Expelled The Movie: Is Darwinism Science or Worldview?
- on 04.20.08
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I went to see the Ben Stein movie Expelled Friday night. Ben interviews scientist who research Darwinism and scientist who claim the evidence leads to an Intelligent Designer (ID) instead.
It becomes very clear throughout the movie that the theories of the origin of life has no scientific basis. These theory that life sprang from an electrical charge has been pretty much abandoned. A couple of other theories being posited now are that life developed somehow through more complex crystals. And strangely enough, another theory is Aliens seeded the planet, i.e. Intelligent Design. Of course once you ask where that intelligent life came from they still have no idea. The alien theory was agreed to as possibility by the renowned atheist and evolutionary biologists, Richard Dawkins and author of The God Delusion
The movie also explores why anyone who questioned Darwinian Theory using scientific evidence, publishes an article by someone in the Intelligent Design Field or even writes an article about Intelligent Design they are fired or forced to resign. Ben very clearly demonstrates that Darwinians believe more in their worldview than actual scientific evidence.
One major argument from the Darwinist is that Intelligent Design should not be taught in schools because science is already atrocious in our public government schools. How interesting, our schools claim they want to to teach our children how to think and yet here is another example of how actual scientific research is squelched in favor of the indoctrination of a particular worldview.
[...] Matt Ransford wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
“It becomes very clear throughout the movie that the theories of the origin of life has no scientific basis.”
This is a false claim. Scientists know a great deal about how life could have come about.
However, Evolution/Darwinism does not deal with how life first appeared. It only deals with what happened once it was here.
So it seems that Expelled is very confused and unscientific in nature?
“The movie also explores why anyone who questioned Darwinian Theory using scientific evidence, publishes an article by someone in the Intelligent Design Field or even writes an article about Intelligent Design they are fired or forced to resign.”
The movie is lying:
http://my.opera.com/WayOfTheDodo/blog/2008/04/21/expelled-no-honesty-allowed-part-2
None of the claimed victims of expulsion were in fact expelled. Sternberg, for example, had resigned at his own request six months earlier.
“One major argument from the Darwinist is that Intelligent Design should not be taught in schools”
Intelligent Design is not science, so it should not be taught in science class.
It’s refreshing to see a pro-Expelled blog which allows comments, by the way. Most such blogs seem to want to expelled anyone with a differing view and carefully pre-screen comments.
Kudos for that. It gives you credibility, and does not make you a hypocrite like all the other pro-Expelled blogs out there who expell anyone who disagrees.
Correction: “Most such blogs seem to want to expelled” should be “…want to expel”
I always encourage debate. It is what helps bring us all to the truth. If we never listen to any other argument, we become single minded and no longer can accept truth when it is presented. This is one of the biggest critiques of Darwinist, they refuse debate or to even acknowledge that ID has any valid arguments. To me let’s allow scientist to explore all avenues and see where the evidence leads.
Darwinists refuse to debate or acknowledge ID the same way Newtonists refuse to debate or acknowledge Intelligent Falling, or how Edisonists refuse to debate or acknowledge Magical Shining Fairies.
Scientists will generally not acknowledge unscientific ideas posed as science.
The problem with ID is that it is an unscientific idea, and its proponents are ignoring the scientific method and the hard work it is to do actual research, and are instead launching political PR campaigns in order to force their idea on the scientific community.
If ID is allowed to skip the scientific process, then we must also allow Alchemy to be taught alongside Chemistry, Flat Earth alongside Geology, Holocaust denial in History classes, and that God does not exist in churches. It’s that simple. If this unscientific idea (ID) is given special treatment, why shouldn’t the same be the case for other unscientific ideas?
Now, you may wish to counter this by claiming that ID is science, but the fact is that even a conservative christian judge – Judge Jones (who was appointed to office by Bush on recommendation from creationist senator Rick Santorum), had to rule that ID is religion. If you want to know the specifics look up the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, which shows all the dirty details on how the ID community is just the Creationist (God did it) community with a new name. There is no doubt about the fact that ID is religion, and the fact that they have not produced one single piece of new, original research says it all. As long as they do not provide us with this research, they do not belong in science books.
And if you claim that anyone who questions Darwinism is shunned, then I recommend that you read this:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=ben-steins-expelled-review-michael-shermer&page=4
Read from “Questioning Darwinism”, and it continues on page 5. These scientists question Darwinism, but they are doing actual science. Unlike the ID crowd (including the Discovery Institute) which only deals with politics and religion.