You will not be Expelled from my blog

So, the demagogues of the Creationism movement have put out a new film that will be opening around the country soon called Expelled and it stars long-time right-wing funnyman Ben Stein, whose monotone voice will be familiar to anybody who has had much contact with American media for the past few decades. I first found out about this movie in a roundabout way. I was surfing YouTube about a week ago and came across this funny and effectively produced piece of Intelligent Design (i.e. modern Creationism) propaganda, which shows all the hallmarks of having been created by the guys at JibJab, and specifically parodying Richard Dawkins, Eugenie Scott, Daniel Dennett, PZ Myers, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and many historical moments in the debate over Creationism. So, I started checking around about the video and eventually found the Expelled website, which includes a different (less forthright) JibJab video parodying many of the leading lights of the recently labeled "New Atheists" movement (though Eugenie Scott only seems to discuss her religion (or lack thereof) when asked and hasn't published the sorts of things the others have). Expelled promises to do for the Intelligent Design movement what Fahrenheit 9/11 did for opponents of George Bush in the 2004 elections: provide a snarky, emotionally-charged, one-sided docudrama that proves very little and preaches admirably to the choir. I'll probably hear about it from many, many people around me here in fundieland . . . <groans loudly>

First of all, the film claims that "Darwinism" (the supposed "philosophy" or "religion" of following Darwin's teachings; as if the science and theory of natural selection has not subtly changed and grown after over a century and a half of scientific scrutiny and debate) is now the "dogma" of >ahem< "Big Science." A hostile interview of Richard Dawkins (according to Dawkins, cleverly and misleadingly edited) is a centerpiece of the film. The proposition here is that a dogmatic movement is crushing free speech and real debate in the realm of science, particularly biology. In general, the film contrasts the idea that "a loving God" created all things with the idea that we all come from lightning striking a mud puddle. While no one has claimed to be able to have a good, thorough, scientific theory of the chemical precursors of biological life and how they arose naturally, the film likes to parody this vacuum of knowledge by focusing on its over-simplification of only one of the many mechanisms proposed as a possible generator of the pre-cursors of single-celled life. This entirely side-steps the issue that whether or not the origins of life were theological has absolutely no effect on the evidence for and veracity of the theory of evolution by natural selection.

They proceed to interview a lot of people who have supposedly been overly persecuted for breaking with the "dogma of Darwinism" and deposed from academic jobs or high scientific posts because they proposed that only an intelligent creator could be responsible for the genesis of life. It would seem that the "dogma" of "Darwinism" has only been maintained by a fascist-like policy of expelling anyone who would dare to propose that God created life in a scientific context or allow someone to publish something that implies that. The film side-steps the issue of whether or not somebody could possibly produce quantifiable, material evidence for such a proposition and pays no attention to the fact that all discussions in science require quantifiable, material, replicable proof for discussion. Proposing that a vast, complex intelligence preceded everything in the universe is an extraordinary claim requiring compelling, quantifiable, material proof for substantiation. It is entirely understandable that someone could be removed from a scientific post if they do not provide evidence for a scientific proposition. But the film ignores the basic premise of all science and tries to cast this as a free-speech issue, as if discussing science is like discussing the conflicting interpretations of Jane Austen's Emma. In reality, the theory of natural selection (first formulated by Darwin and others in the late 1850s), has proven to have enormous predictive power in anticipating how fossils would be distributed in the sediment layers of the earth, predicting a gradually mutating mechanism of heritability (actually explained in detail by Watson & Crick in 1953 (building on work by Franklin)), explaining the relatedness of various species (including similarities in morphology, physiology, and biochemistry), and providing a crtical plank in the foundation of modern biology.

Mostly, the film uses a broad brush to attempt to paint all proponents of the theory of the evolution of species by the natural selection of randomly occurring mutations as also being defenders of Social Darwinism and essentially in line with the eugenic thinking of Nazis, which led to the Holocaust. The narration of Ben Stein (who is Jewish) is used with great effect to attempt to convince the audience of this film that accepting evolutionary theory and the naturalistic account of the origins of life (which is called a "materialistic" account throughout the film, which allows for the convenient conflation of the philosophical meaning of "materialist" (one who believes all existent things are material) with the popular definition of "materialist" (a person who is focused on non-living material things as their primary source of gratification, i.e. somebody who tries to buy happiness)) is tantamount to declaring yourself a closet Nazi who would like to exterminate those you consider lesser peoples.

The film calls for allowing "free speech" in the science classroom so that we can allow children to decide between the "good" evidence for a benign Creator or the utterly "random" evolution of life from natural causes. The film seems to take a definite view on which idea could possibly be rational and which could not.

Here's hoping that this movie is a little drip in the pan which can be quickly and easily ignored. I heard Ben Stein on the radio this morning being interviewed by James Dobson on his program Focus on the Family. Dobson was congratulating Ben Stein on his long-time advocacy of pro-life and anti-abortion causes as well as his new Intelligent Design documentary. Dobson and his co-host simply felt Stein is a hero. They are all hoping that the movie has a really deep impact and makes people consider the issue of Creationism from a more sympathetic and accepting angle.

And here's an amusing side-note from PZ Myers.