Image: Matt Collins
Editor's Note: This edited version of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed--Ben Stein Launches a Science-free Attack on Darwin," published in the June 2008 issue of Scientific American, was originally published on SciAm.com as part of our series "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed--Scientific American's Take."
“Should I be worried about the Crips and the Bloods up here?” These were the first words out of the mouth of Ben Stein as he entered my office at Skeptic magazine, located in the racially mixed neighborhood of Altadena, Calif. I cringed and hoped that the two African-American women in my employ were out of earshot of what was perhaps merely Stein’s ham-handed attempt at humor before he began interviewing me for what I was told was a film on the intersection of science and religion entitled Crossroads.
That is not what the interview was about. And neither is the film, now called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The subtitle exposes its motif—intelligent design has been expelled from classrooms and culture, and Ben Stein sees a sinister conspiracy at work. This supercilious financial columnist and ersatz actor and game show host proceeded to grill me on whether or not I think someone should be fired for expressing dissenting views. My answer: it depends. Who is being fired for what, when and where? People are usually fired for reasons having to do with budgetary constraints, incompetence or failure to fulfill the terms of a contract. If you are hired to teach biology according to the curriculum standards of your school district but instead spend the semester telling students that science has no definitive explanation for DNA, wings, eyes, brains and that mystery of mysteries—bacteria flagella—then, yes, you should be fired posthaste. But I know of no instance in which this has happened, and the film’s examples of such alleged abuses have reasonable explanations detailed at www.expelledexposed.com, where Eugenie Scott and her tireless crew at the National Center for Science Education have tracked down the specifics of each case.
After asking the question a dozen different ways, Stein finally changed the subject and queried my opinion on the social impact of Darwinism. Having just finished my book on evolutionary economics (The Mind of the Market), I drew the connection between Adam Smith’s invisible hand and Charles Darwin’s natural selection and noted how capitalists have long used social Darwinism to justify unfettered market competition, from the early 20th-century belief in the survival of the fittest corporations to Enron’s CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who said his favorite book in Harvard Business School was Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene. This was not the answer Stein wanted, and he re-joined with a vehemence I did not understand until I saw his film.
Expelled’s exegesis is this: Darwinism leads to atheism, communism, fascism and a repetition of the Holocaust. We are in an ideological war between a scientific, natural worldview that leads to the Gulag Archipelago and Nazi gas chambers and a religious, supernatural worldview that leads to freedom, justice and the American way. Expelling intelligent design from American classrooms and culture will inexorably take us down a path of doom, and the film’s blunt editing intersperses interview snippets from evolutionary biologists with black-and-white clips of, in ascending scale of ominousness, bullies pounding on a 98-pound weakling; Charlton Heston’s character in Planet of the Apes being blasted by a water hose by a gorilla thug; Nikita Khrushchev pounding his fist on a United Nations desk; East Germans captured trying to scale the Berlin Wall; and Nazi crematoria remains and Holocaust victims being bulldozed into mass graves. The formula is unmistakable: Darwinism = death.
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47 Comments
Add Comment"This supercilious financial columnist and ersatz actor and game show host proceeded to grill me..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe moment I see a classic ad hominem, I've learned all I need to know. Pot. Kettle. Black. Congratulations SA.
I haven't seen the movie but the general point is a good one. You are correct Evolution theory has nothing to do with religion nor, but neither does the theory of intelligent design, when considered as scientific theory. Both theories are worth studying as they relate to the origin of life and of the different species.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBen Stein is not the enemy.
Gee - with all the hype against this movie one wonders why? I'm going to see it now.. I didn't even know about it until all this negative Science press. If science had nothing to fear from religion then why all this hoopla?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI like Ben Stein and I'm sure his movie does not make any personal attacks like the stuff I'm reading here.. sad that science can't rise above this and let the film stand or fall on its own merits...
I'm not even religious but I've got an open mind to at least hear his views and decide for myself whether he's wrong or not... isn't that what science should be about? Listening then testing people's views?
