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The Freedom To Be So Open Minded, Your Brains Fall Out

Josh Aldridge

The Intelligent Design movement has popped up yet again, this time manifesting itself not as a religious or science issue, but rather a matter of the First Amendment. In this attempt to keep the movement afloat, Ben Stein is bringing his message of anti-Darwinism to the big screen with his new movie Expelled. The activist, former speech writer for President Nixon, game show host and self drafted nominee for the 2008 Presidential Race has injected himself into the creationist verses evolution culture war which has further divided America by faith-based claims. Framing it as a free speech issue provides the ID community with their best weapon to date, because any rebuttal to arguments against Darwinism automatically makes you a Fascist follower of science.

Branding himself a rebel against the assumed Authoritarian science community, Stein, armed with a Law degree from Yale Law School has taken on the assumption that scientists around the world in the fields of Biology, Anatomy, Anthropology, Archaeology, Bacteriology, Biochemistry, Ecology, Embryology, Enzymology, Genetics, Hematology, Histology, Immunology, Medicine, Neurology, Oncology, Paleontology, Pathology, Physiology, Psychology, Virology and Zoology may be simply barking up the wrong tree. If you take issue with this, then you are the enemy of freedom and it is his duty to stand in your way.

Unsatisfied by the findings of 150 years of building upon this theory, Stein says, "We are just pitiful humans. Life is unimaginably complex. We are still trying to figure it out. We need every bit of input we can get. Let's be humble about what we know and what we don't know, and maybe in time, some answers will come."

In an attempt to gather a grassroots support for the film, Stein has put out a email chain letter where he states,

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

The email goes on to make further uses of "Confusing Correlation with Causation" logical fallacy, making Ben Stein join the distinguished ranks of Jerry Falwell - "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this (9-11) happen.", and Pat Robertson - "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected him from your city. And don't wonder why he hasn't helped you when problems begin."

Stein asserts in that Darwinism is a manifestation of Imperialism. Even though Darwin once said, "If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin", Stein asserts that Charles Darwin was a white man pushing a social "survival of the fittest" onto society for the greater good of the Northern European man therefore legitimizing the looting of nations less organized. Stein goes on to site Social Darwinism of the early 20th century for leading to the Holocaust because "the evolutionary theory fueled Nazi idealism that felt gypsies, Eastern Europeans and others were competing with them for scarce basic resources".

Basically, Darwinism is simultaneously the tool of Totalitarians AND Darwinists use Totalitarian tactics to defend it from other hypothesis concerning the origins of life.

If successful, this film will provide the framework for scientists of the future to no longer waste time defending the rationality and methods by which they work, they will spend their time treading lightly on opponents of their hypothesis' because they now come draped in our flag.