# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/61 "2008-04-10T19:50:24Z")
[QUOTE=Brown Eyed Girl] Bottom line: Faith doesn’t require facts and facts don’t require faith. [/QUOTE] Not sure why that bears saying. Art doesn’t require facts and facts don’t require art either, but that doesn’t disparage art in any way. ---
**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 10, 2008, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/62 "2008-04-10T20:09:07Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Not sure why that bears saying. Art doesn’t require facts and facts don’t require art either, but that doesn’t disparage art in any way. [/QUOTE] Nobody ever tried to teach my kids that life began with _Whistler’s Mother_ in art class. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/63 "2008-04-10T20:09:54Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] [Fox News Review of the film](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,348468,00.html) [/QUOTE] Holy shit. For the first time ever, I am willing to consider that it’s possible – just possible – that FOX News isn’t entirely staffed with people of… less-than-average critical thinking skills. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea666f/32.png) [@Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/64 "2008-04-10T20:55:53Z")
[QUOTE=Beadalin] Holy shit. For the first time ever, I am willing to consider that it’s possible – just possible – that FOX News isn’t entirely staffed with people of… less-than-average critical thinking skills. [/QUOTE] Roger Friedman is a pretty liberal guy; however, his critical thinking skills no better than the average gossip columnist. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/65 "2008-04-10T21:06:25Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] Nobody ever tried to teach my kids that life began with _Whistler’s Mother_ in art class. [/QUOTE] I don’t understand your non sequitur. What does it have to do with the fact that nothing requires faith but faith? You can sub practically any word into the very bland assertion that “Faith doesn’t require facts and facts don’t require faith”, and it would be true. It’s like saying faith is bad because French dressing is sweet. ---
**Author:** ![rayh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@rayh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayh)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/66 "2008-04-10T21:53:34Z")
From [here](http://www.expelledexposed.com/) > [@](#): > > The National Center for Science Education will be posting our full response to the Ben Stein movie Expelled on this site on April 15; for now, we hope you will find this collection of resources helpful. The collection includes links to reviews of the film, as well as articles about the film and interviews, Dawkins among them. ---
**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 10, 2008, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/67 "2008-04-10T22:39:53Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] I don’t understand your non sequitur. What does it have to do with the fact that nothing requires faith but faith? You can sub practically any word into the very bland assertion that “Faith doesn’t require facts and facts don’t require faith”, and it would be true. It’s like saying faith is bad because French dressing is sweet. [/QUOTE] I think I misunderstood what you were saying, then. My point is that few, if any, of those other things you can sub in result in people getting all uppity about whether or not you can teach science. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/68 "2008-04-11T01:21:42Z")
[QUOTE=Beadalin] Holy shit. For the first time ever, I am willing to consider that it’s possible – just possible – that FOX News isn’t entirely staffed with people of… less-than-average critical thinking skills. [/QUOTE] Heck, if I felt like it, I’d try looking up what John Derbyshire of the National Review thought. Despite his conservatism (many in areas I completely disagree with him in), he’s a staunch foe of Creationism. I’m sure his thoughts would be amusing. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/69 "2008-04-11T01:24:39Z")
Some selections from [Dawkins’ review](http://richarddawkins.net/article,2394,Lying-for-Jesus,Richard-Dawkins) of the movie. Ellipses and [brackets] indicate my own editings of the original (though not intentionally to change any meaning). > [@](#): > > Stein has no talent for comedy…but his attempt to do tragedy is even worse. He visits Dachau and, when informed by the guide that lots of Jews had been killed there, he buries his face in his hands as though this is the first time he has heard of it. Obviously it was not his intention, but I thought his rotten acting was an insult to the memory of the victims. > [@](#): > > …the film goes shamelessly for cheap laughs at the expense of scientists and scholars who are making honest attempts to explain difficult points. Cheap laughs that could only be raised in an audience of scientific ignoramuses (and here Mathis’ propaganda instincts cannot be faulted: he certainly knows his target audience). Dawkins’ in the film attempts to explain to Stein some of the flaws in I.D. “logic”, most notably a “who made the watchmaker?” type logic- that if the world is too complicated to have arisen spontaneously then its designer must be moreso. To do this he mentions the tongue-in-cheek possibility of space aliens seeding life on Earth as a rhetorical device: > [@](#): > > I still hadn’t rumbled Stein, and I was charitable enough to think he was an honestly stupid man, sincerely seeking enlightenment from a scientist. I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet … > The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event [of alien origins] the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved… My point here was that design can never be an ULTIMATE explanation for organized complexity… > > Well, you will have guessed how Mathis/Stein handled this. I won’t get the exact words right (we were forbidden to bring in recording devices on pain of a $250,000 fine, chillingly announced by some unnamed Gauleiter before the film began), but Stein said something like this. “What? Richard Dawkins BELIEVES IN INTELLIGENT DESIGN.” “Richard Dawkins BELIEVES IN ALIENS FROM OUTER SPACE.” I can’t remember whether this was the moment in the film where we were regaled with [a] cut to an old science fiction movie with some kind of android figure – …(again, dutiful titters from the partisan audience). And in conclusion- > [@](#): > > Quite apart from anything else, it is drearily boring, the tedium exacerbated by the grating monotony of Stein’s voice. He also discusses much of the PZ Myers being evicted controversy. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/70 "2008-04-11T03:58:27Z")
My previous post was not well-written nor well thought-out. Consider Ben Stein, speech writer for Nixon, bit or a cult figure, a serious fellow. He is darn eccentric on evolution. Consider Noam Chompski, linguist, college professor, swell guy. A bit eccentric in his political views. A person can be a heck of a guy in a number of ways, can be supremely talented in one part of life, and still be shockingly obtuse in other ways. ---
**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 11, 2008, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/71 "2008-04-11T05:29:45Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] If the film is shut down or delayed by this it will just feed into fundie “godless forces are trying to suppress the truth” paranoia and seige mentality. [/QUOTE] Y’s’pose they stuck this bit in there on purpose, hoping for just such a cease-and-desist order they could then mischaracterize as persecution? \ ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/72 "2008-04-11T06:42:31Z")
I’m not that skeptical. Not quite. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/73 "2008-04-12T02:22:21Z")
Oh, for fuck’s sake. I just saw an interview with Stein on Hannity & Colmes\*, and he actually said, and I quote verbatim: “Hitler was a lineal descendant of Darwin.” He then hastily added something about “not that Darwinists now are Nazis” (I’m paraphrasing), to which Colmes actually asked the question I was thinking: “Then why did you bring it up?” This in turn brought about several, long, painful seconds of defensive hand-waving: “What are you implying, Alan? I didn’t say Darwinists were Nazis! You’re the one who’s implying that! I never said that!” (again, paraphrasing) Not enough :rolleyes: in all of Shermer, IL for this travesty of pseudo-intellectual discourse. I also like how he missed his ironical usage of his opponents’ terminology (“lineal descendant”) in his weak-ass Godwinizining efforts. \*Why, yes - watching H&C at 2:30AM does help me get to sleep. Self-animated gasbags have that effect on me. Thanks for asking. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/74 "2008-04-12T02:48:22Z")
Damn. These kinds of things make me almost irrationally angry. People use poor logic and then, not only do they think they’ve proven some point, they’re actually smug about it. The premise at the start of that trailer seems to be that, since we can’t as yet explain how life began, then it must have been started by some supernatural power. At one time we didn’t understand anything about lightning. Was that lack of understanding proof of Thor? If apparent design requires an intelligent designer, then who designed the designer? I know all of that’s been said on here a million times, but it bears repeating any time the subject comes up. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea666f/32.png) [@Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/75 "2008-04-12T03:04:13Z")
[QUOTE=davidm] If apparent design requires an intelligent designer, then who designed the designer? [/QUOTE] The designer was not designed because he is undesigned. I hope I fought your ignorance, because, if not, you will burn in Hell. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/76 "2008-04-12T03:18:17Z")
[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun] The designer was not designed because he is undesigned. I hope I fought your ignorance, because, if not, you will burn in Hell. [/QUOTE] Well then, can we change the name of the movement to Unintelligent Undesigner? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/77 "2008-04-12T03:19:28Z")
[QUOTE=Lobohan] Well then, can we change the name of the movement to Unintelligent Undesigner? [/QUOTE] This would explain the existence of the Uncola. ---
**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 12, 2008, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/78 "2008-04-12T07:51:30Z")
And Nickelback. ---
**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 12, 2008, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/79 "2008-04-12T13:22:15Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] And Nickelback. [/QUOTE] No, no…that proves the existence of a malevolent demiurge… ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482/80 "2008-04-12T17:11:14Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] No, no…that proves the existence of a malevolent demiurge… [/QUOTE] Is that better or worse than a malevolent Demi Moore? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-steins-new-movie-expelled/442482.md?page=5)