While I was not fond of the emotive appeal of the film, i.e. the link to the holocaust, I believe you are missing the argument. The science of ID is not the issue, it is that Darwinian Naturalism is a philosophical; mystical position that relies as heavily on faith as any religion. The fallacy is that those in the seats of academia believe one view has an empirical methodology and the other a irrational faith based methodology. The reality is that both are rooted in presuppositional philosophies. Stein's beef is that one side is claiming scientific superiority win in fact it is not the case.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow, I had no idea that all gang-bangers are African-American. Thanks for letting us know that, Mr. Sherner.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAfter seeing the movie, the point I walked away with had more to do with Progressive thinking leading to book burnings. Liberal colleges like what they know, and are not open to anything else being accepted. This is what has been going on in public schools for decades as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm also still wondering why two Black women working in an office would be offended by someone asking tongue in cheek if there were gangs in the area? I guess just the a White man joking about Black gang culture is also fuel for the burn pile?
Sieg Heil!!
I don't get it? What makes these people think that god not smart enough to create evolution as a means of directing and refining life?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDarwinism = death, not really what about religion, chosen ones, children of heaven, heathens, everybody not believing must die. I disagree, it is a money making machine and there is nothing wrong with that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDarwinism is misunderstood, it is not neccesarily survival of the fittest, more like survival of the better organised, the fittest in general will not be team players, the mediocre will be more inclined for the group and ten will always beat one. The fittest only applies within a species, but a group of lions no matter how unfit will destroy a single tiger, humans like to exist in social groupings and will generally be envious towards the fittest, they want all to be the same.
Just like SA, when things get slow, just toss out this old bone and the "usual suspects" come running. Enough already!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"About a year ago I looked forward a lecture by Ben Stein at the Columbia Club. I have read his book on investing and watched "Ben Stein's Money." He had seemed intelligent. Had seemed! He said at this lecture that he believed that the right to life movement was more important than the civil rights movement. More important! Apparently he believes that a fertilized ovum has a soul, although perhaps not a nervous system and sentience, and that abortion is tantamount to the torture and murder of a southern black in the 1950s. These views and Expelled show that even a very intelligent and knowledgeable person can be ignorant. God save him.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne year ago with great expectation I went to a lecture by Ben Stein at the Columbia Club. I had read his book on investing and watched Ben Steins Money. At the lecture he volunteered that the right to life movement was more important than the civil rights movement. Apparently he believed that abortion of a fertilized ovum, with a soul, but no nervous system and presumably not sentient, was tantamount to the torture/murder of a southern black in the 1950s. This and his film Expelled seem to indicate that a very intelligent and knowledgeable man can also be quite ignorant. God help Ben Stein.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBen Stein's life follows the law of de-evolution, ie everything he does is worse than the previous thing!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThough this article was a bit too ad homenim and unfair, I agree with Shermer's general position.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[i]Expelled[/i] is nothing but creationist propaganda, and in making the film, Stein resorted to lying (misrepresenting the nature of the film) to the scientists he interviewed in order to make them look like fools. His tactics were dishonest in the making of the film, and the film itself is a joke, fraught with fear-mongering nonsense, emotional appeals, and downright nasty ad-homenims.
However, it is[i] very[/i] important that this film be put down by the scientific community, because it is extremely hostile to science in general, and supports a ludicrous view not associated with scientific knowledge but with magic men and fairy tales.
Not simply Stein's film, but the "creation science" garbage, along with Intelligent Design, are serious threats to scientific progress in this country, and serve only to hamper science education and highlight the scientific ineptitude of American culture. These views, and the people who hold them, deserve nothing but ridicule; and I applaud Shermer for his biting remarks on this regard.
Right to life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThink very, very carefully about what you just wrote.
It isn't a question of whether a fertilized egg has a soul. It is a biological fact that a fertilized egg is a new member of the species homo sapiens.
The Pro Life movement maintains that any homo sapiens is a human being with intrinsic worth irrespective of its level of development or physical location.
