# Ben Stein's new movie Expelled **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 23, 2008, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482 "2008-03-23T23:44:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/181 "2008-04-21T00:31:59Z")
[QUOTE=Brown Eyed Girl] The only problem I have is that IDers would like to pass off their religious beliefs as having any scientific merit at all. Does that make me a liberal and the enemy? [/QUOTE] Yup. That means you are part of the atheist conspiracy that is trying to eliminate all Godliness and goodness from this country. I don’t recall seeing you at the meetings, though. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/182 "2008-04-21T00:36:54Z")
[QUOTE=Gorsnak] Hey! Don’t go dissing the [Rebel](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpuFEpbE0d0)! [/QUOTE] Wow. I forgot Agassi was in Duran Duran. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/183 "2008-04-21T01:45:56Z")
I saw it today (don’t worry, I didn’t pay for it. _Stop-Loss_ sold an extra ticket today). It was torture, but I didn’t want anyone to be able to say I was condemning it without having seen it. It’s every bit as bad as it’s reported to be. The heavy-handed Godwinization (the intercutting of stock Nazi footage as allegedly persecuted IDists whine about how people think their ideas are stupid and don’t want to subscribe to their newsletters) is the worst aspect…no, the sleazy, unrelenting dishonesty is the worst aspect …no, the jaw-dropping scientific ignorance is the worst aspect…no, Stein’s manipulation of the language and subject matter (especially his constant use of the word “Darwinism,” which he presents as some kind of unifying, atheistic ideology) is the worst part. Man, I guess it’s ALL shit. Even the technical aspects like the sound and the editing are shit. There is a scene near the end where Stein is trying to grill Richard Dawkins (who was asked to be in the film under fals pretenses) and Dawkins (after being asked to disavow any belief in a litany of every god Stein can think of) ultimately gets around to saying that ID is hypothetically possible if aliens did it, but that the aliens themselves would have had to arisen by natural processes. Dawkins does not present this as anything he actually believes or sees evidence for, he’s only talking about hypothetical possibilities, but Stein dives on this in a voice over as if he’s scored some kind of giant victory. He intones, incredulously in the voiceover, “so Richard Dawkins believes in the possibility of Intelligent Design, but only for certain kinds of designers.” Stein then tries to ridicule Dawkins for giving credence to a “science fiction” hypothesis (in spite of the fact that Dawkins never once intimates that alien designers are anything he actually believes are plausible), but won’t give any credence to supernatural gods. Stein actually seems to think he’s making some kind of valid point with this. By the way, there were only three other people in the theater I saw it in. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/184 "2008-04-21T01:53:08Z")
The bastion of American modern conservatism, The National Review, [gives Expelled a glowing review](http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzA4N2ZmZjAzYzhhNTU5MGEyOGJlN2FmMWIxMmE5M2I=). > [@From The National Review](#): > > The film’s endeavor is to respond to one simple question: “Were we designed, or are we simply the end result of an ancient mud puddle struck by lightning?” > > Big science doesn’t like that question because they can’t answer it. Underneath their antagonism toward explanations that suggest an intelligent cause, lies a fundamental egoism. Science wants to deny any evidence of a supreme being precisely because it wants to be a supreme being. Conservatives are also fond of the American Spectator, [who exclaim](http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12759): > [@The American Spectator](#): > > It is surely the best thing ever done on this issue, in any medium. At moments it brought tears of joy to my eyes. Human Events, “Leading the Conservative Movement Since 1944” [also loves it](http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26107): > [@Human Events](#): > > Everyone should take the opportunity to see “Expelled” – if nothing else, as a bracing antidote to the atheism-friendly culture of PC liberalism. Fun for the entire family! > [@Icerigger](#): > > Are there any prominent conservatives who accept the reality of the word that really exists? That’s a very liberal question. Another might be, “Why should anybody take these guys seriously?” ---
