Some guy who helped make A guy who is involved with the Discovery Institute, champions of the Ben Stein documentary Expelled, is about to speak at Watermark today so I figured I’d give you my impressions of the film. I went to see it with my buddy Fitz on Friday (we both had a day off).
I know many people are going to see the movie expecting Ben Stein (of Ferris Bueller fame) to make a case for Creationism. They don’t realize they’re going in with that expectation, but they also don’t realize that there is a difference between arguing for the creation story in Genesis and arguing Intelligent Design.
And they’re going to be disappointed. This film doesn’t even make the latter arguement.
The point of Expelled is to highlight the inconsistency displayed in academia regarding ideas that challenge the accepted status quo, namely how Intelligent Design is not taught alongside the concept of man and animal evolving from a single, ancient ancestor protein, ie “Darwinism”. (Evolution DOES occur. It’s been well documented in many species. But when most people say “evolution” they really mean Darwinism.)
The film excels at this point. Ben Stein is not making the case for ID. He is showing us how violent the academic community becomes at the sheer mention of ID. This is best illustrated by one of his many guests in the film, Richard Dawkins (The God Dillusion). Men like Dawkins believe ID has no place whatsoever in serious debate despite the fact that many brilliant men believe that the intricacies of life, even the smallest human cell, are so complex that there is no possible way they came about by chance. And it’s these latter men who are ever fearful of losing their tenure, credibility, etc. Stein invterviews many of these men who have actually had the worst case scenario occur. They’ve lost their jobs. They’ve been completely discredited. Thus, they can’t get new work. This is the point of the film:
Stein is simply arguing for academic freedom.
My only serious gripe with the movie is with a 20-30 minute section (total run time is about 2 hours) where Stein uses Nazi Germany as an example of Darwinism taken too far. I believe it’s wholly unnecessary and slants the movie away from objectivity. It’s a pretty blatant attempt to demonize the intellectual implications of taking Darwinism to its ultimate conclusions…which, admittedly, I agree are bleak.
You know how Fox News claims to be “fair and balanced?” While I would certainly say they bring balance to news media, I think it’s pretty clear Fox News leans to the right…just as most of their competitors do to the left. I understand what Stein was saying here, but I really think this segment could have been left out entirely and actually result in a more intellectually objective (ie less unnecessarily provocative) film to get us talking.
Stylistically, the film is as good as a documentary can be in my opinion. The soundtrack is great towards the beginning and end, but it does resort to those sleepy tunes that used to tranquilize us in those documentaries from the 70s we were forced to watch in high school. There was a significant portion where Fitz was “providing his own soundtrack” through his nasal cavity.
You need to see this film no matter what side of the coin you’re on. Even if you think Intelligent Design is anything but, Stein makes a very interesting argument. This guy is really sharp.
4 stars.
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