Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

[Vincent Vega]

The challenge is for scientists to admit they don't have all the answers

Credible scientists will always admit that they don't have all answers. I would even venture to say that all scientists admit to not having all the answers. That's why they are scientists and still studying, after all. And this is the holes melon was referring to earlier, either.

Nevertheless, the answers (i.e. evidence) we have so far show that Intelligent Design is wrong, plain and simple.

And quite frankly, the USA is the only country in the world that discusses Intelligent Design as being a credible theory to be taught in school. And this is not because they are so far ahead of the rest of the world.

 

[nathan1977]

Please note that I'm not defending the notion of ID being taught in schools. (Particularly since I'm not a proponent of ID, since I find it intellectually dishonest in the first place. If you believe in a Creator, say so.) What I am saying is that in reaction to ID being taught in schools, some proponents of evolutionary theory seem to be fighting so hard in the other direction (mistaking the effect for the cause) that the conversation becomes unnecessarily defensive and polarizing.

 

[yolland]

One fairly positive review (of which I found a few) and one quite negative one (of which I found several) for Expelled.

Rex Roberts, Film Journal International

Ben Stein won’t endear himself to his Beverly Hills neighbors with his sardonic Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a documentary in Moore mode that manages to be flippant and darkly provocative at once. Ostensibly an exposé of the Darwinian cabal that has hijacked the scientific academy, purportedly squelching debate about alternative theories on the origins of life, Expelled evolves from a well-wrought warning of eroding freedoms into a brooding meditation on the dangers of secular humanism. Stein has embraced a strain of conservative thought that attempts to expose affinities between progressivism and fascism (represented in the film by Darwin and Hitler), but his use of Dachau, the German concentration camp, as a cautionary tale of science gone awry, as well as his choice of the Berlin Wall as a metaphor for the modern scientific mind, will send liberals into anaphylactic shock.

The movie doesn’t exactly defend Intelligent Design, a hypothesis that holds that the origin and structure of life on Earth is best explained by intelligent cause (in other words, by God), but it does defend researchers who advocate the position. One scientist in particular, biologist Richard Sternberg, has become a cause célèbre following his resignation, he claims under duress, from the Smithsonian Institution, where as a research fellow and managing editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, he published a peer-reviewed article on ID. Two other biologists, Guillermo Gonzalez and Caroline Crocker, claim they were forced from their universities because they wrote about ID or “briefly mentioned” the theory in the classroom.

Stein, a Yale-trained lawyer and Nixon speechwriter before he morphed into the engaging comic actor we know and love from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Wonder Years, argues that the abuse of these three scientists (and anonymous others who appear on camera in silhouette) represents a disturbing attack on free speech that is both anti-scientific and anti-American. He thus undertakes a quest to discover if, indeed, the so-called elite scientific establishment systematically put the kibosh on ID in order to protect its liberal ideological prejudices and political agenda. To this end, he interviews Sternberg and company as well as Richard Dawkins, leading proponent of neo-Darwinism and author of the bestselling book The God Delusion, and other ID debunkers.

Like most documentaries aiming to entertain as well as enlighten, Expelled takes a jocular approach to its subject, enlivening the proceedings with snarky archival footage and newsreels, ironic clips from classic flicks (Inherit the Wind, Frankenstein, The Wizard of Oz), and retro animation illustrating natural selection with slot machines. It’s good fun. Stein plays coy, lobbing big fat softballs to his interlocutors: “Aren’t we all Darwinists now, except for a few cranks?” Eventually, however, he grows earnest, setting up a declension by which Darwinists (that is, secular progressives) establish random chance as nature’s modus operandi, thereby eliminating divine purpose in the universe, undermining morality and destroying free will. “It appears Darwinism does lead to atheism,” he concludes.

...Expelled isn’t likely to convince anyone unpredisposed to the notion that life has grand design and godly purpose, but these kinds of documentaries (as the producers of this one readily admit) make money by preaching to the choir. The problem with the genre is that many people who watch the film don’t have a scorecard to follow the inside baseball that ultimately makes them interesting. Do fans of Ben Stein the game-show host know that he was a longtime columnist for the notorious right-wing organ The American Spectator? Since Stein travels to Seattle to visit the offices of the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank sympathetic to Intelligence Design, should he identify interviewees who have connections to the foundation? He doesn’t, just as he fails to tell us that religion reporter Larry Witham, who talks about media coverage of Intelligent Design, was a longtime employee of the conservative newspaper The Washington Times. The fact is, few filmmakers disclose such connections, partly because they haven’t time to do so in a feature-length movie, but mostly because they would undermine their own agendas. Ben Stein is about as fair and balanced as any of the new breed of documentarians, so the standard warning applies: Viewers beware.

Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times

One of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry. Positing the theory of intelligent design as a valid scientific hypothesis, the film frames the refusal of “big science” to agree as nothing less than an assault on free speech. Interviewees, including the scientist Richard Sternberg, claim that questioning Darwinism led to their expulsion from the scientific fold (the film relies extensively on the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy—after this, therefore because of this), while our genial audience surrogate, the actor and multihyphenate Ben Stein, nods sympathetically. (Mr. Stein is also a freelance columnist who writes "Everybody’s Business" for The New York Times.)

Prominent evolutionary biologists, like the author and Oxford professor Richard Dawkins—accurately identified on screen as an “atheist”—are provided solely to construct, in cleverly edited slices, an inevitable connection between Darwinism and godlessness. Blithely ignoring the vital distinction between social and scientific Darwinism, the film links evolution theory to fascism (as well as abortion, euthanasia and eugenics), shamelessly invoking the Holocaust with black-and-white film of Nazi gas chambers and mass graves. Every few minutes familiar—and ideologically unrelated—images interrupt the talking heads: a fist-shaking Nikita S. Khrushchev; Charlton Heston being subdued by a water hose in Planet of the Apes. This is not argument, it’s circus, a distraction from the film’s contempt for precision and intellectual rigor. This goes further than a willful misunderstanding of the scientific method. The film suggests, for example, that Dr. Sternberg lost his job at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History because of intellectual discrimination but neglects to inform us that he was actually not an employee but rather an unpaid research associate who had completed his three-year term.

Mixing physical apples and metaphysical oranges at every turn, Expelled is an unprincipled propaganda piece that insults believers and nonbelievers alike. In its fudging, eliding and refusal to define terms, the movie proves that the only expulsion here is of reason itself.

 

[the iron horse]

Intelligent Critique
Expelled adroitly addresses the dogmaticism of Darwinian theory in the scientific world.

By Dave Berg


I like rebels, especially ones who go against type. Take Ben Stein in his latest film, Expelled, which comes out this Friday. Dressed in a sport coat, tie, and tennis shoes, he’s not who you expect — the deadpan, monotone-voiced but ever-likable teacher he portrays in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Wonder Years.

Stein retains his characteristic deadpan affect, but this time he’s playing himself — a deceptively erudite and well-educated interviewer, who is passionately skeptical of evolutionary biology and its leading proponents.

The film’s endeavor is to respond to one simple question: “Were we designed, or are we simply the end result of an ancient mud puddle struck by lightning?”

Big science doesn’t like that question because they can’t answer it. Underneath their antagonism toward explanations that suggest an intelligent cause, lies a fundamental egoism. Science wants to deny any evidence of a supreme being precisely because it wants to be a supreme being. Moreover, representatives of big science in the film are unsettlingly snippy, suggesting that they feel threatened by rival opinions, rather than assured of their own.

To make this point, the film introduces teachers and scientists who are shunned, denied tenure, and fired for questioning dogmatic Darwinism. The film’s producers spent two years traveling the world, talking with more than 150 educators and scientists who say they have been persecuted for questioning Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

Dr. Richard Sternberg, a biologist, publishes a peer-reviewed paper, which posits evidence for intelligent design (ID) in the universe. For his efforts, Sternberg’s bosses at the Smithsonian Institution trashed him so badly that it led to a congressional investigation.

Iowa State University denied tenure to Guillermo Gonzalez, an accomplished astrobiologist. University officials admitted that Gonzalez’s work on ID is a factor.

For Richard Dawkins, by contrast, job security is not a problem. To this superstar Oxford University evolutionary biologist, and devout atheist, intelligent design is nothing more than an “ideological cousin of creationism.”

