Last week Ben Stein's movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" was released. I was traveling and missed the opening. I have heard that it was sold out in many places.
William Dembski has been at the forefront of the ID (Intelligent Design) movement. He bears the scars of many a battle. This is what he says about the movie and its likely repercussions:
FORT WORTH, Texas (BP)--Ben Stein's new movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" opens this weekend in theaters. It explores the widespread persecution -- destruction of livelihoods, careers and reputations -- of scientists who doubt Darwin's theory of evolution and think intelligence is needed to explain life's origin and development.
Controversy surrounds this film. Reviews tend to be extremely positive or extremely negative. Who likes it? People who think God may have had something to do with our being here and therefore find it reasonable that God may have left tangible evidence of His involvement in creation. Who hates it? A science, education and media elite who prefer that God had nothing to do with it and think that nature must do all its own creating.
Who's right? That's the wrong question. Anyone who has studied the history of science knows about "the pessimistic induction." The pessimistic induction says that all scientific theories of the past have to varying degrees been wrong and required modification (some were so wrong that they had to be abandoned outright). No scientific theory is written in stone. No scientific theory should be venerated. Every scientific theory should now and again be subjected to severe scrutiny. This is healthy for science.
Expelled, by contrast, points up the unhealthy state of contemporary science regarding biological origins. Our intellectual elite have insulated Darwinian evolution from scientific scrutiny. Moreover, they have institutionalized intolerance to any criticism of it. Expelled documents this institutionalized intolerance and thereby unmasks the hypocrisy of an intellectual class that pretends to value freedom of thought and expression, but undercuts it whenever it conflicts with their deeply held secular ideals.
You can read the rest here:
Baptist Press - FIRST-PERSON: The difference 'Expelled' will make - News with a Christian Perspective
2 comments:
Ben Stein's goal in making Expelled (i gather) is to promote dangerously-free thought, especially more thinking about motivations that drive American academia and a lot of other behind-the-scenes worldview that we tend to take for granted.
Based on the R.C. Sproul interview it sounds like he (Ben Stein) joined the project midstream as its 'frontman.' He has had his hand on the pulse of our culture for some time and this is/was a chance of a lifetime to do something to help change the culture.
I don't know anything about his spiritual background which would shed light on his motives. No doubt he has been swimming against the tide of Hollywood for some time and seems happy to continue.
Post a Comment