Your Liberty: Expelled earns a failing grade
Issue date: 4/25/08 Section: Opinion
For the last decade, filmgoers have been treated to a series of documentaries with questionable factual accuracy, glaring omissions and outright lies. I'm talking, of course, about the films of Michael Moore. Don't get me wrong - as incorrect as they are, they are good entertainment, especially for the liberal choir to whom Moore is preaching. Until now, you could only get Moore's style of film in one flavor: liberal politics. Until now, that is.
Ben Stein's pop-documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a pro-intelligent design film which paints the evolution/creationism debate in such broad strokes, you'd swear Michael Moore's hand was holding the brush. Stein's film claims that the scientific community's rejection of "intelligent design" as a scientific theory is suppression of free speech and that "Darwinism" (commonly called the Theory of Evolution) is responsible for Nazism, Communism and widespread human atrocities. The film features interviews with several prominent scientists, writers and teachers, most notable of whom is Richard Dawkins, the outspoken atheist and critic of creationism.
Ignoring the epic fail this movie saw at the box office, its creators definitely took the slimy route in getting there. Dawkins and several others who appear in the movie were told they would be answering questions for an unbiased documentary called Crossroads, which never existed. The footage was then used in Expelled. Not only that, Premise Media (the production company) has been accused of stealing whole sections of animated footage of cellular functions from Inner Life of the Cell, an existing video from Harvard University, for use in Expelled. Anyone pushing a fundamentalist Christian message should remember these: "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not bear false witness."
Expelled is a sign of the times, much like the Kansas school board hearings and the opening of the Creation Museum in Kentucky. Science, reason and a need for hard evidence are being swept under the rug in favor of Fox-News-inspired, Moore-style, God-branded drivel. It takes absolutely no thought at all to side with someone who claims your religion is under attack. It takes courage and heart to open your eyes and see for yourself. Blind faith has no place in the scientific method and poisoning the well is not freedom of speech.
Ben Stein's pop-documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a pro-intelligent design film which paints the evolution/creationism debate in such broad strokes, you'd swear Michael Moore's hand was holding the brush. Stein's film claims that the scientific community's rejection of "intelligent design" as a scientific theory is suppression of free speech and that "Darwinism" (commonly called the Theory of Evolution) is responsible for Nazism, Communism and widespread human atrocities. The film features interviews with several prominent scientists, writers and teachers, most notable of whom is Richard Dawkins, the outspoken atheist and critic of creationism.
Ignoring the epic fail this movie saw at the box office, its creators definitely took the slimy route in getting there. Dawkins and several others who appear in the movie were told they would be answering questions for an unbiased documentary called Crossroads, which never existed. The footage was then used in Expelled. Not only that, Premise Media (the production company) has been accused of stealing whole sections of animated footage of cellular functions from Inner Life of the Cell, an existing video from Harvard University, for use in Expelled. Anyone pushing a fundamentalist Christian message should remember these: "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not bear false witness."
Expelled is a sign of the times, much like the Kansas school board hearings and the opening of the Creation Museum in Kentucky. Science, reason and a need for hard evidence are being swept under the rug in favor of Fox-News-inspired, Moore-style, God-branded drivel. It takes absolutely no thought at all to side with someone who claims your religion is under attack. It takes courage and heart to open your eyes and see for yourself. Blind faith has no place in the scientific method and poisoning the well is not freedom of speech.