The highlight of the film features Ben Stein interviewing Dawkins, who concedes that an intelligent being may have created life on earth. But that being cannot be “God.” Instead, he suggests it may be an alien, itself a product of “Darwinian evolution.” Oh, the scientific imagination — there’s nothing like it on God’s green earth.

Dawkins has since complained that the interview was set up under false pretenses, and that he didn’t even know who Stein was. It is rather astonishing that it did not occur to the world’s smartest atheist to look up Ben Stein on the Internet, where he might have readily discovered numerous examples of his writings that are critical of Darwinism.

Dawkins dismisses the Emmy-winning actor as having “no talent for comedy.” He believes during the interview Stein is an “honestly stupid man, sincerely seeking enlightenment from a scientist.” A lawyer, a law professor, an economist, and a speechwriter for both Nixon and Ford, Stein hardly seems to fit the description “honestly stupid.”

In the end, the film isn’t really about intelligent design as much as about a relentless attack on an authentically free inquiry. As Ben Stein points out, “Freedom of inquiry has been greatly compromised, and this is not only anti-American, it’s anti-science. It’s anti-the whole concept of learning.”

— Dave Berg is a senior segment producer at The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MzA4N2ZmZjAzYzhhNTU5MGEyOGJlN2FmMWIxMmE5M2I=

 

[EdgeIsTooSexy]

saw it last night thanks to a friend. i wasnt really into it and it turns out he didnt like it either

 

[deep]

My 80 year old neighbor asked me to take her to see this movie,
will probably go next Wed or Thurs evening.

Well

I did take my neighbor to see this Thursday 3:00 matinee. We were the only people in the audience. It opens up with a string arrangement of "All along the watch tower" most of the music was 60s and 70s, I did enjoy the music.

Ben Stein is somewhat entertaining to me.

The first 2/3s was not as far-fetched as I had expected it to be.

The last 1/3, suggesting that Darwinism drove the Nazis was a bit of a stretch. Jews have been persecuted in Europe for thousands of years with the Church's support.

The movie left me with the impression that creationism has no relationship to ID.

Also, Ben Stein does manage to pull off a "gotcha" kind of a moment with Richard Dawkins. Much like Moore did with Heston in Columbine.

 

[yolland]

^ I've noticed that many of the critics have compared Stein's style to Moore's in their reviews.

That was kind of you to take your neighbor, I hope she enjoyed it.

 

[deep]

She did.

She is a Ben Stein fan.

We shared a bag of pop corn.

I think Moore makes a better documentary.
I will admit that after leaving the theater Stein had me a bit sympathetic with the ID people.

 

[diamond]

The last 1/3, suggesting that Darwinism drove the Nazis was a bit of a stretch. Jews have been persecuted in Europe for thousands of years with the Church's support.

The movie left me with the impression that creationism has no relationship to ID.

Also, Ben Stein does manage to pull off a "gotcha" kind of a moment with Richard Dawkins. Much like Moore did with Heston in Columbine.

Deep,

That could speak to the Godless place you live in-that you we're the only 2 souls in the movie house.

I saw this last night with my girls and the ultra athetist was pinned and pleaded uncle for a bit. Comparing Heston a man with Alhemizers to Dawkins interview shows favortism to Moore and Darwinism.

I did notice the ID people being more calm and peaceful in their interviews while the athiests bristled and blinked a lot-that spoke volumes to my childen and I who happen to be 4.0 students and attend avanced classes for their age- theyre very intuitive.

I *really* felt for Ben when the tour guide of the Nazi death camps was glib and ambivilent about the inhumanity of the Nazis.

Going light on the Darwinism connection to Nazis is a cop out.
The Jews may have been persecuted and driven like the Mormons in the USA, (much worse than Mormons) but Hilter took glee in riding the planet of the Jews and those he felt were inferior, a view proffered also by Darwin.

I give the movie 7/10 Stars.

<>

 

[A_Wanderer]

Hilter took glee in riding the planet of the Jews and those he felt were inferior, a view proffered also by Darwin.

Care to give a citation for this?

 

[melon]

Hitler took glee in riding the planet of the Jews and those he felt were inferior, a view proffered also by Darwin.

I think you're confusing evolution with eugenics. Part of the confusion arises from the fact that eugenics was created by Darwin's half-cousin, Sir Francis Galton. Darwin, himself, had nothing to do with it.

