Saturday, March 20, 2010

Expelled Analysis
Originally Posted to firesofcreation.gaia.com on Sep 13th, 2009
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
I watched Expelled the other day on a recommendation from a friend. I’d been meaning to check it out just to get the take from the other side of the evolution debate. Expelled came out around the same time as Bill Maher’s anti-religious movie ‘Religulous,’ which I thought was good and blogged about briefly. Watching Expelled provided me with some interesting insights and although I’m not an advocate of Intelligent Design, I am open enough to hear out the other side’s argument. 

Expelled begins with footage of the Berlin wall being constructed in Germany following world war II. Two peoples who used to be united are now cut off from each other as hostilities ratchet up and threats of World War III escalate. 

Now we open with a college crowd waiting for Ben Stein who sits in his dressing room preparing to come out and speak. There is a cut to Richard Dawkins; "The battle over evolution is only one skirmish in a much larger war." Now Daniel Dennett appears; "Science simply makes no use of the hypothesis of God."  

Ben Stein walks into a hall full of clapping students. He takes the podium and begins his speech. "Freedom is the essence of America, we're talking about  freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom from fear, freedom of religion. Martin Luther King said America is essentially a dream. A dream of freedom and equality and freedom is the way to equality." 

Stein continues with footage of Iconic images of America. "Freedom is what makes this country great. Freedom has allowed us to create, explore and overcome every challenge we have faced as a nation. But imagine if these freedoms were taken away. Were would we be? What would we lose? Unfortunately I no longer need to imagine. It's happening. We are losing our freedom in one of the most important sectors of society; science. I have always assumed scientists were free to ask any question. To pursue any line of inquiry without fear of reprisal. But recently I have been alarmed to discover this is not the case."

Now Stein introduces evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg whose life was nearly ruined when he strayed from the party line while serving as editor of a scientific journal affiliated with the prestigious Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. He dared to publish an article by Stephen Meyer, one of the leading lights of the intelligent design movement. The article suggested intelligent design might be able to explain how life began. As a result, Dr. Sternberg lost his office and was pressured to resign. 

Stein next takes us to Michael Shermer's office where he heads the skeptics society. Now we see Shermer giving a lecture - "I can't prove there is no God or Yaweh in your case any more than I can prove there is no Isis, Zeus, Apollo, Brahma, Ganesha, Mithras, Allah or for that matter the Flying Spaghetti Monster." He tells Stein in his office that skepticism is not a position you take. It's just an approach to claims. Stein - "Is intelligent design nonsense?" Shermer - "Well, it's unproven so in that sense it's nonsense. In the shaded areas between good solid science and total nonsense, it's sort of 3/4 of the way towards the nonsense side." Stein - "You think people should be allowed to speak about and write about it." Shermer - "They are free to write and publish and be heard in public forums and go to conferences just like everybody else does." When Stein asks about the situation with Sternberg, Shermer says, "People don't get fired over something like that." What Shermer espouses from his interview are the same ideals Stein rattles off at the beginning of the movie about freedom. Science has nothing to fear of new ideas if they are backed up by good solid data. 

Now Stein introduces scientist after scientist from various schools around the country who were curtailed in their attempts to bring intelligent design into their work. Here were a few examples: Caroline Crocker mentioned intelligent design in a classroom leading her career to come to an abrupt end. When confronted by her supervisor, he said she was going to be disciplined for teaching intelligent design which becomes the loss of her job. We see footage of a guillotine coming down. Ben stein continues that she not only lost her job but was blacklisted and unable to find a job anywhere. Caroline - "I was only trying to teach what the university stands for which is academic freedom." 

Stein introduces Robert Marks who Baylor University shut down his research website while forcing him to return grant money when they found links between his work and intelligent design. We cut to a scene of an ape-man in the movie Planet of the Apes, "Shut up you freak!" Now it shoots water from a hose at Charleton Heston's character who shouts back, "It's a mad house!!!!" 

Next we meet Guillermo Gonzalez who found himself in a fight with Iowa State University after publishing a book that argues the universe is intelligently designed. His application for tenure was denied even after his work led to the discovery of some new planets.  Dr. Gonzalez advice to other scientists who explore intelligent design in their work; "If they value their careers, they should keep quiet about their intelligent design views." 

