DEBATING DARWIN: Ben Stein stands in front of a statue of Darwin at The Natural History Museum in London.
Photo by Kelly Engstrom

You wouldn't expect Scientific American to take a particularly positive view of a movie that espouses intelligent design over evolutionary biology. Then again, you wouldn’t expect the producers of said film—in this case, Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed—to offer the editors of said magazine a private screening.

Associate producer Mark Mathis showed up at our offices with a preview of Expelled in hand. That's right, the unexpected screening happened. The unexpected positive reviews did not.

As part of this special package of reviews and commentary,  our Skeptic columnist, Michael Shermer, who appears in Expelled, starts with his own links to the film—in the 1970s he was a student at Pepperdine University, where the movie begins—but ends up dumbfounded by the movie's dishonesty. (Shermer caught a screening at the National Religious Broadcasters's convention.)

Also, this week's Science Talk podcast features Steve Mirsky interviewing Rennie and Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education. Scott says she was "bamboozled" into appearing in Expelled. In another clip, you can hear how Mathis responded to a number of questions from Scientific American staffers.

Finally, SciAm editor in chief, John Rennie, writes that the movie's attempts to link the theory of evolution to the Holocaust are shameful, and is joined by Steve Mirsky in summing up "Six Things in Expelled that Ben Stein Doesn't Want You to Know".

Have your own review? Leave a comment on any part of this feature. Check back frequently—we hope this  generates a lot of light along with the heat.