Secondly, considering the sheer amount of history I've read regarding anti-Semitism, a very large chunk of it had to do with religion and religion only. In fact, the minute you'd get an imperial ruler that was inclined to be nice to Jews, you'd then get a papacy that would scream tirades against Jews and demand their conversion to Christianity or death.

To blame anti-Semitism on Darwinism is so intellectually dishonest that it's not even funny.

 

[diamond]

To blame anti-Semitism on Darwinism is so intellectually dishonest that it's not even funny.

I'm not "blaming" anti Sentimanism on Darwinsim only pointed out that many Nazis subscribed to it. Some Americans did subscribe to Eugenics in the last century for a time period.

it's also no secret that the Catholics and Nazis shared despise for the Jews, although Catholics do not subscribe to Darwinism Eugenics nor mass mudering of the Jewish ppl, those 3 traits fall at the feet of Nazis.

<>

 

[A_Wanderer]

Many Nazis subscribed to what? Anti-semitism (or Sentimainism) or Darwinism.

How does the latter poorly reflect on those who subscribe to natural selection, one might as well say that if you believe in special relativity then you are morally responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's disconnected logic, Nazism does not discredit natural selection as it has nothing to do with it; on the basis of the evidence evolution holds up wholly independent of politics or how much support it enjoys.

Everybody on the planet could believe in special creation and it wouldn't make evolution wrong; before Darwin evolution was just as much a part of reality as it has been since.

 

[A_Wanderer]

As far as the ad hominem attacks over the response of scientists and secularists to ID being some sort of shrill overreaction I feel it is very important to understand that it is about more than just an idea; it is about telling the truth, preserving the principles of the liberal democracy, ensuring the integrity of the scientific method and freedom.

It is not illiberal to prevent children being taught ID in public schools instead of or with evolution as ID is not on equal footing intellectually and would be teaching them religion by stealth. Freedom from religion does exist in state funded institutions; opposing ID in public schools is a pro-freedom (in the guise of freedom of religion) position.

 

[INDY500]

Saw the movie and enjoyed it.

Unfortunately the movie only touched on eugenics which came about when proponents of scientific evolution started to push their scientific theories into social and political arenas. Except "Social Darwinism" isn't science, it's a metaphysical ideology requiring all the faith of any religion.

Doesn't eugenics (breeding a better man, eliminating the weak) kinda make sense if your worldview professes that man is NOT inherently sacred; every life special with a Divine purpose, each human possessing an eternal soul. That the universe is a cosmic accident, death is final, and all morality is manmade with no external source of authority existing above the laws of man.

Why not? After all, why attack just the idea of man being created in God's image as "dangerous,""outdated" or worse unless you have, at least in the back of your mind, thoughts of tinkering with the design?

 

[A_Wanderer]

Saw the movie and enjoyed it.

Unfortunately the movie only touched on eugenics which came about when proponents of scientific evolution started to push their scientific theories into social and political arenas. Except "Social Darwinism" isn't science, it's a metaphysical ideology requiring all the faith of any religion.

Doesn't eugenics (breeding a better man, eliminating the weak) kinda make sense if your worldview professes that man is NOT inherently sacred; every life special with a Divine purpose, each human possessing an eternal soul. That the universe is a cosmic accident, death is final, and all morality is manmade with no external source of authority existing above the laws of man.

Why not? After all, why attack just the idea of man being created in God's image as "dangerous,""outdated" or worse unless you have, at least in the back of your mind, thoughts of tinkering with the design?

Why does your moral god allow so many miscarriages to take place, why does your moral god inflict poor infants with deadly genetic disorders that leave a quick painful life here and ongoing suffering for families?

It isn't a leap of faith to suggest that screening embryos and selecting the ones without severely deleterious traits would minimise suffering.

Fewer Severe Birth Defects = Less Suffering.

It isn't tinkering with design, it is tinkering with an evolutionary accident. Genetic diseases in a theistic special creator world are designed elements that are part of humanity - and God is responsible for that suffering. In a materialistic world they are the products of genetic variation, which persist in the gene pool because they are neutral or confer some advantage to carriers and occasionally cause problems for unlucky offspring.