We encounter many more scientists throughout this documentary who wouldn't dare show their faces in an interview for fear of losing their jobs.  One of these guys says, "If I write intelligent design, they hear creationism, they hear religious right, they hear theocracy." Stein now pipes in; "It appears Mr. Shermer was wrong. Intelligent design was being suppressed in a systematic and ruthless fashion. It was time to ask the scientific establishment what was so bad about intelligent design."

It is this last example that got me thinking about orientations within a polarity. Each side often fears their opposite and sees it as evil unless both energies are integrated together. In this case and countless others, the left side whose orientation often connects with atheism, science and Eastern spirituality, naturally fear the right side who are more often connected with theists, duality and western religion. Because my orientation began on the left side, I also fear intelligent design being connected to fundamentalism and sinister plans of the right to bring about a theocratic dictatorship that cuts off any and all expression of the left. This idea will be explored later on in this essay. 

At this point in the documentary, we see the opposing scientists speaking their mind. The first is Richard Dawkins; "Intelligent design people are not genuine scientists." Daniel Dennett - "It's just propaganda." P.Z. Myers - "Intelligent design is a racket. It's a set of excuses to squeeze creationism in the classrooms." Another scientist I couldn't identify says, "To present intelligent design stunts their (students) educational growth." Another scientist warns us; "Get intelligent design in the schools today and we can have school prayers tomorrow." Ben Stein finishes this thought as we view footage of former vice president Dan Quayle taking the stage and podium with 700 Club evangelist Pat Robertson. "Any other complaints?" Is Stein downplaying fears the left have of theocracy coming into power as an arm of the religious right? The answer seems to be yes considering that Stein uses Expelled as a vehicle expressing his own fears that dictatorship and evil threatens to emerge from the liberal - atheist leaning, Darwinism thumping left. 

The song "Love is in the Air" begins playing as we view a rally protesting intelligent design. Some signs read; "You evolved, but not enough." One sign is held by someone dressed in a George Bush mask; "Religion is the root cause of all terrorism. All terrorists are religious people. None are atheists." Another sign - "You're right, there is an intelligent designer and her name is mother nature!"

Stein - "There seemed to be a  lot to hate about intelligent design and nearly all of that hatred was focussed on one place." Daniel Dennett appears - "The people from the Discovery Institute doing the intelligent design, they're all varnish and no product." P.Z. Myers - "The Discovery Institution is a propaganda mill. It's an institution designed to suck in money from religious investors and turn it into a sanitized somewhat secular version of the creation story to get it into the schools."

What’s interesting about this is Dennett fears the same institution that I use as a model for a similar one in my screenplayWorld W1n. In my story, The Eye of Enlightenment Institute colludes with this organization after fabricating a piece of Noah’s Ark in order to make a fundamentalist Biblical world view look true so it could assist in the rise to power of a president whose sole aim is to create an American theocracy.  

Now Ben Stein takes us to Seattle in search for the Discovery Institute, but everyone he asks on the streets haven't heard of it. He finally finds a big tower. Stein - "It's got to be the whole building." The institute turns out to occupy a single suite on the eighth floor. Ben Stein walks in and meets Bruce Chapman, head of Discovery Institute. Stein - "You've made an awful lot of trouble for being such a small office. I thought it was going to be like the pentagon."  Chapman - "We're like the little boy who said the emperor has no clothes. And he didn't have a big organization either."

One could argue here from the left’s or right's perspective that every form of evil looks harmless at its earliest stage. And in using an example from the classic mythological story of Star Wars, the Sith are only two in number when they begin to take over the galaxy. So from the point of view of someone’s fears on the left side, the Discovery Institute could be akin to something like the Sith in Star Wars. They look weak in number compared to the other side, but through deception and great evil, they are able to turn society in their favor to become a mighty force capable of stamping out all their enemies. 

But in looking at the polarity from the other side, the idea that the left is evil is just as palpable to Ben Stein and those on the right. In their minds, the institutions of science are so vast and gigantic already, they believe the danger lies in seeing another Hitler rise to power but this time from the left. They imagine eugenics and concentration camps happening all over again along with the persecution of anybody presenting an alternative perspective to the party line of Darwinist conformity. I wrote a brochure not long ago bringing attention to this interesting phenomenon of the left and right fearing that their opposite side is the vehicle through which evil is seeking to enter into the world.  

