Roger Ebert Review of Ben Stein's Expelled

If I were looking for the best criticism of Intelligent Design (ID), I wouldn't expect to find it in Roger Ebert's film critic column. But that's exactly where I found it. Ebert reviews Ben Stein's documentary Expelled (a film defending the tenets of creationism) and demolishes the creationist argument in the process. He does so in a very straight-forward, simple manner, that is easy to read and understand. Subjects that his argument smartly discusses and expounds include: ID's place in the scientific community; ID's assertion that Earth is the primary location in which to observe the universe; ID's assertion that the laws of chance make evolution too unlikely; the idea that Evolution equals Liberalism; comments on the documentary film process; and Stein's claim that Nazi, Liberal, and Evolution belong in the same sentence (ie. Hitler is a Liberal?).

I haven't seen the film yet, but I will. I saw Bill Maher's Religulous, and while I probably agree with more of the ideas in that film than I would in Expelled, I do admit that Religulous had it's problems as a film (for example, I'm not that big a fan of Maher's 'in your face', flippant attitude).
Somehow, I don't think Expelled is going to change my mind on anything.

Read the amazing column, titled 'Win Ben Stein's Mind'.

Read Rennie & Mirsky's Scientific American article discussing stuff Ben Stein left out. For example, Stein uses a paragraph from Darwin's On the Origin of Species to show how Darwin (note: NOT people misusing Darwin's ideas) led to the Holocaust; BUT this article reprints the actual passage, with the sentences that Stein conveniently omitted, showing that Darwin himself was not a fan of Social Darwinism.

For a great exploration on the history of the evolution/creationism debate, check out Eugenie C. Scott, 2004, Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction. Greenwood Press, London. This book not only explains each side of the issue, but explores the historical development of those perspectives.