Oh, good gawd. I just went and watched the way-too-long "trailer" of Ben Stein's "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed."
I read a few months ago that he was working on some pro-intelligent-design (creationism), anti-Darwin propaganda film, but had forgotten about it. I think it was dreamed up right after the Dover, Pennsylvania, court case on ID where these same cast of characters got their asses handed to them by the judge.
More below the fold --
If you don't know, Ben Stein is a extreme-right-wing mouthpiece. You might only know him from Ferris Beuller. Google him, have a vomit bag handy, and spend half an hour trying to get through articles about him. You can also do a search at Crooks and Liars -- they pretty regularly post articles on whatever he has regurgitated to the news media on any given week.
He puts himself out there as some kind of alternative voice of reason, cool because he's soooo intellectually superior to all the other kool kidz. He spouts the standard fox news quality shit about extreme-right positions concerning religion, science, abortion, women's rights, national security, trade treaties, and any other hot-button issue you can think of that might get him some air time.
And then once in awhile he'll come out with a bone for people not as extreme as him -- like the Spitzer thing last week when he said an elected official shouldn't have been ousted from office by an appointed one, instead of droning on about the moral bankruptcy of the democratic governor like all his cohorts have been. It's pretty obvious that he says shit like that when he's not getting enough press saying the shit he usually says; i.e., pure shock value and so the pundits can say, "Right wing conservative Ben Stein shocked the press today when he said" -- and fill in the blank and the prime time news slot there.
What the film is about is to refute Darwinism, try to get people to believe that the theory of evolution is bunk, and to get intelligent design and then way more religious dogma into the schools. Period.
He's wrapping it all in the typical tone of his psuedo-bored superior intellectualism and presenting himself as a victim of all those nasty, rigid, unyielding, authoritarian SCIENTISTS who think he and his cohorts and their ideas are bullshit. Even the way he casually passes on what we're supposed to take as a generally-accepted description of what scientists believe tells you where he's coming from. I jotted down a few as the "trailer" droned on: "They believe life was created by mud animated by lightning," "We all got here by some cosmic mistake," "Dr. Steinberg and other scientists like him -- everyone's after them," "Darwinists are afraid of alternative ideas."
Oh, gag me.
First off, NOBODY who believes in evolution believes life was created by "mud animated by lightning." Stein isn't saying that as a joke -- he's saying that these out-there scientists who believe in Darwin believe that life was created by mud being animated by lightening. Preachers preach that that's what scientists believe. That's not what scientists believe and never was.
Second, NOBODY who believes in evolution describes it as "random" or "some cosmic mistake." It is the exact opposite: Blob A has a gene that allows him it to spit poison, Blob B does not. Blob C is hungry and eats Blob B. Blob B ceases to exist before making any more baby Blob B's to be eaten by Blob C. Blob C rewards himself with sex and procreates.
Blob C tries to eat Blob A. Blob C is poisoned and dies. Blob C's babies see it get poisoned and die from trying to eat Blob A. The baby Blob C's never try to eat Blob A again, developing a taste and tolerance for eating Plant X instead. And so on. Shrink that down to what the history of Atom A and Atom B or Cell A and Cell B or Bird A and Bird B or Chimp A and Chimp B are and that's pretty much evolution and it's been proven and proven and proven. Nothing random about it. No freak act of God, nature, or even Blob C -- just an adaptation change that let a species survive and develop over hours, days, eons.
But the preachers and the right wingers boil it down to a movie trailer that remarks in a very underhanded, understated way that those ridiculous scientists believe that life is the result of "some cosmic mistake." Then they explain how even-handed and tolerant they, the superior ones, are of these out-there scientists and then they slide on to their next "fact."
Which is almost INVARIABLY that everyone is out to get them for their "radical" ideas and to silence them for not "toeing the authoritarian line." They again tell you how respectful they are of the other "point of view," but that they only get ridicule from "the others" in return. They then drum up psuedo-scientists who have already been totally discredited for, not DIFFERENT IDEAS, but WRONG FACTS based on pushing their religious ideology that have, indeed, been debunked from day one by people who, yes, DO know the difference between fact and fiction.
That's how we ended up with a bush administration national health institute web page that said breast cancer is caused by abortion: A right-wing asshole went and got himself a college degree in science so he could perform a "study" on rats that by every standard of scientific testing known and respected by any serious scientist in the world was flawed and slanted to get the result that abortion causes breast cancer, did the "test," lo and behold got a result that could be spun into that abortion causes breast cancer, published the results, was debunked and laughed at by every serious scientist in the world -- and to this day gets quoted as a valid "scientific study" linking breast cancer and abortion by right-wingers, right up to the top health offices in the "most advanced" country in the world. But he's a SCIENTIST.
This Dr. Steinberg with the long, sad, victimized profile in the trailer pops to the surface everywhere intelligent design is trying to be pushed into the schools as an "alternative idea" to evolution because it's a "theory." He says in the trailer something along the lines that he was already getting a "chilly reception" from his colleagues before publishing his intelligent design propaganda and that it got "downright icy" or something from there. That's because he was a snake oil salesman from the beginning and real scientists already knew that. He was purposely trying to muddy what is really a very clear stream -- that evolution happened and happens -- with religious ideology by putting himself out there as a "real scientist" that right-wing assholes can quote as saying, "Oh, yes, Darwinism is one idea, but, really, folks, lightning and mud? Random cosmic mistakes? Can't we even QUESTION that maybe there's another answer? Maybe God? Many scientists dismiss Darwin as flawed." He and his "research" are there strictly to give extreme right-wingers something to quote. No serious, mainstream scientist believes any of it.
"Many scientists" do not dismiss Darwin as flawed. In no country in the world but right-wing America is Darwin seen as an "idea" equal to the "idea" of ID.
If you listen just a tiny bit to any right-wing extremist, you will hear this "victim" card being played over and over: "I'm being shut out because they are an organization of bullies and won't hear of anything outside what they say." "This black-out of ideas is everywhere. Even the media is after us. You cannot hear these ideas expressed at any university in America." It's part of their script. There isn't a right-wing stand on any issue that doesn't include at its very core that scientists, the media, and universities are out to get them.
Climbing off my Daily Kos soapbox now. When I have another hour to kill, I'll let you know how I feel about whatever movie or book or fox news show is out there saying global warming is a hoax, too.