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.
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.
posted by Kris at 2:14 PM
3 Comments:
Wow, what a waste of time and work. I used to think Ben Stein was just an eccentric jerk, albeit a smart one. I suffered through the entire 'documentary' to at least give it a fair chance, then found and downloaded some subtitles made from information on http://www.expelledexposed.com/ and watched most of it with those subs again to read the exact refutations of every bullshit point he makes, refutations you can just feel lurking behind every devious cut and cheap editing trick, like the one where the editor does several short cuts between camera angles during the final interview with Dawkins (himself, I admit, a bit of a dick too) and then uses the last one to conceal that Dawkins' answer is not a reply to the question you hear Stein asking. There's also a lengthy, sustained, and transparent attempt to exploit Stein's Jewish heritage through Holocaust imagery and 'freedom' rhetoric. Cheap and dirty through and through, and only very rarely does this film get vaguely entertaining, let alone show any reason to take it seriously. The hamfisted attempts to equate Hitler and Darwin would be funny if they weren't so serious and done with such malice and petty misdirection. I've sat through the majority of this twice in the interest of being able to refute any jackass who tries to throw "Ben Stein thinks so" in my face, and painful as it is, I think this needs to be seen to be believed and put to rest. But don't spend a dime on it, Ben Stein has enough money. Download, get subtitles, watch, delete.
Those downloaded subtitles sound awesome! I hope they do that with more "documentaries". And even ones I liked, like Sicko. I also used to think Ben Stein was awesome; I should have known better when I found out he was a speech writer for Nixon. But he is an intelligent guy, no doubt about that. I just think his anger is misdirected. Yes, ideas of natural selection that were appropriated by Social Darwinists played a huge factor in the Holocaust, but don't blame Darwin for that. All he did was come up with information; other people did the rest. Ignorance and misunderstanding is the key; films like Expelled seem only to continue that trend instead of irradicating it. Despited your glorious two thumbs up review :), I'm going to watch it someday. Might as well, instead of wasting my time with archaeology when the world's only 6,000 years old.
I just realized something; Ben Stein blames evolutionist thinking for the evils of world, while a major theme of Bill Maher's film is that uncritically analysed religious beliefs are going to cause the destruction of the planet. Can there be two right answers?
Actually, when one looks at the extremes of each end, I guess the answer's yes.
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