Your position, on the other hand declares, that a homo sapiens is only a human being at some arbitrarily drawn point in its development, or in its physical location.
The irony of your position is that it can be used to justify all the horrors you proclaim regarding civil rights. Because, you see, if you declare that not all homo sapiens are humans, only those with a development you approve of, then another person can come along with equal moral validity and say that only homo sapiens of a certain skin color or mental ability are truly human.
Ben Stein's position actually is the more intelligent one. He understands that if all homo sapiens are treated as human beings irrespective of any particular attribute, then there is no need for special civil rights considerations.
It does mean, however, that you can't knock some woman up then pay her $300 to have the problem go away.
> Right to life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this>
> Think very, very carefully about what you just
> wrote.
I'm sure the original poster did. Your implication that he did not is insulting, and deliberately so.
> It isn't a question of whether a fertilized egg has a
> soul. It is a biological fact that a fertilized egg
> is a new member of the species homo sapiens.
Potential member, certainly. Big difference between a newly delivered baby and a partially developed fetus.
> The Pro Life movement maintains that any homo sapiens
> is a human being with intrinsic worth irrespective
> of its level of development or physical location.
That's an interesting way to spin it. The truth is that you are all a bunch of nosey parkers that can't leave other people alone to live their lives.
I support your right to believe whatever craziness you wish, but I draw the line at protests at clinics and pushing through restrictive laws.
> Your position, on the other hand declares, that a
> homo sapiens is only a human being at some
> arbitrarily drawn point in its development, or in its
> physical location.
Spin, spin, spin. I support the right of a person for whom delivering a child will be a life long burden (or at the very least an activity hazardous to her health) to terminate that pregnancy in a reasonable time frame after discovering it's existence.
If you'll pardon me putting words in your mouth, you would not allow an abortion even of the mother's life was at stake.
I think it obvious which of these viewpoints is the more humane.
> The irony of your position is that it can be used to
> justify all the horrors you proclaim regarding civil
> rights. Because, you see, if you declare that not all
> homo sapiens are humans, only those with a
> development you approve of, then another person can
> come along with equal moral validity and say that
> only homo sapiens of a certain skin color or mental
> ability are truly human.
Ah, so that's where all that spinning was heading (as if I didn't know). I reject your assertion out of hand as ridiculous.
Abortion == slavery. Feh! A pox on you sir for being a disingenuous twit.
> Ben Stein's position actually is the more intelligent
> one. He understands that if all homo sapiens are
> treated as human beings irrespective of any
> particular attribute, then there is no need for
> special civil rights considerations.
Oh, more intelligent is he now? And understanding.
Thank heavens for Ben Stein. (spit)
You getting dizzy from all that spinning?
> It does mean, however, that you can't knock some
> woman up then pay her $300 to have the problem go
> away.
Oh no, that can't be allowed. You must be PUNISHED for FORNICATING!
You disgust me. You don't belong in a free society, please leave.
Isn't it funny how it always come to the hot issues like abortion?! It is quite a clear reflection of our sense of social guilt towards the issue: Pro Lifers condemn prochoice to offset the guilt they feel in othere areas of their lives; and prochoicers justify themselves and condemn prolifers to trick themselves into not feeling guilty.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course this is a generalisation... But question to Mr Peach, has someone close to you had an abortion? And have you fornicated? Hmmm let's forget the ideological reasons... could these be the real motivators?
ID theory and Creationism are both in direct opposition to the [b]Scientific Method[/b].
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow suppose for a moment that life on earth was created by some intelligent being, a big bowl of spaghetti for instance. If we find hard evidence to this fact and can prove it where does it leave us? Can we use this knowledge for anything?
The knowledge of gravity has been around literally forever. Once the scientific method was used to map and explain and give formulas we could start sending people to the moon and mars. We could start getting a picture of things like black holes and neutron stars. If we stopped at intelligent falling none of this would be possible.
Knowledge of a supreme being or aliens or pan-dimensional mice seeding this little hunk of rock in a bunch of dust has no scientific value what so ever. Since the action is arbitrarily determined by the supposed creator that you'd have as much success has finding life on other planets as a person from the psychic hotline has at winning the lottery.