Stein continues to interview Chapman from the Discovery Institute. Stein - "When you go around and raise funds,  your people are not saying, btw, we're going to get all these scientists out and put Christ back in the classroom." Chapman - "Well, I don't know that Christ has ever been in the science classroom. This is not a religious argument, we have fellows who are Jewish or agnostic or various other things. There are Moslem scientists. There are people with all kinds of backgrounds who believe Darwin's theory has failed and so why would you bring religion into it? You don't need religion. This is a red herring and people who don't have an argument are reduced to throwing sand into your eyes." 

So, if Chapman is right, the theory of intelligent design can stand on its own power without the persuasive force of religion entering the equation. If this is the case, I’m all for Intelligent designers being allowed to reveal for one and all to see the solid science and hard evidence behind their theories.  

Stein next travels to Biola university, formerly known as the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. There he interviews professor Paul Nelson. Stein - "How much money have you ever gotten from Falwell or Robertson?" Nelson - "0" "Are you a minister?" "No." "Priest, pastor?" "No, I did teach sunday school once." "Has this all been resolved. Aren't we all Darwinists now except for a few cranks like you?" "It's a funny thing that questions that aren't properly answered don't go away. My experience is that evolutionary biologists will say, yeah, this theory has a lot of problems. Evolution is a kind of funny word. (like God) It depends on how one defines it. If it means simply change over time, even the most rock ribbed fundamentalist knows the history of the earth has changed, that there has been change over time. If you define evolution precisely though to mean the common descent of all life on Earth from a  single ancestor via undirected mutation and natural selection, that's textbook definition of Neo Darwinism. Biologists of the first rank have real questions." "But the modern theory of intelligent design is just microwaved creationism." "I don't think that's the case. Creationism properly understood begins with the Bible and says, how can I fit the bible into the data of science? Intelligent design doesn't do that. Intelligent design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as a result of intelligence." "So intelligent designers believe God is the designer." "Not necessarily. Intelligent design is a minimal commitment scientifically to the possibility of detecting intelligent causation."

Stein - "Dr. Nelson didn't sound like a crazy person, but I still suspected that intelligent design was reheated creationism. My next stop didn't seem like it was going to alleviate those fears." Now we see Texas flags flying in the wind where Stein takes us to the Southwestern theological seminary to interview William Albert Dembski in Fort Worth, Texas.

Dembski - "Evolution from an intelligent design perspective is perfectly acceptable if the sense is how did the design get implemented. The issue is, is there real design there and are these material mechanisms like natural selection? Are these adequate to account for everything we see in biology and our argument is, no it's not." Stein - "But Darwin produced all this evidence from his travels and his studies of the Galapagos that evolution explained things." "But if you look at the history of science, people often have a good idea and they decide to just run with it. And they say we're going to apply this everywhere. So Darwin takes his idea of natural selection and says, I'm going to explain all of life with it. Physics used to be Newtonian physics. Newton was physics and then you gotta look to Einstein, general relativity; Newton isn't enough. I think likewise what we are finding with Darwin is that he had some valid insights but it's not the whole picture. "

After hearing this argument, I immediately thought, “fair enough.” This guy has a point. Darwin’s theory of evolution may have worked for his time and up until the next brilliant scientist comes along with a new theory giving us a clearer perspective of life in the universe we inhabit. 

Stein shows us more clips of Richard Dawkins; "Evolution is a fact. It is a fact established as securely as any other fact in science. It is completely right to say that since the evidence for evolution is so absolutely totally overwhelming. nobody who looks at it could possibly doubt that if they were sane and not stupid, so the only remaining possibility is that they are ignorant. And most people who don't believe in evolution are indeed ignorant."

Stein takes us to the office of molecular biologist Jonathan Wells who is employed by the Discovery Institute. Stein - "How does Darwin or Darwinism say life began?" Wells - "Well, he didn't know and in fact nobody knows. So Darwinism strictly defined starts after the origin of life and deals only with living things." "How can their be a theory about life without a theory of how life began?" "Well, a grand overarching evolutionary story does include the origin of life but Darwin's theory doesn't begin until you have the first cell."

Now Stein puts the question to us, "Does someone have a theory about how life began?"

We next view footage of an evolutionary documentary called Cosmic Origins. The narrator explains to us; "The chemical elements essential for life, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon and Nitrogen were now in place. What was needed was a way of combining them. Perhaps the energy came from lightning. Whatever it was...," Stein - "Excuse me? Whatever it was? I was hoping for something a little more scientific. The most popular idea is that life emerged spontaneously from primordial soup. In 1953 Stanley Miller mixed water, Methane, Amonia and hydrogen to simulate the early Earth's atmosphere. Then he ran electricity through it in an attempt to jump start life. It didn't work. While the initial results seemed promising, 50 years later most serious scientists have abandoned this approach in favor of alternate theories. 

