Under the guise of working on my private reading, I went to Ben Stein's new movie, Expelled on Sunday. I left about an hour into it. Here's what I've learned: Ben Stein is not a very good scientist, nor is he a very convincing arbitrator of science debates. He is, however, very funny in Ferris Beuler's Day Off.
Ben Stein is also an academically dishonest hack. Him movie makes the claim that the scientific community stifles free speech and chills discussion--unfairly--over intelligent design. So far so good. I'm willing to buy that the scientific community stifles free speech. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that they should stifle free speech. Scientists are bound to, you know, practice science, so if a scientist isn't practicing science, and, in the case of intelligent design, practicing something fundamentally contrary to science, I'd say they should lose their tenure or not be allowed to keep their cushy grants. Why? Because they're scientists not practicing science.
Ben Stein disagrees, and probably not because he interviewed mostly IDers and made scientists out to be Nazi, atheist hacks (I'm not kidding).
That's my favorite part--and the part I walked out on. Stein was explaining how Darwinism is a necessary condition for Nazism, which is probablly true. And, while, when pressed, he's careful to say that not all Darwinists are Nazi's, he does make the claims that "Darwinism gave the rational for the holocaust," and "Hitler was a lineal descendant of Darwin." Cute, right?
So, if he isn't trying to paint all Darwinists as Nazis, I wonder what his was in taking a little tour of concentration camps in a movie about Intelligent Design. If it were to show that (1) Darwinism "is a necessary condition for Nazism," then that's a pretty weak claim. That's like saying "Catholicism is a necessary condition for the Spanish Inquisition," or "Guns were a necessary condition for the Holocaust. " These statements, you note, don't really say much about the first antecendent. That is to say, what does it matter that "Darwinism is a necessary condition for Nazism?" (It's also a necessary condition for Biology--by the by)
Seriously, though, why bother spending a good chunk of time in a film dedicated to intelligent design comparing Darwin to Hitler unless you were trying to make a stronger claim? Why bother doing it unless what you mean is Darwinism leads to Nazism. He got Dawkins (unsurprisingly) to say that Darwinism led to Atheism. And he followed that up with the Nazi bit.
At any rate, I find it funny that in a movie about the horrors of chilling free speech, Stein would pull out the "Hitler did it" ad hominem bullshit. Seriously, the irony is almost too much to bear.
Lastly, I wanted to take some time to discuss Senator Clinton's new anti-intellectual bent. On the gas tax, The New York Times quotes her as saying:
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Sunday dismissed the "elite opinion" of economists who criticized her gas tax proposal, using a term that has dogged rival Barack Obama in recent weeks.
Seriously, this "Obama is an elitist" narrative is just another iteration of the old Democrats are elitist narrative that was used against Carter, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry. It's getting a little old. For Senator Clinton to be using it against a fellow Democrat is both shocking and, sadly, not so shocking.
Here's my personal favorite bit from The Times's piece:
"I'm not going to put my lot in with economists," the New York senator said when asked to name a credible economist who supported her proposal.
Say what you want about Econ, and I say plenty, but they do sometimes know what they're talking about. I'm impressed that she's turned an utter lack of Economic support for her plan into a positive, which is probably good politics on her part. I'm less impressed that she did it by buying into the old anti-intellectual gambit that has been perfected by the Republicans over the last few cycles.
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