Anti-evolution movie is deceptive by design

Guest Post by Morbo

Last week I wrote about actor Ben Stein’s new documentary attacking evolution titled “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” It now appears that Stein and the group that produced the film may have employed deceptive tactics to trick evolution proponents into appearing on camera. Three noted evolution supporters came forward this week to say they were misled.

Among them is Richard Dawkins, the famous zoologist and author from Oxford University. Dawkins told The New York Times he was approached by a group called Rampant Films inviting him to appear in a documentary called “Crossroads.” The names sound benign, and no indication was given that the production would criticize evolution. Dawkins said he would not have agreed to appear in the movie had he known it was a front for “intelligent design.”

Two other scientists interviewed by Stein’s crew — Genie Scott at the National Center for Science Education and P.Z. Myers, a biologist at the University of Minnesota — say they would have appeared on camera anyway but would have appreciated knowing upfront that the producers were ID backers. It might have affected the type of answers they gave.

Stein insists he has done nothing wrong, but it seems to me he and his friends have a problem with honesty. In light of that, simple integrity calls on him to do two things: First, remove Dawkins from the documentary entirely. Then re-interview Scott and Myers, giving them the opportunity to provide more pointed answers. Will Stein have the fundamental decency to do this? I’m not holding my breath.



A couple of more thoughts on this: Religious moderates often wonder why some advocates of evolution get so worked up over intelligent design. After all, ID rejects the more outlandish claims of traditional creationism (young Earth, literal worldwide flood, etc.) and merely asserts that God must have been involved in the creation of the universe. What’s the big deal?

A clue is found in the Times story. Stein told the paper “he accepted the producers’ invitation to participate in the film not because he disavows the theory of evolution — he said there was a ‘very high likelihood’ that Darwin was on to something — but because he does not accept that evolution alone can explain life on earth. He said he also believed the theory of evolution leads to racism and ultimately genocide, an idea common among creationist thinkers. If it were up to him, he said, the film would be called ‘From Darwin to Hitler.'”

So, a scientific principle that maintains that humankind has a common origin (from southern Africa, no less) and that underscores the fact that we’re all related (thus meaning that distinctions of race, class, religion and tribe are all equally meaningless) leads to racism and genocide? If Stein really believes this, he is a moron, and such idiotic views must be kept far away from our classrooms.

Finally, kudos to Cornelia Dean, the author of The Times story. She wrote in part:

There is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on earth. And while individual scientists may embrace religious faith, the scientific enterprise looks to nature to answer questions about nature. As scientists at Iowa State University put it last year, supernatural explanations are “not within the scope or abilities of science.”

At long last — a journalist who understands that “balance” does not require that discredited, pseudoscientific nonsense must be treated the same as actual science.