Published: April 22, 2008 05:54 pm            

Column: Ben Stein’s expulsion of reason

LEBANON, Ind. — Positive reviews of the movie “Expelled” term it “an enormously important project” (Michael Medved) and “riotous entertainment.” (Joseph Farah, CEO of worldnetdaily.com.)

Important, certainly.

Riotous entertainment? If you believe the Holocaust was funny, you’ll love “Expelled,” an anti-science, anti-intelligence propaganda bolus ejected from the mind of Ben Stein.

Stein is a comedian/actor/former Richard Nixon speechwriter who has discovered another way to make a buck.

He is famous for the deadpan line in the movie, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Cast as a hapless homeroom teacher, Stein monotonously intones, “Bueller? Bueller?” while taking attendance. Bueller, of course, is off on An Adventure and nowhere near a classroom. With a teacher like Stein, who could blame him?

Stein’s appearance was an intentionally moronic depiction of a buffoon.

In “Expelled,” Stein again depicts a hapless, moronic buffoon.

But not on purpose.

Revealing a frighteningly-shallow grasp of science, Stein has chosen the “anything for a buck” approach to inquiry. Note I did not say “scientific” inquiry. Stein’s blather is more of an Inquisition-style pursuit of not truth but sheer bloviation.

Ads for the movie show Stein wearing what appears to be intended as a school uniform, complete with shorts. I thought it was a comedy — until I read a “Scientific American” article that said Stein insinuates the theory of evolution is to blame for The Holocaust.

Funny, that doesn’t sound like “riotous entertainment.” I was gonna see it, but I haven’t seen it and don’t plan to see it. If Christian fundamentalists can boycott a movie they haven’t seen, what the heck, so can I.

Stein’s assault on reason is cloaked as a defense of “academic freedom.” That would be “Freedom” as defined by The Discovery Institute, which considers only the Word of God — their God, anyway — to be appropriate discourse for inquiring minds.

The editors of “Scientific American” called “Expelled” “ ... a movie not quite harmless enough to be ignored” and said it should be rebuffed “for the sake of simple human decency.”

There is no reason someone cannot believe in God and in the complexity of evolutionary theory. It can be as simple as “that’s the way God worked.”

Or it can be as intellectually sophisticated as The Clergy Letter Project, created by Michael Zimmerman, dean of Butler University’s college of liberal arts and sciences.

The letter begins, “We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth ...”

Zimmerman writes that “if we are not careful, we will permit extremists to redefine the very nature of science.” He refers, of course, to religious extremists of all denominations. Or demonitions, depending on your view of organized religion. Go to www.clergyletterproject. net for more.

The Clergy Letter Project Web site quotes William J. Bennetta of the Text Book League as saying intelligent design is a fraud, “woo-woo” and “a hoax.”

“Woo-woo” is an apt summary of Stein’s core argument, which is that keeping intelligent design out of science classes somehow breaches “academic freedom.”

Stein refers to “Darwinism,” and would have viewers believe there is a great conspiracy to, cutting to the chase, banning God from the classroom.

A press release for “Expelled” asks, “Were we designed or are we simply the end result of an ancient mud puddle struck by lightning?”

That cynical “either/or” simplification of science insults the intelligence, and the honesty, of millions of persons.

Some persons will, of course find “Expelled” to be “riotous entertainment.”

But they would probably also laugh at a lynching.



— Rod Rose writes for The Lebanon (Ind.) Reporter. He can be reached at rod.rose@reporter.net

        

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