Natural selection does inform philosophy and metaphysics, it grounds speculation with real world facts and can give a firmer base to speculate on the big questions. That such a world view is unbound from an anthropomorphic God and undercuts a divine teleology may be cause for suspicion by believers; but they need to appeal to reality if they expect to be listened to.

 

[Irvine511]

Why not? After all, why attack just the idea of man being created in God's image as "dangerous,""outdated" or worse unless you have, at least in the back of your mind, thoughts of tinkering with the design?

sounds like religious fundamentalism -- no gays, strict gender roles, kill the non-believers -- to me.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Why not? After all, why attack just the idea of man being created in God's image as "dangerous,""outdated" or worse unless you have, at least in the back of your mind, thoughts of tinkering with the design?

I knew that ID was talking about God but they pretend it isn't (hence why Dawkins point about our potential intelligent designer being an evolved alien - extraterrestrial life can exist in the universe given what we know much more easily than a supernatural deity).

Attacking the idea as outdated is fair because special creation fails to account for the diversity in the natural world for good or ill (there are some ugly parasites and infectious diseases out there; I would have serious problems with worshipping that designer).

Attacking it as dangerous is true, it is dangerous to your country; if you can't teach your kids science then America looses it's tech edge and the only people that benefit are Godless foreigners (actually it is in my interest for American theocracy, at least for a few years). Evolutionary biology is a unifying theory for the natural world, it places it all in context and biology is important - people need things like food and medicine and it would be dangerous to compromise the future development of those essentials.

 

[INDY500]

It is not illiberal to prevent children being taught ID in public schools instead of or with evolution as ID is not on equal footing intellectually and would be teaching them religion by stealth.

Which religion does ID teach?

In truth, I don't want ID taught in mathematics, physics or chemistry class. But if the origin of the universe or life comes up in astronomy or biology class, then either discussions should be limited to observable facts or 1 or 2 days should be set aside for students to present their thoughts and ideas to the class.

Nobody gets indoctrinated and it sure beats "We don't know."

opposing ID in public schools is a pro-freedom (in the guise of freedom of religion) position.

More in the guise of "freedom from religion" I'd say.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Which religion does ID teach?

In truth, I don't want ID taught in mathematics, physics or chemistry class. But if the origin of the universe or life comes up in astronomy or biology class, then either discussions should be limited to observable facts or 1 or 2 days should be set aside for students to present their thoughts and ideas to the class.

Nobody gets indoctrinated and it sure beats "We don't know."



More in the guise of "freedom from religion" I'd say.

You just answered your own question; science discussions must be grounded in fact, scientific speculations and hypothesis must also take account of facts, when you say that discussion shouldn't be limited to the facts and kids should be exposed to other presumably theistic points of view it is no longer science.

Science doesn't know, yet; but at this point in time it seems to be the only system of knowledge with any chance of getting the right answers. We have hypothesis about the origin of life on earth such as RNA world and the big bang theory has supporting evidence. These hypothesis and theories take account of facts, they get taught in that context.

Just because you feel that acknowledging the reality of our ignorance isn't good enough is not a cause to substitute lies into the classroom. When a scientist says we don't know it is not a resignation to failure, it isn't saying that we will never know, it is an invitation to finding out; in the real world, not from a bronze aged revealed truth.

ID posits an intelligent designer, this codeword for God does not absolve it of it's religious origin - it is talking about a supernatural entity (otherwise they would acknowledge that aliens are the most likely intelligent designers). The ID hypothesis is positing design as an answer for the origin of life but does not answer the origin of the designer. It is not really an answer to any question and it lacks the power of evolutionary biology (by power I mean the capacity to incorporate new facts, anticipate new discoveries and explain the world around us in a consistent fashion). If we play along and pretend that it is a scientific hypothesis (as proponents insist; while also saying that astrology is a legitimate hypothesis, see Michael Behe in the courtroom) it is nowhere near as good as Darwinian evolution. It is simply not deserving of attention in the science curriculum of any reasonable school because it is a weak hypothesis (not a fleshed out theory).

Freedom from religion is just as much a part of the first amendment as freedom of religion. You cannot have the state subsidising religious indoctrination even if it is in the context of an open discussion in the taxpayer funded classroom.

 

[INDY500]

- extraterrestrial life can exist in the universe given what we know much more easily than a supernatural deity).

