Expelled No Intelligence Allowed
Ben Stein (speech writer for both Nixon and Ford, comedian, game show host, and actor) continues to intrigue me. Like many of you, my first introduction to him was as the droning economics teacher from Ferris Beuller's Day Off ("anyone? anyone?") . Years later, he hosts a game show called Win Ben Stein's Money, a series of Visine commercials and an internet letter. And that leads us to his documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. If it was not for this appearing on Netflix's Watch Now section, I most likely would not have watched the film, but why not? I added the title to my Watch Now queue and went upstairs to have it streamed to my TV via the ROKU Box.
One other thing you have to know is that Stein rejects Darwinism and embraces Intelligent Design.
The premise of the movie is that Academia has created a wall that is dividing science and rejecting new ideas. In this case, Academia is rejecting Intelligent Design as a new attempt by Christian's to have creationism taught in school. However, most of the people interviewed by Stein were not Creationist in the sense of Genesis. In fact, none accounted the design to the Judeo/Christian God - they did not know who created it, but evidence suggested intentional creation versus natural selection.
Ben interviews several Darwinist and atheist who reject the concept of ID. The most familiar to me was Richard Dawkins. What I found interesting was that no one has ideas of how life actually created - spontaneous generation, lighting, crystals and aliens are all presented as possibilities. Stein gives a history lesson that links the holocaust, eugenics, euthasia, Planned Parenthood and abortion to Darwin's natural selection (in a nutshell - each of these are attempts by man to get rid of unwanted human life much in the same way as nature in the wild will not let a lame or cripple creature survive).
I found the film entertaining. As a Christian, it helped me to understand where the ID movement is coming from because I thought it was another attempt to put Creationism into science text books. Some of the video that was used to highlight his points were often funny, but some crass.
** (out of 4)
Comments
After reading your review, I think I will look into this movie. I was afraid it would be the same tiresome rants you hear from ignorant Christian fundamentalists, but from what you say, it doesn't appear to be so.
This one was Ok. However, they may not have put the Darwanist in the best light. These things get heavily edited.