// August 23rd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Thoughts
Because I apparently hate myself, I just spent an hour finishing up watching Ben Stein’s contemptible excuse for a documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. It is a pathetic film told by a vile, dishonest weasel, all about this fabricated “war” between the “science establishment” versus the open minded researchers that are innocently interested in intelligent design. He randomly hops the fence on whether or not ID is about god or not, which he is free to do, I suppose, because he’s fascinatingly incapable of really even trying to define what ID is.
But I digress. After I wasted a part of my life watching this slop, I spent about an hour crafted a review (review, rant, whatever) to post up on Netflix, only to discover upon hitting Send that Netflix has a 2,000 character limit. This is most certainly longer than that. So instead of contain my rage to those bright red pages, I’ll share with my general readership instead. All two of you.
One star is an undeserved compliment to this filthy excuse for a documentary. Ben Stein is a dishonest, plodding, parody of a man seeking any sort of truthful understanding. I say this not to attack Ben Stein personally and baselessly, but to inform any potential viewer of the habits and intent of the film as propped up by the man placing himself in front of the camera and telling the story.
Defying his ridiculous claim to remain logical when Darwinian scientists cannot, Stein frequently relies purely on an appeal to emotion. Hell gleefully make a very strong connection between Darwin and Hitler, never wasting an opportunity to display Nazi footage when he speaks of the atrocities of Darwin’s successors. He questions what the world would be like if PZ Myers world of without religion were to occur. His immediate response is to remind us that it was Darwin that led directly to Hitler, heavily implying that it is Darwin’s (and by natural extension, all of science’s) fault that six million jews were exterminated by one man. The intent is to force the ignorant viewer into believing that Hitler was the puppet of the real “one man” that started it all, Charles Darwin. Let us not forget that religion has led directly to countless atrocities throughout all human history, and shows no sign of slowing down. (This isn’t the same ridiculously dishonest speculation in which Stein engages. Read your history. Read your religion! It’s pretty bloody! Good luck finding any of that in this unbiased documentary.) Yes, humans are violent, territorial, xenophobic things. Guess what? So are apes! So are most other animals! Evolution at work, giving the world better and better killing machines that are better and better at surviving! Its an ugly truth, sure, but there’s hardly any doubting it if one is able to take a real, honest look at the world.
It’s hard to discuss Ben Steins vile attempt at an unbiased portrayal of this one-sided, woe-is-the-creationist war between “Darwinians” and the open-minded in a calm and composed way because he so cheerfully ignores his own demand that we be logical and above the “establishment’s” bias. He appears utterly incapable of this, and he proves it time and time and time again. What he is capable of is making purely emotional claims, backed by his confidence that you will be frightened by what you see, because you are so stupid, so brainless that you will see all that Nazi imagery, see his forced tears, hear all about his “needing time to think,” hear all his holocaust tales, that you will forget the blatant logical inconsistencies of his argument (or never realize they’re there in the first place) and be convinced that science is some world-wide old boys network that will bar any sort of open minded inquiry. This also requires a willful ignorance of both the process and the history of science, a method of understanding nature that is steeped in self-doubt. That’s quite simply how science works, no matter what Stein’s monotone droning insists. It’s hard to discuss this logically because Stein so brazenly refuses to be logical. His arguments are rarely anything but emotional, so that is what he threatens to reduce me to. I’ll save that for another review, but take this from my ranting: If you are looking for a movie that takes an honest, balanced look at the idea of “intelligent design” and especially at Darwin’s theory of evolution (a theory that has itself continued to mature and evolve since it first hit the science scene), this is absolutely, one hundred percent, NOT your documentary. It’s offensive to even label it a documentary. This film is only good for the hopelessly religious, because it will certainly galvanize them in their institutional ignorance, and the logical-minded masochist (like myself apparently) who feels like watching something so shockingly evil that you’ll feel inspired to write your first-ever movie review.
Hopefully there aren’t many like the latter, because I feel filthy just adding one to the count of fools duped into watching this whole thing. Please, Ben Stein, stop doing what you’re doing. No more religious films dishonestly disguised as documentaries, and no more implying that a scientist is a closet Nazi. This film is an embarrassment.
