Ben Stein to star in ID "movie"

[Lisa]

I’m Ben Stein – many of you know me from the classic film, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” or from my Comedy Central show “Win Ben Stein’s Money”. Still others of you may know me as a speechwriter, for presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. You may even have read my books, attended one of my lectures at The American University, Washington DC, or seen me on the talk shows.
I’m glad you found this site, because I want to share with you my thoughts from time to time here about a subject that is very near and dear to me: freedom. EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed is a controversial, soon-to-be-released documentary that chronicles my confrontation with the widespread suppression and entrenched discrimination that is spreading in our institutions, laboratories and most importantly, in our classrooms, and that is doing irreparable harm to some of the world’s top scientists, educators, and thinkers.
America is not America without freedom. In every turning point in our history, freedom has been the key goal we are seeking: the Mayflower coming here, the Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, the Cold War. Tens of millions came here from foreign oppression and made a life here. Why? For freedom. Human beings are supposed to live in a state of freedom. Freedom is not conferred by the state: as our founders said, and as Martin Luther King repeated, freedom is God-given.
A huge part of this freedom is freedom of inquiry.
Freedom of inquiry is basic to human advancement. There would be no modern medicine, no antibiotics, no brain surgery, no Internet, no air conditioning, no modern travel, no highways, no knowledge of the human body without freedom of inquiry.
This includes the ability to inquire whether a higher power, a being greater than man, is involved with how the universe operates. This has always been basic to science. ALWAYS.
Some of the greatest scientists of all time, including Galileo, Newton, Einstein, operated under the hypothesis that their work was to understand the principles and phenomena as designed by a creator.
Operating under that hypothesis, they discovered the most important laws of motion, gravity, thermodynamics, relativity, and even economics.
Now, I am sorry to say, freedom of inquiry in science is being suppressed.
Under a new anti-religious dogmatism, scientists and educators are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator. Do you realize that some of the leading lights of “anti-intelligent design” would not allow a scientist who merely believed in the possibility of an intelligent designer/creator to work for him… EVEN IF HE NEVER MENTIONED the possibility of intelligent design in the universe?EVEN FOR HIS VERY THOUGHTS… HE WOULD BE BANNED.
In today’s world, at least in America, an Einstein or a Newton or a Galileo would probably not be allowed to receive grants to study or to publish his research.
They cannot even mention the possibility that–as Newton or Galileo believed–these laws were created by God or a higher being. They could get fired, lose tenure, have their grants cut off. This can happen. It has happened. EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed comes to theaters near you in February 2008. To learn more, check out my blog here often … and explore the rest of our site for new developments, or to volunteer to help spread the word.
Sincerely,
Ben Stein

linky to his blog

link to the trailer

the guy is a lawyer, speech writer, entertainer but he's no scientist. he even misquotes einstein in his blog.

[Patrick Degan]

The day ID was introduced in class:

"Bueller? Bueller? Bueller...?"

[General Zod]

Strawmen, outright lies and other fun distortions. The fact that that some people take this clown seriously is laughable.

[Lisa]

Strawmen, outright lies and other fun distortions. The fact that that some people take this clown seriously is laughable.

the problem is, people do take him seriously because they know him from show's like Win Ben Steins money where he appears smart... so the masses will figure he must know things. People are going to refer to his filth as fact.

[Drooling Iguana]

It also stars biologist and science blogger P. Z. Meyers much to his own surprise.

[Frank Hipper]

EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed is a controversial, soon-to-be-released documentary that chronicles my confrontation with the widespread suppression and entrenched discrimination that is spreading in our institutions, laboratories and most importantly, in our classrooms...

Too bad Ben Stein is too stupid to realise that suppression and discrimination are good things when they're employed against ignorance.

[Feil]

Has anybody else noticed that the terminology, arguments, and tactics used by these people are exactly the same as those used by holocaust deniers?