Now, take ID and creationism away.
This gives us a determinable scientific way to understand the process of life on this planet and eventually the process that started it. This than gives us the tools to know which planets out there can and do contain life. This gives hard formulas and a useful tool for predicting hypothesi.
The IDers have set up a false opposition. Their only goal is to say "if Darwinism is wrong we must be right." What they are forgetting and what makes me so mad about this, is that even if Darwinism is wrong it is founded in the [b]Scientific Method[/b] and it is that foundation that will always find the right answer. It has been proven over and over and over and over the Scientific Method will always come to the right answer, faith is always scrambling after the facts (take the recent Vatican announcement that aliens were made by god too).
Re: "isn't that what science should be about? Listening then testing people's views?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot exactly, although that is often is part of rational discussion in science, as in any other field of human activity. What you are referring to may be better known as debate and argumentation.
Science is better characterized like this, a dictionary definition: "The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena." (Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary,1988.)
That's a good place to start if you want to get involved in science, if only by reading about it.
I have been told by a scientist that a lot of science is grunt work: experimentation, data collection and analysis. You should keep in mind that SCIAM does not do scientific investigation, does not as far as I know sponsor scientific investigation, nor is it free from bias, commercial or otherwise.
I bet John Rennie would be the first to admit that he thinks creationists trying to force their views into the minds of schoolchildren at public expense are unethical and in some ways rather stupid (i.e., they know they are doing the wrong thing but they do it anyway).
Dogmatic, religious propaganda is not science. It is characterized by ignorance, delusional thinking, stupidity. One cannot make it science by saying it is science.
Reading SCIAM or reading texts devoted to some field of science is not the practice of science--it is education (at least some of it is). For many readers of SCIAM or science education texts it is the most we can afford or accomplish as far as science education goes. Whatever advantage that bestows upon the readers, it is because of science.
For the sake of argument, would you want to reside in an environment where the children were educated and socialized by Taliban? There you have the gist of fundamentalist social conditioning. It might be a little better under Christian fundamentalists, but I think it would be a whole lot better not under any fundamentalists at all.
You might want to read the histories of the Catholic church vs. Galileo, Copernicus, Keppler to get an idea of what life was like in a world where superstition, dogma, fundamentalism dominated intellectual life. Just the fear of being burned to death for holding an opinion based on science rather than dogma kept many silent and oppressed.
--
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Edited by Bradley at 06/08/2008 10:19 PM
Re: "Ben Stein's life follows the law of de-evolution, ie everything he does is worse than the previous thing!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are incorrect.
Evolution is the process of change. Living things evolve, but that does not mean they get better. It just means they change over generations.
Please compare evolution to natural selection.
There is no de-evolution; living things do not un-change. Nor do they change because they are trying to become better fit. They are selected for fitness by environmental pressures, which execpt perhaps for sexual selection, is an impartial process.
In general, I think I have got that correct. It sounds a lot more like unintelligent design. Even plants evolve, but we are not likely to find much evidence of intelligence among plants. Still they evolve and adapt by means of natural selection.
Most people here in Europe watch with bemusement this whole 'religious thing' going on in the USA. Especially the battle between ID, creationism and science for the schoolchildren mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGod-fearing pilgrims running away from religious persecution, founding a nation based on, amongst others, religious freedom, and their descendents now wanting to force their religious views onto others. The irony...
Some observations.
All religions seem to have been 'started' by a human, a prophet if you will. This involved that prophet telling others about having visions, being spoken to by deities etc.
Because there seems to be a lack of actual proof of these deities existing, could religion be nothing more than a human invention? Especially when religions became 'organized religions'...
The most unbelievable about some creationists to me is their belief that all of the universe was created in 7 x 24hrs about 5000 yrs ago.
What about the fact that rocks from Greenland date back almost 4 billion years? Oh wait, the dating methods must be flawed.
