I like his dry wit even though I don’t agree with a lot of his politics. However, I do respect the advice he dispenses in his financial articles. Can’t argue with advice that’s made me good money.
As you should be well aware, there are plenty of cases of Christians in other countries being killed just for their beliefs. But not in the USA. Yet.
So if Darwin’s evolution theory is shown to have holes that proves that there must be an intelligent creator? Ben Stein disappoints me. This is not about the 1st Amendment and the fact that he usees it in his defence proves he has no other.
Not only is Ben Stein foolish enough to make a movie supporting creationism/intelligent design, the movie’s producers apparently felt they couldn’t honestly request interviews from people in biology. They’ve misrepresented themselves to get biologists on camera:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/08/im_gonna_be_a_movie_star.php
The “Creationist unfairly treated by the Scientific Establishment” claim is an old favourite. Only the name of the persecuted victim really varies from use to use over the years - some will remember when , nearly twenty years ago, it was Forrest Mims we were meant to sympathise with for not getting a job at Scientific American.
The film company’s press release mentions two names as examples: Guillermo Gonzalez and Caroline Crocker.
Based on what I read about the case at the time, the Wiki entry on Gonzalez covers the main points. He had had a good track record of research and publication before going to Iowa State, but then seems to have devoted his time to ID and so wasn’t gathering the expected grants and serious publications. His application for tenure was rejected. No doubt his views on ID didn’t help, but it’s hard to see them accepting anyone with such a sustained dropoff in their contribution to research in the department.
The name Caroline Crocker didn’t ring a bell, but P.Z. Myers’s Pharyngula blog post about her suggests she’s not due much sympathy. A temporary lecturer parroting rubbish in her classes seems pretty good grounds for not re-hiring her again.
Never cared much for Ben Stein.
So as not to argue, could you point me to the place in Crick’s paper where he says that the diversity of life on Earth couldn’t come about by random chance? I think he is saying that the seeds of initial life are very improbable, that is indeed in the paper.
Now Behe, who does accept evolution (at least in the NY Times) does explicitly say what you claim Crick is saying.
There is nothing impossible about either panspermia or directed panspermia. There just isn’t any solid evidence for it, and Crick doesn’t claim any. When you get to a certain level of fame journals are more likely to print papers with interesting but supported hypotheses. I wish they did more of it.
I suspect even if Earth isn’t seeded, somewhere in the galaxy is a planet that was. I’m not sure how you could ever tell, though.
As for Hoyle, that weird cult who claimed they had cloned someone are IDers, with aliens doing the designing. ID isn’t wrong because of God claims, it is wrong due to lack of evidence or need. Anyhow, Crick didn’t make pronouncements on cosmology, so Hoyle (who seemed quite sad near the end) should have butted out of evolution. The stupid 747 in a windstorm analogy is something to hold against him. However, the beginning of his novel Ossian’s Ride has the best hint for success in grad school I have ever seen.
Very well said. Moreover, it isn’t wrong in every sense, but only in a scientific sense. 
For me the fact that he was Pip, the man who met celebrity emcee Bob Barker, in a very special episode of Animaniacs will spare him from the rack (but not from arrest).
I haven’t read his financial column. Does he give general advice (no credit cards, save money here, etc.) or specific (buy XYZ at $15)?
Did any rehab facility even admit him?
Doing some googling, it seems rehab just meant some psychiatric treatment followed by being sent to a strict boarding school. His article appeared in the Nov/Dec 2001 American Spectator- I can’t find the whole article online but this is an excerpt:
And this also, same article, about the change in Tommy and how it affects Ben.
It seems to me there was something else happening around Fall of 2001 that made people feel bad… like the whole nation feel really bad… ah, I remember, it was in fact the National Day of Mourning called for Tommy Stein’s Everquest addiction.
I was always (and to a lesser degree now) a fan of Ben. It wasn’t until he came out strongly on the side of the freaks in the Terri Schiavo case (here) that my heart sank and my image of him crashed. He was one of the loudest proponents of not pulling the plug and in the corner of the politicians that stuck their noses in were they did not belong.
And now this. Oh Ben, I held you in such high regard.
The disingenuousness is striking. He’s smart enough to truly understand the rhetorical machinations of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, yet implies that a biologist’s rights are violated for not being able to teach mythology. If he were just a creationist that wanted to espouse so-called flaws in Darwinism, that’s one thing. But this? Sad. I used to respect him. Now he disgusts me.
By the way, does anyone know if Kirk Cameron make a cameo?
Off subject, but I was channel surfing last night and Kirk’s show Wank of the Master was on. Having never been near a film school or worked anything more powerful than an inexpensive hand held camera I am positive that given one hour of training I could do a better job than their producer. It’s an outdoor shoot, Kirk and his Kiwi knitwit co-host Ray seated in chairs with their backs to mountains, and the entire time you can’t make out a single feature on their faces because evidently there’s no lighting whatever plus it looks like they’re in an earthquake whenever the camera is handheld. Now Ray probably had a past selling neon signs door to door and boring waitresses to death as a semi-employed dishwasher, but Kirk grew up on a TV show- he knows what lighting is and why it’s important and why it’s not discrimination to not hire the guy with CP to work your handcam. It makes the production look even more “God’s World! God’s World! Hallelujah! Excellent!” than it otherwise might.
