreducibly complex systems are capable of evolving - and are in fact expected to arise from evolution - and yet he continues to handwave. Meanwhile, he hasn't produced any scientific data to support his claims - and Darwin's Black Box has been in print for over a decade now. Whilst ID advocates continue to politicize their campaign and parade their spurious marytrs, scientists are continually putting evolutionary theory to the test and refining it with empirical evidence. When the scientific profession is under attack, you cannot expect there not to be a response.
NP -- I apologize that it's taken me so long to respond to your post. My many vocations claimed my time.
I'm not certain where you're going with the hypocritical remark about ID being influenced by Darwin. At its heart, I thought ID claimed more of an ideology with Jean-Martin Charcot, whose work on heredity vs. environment supports an Intelligent Designer. While ID proponents seek to criticize Darwin’s theory of evolution, it doesn’t use it as a foundation of its beliefs.
I agree with you that eugenics has a long history that preceded Darwin. However, Darwin renewed interest in it with his book and theories.
I don’t know about others, but there is no desperation on my part to link Darwin with Hitler. I doubt Darwin knew where his ideas would led and Hitler is responsible for his own actions, no matter where his ideas may have originated (sorry – couldn’t resist the pun).
It’s interesting that you mention Hiroshima, because the use of the atomic bomb there was to preserve life rather than to deny it or systematically end it for a particular race or culture. You’ll have to find a better example to make a comparison with.
I think that in order for you to understand the point of view of Expelled in relationship to the connection between Darwin and Hitler you’d need to see the movies and the various points that are brought out. We can debate it here, but as this is a post about the movie, I believe we should focus our efforts on that first.
Sternberg and a congressional oversight committee both come to the conclusion that his “demotion” (which if you’ve ever experienced it is being fired from one job to do another) was based on his support of the publishing of an article that supported ID. I hardly think you can claim his actions in publishing the article as “sneaky.” That would imply that you are aware of his motives. His words deny that, so for the present I’ll have to take the man at his word for he has given me no reason not to.
Publicity is a sticky wicket. And I do see your point that all publicity is generally good to promote something because it gets the product before consumers’ eyes.
I am glad that people are talking about the movie whether they agree with it or not. I think it’s important for people to research and come to their own conclusions about the matter rather than just trusting in others.
Ultimately, I will take the Word of the Lord over all others, however, so I side with the Creationists.
Are there some ID proponents who fall into the creationist camp, I suppose there are. There also are those that do not. It’s not a simple association and all ID adherents should not be painted with the broad brush of being a creationist.
There is plenty of scientific data to support ID, it’s simply a matter of whom you trust and whom you read and listen to. I know that we could go back and forth on this, but there really isn’t a need to out-credential each other with the people on either side of the issue. I still think we should have the IDEA debated like grown-ups, without rancor, and without simply denying out of hand the evidence presented and without attacking or impugning the character of those involved.
What I got from the movie Expelled was just that – there should be room within our freedom loving society to debate this issue rather than to suppress it.
I appreciate the way you have politely conversed here.
No need to apologize at all, AmusedMomma. I appreciate that you've taken the time to respond to me.
This is the first I've heard of Charcot being linked to Intelligent Design. Perhaps you are thinking of Jean-Baptist Lamarck? There are some ID proponents who claim that there is an intrinsic "intelligence" in all organisms including bacteria, which allows them to direct their own evolution. Nonetheless, I think most members of the Discovery Institute favour the view that an external intelligence is necessary.
I'm not sure what you mean by saying that Hiroshima was done to preserve life. In a roundabout way, it may have done so by causing Japan to surrender. But it still claimed over 100,000 human lives.
The congressional report doesn't mention that the Smithsonian could not renew Sternberg's position, because he no longer had a supervisor. I cannot admit to knowing Sternberg's true motives, but the circumstances are suspect. Sternberg and Meyer were acquainted - the two had met at an ID conference before the incident. Furthermore, Meyer's paper was on a topic that the journal did not normally publish on - it begs the question as to why of all the different journals out there, Meyer chose to submit his paper to the one where his acquaintance was the editor and one which was not relevant to the topic of his paper. This already raises a red flag about a conflict of interest. Furthermore, given the circumstances, Sternberg still chose not to involve any associate editors in the review process. His reasons for not doing so are flimsy, because there were associate editors qualified to deal with the subject of the paper. Given these facts, I think it would be justifiable to say that Sternberg's actions constituted professional misconduct.
On the issue of academic freedom, I certainly think that it should be supported. However, academic freedom also includes the autonomy of institutions. To be fair, I'm having trouble seeing how exactly ID supporters are being "suppressed". I think there are far more legitimate cases of academic freedom being suppressed.
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