What about climate scientists investigating Antarctica's ice cores going back more than 700,000 yrs? Hmm, surely there must have been some kind of contamination...
And let's take a look at ourselves. Is our design that intelligent when some puny virus can take us all out? Think about it, the pinnacle of creation done in by some protein with some RNA or DNA inside... Something that through evolution and natural selection may be able to wipe us out.
The irony...
DDP.
I doubt that you can speak for most people in Europe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost people in Europe know that two world wars started on their continent. Outside of that, they don't easily agree on very much, including the same issues debated in this discussion.
The idea that the majority of Europeans are bemused watching Americans' debates over whether creationism should become mandatory education tells us something of how you personally think, but it does not tell us anything about most Europeans.
Most Spaniards--a largely Catholic nation--were not bemused when Islamic terrorists blew up some folks in their country in this century, and neither were the British when it happened to them. Their reaction was and still is fear, not continuing bewilderment.
Former Yugoslavia has in the late 20th century seen renewal of ethnic strife up to and including genocide along lines of religion and nationalisim also. Is there some confusion about this?
Most Jews are not left bemused that their relatives and fellow Jews were exterminated in the last century, in Europe, due to fundamental relgious beliefs on the part of their killers--beliefs, please note, that were taught to schoolchildren in state sponsored texts.
The Greeks and Turks still dispute Cypress, if I remember correctly, along lines of religion and nationalism. They don't seem to be lost in thought pondering why this is so.
Armenians here and elsewhere are not left bemused because Turks exterminated so many Armenians in the early 20th century. That too was carried out along lines of religious affilation. Few wonder very long about it; the motivations were clear at the time and still are.
If you are bemused, wondering why some of us do not want to brainwash children into mindless loyalty to fundamentalist dogma, wheras others do, I can assure you that I am not at all bemused by European cultural history arising from similar education and socialization. It has a long, bloody history which is going on to this day.
That is rather like the way things have been going on all over the world throughout history. There is no reason to believe that human beings are going to behave differently solely because you and others have education and insight such that rational behavior has become a habit.
What the so-called Pligrims did in North America is of little significance to this particular issue. The Pilgrims were overbearing in matters of religion. Historically, it is not the case that the Pilgrims arrived, had a luncheon with Native Americans, and then wrote the Constitution. They were just one of many European groups that came to colonize North America.
Fundamentalists, creationists et al, come from a wide variety of religions, and the United States is populated by people from all over the world, many of whom brought their culture with them. The issues under discussion here are not unique to this country, but are common all over the world.
Rather than be bemused by it all, it would probably be better if we accept that human beings are not born with knowledge and rational thinking skills, and then work in whatever way seems plausible to improve education. It is not at all obvious to at least hundreds of millions of adult human beings that something they believe about the way nature works may be entirely false and just plain stupid.
--
Edited by Bradley at 06/08/2008 11:07 PM
> It isn't a question of whether a fertilized egg has a soul. It is a biological fact that a fertilized egg is a new member of the species homo sapiens.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd yet, millions of fetilized eggs do not implant in a woman's uterus, but instead wash through. Implantation does not always happen.
> The Pro Life movement maintains that any homo sapiens is a human being with intrinsic worth irrespective of its level of development or physical location.
And yet, since today a nucleus can be transferred from almost any cell and cloned into an egg, by extension, any human cell is potentially a human being. How many of your own and others cells do you destroy every day? Enough with every picking of one's nose to populate a school...
Referring back to the unimplanted eggs, (as well as any other loose cells) you did say, "irrespective of its level of development or physical location". That means, literally, (and you are a literalist) that young women must be tracked so that if they are potentially impregnated, their vaginal secretions must be examined for possible fertilized eggs.
> Your position, on the other hand declares, that a homo sapiens is only a human being at some arbitrarily drawn point in its development, or in its physical location.
Quite true. That is correct.
> The irony of your position is that it can be used to justify all the horrors you proclaim regarding civil rights. Because, you see, if you declare that not all homo sapiens are humans, only those with a development you approve of, then another person can come along with equal moral validity and say that only homo sapiens of a certain skin color or mental ability are truly human.