Prominent Darwinist Michael Ruse attempted to explain one of these theories to Ben Stein and wasn’t kidding about it. Ruse - "One popular theory is that it might have started off on the backs of crystals.  Molecules piggybacked on the back of crystals forming and this lead to more and more complex, of course the nice thing about crystals is that every now and then you get mistakes and mutations and this opens the way for natural selection." Stein - "Yeah, but at one point there was not a living thing and then there was a living thing. How did that happen?" Ruse - "Well, I just told you, and I don't see any reason why you shouldn't go from very simple to more and more complex to more and more complex." Stein - "I don't know either but I don't know how you get to mud to a living cell. that's my question." Ruse - "Yes, well I've told you and I'll try one more time. On the backs of crystals is at least one hypothesis." Stein - "So, that's your theory and you think that is more likely and less far fetched than intelligent design?" Ruse - "I think it is." 

Stein - "What were the chances of life starting on its own?" Dr. Walter Bradley - "It has been speculated that there would have to be a minimum of about 250 proteins to provide minimal life function. If that's really true, I think it's almost inconceivable that life could have happened in some simple step by step way." 

Dr. Doug Axe - "We're talking about something staggeringly improbable, roughly one in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion." Stein - "When faced with the overwhelming problem of the origin of life, nobel prize winner Francis Crick proposed this theory, that life was seeded on earth which basically means, aliens did it. Crystals? Aliens? I thought we were talking about science, not science fiction."

This idea that life was seeded by aliens caught my attention and I think is one of the ideas used for the aliens in the movie ‘Knowing’ which recently came out and starred Nicholas Cage. This is an interesting concept and makes one think of all sorts of other scenarios too. If we were created by some alien entity, could they ever return and decide to lord over us like the Conquistadors decided to lord over and plunder the Aztecs? All they would have to do is appear to us with the identity of Jesus surrounded by an army of angels and millions of Christians may be inclined to bow down and worship them. If humanity was able to create artificial life forms with machines, would we feel so bad if we misused and abused them? Just watching the movie A.I. gives one the clear idea that the answer to this question if expressed by the masses is a resounding “No!”

Molecular biologist Doug Axe then takes us into the mysteriously wonderful world of the cell through an animation. Axe - "Think of a cell as a nano factory where on a very small scale, digital instructions are being used to make the components of the factory. Here we have the famous DNA double helix. This is the material that stores all of our genetic information. In higher life forms, this would be the equivalent of something like a gigabyte of information stored in the molecules that form the individual chromosomes all packed within the nucleus which is a tiny fraction of the entire cell size. So what does DNA do? Well the information in DNA ends up providing the information for sequencing amino acids to make protein. We have information in a one dimensional form that provides the information for a three dimensional form."

We see a computer animation showing the inner workings of a cell which is both alien and strangely beautiful compared to anything we could witness with our consciousness in the natural world. A scientist named Myers tells Stein, “You got two possible hypothesis, you got a wall through the middle of your brain in affect, through your thinking saying, well you can't consider anything on this side of the wall. only hypothesis on this side of the wall are permissible for consideration.”

This comment makes one think about the polarity expressed in the world and in the human body. The tendency we all fear is when the opposite side of the polarity, to which we identity with, is overpowered and made to be subservient to the other side. This has happened throughout history and in a less tragic sense, in 19th century America where teachers forced students who were left handed (dominated by the right side of the brain) to switch to their right hand. (dominated by the left side of the brain) A more severe and disturbing scenario was seen in Nazi Germany where those with a left leaning orientation were made to be subservient to the right or face extermination. The question now is, can the left and right sides be merged into one unified whole? Can each side of the polarity be free of fear from their opposite? 

Further into the documentary we are treated to some B-role footage from an old movie of some kind. In the clip, a larger and stronger kid has pinned down a smaller and weaker boy. “Are you going to be on my side if I let you up?” “Sure, I'm on your side. Just let me up. I'll do anything you say." 

