Ben Stein blames Darwin for Nazism and the Holocaust in his new movie. He might as well blame Jesus.
I know something about Mr. Sternberg, so I posted an entry for him in the Skeptic's Dictionary. The Sternberg case is no case at all. If Stein calls this "the most egregious" case, the other cases must be truly without any merit.
People are free to believe in intelligent design, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Thor, Votan, Wotan, Zeus, Athena, or whatever religious idea or entity they feel like believing in. But they don't have the right to call their beliefs science or to be given a hearing along with scientific views in the science classroom. Why is Stein whining about creationists as if they should be allowed to teach biology because they believe an intelligent designer created the world? Everybody's free to believe or not in an intelligent designer and in our society everyone is free to express that belief. Being a lawyer, Stein must know that freedom of speech doesn't mean anybody can go anywhere and say anything at any time. I can't go to his synagogue uninvited and disrupt services by reciting my poetry. He can't break into my house and give a lecture on the evils of Darwinism. Creationists can't claim a right to go into anyone's classroom and tell the students that in their view intelligent design is a viable alternative to natural selection. Intelligent design is the belief in a creator. Stein's ignorance about the fact that many people believe in a creator and accept evolution is evident from what he says in interviews. He's an educated, intelligent man, but he's also a lawyer so he knows how easy it would be for an incompetent or unproductive scholar who is an outspoken creationist to claim that he's being denied tenure because of his religious views. His colleagues might not like him for a variety of reasons but if he cries religious discrimination he might get what he wants even if he doesn't deserve it.
Fortunately for Stein the people who interview him on television are as ignorant of science as he is and can be led down the path on which he wants to take them. In American television, the ignorant leading the ignorant is an anthem, a creed. It's one of our main forms of entertainment and amusement. If it weren't for YouTube and those who post clips from these TV shows, I wouldn't know anything about Ben Stein and his clumsy attempt at anti-science propaganda.
The main lesson I am learning from people like Stein and his minions is that anti-scientific religious people don't care about the truth at all. They make no effort to educate themselves about science. They think they know the truth from the Bible or from their upbringing. They're intelligent and articulate enough to buffalo their way through life seeming to understand what they're talking about because for the most part they communicate with people who are even more ignorant and less caring about science than they are. Not only don't the Ben Steins of the world care about truth, they seem to have no feelings of guilt at lying and deceiving and misleading others about both science and religion.
What next? Acupuncturists and Indian herbalists claiming they are being persecuted because they aren't being allowed to teach their alternatives in medical schools? Actually, the alternative quacks have already won the war and many medical schools now offer junk science along with evidence-based medicine. Will biology departments give in as medical schools have? Will we one day have alternative science taught in all our classrooms? When that happens I'll make my own documentary. I'd call it Stupid and Stupider, but that might mislead people into thinking it was about foreign policy.
I have learned a lot from Ben Stein, a Jewish brother, who has opened my eyes up a bit.
Shermer passed the letter around and Richard Dawkins has written a very eloquent reply that is posted on his website. It is worth a read for those who want details about Hitler and Darwin.
Expelled relies on the viewer's inability or unwillingness to wrestle with a complex corner of science, double-talking its way toward a "must be a miracle" solution to anything that science may not claim to have an answer for. Dismiss that for having no basis in fact, and you're infringing on "academic freedom."
The advertisement in the Bee for the movie had supportive blurbs from talk show host and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Michael Medved and "national treasure" Rush Limbaugh.
Yes, Ben Stein reasoned that the genocide in Cambodia was the responsibility of those who exposed Richard Nixon's attempt to cover-up crimes committed by one of the greatest collections of enemies of free speech who have ever run the White House (present company excluded). With reasoning like that, one wonders how he has survived as a public figure. You'd think he'd have drowned in the ridicule by now.