Ramblings on Ben Stein’s Expelled

I know this post is a little late, but last night I watched Ben Stein’s Expelled for the very first time. I really enjoyed it for a variety of reasons. I love Ben Stein because he’s a good Republican and was on The Wonder Years (BTW, congratulations, Danica!) and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I learned from the movie that Intelligent Design is not a specifically evangelical movement, for it contains Jews, Muslims, and even agnostics. And I thought that the movie’s depiction of the inside of the cell was riveting in its music, color, and graphical demonstration of complexity.

I also read critiques of the movie, some of which I liked, and some of which I did not care for. Wikipedia, for instance, said that the movie received overwhelmingly poor reviews, in part because it was boring and poorly made. Were these critics watching the same movie? I hope they’re not the types who gush at Michael Moore’s “documentaries.”

One critique is that the pro-ID professors on the movie who lost their jobs or failed to get tenure were not being punished for teaching Intelligent Design. After all, a lot of people didn’t get tenure! I’m skeptical about the “official” explanations, though. These professors feel that Intelligent Design had something to do with their fall from academia, and even some of the critical sites point out “problems” in what they were teaching. So I don’t believe that them teaching Intelligent Design and them suffering academically are pure coincidence.

As far as Stein’s connection of evolution with eugenics and Nazism is concerned, sure, it’s not entirely fair. Even if the Nazis used “natural selection” to buttress their agenda, that wasn’t Darwin’s fault, plus the Nazis didn’t necessarily apply evolutionary concepts correctly. Hitler tried to put into place artificial selection, whereas evolution is about natural selection. But religion often is blamed for the acts of bad religious people, so forgive me if I don’t shed a tear when Darwinism gets the same treatment!

I agree with critics who point out that Stein quoted Darwin out of context. Stein quotes Darwin as saying that helping the poor and the weak is injurious to the race of man, when Darwin actually states in the next paragraph that we should do those things anyway (see here). Darwin may have been a complex figure. I have heard people try to tie him with racism, but I saw a book in the library not long ago that said he was anti-slavery.

Although the movie presents evolutionist Eugenie Scott claiming that a lot of religious people believe in evolution, I think its overall message is that evolution=atheism, which is bad (in the movie). I agree with critics who say that Ben should have interviewed Kenneth Miller, a staunch evolutionist who is also a devout Catholic. And, while the movie shows a blurb of John Polkinghorne saying that science can’t disprove God, it should have also pointed out that Polkinghorne believes in God and evolution.

What’s interesting is that both ID supporters and evolutionists act like they’re the underdog in the cultural war. Stein presented atheist Richard Dawkins as someone who helped build the “wall” that keeps ID proponents out of science, as if he has a significant amount of power. When I listen to Dawkins‘ God Delusion, however, I can tell that’s not how he feels. In his eyes, he’s a voice of reason amidst a sea of numerous people who embrace religious superstition and are eager to persecute those who disagree. Both sides view themselves as victims and outsiders.

Is there a way for dialogue to exist between the two camps? Stein talks as if the persecution of ID-proponents is an attack on academic freedom, which allows people to ask anything they want, even about evolution. ID-proponents apparently want their beliefs to get a fair hearing. But it’s not as if evolutionists are unwilling to engage the concept, for they have made arguments about why ID is problematic and how evolution can account for the “gaps” ID claims to identify. Kenneth Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God contains a lengthy critique of Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, and Dawkins engages the argument from design in The God Delusion. Can the two sides find some way to engage one another, without crying to the courts (as evolutionists do) or the local school boards (as conservative Christians do)?

I’m not in the mood right now to get into the arguments of Intelligent Design. Overall, I believe there is design, but I’m open to scientists looking for other explanations. At the same time, I was a little disappointed that Dawkins didn’t point out the “flaws” of nature, as many critics of the design argument have done. Instead, he said that aliens are responsible for the design in nature. Go figure!

Whether you agree or disagree, Expelled is a movie worth seeing!

A Slight Correction

I’m reading a little more about that Cal State professor. She doesn’t want to sign the loyalty oath because she’s a pacifist and a Quaker, and Quakers don’t like oaths. I do believe in religious freedom, and I’d probably “affirm” rather than “solemnly swear” were I to make an oath. Believe me, I grew up as a religious minority (Armstrongism). I had to face the possibility of being suspended because I’d taken time off from school for the annual holy days. I heard of people who were fired from their jobs for resting on the Sabbath. I know that authority has a tendency to push for conformity while running over people’s unpopular religious convictions.

So I take back what I said about this woman being on a power trip. But I’ll keep it in my post, for I do believe that many professors who howl the loudest about academic freedom suppress it themselves in their own classrooms.

Loyalty Oaths

Jim West has an interesting post today: Loyalty Oaths For Professors? Cal State Fullerton’s Reprehensible Behavior. At Cal State Fullerton, Wendy Gonaver lost her job because she refused to sign an oath to defend the U.S. and California constitutions “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Okay, technically, I’m against this, for I believe that colleges and universities should be open to all sorts of ideas. Even ideas that are absurd should be challenged through argument, not dismissal or intimidation. For example, if a professor wants to say that there wasn’t a Holocaust, then he should be able to present his case in an open forum. And, in turn, those who know better can present the evidence for this atrocity. It’s because of an absence of such an open-forum that Holocaust-deniers can thrive. “See, they don’t want to debate us!” they say. “What are they trying to hide?” Well, why not shut the Holocaust deniers up through evidence and argument? The same goes for 9/11 conspiracy theorists and creationists. (I sympathize with creationists, however, but not with Holocaust deniers or 9/11 conspiracy theorists.)

When I was at DePauw, the KKK was invited to be on a university radio program. Students and professors rose up in protest. One professor said that inviting a KKK representative grants undeserved legitimacy to its beliefs.

I sympathized with the concerns of African-American students for their personal safety. I did not, however, sympathize with the professor’s argument–not in the least bit. The way to show that the KKK’s beliefs lack legitimacy is, well, actually to demonstrate that the KKK’s beliefs lack legitimacy. Blithely blowing them off with academic snobbery accomplishes little. And so I believe in academic freedom. A professor who doesn’t like the Constitution should be free to present her case.

My problem with academia, however, is that there is not much tolerance for a lot of ideas. And I’m not talking here about Holocaust revisionism or the KKK. Many professors are liberals, who love to ramrod their liberalism down students’ throats. Students can get bad grades just for being conservative. And professors often go unchallenged through all of this. So, while I technically disagree with that Cal State professor’s dismissal, part of me rejoices that a professor was knocked off of her power trip. She couldn’t boldly proclaim her liberalism as the only way to see the universe. For once, she had to answer to a higher authority.