Now Stein introduces us to Will Provine, professor of the history of biology at Cornell, one of the few Darwinists who agrees with Stein's position that intelligent design should be open and freely studied in an academic setting. Unexpectedly, Provine becomes the one example Stein uses as the disturbing glimpse into the dangers of where Darwinism can lead. "I was a Christian but I never heard anything about evolution because it was illegal to teach it in Tennessee." 

Stein - “Dr. provine's first biology professor changed all that with a text book.” Provine - "I read that book so carefully and I could find no sign of any design whatsoever in evolution and I immediately began to doubt the existence of the deity. But it starts by giving up an active deity, then it gives up the hope that there's any life after death. When you give those two up, the rest of it follows fairly easily. you give up the hope that there's an immanent morality and finally there is no human free will. If you believe in evolution you can't hope for there being any free will. There is no hope whatsoever of there being any deep meaning in human life. We live, we die and we're gone. We're absolutely gone when we die." 

Stein - “Dr. Provine is no stranger to the prospect of death. Nearly a decade ago he was diagnosed with a large brain tumor.” Provine - "Let's suppose my tumor comes back as it almost certainly will. Well, I'm not going to sit around like my older brother did last year when he was dying of Lou Gherig's disease. He wanted desperately to die but we couldn't help him die. I don't want to die like that. I'm going to shoot myself in the head long before then. I want to do something different.”

Stein - “Dr. Provine's conversion story was typical amongst the darwinists we interviewed. After hearing these stories I was not surprised to hear that most evolutionary biologists share professor Dawkins views. It appears Darwinism does lead to atheism." This made me think back to arguments I’d have with my grandfather who had fundamentalist leanings. For him, Darwinism and God couldn’t co-exist. But for me, if there is a creator God, why couldn’t he/she operate the creation within context of the rules in gravity and the material world -- along with the rules of natural selection?  

Stein shows more clips of devout atheists. Dawkins - “I think that God is about as unlikely as fairies, angels hobgoblins etc.” Dr. Peter Atkins - “Religion is just fantasy basically. It's completely empty of any explanatory content. And it's evil as well.” Stein - “Will eradicating religion really lead to a modern utopia? Mmmm. Let me try to imagine that and lets let history be our guide.” We now see footage from Soviet Russia and Stalin.

Stein - “What other societies have used darwinism to trump all other authorities including religion. As a Jew, my mind leapt to one regime in particular. Darwinism isn't a sufficient condition for a phenomenon like Nazism but I think it's certainly a necessary one. This is a connection I had to explore personally." Now we see footage of Stein visiting a Nazi death camp and are shown footage of starving people. Stein then meets with the  author of ‘From Darwin to Hitler,’ Dr. Richard Weikart. "Hitler and many of the physicians that carried out this program were very fanatical darwinists and they particularly wanted to apply darwinism to society."

Weikart continues - “The spirit of the movement (Eugenics) lives on today. Margaret Sanger was the head of planned parenthood. She was very fanatical in her promotion of eugenics. In fact, planned parenthood was all about birth control for the impoverished and lower classes to try to help improve the species." Stein then travels to Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany.

Stein - "I know that Darwinism doesn't automatically equate to Nazism. But if Darwinism inspired and justified such horrific events in the past, could it be used to rationalize similar initiatives today? " When I heard Stein say this, I immediately thought that the same statement could be made but by replacing Darwinism with the word religion. Both sides of the polarity can look back throughout history and site examples of the evil committed in the name of religion and atheism. Both are guilty of wrong doing just as both can be elevated by all the good that they’ve done.  

Weikart - "And when we see an elite, and it is an elite; an elite that controls essentially all the research money in science, saying there is no such thing as moral truth. Science will not be related to religion. I mean it's essentially official policy of the national academy of science that science and religion will not be related. "

This statement made me think about how this may be the best opportunity for religion to unite under a single banner. Rather than remain fragmented as Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc, perhaps the perceived experience of being looked down upon by scientists would change if religion united. If these separate fragments that all use different symbols and languages to describe the nature of the divine, stopped fighting and came together to form a single world religion, they might be able to change their negative status in the eyes of the secular. Just as scientists from across cultures and languages can come together and work as one with the same language of mathematics, perhaps this cooperation is what religion needs in order to move them towards a more legitimate identity. But alas, this is just a dream that may take a long time to ever happen.

Stein then travels to the birthplace of Darwinism and sees all the exhibits at his museum; Down House. While traveling through his estate, Stein quotes some of the writings of Darwin. "With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men on the other hand do our upmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of society propagate their kind.  No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to let his worst animals breed." Now Stein goes through the museum looking at exhibits. He stops at a marble statue and stares into the face of Charles Darwin. 