The irony of your position is that it [u]must[/u] be used to declare all schooling of children illegal and oppressive, and extend voting rights to newborns. Your position requires that an infant be treated just like an adult person because anything else justifies "all the horrors you proclaim regarding civil rights".
"It isn't a question of whether a fertilized egg has a soul." ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The Pro Life movement maintains that any homo sapiens is a human being with intrinsic worth irrespective of its level of development or physical location."...
"Your position,"..."declares, that a homo sapiens is only a human being at some arbitrarily drawn point" ...
"if you declare that not all homo sapiens are humans, only those with a development you approve of, then"..."with equal moral validity"... "homo sapiens of a certain skin color or mental ability are truly human."
Here is the problem - You start your argument by throwing out the potential role of having or not having a soul (or some near-equivalent term- spirit, mind, thoughts and feelings, sentience...) and then, appear to declare that 1. any fertilized human egg (by human sperm) is a human and 2. that that human is morally equivalent to any other human.
But why? Put another way (as was done in a philosophy class I once took), you might ask yourself, why is it ever wrong to kill anyone? And do the answer(s) apply to all humans equally? And do they truly not apply to any nonhuman?
That last point is key. If one can claim with 'equal moral validity' that generally, members of some ethnic group or gender should have less or different rights as one could claim of a fetus or embryo or zygote, than should it not also be the case that any human is also morally equivalent to a bacteria? To a rock?
It is clear to me that the condition of a having some kind of soul/spirit/mind/sentience is important here (there may be more to it than that, but certainly it is not just human verses nonhuman. it cannot just be about species. What if there were inteligent beings from another planet.)
You also asserted that someone would be saying that a homo sapiens was not a human being. That's the same as saying a homo sapiens is not a homo sapiens; that's what human is, and that is not the argument you were countering. Keep in mind the distinction between human and person, and the potential for the existence of nonhuman people.
(If you are thinking at this point that a person who is unconscious is morally equivalent to a nonperson, watch out. If the unconscious entity was ever a person, then there was a conscious entity there, and it is that entity which could be harmed by the removal of a future conscious entity that the past conscious entity had (presumably) been looking forward to being, or if that were not the case, at least that part of the past being still in the future being might end up enjoying being part of the future being. The same cannot be said of a fertilized egg.)
There is less of a need for arbitrary boundaries if people are willing to recognize shades of grey.
I never claimed to speak for all of Europe, just for the more enlightened parts... Just kidding.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe bemusement stems from this big contradiction one sees about the USA and religion. The USA with it's great science, technology, sending people to the moon and back, space robots on Mars, but to a sizeable part of the population Charles Darwin is the devil...
But you are right about the fact that it's not unique to the USA. In muslim countries there isn't even a debate about it, creation and that's it.
And even over here in Belgium and in Holland ID is starting to appear. Belgian schools get contacted by some company that makes textbooks, trying to sell them biology books that are all about how evolution is wrong. The schools reported that to the authorities and they discovered the company was from Turkey.
Anyway...
To me, if one wants to prove ID, in the end one will have to prove the existance of the designer.
I find it interesting that so many showed up so rapidly (even within one minute!) to denounce Shermer's commentary. No doubt that someone must have been lurking with that expectation, and called in the sockpuppets for reinforcement (thus all the brand new members).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll the same, this movie is [i]old news[/i]. I'm glad Michael Shermer could share his side of the interview, but it didn't tell us anything we didn't already know from other sources (including SciAm.com).
63-million people were brutally murdered by WW II activities, but considering the pervasive whining and crying of the Jews over the last half century, one might think they were the only ones to have suffered.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBen Stein's suggestion that Darwin's writings precipitated the Holocaust is bigotry.
Upon Hitler's rise to power, Jews within and outside of Germany criticized and antagonized his efforts to build his government, despite several grim warnings to back off. An honest historian would say those Jews had foresight into the potential future of Hitler's dictatorship and were heroes by attempting to stop him. Or, conversely, using Stein's mentality, one could blame the Jews for provoking the Holocaust.