No, that is only how you interpret what we know. That is a metaphysical statement. It is beyond physics and observable science. It is your opinion and is just a theory. Fine, so is ID. Even though absolutely no credible evidence has turned up on this planet, through telescopes, from our limited space exploration, or by SETI, it would be sheer speculation for me to discount any possibility of extraterrestrial life. I'm glad we're looking.

Maybe evidence of alien worlds surrounds us and we just lack the tools or knowledge to discover it. Of coarse the same might be said of a Creator or a Design.

Attacking it as dangerous is true, it is dangerous to your country; if you can't teach your kids science then America looses it's tech edge and the only people that benefit are Godless foreigners

Our "tech edge"?
Using your "religious people shun science" theory, how did the most religious country in the Western world ever develop a "tech edge" in the first place? The Clinton Enlightenment of the 90's?

Evolutionary biology is a unifying theory for the natural world, it places it all in context and biology is important - people need things like food and medicine and it would be dangerous to compromise the future development of those essentials.

Social Darwinism. Rid ourselves of religion -- put all our faith in science -- or famine and pestilence will surely lay waste to the earth.

 

[A_Wanderer]

No, that is only how you interpret what we know. That is a metaphysical statement. It is beyond physics and observable science. It is your opinion and is just a theory. Fine, so is ID. Even though absolutely no credible evidence has turned up on this planet, through telescopes, from our limited space exploration, or by SETI, it would be sheer speculation for me to discount any possibility of extraterrestrial life. I'm glad we're looking.

Wrong, we can detect extrasolar planets which tells us that there are other potential places where life could exist. We can analyse the atmospheres of some of those planets and detect organic molecules, free oxygen etc. cues that may suggest life. Life on other planets is possible, we have one point of reference which is Life on Earth and there is nothing intrinsically divine about it, there is no reason to suppose it can't happen on other planets.

Maybe evidence of alien worlds surrounds us and we just lack the tools or knowledge to discover it. Of coarse the same might be said of a Creator or a Design.

We have the basic tools, they just need to be refined. Life on Earth obeys the laws of physics, there is nothing prohibiting it forming on other planets (the rapid origin of life on Earth recorded by chemical fossils in the geological record is even suggestive that life was either formed rapidly or introduced to Earth via panspermia). It is not the same as supposing a creator God for which there is no point of reference and no evidence to suppose. We know that life exists in the universe and obeys the laws of physics and evolution is a consequence of organic replication; we can't say the same about God, there is no reason to suppose God exists, we can say that life exists.

Our "tech edge"?
Using your "religious people shun science" theory, how did the most religious country in the Western world ever develop a "tech edge" in the first place? The Clinton Enlightenment of the 90's?

Crypto-atheist Jews of course, with their disproportionate contributions across the board. My point was a simple one which is that biology makes no sense without evolution. That if you are downplaying it's role in the classroom in high school then it makes it that extra bit harder to get talented scientists in those fields. If you are producing fewer scientists your countries capacity for innovation will suffer, and that gap will be taken up by other countries.

Social Darwinism. Rid ourselves of religion -- put all our faith in science -- or famine and pestilence will surely lay waste to the earth.

Yeah, it is pure religion; the God of science will smite people for their ignorance.

Rejecting the encroachment of religious belief into the secular education system is not unbridled scientism or Social Darwinism.

You seem to feel that there is always faith in people and that science involves just as much faith as religion. I reject that notion, on the basis that the assumptions that underpin the scientific method are consistently scrutinised both within and without and that the system is self-correcting; ideas can be junked if they don't hold up. While like any human being I function under the illusions given by common sense I try to scrutinise them when I can and am more than willing to let go of what feels right because my brain says so and what is actually the case (e.g. if I imagine weights of different masses dropping in a vacuum my brain intuitively goes for the wrong answer, we cannot trust what feels right if it isn't verified).

 

[INDY500]

Just because you feel that acknowledging the reality of our ignorance isn't good enough is not a cause to substitute lies into the classroom.

And you just answered when I might support ID being taught in schools. When textbooks and teachers start expressing this terribly condescending attitude towards people of faith.

Freedom from religion is just as much a part of the first amendment as freedom of religion. You cannot have the state subsidising religious indoctrination

Neither should schools or public education work to undermine a students faith.

