User Submitted Blog Post: Future Compliant, April 18 2008 - Expelled from Compliance

Future Compliant April 19, 2008

Yesterday marked the official release of a movie that is the antithesis of future compliance an anti-science, ignorant, biased piece of propaganda called Expelled. The film claims to be about academic freedom and open discussion of scientific controversies, but that's all just a smoke screen that thinly veils its real purpose: to promote the religion based, utterly unscientific proposition known as Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design is merely warmed over, watered down creationism and i not a scientific theory, much less a hypothesis. It's the latest gambit from religious radicals trying to sneak their god into classrooms, a desperate, hopefully futile attempt to block true science (and real facts) from impinging on their superstitions and un-founded beliefs. It's been debunked and destroyed time and again, but it keeps rearing its ugly head, and this time that head is Ben Stein.

Ben Stein has never held much of my esteem, although I did used to watch his game show and enjoyed it. But here he's either shown he's an idiot or a total sell out. I don't think he's an idiot, although he might well be, so I'm inclined to believe he's just a sell out, willing to hitch his wagon to the creationist gravy train for a while. Either way, he should be ashamed of himself for his role in this film. The fact that the film explicitly states that there would not have been a holocaust if not for Nazi's getting inspiration from Charles Darwin is not only stupid, wrong, and ignorant, but also hateful, arrogant, and dismissive of the real causes of one of history's worst tragedies. Plus here's the worst part - even if it were true (and it isn't) the idea that Hitler might have been wrongly inspired by Darwin DOES NOT MEAN DARWIN WAS WRONG. This is a pure propaganda move on the film makers' part, a huge logical fallacy that's utterly embarrassing, or would be if the film's creators were capable of embarrassment.

But you don't even have to watch the movie to get a sense of Expelled's wrong-headedness and bad faith dealing. The commercial that plagued Comedy Central for much of this past week (and no doubt other places as well), features Stein in the back of a classroom where a scraggly haired, confused looking old professor type is droning on about evolution. Stein raises his hand and asks the supposedly tough and meaningful question: "But where did life come from?" There are good hypotheses and evidence that answer that question without resorting to supernatural or "Intelligent Design," but that's not the problem. The problem is, that is not a question evolutionary theory even asks! Evolutionary theory is not about the origin of life, it's about the descent of life with modifcation from common ancestry. It does not address or care where that life started. And there is no way that Stein and the creators of Expelled have not had this basic fact explained to them over and over again either in print or, I suspect, in person. But no, they decide to pander to their audience with what they think are the hard questions. It's just ridiculous and insulting.

This is one of those key issues that just gets me going. I'm sorry to disappoint the evolutionary theory denialists out there, but evolution from common descent is a fact. The theory of evolution is an attempt to explain that fact, and is still the subject of intense and interesting debate among scientists. But evolution is an observed, provable fact. Creationism is delusional and Intelligent Design Creationism is an attempt to shoe-horn God into the gaps of our current understanding. ID makes no predictions, provides no evidence, and is so wrong it's not even a theory.

Returning to my larger themes for these Future Compliant posts, I want to reiterate that this kind of denialist, dishonest thinking that underlies Expelled and other creationist propaganda pieces is the exact opposite of future compliance. In order to get ready for the future you've got to do your best to understand the present, and any attempt to teach utter, unproven nonsense in schools (or out of schools for that matter) is going to harm students and stunt their understanding of the world.

I think the a world view unclouded by superstitions and baseless biases is vital for moving forward individually or collectively in the world. I'm not saying this just because a scientific, reason based outlook is better than a superstition based one (although I think it is) but because it's also more fun! Understanding how the world works is incredibly interesting. Even better is the ability to explore the world, be it nature or technology or software or books or ideas, with a mind that's sharp and well-tuned to uncovering truth. This is key to the hacker ethic - the ability to see things as they really are and then explore/use/create with them in new and innovative ways. By ignoring reality in favor of dogma, Stein and his fellow film makers are doing themselves and the rest of us a profound disservice.

Check out the Web site Expelled Exposed for a rundown on all the problems with this atrocious film. Be sure to watch the very funny video on the front page, which also happens to make a great point.