**Author:** ![desdinova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8baadc/32.png) [@desdinova](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/desdinova)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/185 "2008-04-21T02:42:07Z")
[QUOTE=Brown Eyed Girl] I guess I have no dog in this fight as a semi-moderate (leaning towards social liberalism) agnostic. But I do figure that ID has no basis in science as wonderful as it might sound to people. The only problem I have is that IDers would like to pass off their religious beliefs as having any scientific merit at all. Does that make me a liberal and the enemy? [/QUOTE] According to the movie, I believe that makes you a Nazi. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/186 "2008-04-21T03:05:45Z")
[QUOTE=Revtim] Yup. That means you are part of the atheist conspiracy that is trying to eliminate all Godliness and goodness from this country. I don’t recall seeing you at the meetings, though. [/QUOTE] Shit, I have to attend meetings now? 😛 I could accept the atheist viewpoint, but I’m not all that committed to it. The concept of a divine power doesn’t really offend me all that much, either. But, what I lack in decisiveness I make up for with tolerance. Actually, it’s not so much tolerance as it is non-judgmentalism. I’m firmly in the whatever-floats-your-boat camp. Just don’t pawn off your\* extremism on me. - The generalized ‘your’, not ‘your’ specifically. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/187 "2008-04-21T03:12:33Z")
[QUOTE=desdinova] According to the movie, I believe that makes you a Nazi. [/QUOTE] Hmmm, that kind of complicates things. I’m not all that nationalistic of a sort at all. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/188 "2008-04-21T04:13:38Z")
> [@The National Review](#): > > …or are we simply the end result of an ancient mud puddle struck by lightning?” Best description of Ben Stein I’ve seen lately. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/189 "2008-04-21T10:00:47Z")
I am actually frightened by all this. As I stated in my last post all the major conservatives and their national journals support this nonsense, they are completely divorced from the physical reality of the natural world. How can we have important leaders of our country fall so completely for ideas so discredited? Is conservatism now a religious movement? The good news is that nature does not care, the world doses not respond to the political beliefs of the misinformed. The bad news is people are going to make wrong decisions with faulty world views, they think the world has to run by the standards of their own personal beliefs, they are forcing the laws of nature to conform to an ideology. It is ironic, the communists did this with lysenkoism. Only disaster can come of this in the long run. Is the United States truly in decline, I think so. Where are the smart conservatives who will denounce this irrationality? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/190 "2008-04-21T12:48:47Z")
[QUOTE=Icerigger] I am actually frightened by all this. As I stated in my last post all the major conservatives and their national journals support this nonsense, they are completely divorced from the physical reality of the natural world. How can we have important leaders of our country fall so completely for ideas so discredited? Is conservatism now a religious movement? [/QUOTE] I wouldn’t say they’re completely divorced from physical reality. After all, they do concur with and rely on the fact that that bombs continue to obey the law of gravity. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/191 "2008-04-21T13:13:01Z")
It’s quite telling to me that many of the criticisms of evolution, like the National Review excerpt above, conflate evolution with the initial creation of life (which the theory of evolution says nothing about). These people haven’t even bothered to understand even the basic dictionary definition of evolution. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/192 "2008-04-21T13:34:48Z")
[QUOTE=Icerigger] I am actually frightened by all this. As I stated in my last post all the major conservatives and their national journals support this nonsense, they are completely divorced from the physical reality of the natural world. How can we have important leaders of our country fall so completely for ideas so discredited? Is conservatism now a religious movement? [/QUOTE] Conservatism already _was_ a religious movement. It just wasn’t tied to a particular sect of Christianity. Conservatism has always been tied to a Judeo-Christian value system, and if not the direct promotion of Christianity as the preferred religion of the state, then certainly the promotion of Christianity as the basis of law. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/193 "2008-04-21T14:33:48Z")
