Expelled World Premiere

Last night in Dallas the official theater run of Expelled was kicked off with a gala premiere complete with red carpet, film narrator Ben Stein, and the film’s main stars, the Expelled scientists. Here’s a few pictures. (For full disclosure, I took the crummy one, the others were supplied by an attendee with a camera that far outclassed my phone.)Click for full size images.Expelled scientists, Drs. Richard Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzalez, Robert Marks and Discovery’s Dr. John West at the world premiere of Expelled.Drs. Gonzalez, West, and Marks on the red carpet.Attendees partied before the actual screening of the film.Some of the attending Expelled scientists being introduced to attendees by the executive producers. (Left to right: Robert Marks, Michael Egnor, Guillermo Read More ›

The Descent of Darwinism from Hitlerism

Finally, a writer known to me personally to be a smart and honest guy, no ignoramus nor a propagandist, attacks the Hitler-Darwin thesis in Expelled. Ronald Bailey, who used to write book reviews for me at National Review, comments on the movie in the libertarian magazine Reason. He complains that linking Darwinism with Nazism is the “most egregious part of the film.” He harrumphs that the Expelled filmmakers “overlook the fact that people down through the millennia have found all sorts of justifications for why they are permitted to murder each other, including plunder, tribal competition, and, yes, religion.” OK, but when Muslims today commit mass slaughter in the name of their religion, or when Christians once did so, it Read More ›

Seattle Times Publishes “An Intelligent Discussion about Life”

Today The Seattle Times is sure to provoke a reaction from Darwinists with an article by Discovery Institute president Bruce Chapman, “An Intelligent Discussion about Life.” “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” is a trenchant new film by actor/economist Ben Stein, the man first made famous in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” He’s now tackling with humorous dudgeon the classic example of ideological science, Darwinian evolution. Stein shows Darwinists insistently misrepresenting the scientific case against their theory. Where facts and reason might fail to persuade, personal attacks are employed, sometimes even by organizations supposedly committed to civil discourse. When I was taught Darwin’s theory in college more than four decades ago, it was represented as unassailable. But I also was taught in those Read More ›

Historian R. Weikart On the Valid Way to Understand Darwinism’s Influence on Development of Nazi Ideology

[Note: For a detailed response to critics of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org] The Darwinists claim that anyone who cites historical works in defense of the proposition that Darwin’s theory influenced Nazi ideology is “quote mining.” As usual, that is a cover-up. So is the straw man argument that the film Expelled is trying to blame poor old Darwin for the Holocaust or to claim that Darwinism originated anti-Semitism or that Darwinism was the sole source of Nazi ideology. Any such straw man intentionally exaggerates the message of the one segment of Expelled where the Nazi ideology of eugenics and race is explored. Another straw man is the pretense that the film Read More ›

Michael Shermer’s Fact-Free Attack on Expelled Exposes Intolerance of Darwinists towards Pro-Intelligent Design Scientists (Part 2)

[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org] In part 1 I observed that the famous skeptic Michael Shermer’s attack upon the movie Expelled over at Scientific American adopts the following approach when denying the persecution experienced by intelligent design (ID) proponents: Shermer Blames-the-Victim Case #1: Richard SternbergThe conversation with Michael Shermer in the Expelled film revolves around the publication of Stephen C. Meyer’s pro-ID peer-reviewed scientific paper in the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The editor who oversaw the publication of that article was Dr. Richard Sternberg, who, according to investigations by both the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and also by subcommittee staff Read More ›