One of the most interesting portions of this documentary sees Ben Stein go and interview Richard Dawkins. What was fascinating to me, is that Richard Dawkins doesn’t seem like his quick witted self when Stein sits for their conversation. I don’t know if Dawkins was having an off day or if Stein made him look off through editing. For someone on the left, is it possible their fears might see this interaction in good vs. evil terms as to why Dawkins doesn’t appear to come out on top in their debate? Would they see Stein as someone like a Sith whose powers of mind trick persuasion trump Dawkins and his extraordinary intellect? This latter theory seems the least likely. Here is an alternative perspective that will emerge from my notes throughout this dialogue. 

Richard Dawkins begins the conversation by reading from his book, The God Delusion - "The god of the old testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Jealous and proud of it. A petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak. A vindictive, bloodthirsty, ethnic cleanser. A misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” After Dawkins reads this and doesn’t get the counter reaction that he perhaps was expecting, the resulting effect seems to be a relaxing of his position. In effect, he is disarmed when Stein replies, “How about if people believed in a God of infinite lovingness and kindness and forgiveness and generosity, sort of like the modern day God? Why spoil it for them? Why not just let them have their fun and enjoy it?" 

Upon realizing that Stein’s consciousness or center of gravity doesn’t place him down to the level of fundamentalists that worship the Old Testament God, he responds in a more kindly fashion; “I don't want to spoil anything for anybody. I wrote a book, people can read it if they want to. I believe it is a  liberating thing to free yourself from primitive superstition.” Stein - "So religion is a primitive superstition?” Dawkins - "Oh, I think it is, yes." Stein - “So you believe it is liberating to tell people there is no God?” "I think a lot of people when they give up God feel a great sense of release and freedom.” "Why do you tink that? You're a scientist, what's your data?”  "Well, I've had a lot of letters saying that.” 

This next part made me scratch my head. If Dawkins was in the sharp form of his usual self, he would have knocked Stein’s next statement right down. Stein - "There are eight billion people in the world Mr. Dawkins.” Dawkins - "Yeah, I know, I know, I know. I know.”  Hmmmmm. This is what I’d imagine Dawkins responding here. “There are not 8 billion, there are 6 billion people in this world Mr. Stein.

Stein continues - “Professor Dawkins seems so convinced that God doesn't exist that I wondered if he was willing to put a number on it." Dawkins - “Well, it's hard to put a figure on it but I'd put it as something like 99% against." Stein - "How do you know it's 99% against and not something like 97%?” Dawkins - "You asked me to put a figure on it and I'm not comfortable putting a figure on it. I think it's just very unlikely.” Stein - “But you couldn't put a number on it?” Dawkins - Of course not.” Stein - “So, it could be 49%.” Dawkins - “Well, I think it's unlikely and quite far from 50%.” Stein - "How do you know?" Dawkins - “I don't know. I put an argument in the book.” Stein - "Well then who did create the heavens and the earth?" Dawkins - "Why do you use the word “who?” You see you automatically beg the question by using the word who.” Stein - "Well, then how did it get created?" Dawkins - "Well, um by a very slow process." Stein - “Well, then how did it start?" Dawkins - “Nobody knows how it started. We know the kind of event that it must have been. We know the sort of event that must have happened for the origin of life.” Stein - "And what was that." Dawkins - “It was the origin of the first self replicating molecule.” "right and how did that happen?” "I told you, I don't know." "So you have no idea how it started?" "No, nor does anybody else." “What do you think of the possibility that intelligent design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in evolution?” "Well, it could come about in the following way. It could be that at some earlier time somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved by probably by some Darwinian means to a very, very high level of technology and designed a form of life that they seeded onto, perhaps this planet. Now that is a possibility and an intriguing possibility and I suppose it's possible that you might find evidence for that  if you look at the details of biochemistry or molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer.”

