04.10.08
Expelled fair?
Is Stein’s intelligent design documentary fair?
What happened
Actor, comedian, and commentator Ben Stein is stirring controversy with his new documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. In it, Stein investigates the way intelligent design is handled in American schools, but some critics feel that he is too biased to provide an objective point of view. Recent screenings of the movie, which is set to open in theaters on April 18th, have been open to lawmakers but not to members of the press or public.
The question of ID is a red herring as far as the real debate over evolution is concerned. To regain perspective, the transmogrification and hijacking of the struggling Darwin debate into a rightwing lobby armed with a ‘always equivocal metaphysics’ of design has thrown the whole question into confusion.
And this ID debate, for all its complaints over dissent, has effectively marginalized real dissent against Darwinism by its deliberate effort to monopolize that dissent.