[Elaro]

So, his whole point is that, if a scientist starts spouting "God did it!", they get removed from scientific positions? How is that repressing the freedom of inquiry? "God did it" is not an answer. (But I guess this deluded fool doesn't realise it.) By putting this pseudo-answer in the place of a real one, isn't that discouraging enquiry into whatever question it was supposed to answer?

[Darth Wong]

EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed is a controversial, soon-to-be-released documentary that chronicles my confrontation with the widespread suppression and entrenched discrimination that is spreading in our institutions, laboratories and most importantly, in our classrooms...

In other SHOCKING news, it has been discovered that science students who reject Newton's law of action/reaction receive failing grades in class! And at the university level, any student who exercises his FREEDOM to reject calculus will be EJECTED from the program! It's FASCISM!

This "fascist" argument is straight from the Bill O'Reilly playbook. No one would bat an eye if an electrician who violated electrical wiring standards was ejected from the union and lost his license. Why do they hold scientists to a different standard?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Because scientists are evil and should be opposed at all turns!

[Darth Wong]

It's just sickening how these idiots abuse the concept of freedom. Freedom of choice means that you can choose to reject science. It does not mean that a science teacher should be forced to give you straight As in science despite making that choice.

[Molyneux]

What's sad is that I always liked Ben Stein; he's such a great deadpan actor, a talent in rare supply. Ah, well...guess he's just another schmuck.

[Darth Wong]

What's sad is that I always liked Ben Stein; he's such a great deadpan actor, a talent in rare supply. Ah, well...guess he's just another schmuck.

A great actor is nothing more than a person who's really good at deceiving people. That's what acting is, after all: pretending to be something you're not. It may be a rare talent to be very good at it, but it's not necessarily indicative of a quality human being. If anything, it suggests the opposite.

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

What's sad is that I always liked Ben Stein; he's such a great deadpan actor, a talent in rare supply. Ah, well...guess he's just another schmuck.

A great actor is nothing more than a person who's really good at deceiving people. That's what acting is, after all: pretending to be something you're not. It may be a rare talent to be very good at it, but it's not necessarily indicative of a quality human being. If anything, it suggests the opposite.

Oh, and here's another reason to hate him. I listened to an old episode of Loveline from 2002 where he said he and Nixon came up with a plan to be independent from foreign oil by 1984, but they decided against it because the Suadis were selling their oil so cheap.

[DPDarkPrimus]

"Win Ben Stein's Money" showed the man was knowledgeable. Literally, the man knew a lot.

That doesn't mean he's especially intelligent or good at thinking rationally.

[SpacedTeddyBear]

Freedom of inquiry is basic to human advancement. There would be no modern medicine, no antibiotics, no brain surgery, no Internet, no air conditioning, no modern travel, no highways, no knowledge of the human body without freedom of inquiry.

What's rather ironic ( closest term I can think of right now), is that if the kind of inquiry he champions for were more prevalent, we would have nothing of the above at all since any lame-ass assertion by an unqualified individual would have to be considered seriously without any kind of critique.

[Szass Tam]

It's just sickening how these idiots abuse the concept of freedom. Freedom of choice means that you can choose to reject science. It does not mean that a science teacher should be forced to give you straight As in science despite making that choice.

I think at least part of this comes from humanities or non-science/math classes, where a large portion of the assignments don't have a strict right-or-wrong answer. They end up thinking since there aren't strict yes or no answers in their fields, that the same must be true of science. They don't understand that science doesn't deal with "What do you think about x? Make an argument." questions like you might get in an English course, but only "What is the best explanation for X we can come up with based on the data."

To them, freedom of inquiry means "Gee, why don't scientists think about ID the same way a philosopher considers the ideas of Descartes?" For a scientist, freedom of inquiry would be "How can we test this." They don't realize that their hypothesis simply isn't scientific.

I don't mean to knock non-science people too badly. I'm a history major, but I've also always been interested in the sciences. I see these people in the ol' College of Arts and Letters every day, who object to any idea that there might be such a thing as objective truth or objective reality and use it as a smokescreen to try to claim their bullshit is valid no matter how out of touch with the actual events or the actual world.