This is an intriguing statement by Dawkins here and makes me think back to the novel Carl Sagan wrote; Contact. In it, an advanced alien race has been crunching the number in Pi on their supercomputer for millennia and have begun encoding a message within its very structure. Could there be something similar within our DNA? Of all those gigabytes of information inside our genetic material, is there a section that designers designated as a owner operators manual that contains all the information we need to master our bodies and repair them if needed? Perhaps there is even packets of more data within the data that if decoded, may yield terabytes and terabytes of something like an encyclopedia galactica. Maybe the aliens were hoping we would evolve to an advanced level (without destroying ourselves first) where retrieving this information became possible. Perhaps it would help us get to the next stage of our evolution or provide instructions of what we are supposed to do next. This is a fascinating idea worthy of further exploration. :-) 

Rather than branch off into this brainstorm, Ben Stein instead sees the response that Dawkins gives as a sign of weakness in the wall of Darwinian theory. Was Dawkins conceding defeat in taking the time to present what might be a viable scenario in which intelligent design might be plausible? Dawkins answers for himself at his own website. Stein - "Richard Dawkins thought intelligent design might be  a legitimate pursuit?" Dawkins continues - “And that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe, but that higher intelligence would itself had to come about by some explicable process. it couldn't have just jumped into existence spontaneously. That's the point.” What Dawkins says here reminds me of a lecture I watched him give at a Barnes and Noble in Manhattan. I had a small audio recorder I brought with me and recorded a portion of his talk and then synced it with footage from Spielberg’s movie A.I. to visually illustrate it’s idea.



Stein’s voice over - "So professor Dawkins wasn't against intelligent design, just certain types of designers such as God.” Stein’s question for Dawkins - "So the Hebrew God, the God of the Old Testament, he doesn't exist in your view?” Dawkins - "That would be a very unpleasant prospect." What Dawkins says here made me LOL.  :-) And the idea of an alien entity who created us, acting like the God of the Old Testament is an unpleasant prospect too. 

Stein continues - "And the Holy Trinity of the New Testament?" Dawkins - “No. Nothing like that." Stein - "Do you believe in any of the Hindu Gods?” It is at this point were Dawkins seems to be more like himself. “How can you ask such a question? How could I, why would I considering I don't believe in any of the others.” Stein - "You don't believe in the Moslem God?" Dawkins -“No! Why do you even need to ask?” Stein - "Well, I just wanted to be sure. So you don't believe in any God anywhere?” Dawkins - "Any God anywhere would be completely incompatible with anything I have said.” Stein - "I just wanted to make sure you don't believe in any God anywhere.” Dawkins - "No." Stein -  "What if after you died you ran into God? He said, “what have you been doing Richard? I've been trying to be nice to you. I've given you a multi million dollar paycheck over and over again with your book and look what you did.” Dawkins - "Bertrund Russel had that point put to him and he said something like, “sir, why did you take such pains to hide yourself?”” At this point the interview ends but Stein continues the dialogue - "But if the intelligent design people are right, God isn't' hidden. We may even be able to encounter God through science if we have the freedom to go there.” This made me think of the Hadron Super Collider in Austria and France in which science is in pursuit of an elementary building block of matter which they have termed the  "God particle. " Stein - “What could be more intriguing than that?” 

Now Stein concludes expelled by moving back to the same auditorium in which he was addressing the students. “Freedom is what this country is all about. A huge part of freedom is freedom of inquiry. But now I'm sorry to say freedom of inquiry in science is being suppressed.” We jump cut to Reagan giving a speech at the Berlin wall in West Germany. "The wall cannot withstand freedom."

Now we cut to Will Provine endorsing Steins' vision: "I don't care what they end up as being. I don't care if they end up being religious creationists. If they have thought their way through the issues and get there, I'm all for them.”

Stein - “And why I think we're going to win in this struggle; because truth crushed to earth will rise again. Because no lie can live forever. I believe science gives us one perspective on the world and our religious insight gives us another insight on the world and by putting the two together, it will seem more deeply and more truly.” This is an attractive idea just like the idea that Democrats and Republicans, or any two sides of a polarity can compliment each other rather than fight each other tooth and nail.

Stein - “And if we will stand up for freedom... we will overcome.” The students in the auditorium rise and give Stein a standing ovation. We cut back to people chipping away at the Berlin wall as a big section starts crumbling away. Stein - I’ve taken a first step by speaking out about this issue. But if the wall is going to come down. We all have to do our part. Some of you will pay a heavy price for speaking out. You may even lose your job. I guarantee you will get hate email. But if you don't get involved, will anyone be left to carry on this struggle. Anyone, anyone, anyone?” We end Ben Stein’s documentary with an homage to his role in the movie Ferris Beuler’s Day Off.

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