Darwin was the greatest scientist to have lived. He was a loving, religious man who has unfortunately has been hypocritically criticized by those who should respect him the most.
I see no point in saying anything substantive here. Everything about this subject has already been debated elsewhere on the internet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut, I will say this: I'm embarrassed for the Ben Stein fans. The comments on this board are depressing. It suggests science education in this country is seriously lacking.
I do recall learning almost nothing about evolution in school, save the name and brief description of the concept. Perhaps that's why we have so many creationists in the US.
Refuting evolution:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMODERN HUMANS DID NOT START THEIR LIFE IN AFRICA.
Evidence points to early presence of humans in continents other than Africa. Even the present study, based on bones and DNA comparisons, did not consider all facts, especially facts derived from study of language origin or the testimony from oil reserves.
Bones We should first of all notice that Egyptology reveals serious efforts in Africa as far as conservation of corpes is concerned. This explains why the fossil record in Africa can mislead modern interpreters. It is also noteworthy that bones, though solid in appearance, have a spongelike structure. When exposed to variation of temparature over long time periods, the thousands of tiny holes in the bone structure can give way to the physical process of widening. Thus, bones used for study have been slightly, but steadily deformed over the ages.
DNA To achieve a comprehensive study, DNA vertical comparison (DNA from people that lived in early years of human history and DNA from people that live today) should be completed by DNA horizontal comparison (DNA from contemporaries living in different climatic regions). In that line of reasoning, it is interesting to notice that an individual from northern Europe can be genetically closer to an individual from west Africa than to another individual from northern Europe. DNA being a criteria at individuals level, cannot be used to explain the alleged evolution of species.
Language Scholars studying origin of languages strongly point to the plains of Shinear (Middle East) as the common origin of human languages.
Oil reserves It is known fact that crude oil is the product of compression and heating of ancient organic materials over extended time periods. Therefore, Asia coming first as far as oil reserves are concerned shows that most ancient presence of life can be traced in Asia.
To conclude, I claim human life started on earth when the planet was but one continent. Later on, the earth was basically divided in just 2 totally separated areas: the Americas and the rest (leaving aside isles). Movements from Africa to Asia, then to Europe have always been possible through continental ways. The American Indian found themselves on the other side when the earth was divided (see the historical account of the Bible in the Book of Genesis, chapter 10, verse 25). Thus, these are the only humans that could be naturally isolated.
Fabrice LOTY: if mummification is the reason that the human fossil record goes back much further in Africa than in the rest of the world, why isn't the fossil record as extensive in the Andes, where mummification was also practiced? Also, if the differences between fossil and modern humans are the result of deformation, why did all of the effects of the eformation make the fossils more ape-like? The relative abundance of oil in parts of Asia simply means that there was more vegetation there when the deposits were formed or that there is more rock there from that period. Finally, if the world had one continent during human history, how did it split up so fast?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust here for AP Biology home work
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"This supercilious financial columnist and ersatz actor and game show host proceeded to grill me..." The moment I see a classic ad hominem, I've learned all I need to know. Pot. Kettle. Black. Congratulations SA.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk i would also like to point out that this man graduated with honors from Columbia, graduated as Valedictorian from Yale law school, wrote speeches for 2 Presidents, also an attorney. Stein's first teaching stint was as an adjunct professor, teaching political and social content of mass culture at American University in Washington, D.C., and then at University of California, Santa Cruz. He also held classes on political and civil rights from the United States Constitution at UC Santa Cruz. At Pepperdine University in Southern California, Stein taught libel law and United States securities law and its ethical aspects. He was a professor of law at Pepperdine University Law School, from about 1990 to 1997.So maybe you would like to have some integrity and not try to make the man sound like a misguided entertainer. Congradulations SA!!!