[Superman]

I remember the first time hearing him. He was on a radio show about ten years ago with Dr. Drew Pinsky (the directer at UCLA's psychiatry unit, and an internist (internal medicine) who also specializes in addiction). Stein had quite the inferiority complex. I thought he sounded jealous of Dr. Pinsky's education from the start, and to say he sounded arrogant would be an understatement.

At one point, Dr. Drew told a caller that spanking has been repeatedly associated with an increased level of aggressive and acting out behaviors, but before he could finish, Stein cut him off. It went something like this:

Stein: "What?"

Dr. Drew: "The evidence is there. Spanking might cause the child to immediately stop the bad behaviors, but it seems to make the aggressive acting out behaviors get worse...

Stein: "I don't believe you."

Dr. Drew: "I'll show you the studies, if you..."

Stein: "Fine! I'd like to see it... that's great (sarcastically)...

That asshole Stein obviously had his mind made up and couldn't care less what any evidence would have to say.

[Darth Wong]

Freedom of inquiry is basic to human advancement. There would be no modern medicine, no antibiotics, no brain surgery, no Internet, no air conditioning, no modern travel, no highways, no knowledge of the human body without freedom of inquiry.

What's rather ironic ( closest term I can think of right now), is that if the kind of inquiry he champions for were more prevalent, we would have nothing of the above at all since any lame-ass assertion by an unqualified individual would have to be considered seriously without any kind of critique.

Does he understand that scientists have no power whatsoever to prevent freedom of inquiry? All they can do is declare that someone is not one of them, ie- not acting like a scientist. They can't actually stop him from branching off and trying his own method of examining the universe, and in point of fact, they would make no effort to try. All they want to do is make sure that he won't be able to call his activities "science", because that would be fraudulent. That's the worst that Ben Stein or anyone else can ever accuse them of doing: ejecting someone from their ranks. Sorry, but saying "you don't belong in our group any more" is not an assault upon freedom.

Perhaps Ben Stein believes that freedom of fraud is necessary for human advancement. That would be in keeping with the dishonest shit that he seems to be.

[Lord Poe]

In today’s world, at least in America, an Einstein or a Newton or a Galileo would probably not be allowed to receive grants to study or to publish his research.

Is there really a need to point out that by opposing the geocentric view of the Universe, Galileo was forced to recant his heliocentric theories by the church because said theory opposed Scripture, and he spent the rest of his life under house arrest?


EDIT: Never post while talking to idiot drivers....

[SCRawl]

I have to say that I'm a little surprised by this. I was never under the impression that Stein was a gibbering idiot, though of course impressions are bound to have varying degrees of accuracy when they're acquired by watching people on television or hearing them speak in sound-bites.

My favourite bit from his rant: how he implies that progress is being impeded by the unwillingness of the scientific establishment to pursue ID-related inquiries...except that there can't be any such inquiries. Here's how one would go:

"Scientist" One: So, you say that God designed everything? Evolution was guided by Him?

"Scientist" Two: Yup.

"Scientist" One: Huh. Wanna go watch wrestling?

Just what are we supposed to learn from the assumption that ID is a valid position?

[TheKwas]

TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

[Molyneux]

TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

Bah, we can learn that from '70s songs. More importantly, are there any legal problems with what they did to PZ Myers - asking to interview him for a film, and then using that footage in a completely different film with a different premise?

[Alyrium Denryle]

I just want to ask him a couple questions

"How do you test the hypothesis that god did it?" and "If god is a testable hypothesis like you seem to think it is, how do you react when and if he is falsified?"

[chitoryu12]

Some of the greatest scientists of all time, including Galileo, Newton, Einstein, operated under the hypothesis that their work was to understand the principles and phenomena as designed by a creator.

Just because a scientist believes in God doesn't mean that science has proven God exists.

They cannot even mention the possibility that–as Newton or Galileo believed–these laws were created by God or a higher being. They could get fired, lose tenure, have their grants cut off. This can happen. It has happened.

Of course they should be allowed to work, because heaven forbid a scientist defy laws of science and all know scientific knowledge to prove themselves right!