 

[A_Wanderer]

And you just answered when I might support ID being taught in schools. When textbooks and teachers start expressing this terribly condescending attitude towards people of faith.

I am not a teacher in a public school, I am not talking to a student while being on a public payroll, I have no obligation to respect religious belief - if I was teaching a high school class I don't think it would be professional or even allowed within policy to belittle a students religious beliefs and call them a moron. One can teach evolutionary biology without referencing religion beyond the historical context. Explaining how rival explanations for the diversity of life on earth included things like William Paley's special creation and neo-platonic idealism may have a place in the classroom, even those explanations were not correct (even though they were puported by leading scientists of the day such such as Richard Owen who is one of the finest comparative anatomists ever).

I have no obligation to respect belief when it isn't in my self-interest because it doesn't make the answer any less right or wrong. Civility in discourse may be agreeable and desirable but it is never a given.

Neither should schools or public education work to undermine a students faith.

Not at the expense of standards in education. The implications of Darwin extend to the metaphysical, it doesn't need to be spelled out to people but if they pause to think they realise it. It would be wrong abuse students merely because they have a strong belief in a creator but teaching them evolution and leaving them to draw their own conclusions about the metaphysics is perfectly reasonable (especially at high school level). Evolutionary biology is the way the world works regardless of a person being a Christian, Jew, Hindu, Taoist or Atheist and teaching them how it works is not attacking their right to believe.

 

[diamond]

Care to give a citation for this?

tell us you're joking..

please.

<>

 

[melon]

it's also no secret that the Catholics and Nazis shared despise for the Jews, although Catholics do not subscribe to Darwinism Eugenics nor mass mudering of the Jewish ppl, those 3 traits fall at the feet of Nazis.

Most all Christians did in this era, not just Catholics. Anti-Semitism in Europe was as old as the Roman Empire itself. It likely had to do with prejudices arising out of the fact that the Jewish Roman province was in frequent rebellion, and, from a Greco-Roman POV, many of their practices were seen as primitive/barbaric (i.e., circumcision & polygamy). Over time, obviously, it got much worse.

Eugenics, while indefensible, cannot be cited as an origin for anti-Semitism. And it should be very much remembered that eugenics and Darwinism are separate concepts. After all, the vast, vast majority of those who ascribe to evolution very much refute eugenics (you'll always find a fringe that supports anything, so that's why you can't say "all"), and eugenics has no bearing at all on evolutionary science. It is a complete non sequitor.

 

[A_Wanderer]

tell us you're joking..

please.

<>

From a great biography that I just finished reading Darwin didn't support a selective breeding registry for Englands best and brightest.

That simply because natural selection has an intellectual heritage with Malthus doesn't make it identical. Implicating Darwin as some sort of instigator of illiberal social policy is dishonest. If you make the charge back it up.

 

[Diemen]

tell us you're joking..

please.

<>

Actually he's not, and if you were to actually read the full context of what Darwin wrote, you would find that he was against the type of thinking that would lead to eugenics.

The movie only quotes this:

"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick, thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.”

But what it omits is Darwin's next conclusion on this:

“The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.”

Hardly the argument for eugenics represented in the movie.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Eugenics, while indefensible, cannot be cited as an origin for anti-Semitism. And it should be very much remembered that eugenics and Darwinism are separate concepts. After all, the vast, vast majority of those who ascribe to evolution very much refute eugenics (you'll always find a fringe that supports anything, so that's why you can't say "all"), and eugenics has no bearing at all on evolutionary science. It is a complete non sequitor.

Not neccessarily, the move towards selection of embryos and designer babies is a form of eugenics, in some ways positive eugenics. It is not indefensible and it must be separated from state sponsered discrimination and coercion. A separate argument from natural selection to be sure but one that does exist.

If you gave people a hypothetical where their potential offspring had a strong likelihood of a genetic disease and they were given a option of selecting a healthy embryo I think most people would take it up. If those types of decisons start getting made throughout society on a regular basis then eugenics is taking place and I don't think that is an intrinsically bad thing.

These questions are not clear cut, the ethics of eugenics is not to be found in Nazi pseudo-science and it is demanding and will continue to demand informed discussion to make the right ethical decisions.

 

[diamond]

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sophistry

at
it's
finest.

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