No, that is theology, religion, and philosophy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi am sure you hold the same attitude toward limbaugh, coulter, and the rest of the right wingers who does it for a living including ben stein who did it repeatly over the movie or does it only include anyone with a different political views?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am confuse about you saying that evolution is an religion. it is like saying that math is a religion so that is why numerology must be taught along side it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnow, you do not had any evidence to support your data that there is an conspiracy to silence creationist/ID but you base your theory on thin air provided to you by Ben Stein, the discovery institue, and the thomas moore center.
also, there is no way to used ID as a sceintific way of dealing with the today world. now, if you want to had a philosophical debate about the origin of life, than why not start a club? oto church more?
will, science beef is that there is no way to prove ID and use it sciencetifically. if ID can be used to explain things scientifically, than science would be glad to include ID.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishow do you applied ID to people having dark skin. some christians believe that dark skin is a curse of cain. how do you explain the existance of dinosaurs and how will ID used science and data to figure how old it was? what about medince, such as HIV and AIDS. How does ID explain the cause, effects, and orgins of it sceintifically? some chirstians believe that it is god's curse for sexual sins.
and i disagree, it would be the ID/Creationist who is burning the books because it dear question their god. beside, wasn't hitler a christian who often used christian rethoric?
I am so glad that you understand what social darwinism, it just sad that many people here are very confuse.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthank you for your explaniation. I had always suspect that the real goal is that they want our children to be converted to their religion not teach scince but of course i can not prove not just as i can't prove theories using ID.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow, it's amazing to see how many idiots read Scientific American, if only to argue against your stories. Hey, good luck in the afterlife, chumps.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi will take him seriously, you have not given a shred of evidence that the ideas exposed in "expelled" are indeed false. when you search "expelled" the first two websites you are directed to are "expelled exposed." typical....to quote magneto....."there is a war coming."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKeith: Well stated. SciAm can't seem to help but show its true colors--even when it would have been wiser to just leave well enough alone. They're playing right into Stein's whole point--which maybe is the point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKeith: Well stated. SciAm can't seem to help but show its true colors--even when it would have been wiser to just leave well enough alone. They're playing right into Stein's whole point--which maybe is the point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMichael Shermer, I'm ready to take Stein seriously. Don't you or any of your colleagues in SciAm circles get it? Worldview conditions scientific outcomes. Stein has several decent, reasonable scientists and academics make this point. Any text in Anthropology will confirm this. Sure he's pocking fun at you and is over the top. But he's also saying something that resonates as reality to anyone like me "on the wrong side of the wall." Doesn't sound like you know what that side feels like. Maybe you should let your curiosity freedom enough to investigate, instead of sounding so defensive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi pray to god that i'll finally sneak up on santa eating the cookies i'll leave for him again this christmas - i just know it!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi pray to god that i'll finally sneak up on santa eating the cookies i'll leave for him again this christmas - i just know it!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShowtime is airing the Ben Stein lie fest "Expelled" all this month. I would advise everyone to express their displeasure to Showtime, and maybe they'll pull it, before too many idiots are infected by its misinformation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're right Chas. How dare a science journal, weigh-in on such an anti science movie.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust what are they trying to do, inform people? What an outrageous idea!
I would like to beg a few questions. I do not think we have to philosophers to ask ourselves a few basic questions. Does evolution really suggest we are of no value? Does it suggest we have no destiny, therefore realizing no duty, no responsibility, or guidelines? Does it suggest our lives are reduced to nothing more than what we can rationalize? Are we just a spinning mausoleum with no destination? Does it suggest that we are incidental and humanity has no direction? Does it suggest we have no obligation, no responsibility, no principles, no ethics, or no absolutes? Are our standards measured by a non-existing value system? Do we have to have a Dr. before our names or a PhD. following or names to be of value? Are we just valued by our appearance or our performance? What drives us or encourages us to reach farther or to make a difference? If we have no purpose; why do we fight for our country? Why do we suggest we are free if we are contained within ourselves? I would like to suggest one point; if we have reduced ourselves to this sad condition, we have only evolved from the ape in appearance only!!
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