Ben Stein's 'Expelled' - Evolution, Academia and Conformity

eldavojohn writes "Painting the current scientific community as just as bad as the Spanish Inquisition, an extended trailer of Ben Stein's "Expelled" has a lot of people (at least that I know) talking. It looks like his movie plans to encourage people to speak out if they believe intelligent design or creationism to be correct. In the trailer he even warns you that if you are a scientist you may lose your job by watching 'Expelled.' Backlash to the movie has started popping up and this may force the creationism/evolutionist debate to a whole new level across the big screen and the internet." adholden points out a site called Expelled Exposed, which asserts that 'Expelled' "is simply an anti-science propaganda film aimed at creating controversy where none exists, while promoting poor science education that can and will severely handicap American students."

Comments

Which do you believe?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

On one side we've got a bunch of scientists - who's philosophy espouses striving for neutrality, lack of bias, objectivity, etc.

On the other side, we've got.... an ex-Nixon speechwiter/game show host.

*sighs* - I bet he's skeptical about anthropomorphic climate change too (there seems to be an extraordinarily high overlap between the two groups).

Oh, and he Godwins himself at 2:40 in the linked video. Discussion over.

Re:Which do you believe?

[PortHaven]

"who's philosophy espouses striving for neutrality, lack of bias, objectivity, etc."

Having worked with a great number of scientists in my life, I would not note them for lack of bias or neutrality. In fact, I'd say scientists are noted for their strong opinions and personal bias'.

Re:Which do you believe?

[electrictroy]

Bzzz. You might want to take a moment to read Thomas S Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" which describes how some scientists WILL try to suppress contrary theories, as a way to protect their own career.

As example, scientists once thought the planets moved in perfectly-circular orbits, but when observations showed that was not true, these same scientists refused to believe the data. It took several years (and the death of the stubborn scientists) for a new generation to propose ellipitical orbits. The refusal to accept new data is called "protecting your paradigm" aka your belief system, even in the face of facts that challenge it.

Scientists often do this to protect their lifelong work and/or career, rather than admit they are wrong.

Who the hell is Ben Stein ...

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

I though, and then googled him.

So he's a comedian, a writer, a white-house speech writer, a law professor and a believer in intelligent design.

Fine, another one of those scientist who think that being a scientist, they can have a scientific opinion on any subject out there.

He's a lawyer, he can have scientific stances on law (if that's possible anyway ... I've always wondered why law is considered a science), but his opinion on intelligent design and evolution means diddly squat.

Feel free to believe in an Old Man in the Sky, and to embrace ID. Just don't forget to mention that scientific evidence points the other way.

Re:Who the hell is Ben Stein ...

[DarkOx]

Actually if you watch the film Stein does not necessarily believe in ID. He simple is wondering why so many scientists are so religious about evolution.

He is posing questions like, Why do we teach kids the difference between laws, and theory and then act like evolution is a law?

Evolution is really good at explaining how butterflies change color overtime, it does not explain how you get from paramecium to human does that not leave room for some alternate theories?

In what way does the presents of evolution rule out an intelligent designer; might that designer have included an evolutionary mechanism?

All Stein is doing is asking scientists to act like it. They should acknowledge the weak spots in any theory and look to finding the explanations. Stein's documentary could have been about a variety of other subjects. He is simply saying don't close the books until all the facts are in. There is nothing wrong with that its good science. Imagine if people had decided special relativity worked so well we need not bother look at string theory?

Its the same thing. Anyone who takes issue with Steins message is being pretty petty and short sighted.

Another American obsession

[jonnyj]

This whole debate seems pretty strange to European eyes. I consider myself to be a fundamentalist Bible believing evangelical Christian, but, in Britain, people like me take the view that Genesis describes the evolutionary process pretty well. Although many Evangelicals support Intelligent Design or Young Earth Creationism, there's little opposition within Christian circles to full acceptance of the scientific explanation of the origins of life.

Between this and support for a right-wing social and foreign policy agenda, I sometimes wonder if American evangelicals read the same Bible that I do.

Re:Not the issue...

[Diomedes01]

My View: by hiding the fact that other theories exist you only harm the credibility of the leading theory once the individual finds out about the other views. (as a general rule, not just to be applied to evolutionary biology / intelligent design) /damnit I fed the troll.

Your use of the term "theory" in this context shows that you have no idea what it means for something to be a scientific Theory. People who call intelligent design a "theory" are simply trying to convince your average Joe Sixpack that it is equally as plausible and on the some footing as the scientific Theory of Evolution. It is not. As far as I know, no other Theories currently exist to explain the diversity of life. No one is hiding other theories, because there aren't any. There are some fairy tales that were meant to try and explain it several thousand years ago, which in no way resemble a theory of any sort.

Re:Academic Oppression

[glindsey]

It isn't a straw man, it's an analogy in the form of parody.

The point is that the ridiculous "pi equals three because the Bible says so" is just as bad an example of cherry-picking as the folks who will quote specific out-of-context Leviticus quotes to "prove" that the Bible is against homosexuality, or point to Genesis and say it "proves" that the universe was created in 6000 years.

You say everyone recognizes that "pi = 3" was not the point of the Bible, and yet there are thousands of Biblical literalists out there who do that exact same thing with whichever passages they find convenient, while hand-waving away those parts that contradict what they want to believe.

Re:Indeed, Scientific Zealotry Hurts the Cause ...

[electrictroy]

I will illustrate your point, with an example I saw on CNN:

(1) A BBC reporter wrote a fair, non-biased article on global warming. In one paragraph he stated, "Not all scientists agree that global warming is caused by man-made actions," which is an accurate statement. Not "all" scientists think man caused the problem. Some don't even think it's a problem, saying it's just part of a natural cycle that's been happening for the last 10,000 years.

(2) The reporter published the article on the website, and immediately an email rolled-in from an environmentalist demanding that phrase be expunged.

(3) The reporter and activist went back-and-forth several times, with the activist saying, "There is no doubt," and "We may be uncertain of the cause, but we must not let the common people know that we are uncertain."

(4) The reporter refused to rewrite his article until the activist told him, "If you do not comply, I will rally my group and you will receive thousands of emails demanding the change."

(5) The reporter, obviously concerned about this prospect (and possibly losing his job), immediately deleted the offending paragraph.

And thus:

An activist, acting somewhat akin to a religious zealot, took a balanced BBC article & turned it into a one-sided piece using the tactics of threats and coercion to silence any contrarian views about global warming. It does not surprise me to learn that similar tactics are being used to silence researchers and/or scientists.