Again with Kirk, listening to his “arguments” that are three keywords on google from ample and flawless refutation BY CHRISTIANS EVEN, it’s amazing to me that he didn’t at least read a few books on apologetics before hitting the cameras. I can’t imagine him making a cameo in Ben’s movie because even if he’s a Flavor-Ade drinking whiner in love with the concept of martyrdom and the sound of his own oft-imitated monotone at least he match anybody for intellectual capability (no matter how selectively he applies it).
That’s just… bizzare. It’s no wonder the US is so polarized. I could see “disgust” arising from, say, murdering children and eating their intestines or something. But can’t people hold opinions, however wrongheaded they may be, without being your mortal enemies? Because otherwise, this country is eventually going to tear itself apart from the inside out.
I’ve been reading Stein in the American Spectator for, oh, 17 years or so. A lot of his diary entries dealt with “little Mr. Perfect” (aka Tommy). Since the kid was about 5 or so. In some sense, I’ve watched the kid grow up via Stein’s diary.
I generally agree with Stein’s conservative views and his perspective on current events. Not always, but generally. But I knew from the get-go that Tommy was going to be one messed up spoiled kid. Tommy would cry for a new game, and Stein would buy it. Tommy would complain that he was bored and Stein would take him to Disneyworld. Tommy would get petulant and whiny that some “other kids” went waterskiing and Stein would buy him a boat. (A little exaggeration there, but not much). I don’t think Stein ever knew how to implement effective discilpine. He thought his main goal was to be Tommy’s friend and give him everything that he wanted. He absorbed backtalk that should have gotten any kid clued in fast as to how the real world works (no, you don’t get everything you want).
Time and time again I thought about how much I would like to meet Ben, say a few kind words, and then clue him in that he was going to end up with a teenager with an extremely overdeveloped sense of entitlement, no respect for authority, and no sense of personal discipline.
Tommy may come across these days as a somewhat normal teen, but that is one spoiled kid who needs a dose of reality. Probably not much different that a lot of celebs kids, actually.
It would be fine if it was only couched as opinion but theocrats don’t want to stop at just having opinions. In the Schiavo case, for instance, Stein wanted judges to ignore the law and impose his own personal religious morality instead. He also bears false witness against scientists when he accuses them of persecuting theists. He’s a liar and an activist against civil rights and against the freedom and integrity of scientific inquiry. Guy like him didn’t used to be dangerous but now they get appointed to White House Cabinets.
I’m fairly certain that his ilk has been around since the earliest days. I don’t think there’s anything particularly special about this time period (save greater range of communication) that would make internal renting inevitable.
Again, “if he were just a creationist that wanted to espouse so-called flaws in Darwinism, that’s one thing.” He could believe in Jesus, Allah, Buddha the FSM, the IPU, panspermia, or some conglomeration thereof and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference to me. There’s a whole range of opinions that I don’t share, but holding them won’t make you my “mortal enemy.” He’s a mortal enemy (though that’s a bit hyperbolic … I’m sure if I got the drop on him in a dark ally he’d be safe) because for lack of a better word, he’s a liar.
My disgust has nothing to do with what he believes. It’s about betraying the rationality that makes him human. I’m not about to segue into a Kantian soliloquy (your welcome), but the capacity for rational thought at the core of the Metaphysics wasn’t a new idea nor is it an old idea. My disgust is based on the premise that he’s smart enough to see through his own bullshit—that his contortionism is intentional.
I understand that my vocabulary isn’t nuanced enough to portray the many shades of disgust. Yes, I would much prefer Stein over Dahmer as a dinner guest (even if fava beans were on the menu), yet both disgust me.
Well, granted, okay, but I mean, so what? It’s the disgust part I don’t understand. You people make it sound like science is something unquestionable and unassailable when in fact its greatest quality is the very opposite — science is great because it demands to be questioned, doubted, disbelieved, and picked over with fine-tooth suspicion. It seems to me that you people are turning science into something indistinguishable from religion. Hell, look at what Dio said: Stein is “against the freedom and integrity of scientific inquiry”. Scientific inquiry does not deserve — and does not demand — any special standing. Freedom is a philosophical concept (political in particular), and integrity is an ethical term. Science — an epistemology — isn’t something morally upright that only thugs and heretics stand against. Science isn’t saved by the “good” politicians wrestling it away from the “bad” ones. It is doomed in the hands of either.
Damn. Just . . . damn. Very well said!
I came in here to quote what Liberal quoted and to say that while yes, it pisses me off and makes me sad to see Ben Stein intentionally pretzeling his logic and beliefs that I’d stop short of calling it disgust. Of course, I’ve worked in academia for a few years, so maybe I’m just jaded from looking at too much of that, and I don’t think he’s any more dangerous than any other political commentator out there today. The political commentator who speaks moderately and only after giving both sides equal thought has not yet been born.
Also:
Yeah, Tommy’s overindulged, but so are a lot of other teens, although perhaps not to that extent. Then again, I don’t think the problem is just one of extent, and most of them come around. I’ve read enough about Tommy not to worry about him too much. He’s smart, he’s athletic, and there’s no question that he has a supporting family network. It’s not like he’s going to wind up on the streets.
Hell, I was an overindulged teen myself, and didn’t come out of it until after the army and marriage. I’m currently working at a boring library circulation desk, serving kids half my age who heard the starting gun a long time before I did. Let me tell you, that’s some righteous karma going on right there!