[QUOTE=Icerigger] I am actually frightened by all this. As I stated in my last post all the major conservatives and their national journals support this nonsense, they are completely divorced from the physical reality of the natural world. How can we have important leaders of our country fall so completely for ideas so discredited? Is conservatism now a religious movement? [/QUOTE] You’re looking at it wrong. Most of them probably know that they’re wrong. It isn’t that they’ve fallen for anything, it’s that they don’t agree with it. They are trying to make their own reality, and are doing everything possible to get as many people to go along with it. They know that if they repeat something often enough, or put it into a false dichotomy (real patriots think X), or appeal to emotion, or any of a dozen other techniques, they can get people to believe. Just look at the neo-cons selling of the Iraq war. How many of those same techniques did you see there? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/194 "2008-04-21T15:01:50Z")
[QUOTE=Icerigger] As I stated in my last post all the major conservatives and their national journals support this nonsense, . . . [/QUOTE] I’m not sure that I agree with this statement. The American Spectator is simply a Right Wing response to any number of far Left college tabloids that hardly qualifies as a voice of Conservatism. Human Events is simply an older and stodgier version of the same thing. They have minimal circulations and (aside from TAS’s flirtation as a scandal rag expending gallons of ink to treat the Clinton White House the way that The National Inquirer treats Hollywood), I don’t recall any conservatives paying much attention to it. The National Review is a bit more problematic, in that it actually does provide a “voice” for the Right, but we’re still looking at a _movie review_ by a Jay Leno staffer, not an editorial by one of TNR’s staff writers or visiting pundits. (Although I suspect that Dave Berg’s idiocy still caused Buckley to spin madly in his grave.) Has Krauthammer or another esteemed Right-wing nutjob weighed in? Or are we really seeing the fringe of the fringe, here? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/195 "2008-04-21T15:27:15Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] The National Review is a bit more problematic, in that it actually does provide a “voice” for the Right, but we’re still looking at a _movie review_ by a Jay Leno staffer, not an editorial by one of TNR’s staff writers or visiting pundits. (Although I suspect that Dave Berg’s idiocy still caused Buckley to spin madly in his grave.) [/QUOTE] You can dismiss the other ones, but given the _National Review_’s mission, I think it’s safe to say that if it chooses to publish something it doesn’t think it’s that far off its own view. It’s not like a newspaper, where editorials may or may not represent the views of the publishers, and so on; the whole point of NR is to represent the views of the publishers. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/196 "2008-04-21T16:19:26Z")
[QUOTE=Icerigger] Is conservatism now a religious movement? [/QUOTE] Rigid political ideology is virtually indistinguishable from religious dogma. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/197 "2008-04-21T16:36:12Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] Conservatism has always been tied to a Judeo-Christian value system, and if not the direct promotion of Christianity as the preferred religion of the state, then certainly the promotion of Christianity as the basis of law. [/QUOTE] The grand-daddy of all anti-evolutionists, William Jennings Bryan, was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/198 "2008-04-21T16:49:25Z")
[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig] The grand-daddy of all anti-evolutionists, William Jennings Bryan, was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. [/QUOTE] That was before the political right tried to co-opt and monopolize religion, though. It’s not true that conservatives have “always” politicized religion as **Really Not All That Bright** is claiming, but they sure are doing it now. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/199 "2008-04-21T17:30:47Z")
[QUOTE=Revtim] It’s quite telling to me that many of the criticisms of evolution, like the National Review excerpt above, conflate evolution with the initial creation of life (which the theory of evolution says nothing about). These people haven’t even bothered to understand even the basic dictionary definition of evolution. [/QUOTE] …or the basic dictionary definitions of theory or science. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/200 "2008-04-21T17:49:12Z")
[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig] The grand-daddy of all anti-evolutionists, William Jennings Bryan, was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. [/QUOTE] And the man who gets lionized for painting Bryan as a backwoods hick fantabulist, H.L. Mencken, generally held political opinions that would make the average Democrat of today feel faint. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482.md?page=11)