I wasn't intending on seeing it again so soon. However, during an errand, I was asked to wait for an hour or come back. I decided to go down the freeway a few exits and see Expelled again.
I arrived about 5 or 10 minutes into the movie. It was the 1:30 matinee and the theatre wasn't completely filled, but I would say that most of the good seats in the stadium-type theater were taken. In fact, I had to choose between going all the way up to the top or sit in the seats at the front - which I don't like to do because they are too close to the screen.
One thing that stood out to me the second time around was the fact that the Dover PA. ruling (against teaching the controversy over Darwinism and/or the Intelligent Design hypothesis) was a court decision that didn't mean much to Mr. Stein. I really liked the way he countered the argument. He mentioned that other court rulings in the past were incorrect (i.e. slavery, abortion), as well, so the Dover PA ruling didn't hold much water in his mind.
This portion of the movie brought back to mind an interview with Phillip E. Johnson that I had read in Decision Magazine back in 2003.
Excerpts:
Q: The Ohio Board of Education recently ruled that public schools in that state can now discuss controversies surrounding the theory of evolution. Why do you think so many leading educators fought to keep such debate out of the classroom?
A: It's a good question. You would think the Darwinists would be glad to teach the controversy as a matter of educational policy. According to public opinion polls, most of the nation has serious doubts about the truth of the evolutionary theory. Why don't the educators want to address those doubts seriously? They are afraid to acknowledge that there are any doubts that matter. Real scientists, they say, believe without any doubt in the theory of evolution. But in Ohio we had petitions signed by dozens of well-credentialed scientists saying that this area of study should be opened up to freedom of thought. Science should not be committed to a dogma—much less a dogma that is in serious trouble with the evidence—but should freely acknowledge areas of doubt and should address them honestly.
Through his books, interviews, and lectures, Phillip E. Johnson has been revealing that the teaching of Darwinism is "the modern-day mantra of science classes - which is little more than a dogma of materialism."
Ben Stein's movie points this out in a dramatic way. Through interviewing scientists on both sides of that "Berlin Wall" (which maintains the total availability of free speech for the Darwinists, but not for the ID hypothesis adherents), Stein reveals what is really going on and what is truly at stake because of it.
Johnson is not a scientist, but as a professor of law who understands the rules of reasoning and who knows a faulty argument when he sees one, has been working tirelessly against the Darwinist propaganda machine that has created an idol out of one man's theory on the origin of life.
Johnson states, "When science becomes an idol, it's always bad science, and that's what we're getting."
I am not a scientist, either. However, like Johnson, I can recognize faulty arguments too. That is why the Intelligent Design movement caught my attention back in 1999. I understood the fact that the courts would never budge to allow discussion of Creation back into the classrooms. The link between the book of Genesis in the Bible prevents this. Therefore, it appears that secular humanists have been successful at erecting a permanent retaining wall against Creation and/or Creation Science. Creationists stay on their side (in churches, Christian schools & universities), Evolution-only adherents get everything else (which includes the public schools, secular universities and colleges, the watchdogs, the media, and in most cases, even the courts.)
But when ID came along, the objections towards the "Creationists" were no longer valid. The Darwinists have been trying to throw them in the same box, but it's not working. Just because someone is a Christian and a scientist doesn't mean that their arguments are not valid. There is concrete evidence in biology and in the fine-tuning of the universe which points towards the need for an intelligent designer. In fact, discussing ID doesn't negate what secular Darwinists may want to think about such a designer.
Just as it was pointed out in the movie, those Darwinists who admit to not knowing the explanation for the origin of the cell have their own biases and opinions about it. What they don't have is evidence for it. Darwinian evolution does not have an explanation for the origin of the cell.
In the movie, one prominent Darwinist claimed that life could have arisen from non-life "on the backs of crystals." Another, Richard Dawkins, who professes to being an avowed atheist and is the author of "The God Delusion," admitted that if we did have any kind of a designer, he/she/it must have been a highly evolved being from another universe.
He's talking about aliens...people!!
Why can that man get a pass on his opinions and speculations whereas those who might want to call the Intelligent Designer "God," get nothing but ridicule, debasement, scorn, and hate-filled spewed venom for a personal belief that is not being specifically discussed in the science classroom anyway?
Let's look at more of Johnson's interview:
We ask, "What is life, anyway? Is it just matter that is changing by natural processes?" No, that's not so at all. The biological cell, for example, the fundamental unit of biology, is a masterpiece of miniaturized complexity so intricate that it makes a super computer or a spaceship look rather low-tech. It's like a whole city with its own energy transportation, its own fire and police departments, its own hospital—all working together in marvelous harmony. Obviously, there is some intelligence in the cell. You might call it a program that ties all this together and keeps it working for the common good of the organism. The Darwinist theory has no explanation for the origin of this cell. Even the most eminent biologist will admit that to you. So they are stopped right at the beginning. They do claim that you can make some changes in nature by means of random variation or gene mutation and natural selection—the survival of the fittest. And, within limits, that's true. Their claim is not altogether false, but it is true only at a very trivial level. It doesn't explain any significant change in the biological world.
Why can't students debate such thoughts as "there appears to be some intelligence in the cell?"
The movie has several humorous parts in it. There are old time video clips interspersed between the interviews with the scientists. In one of the clips, there is a scene where an old styled western shoot-out happens between two men. The last word, (said in a disparaging tone of voice) of the winning gun slinger whose opponent falls on the ground after he shoots him was, "Creationist."
Comedy was utilized to reveal some truth. "Creationist" is a "dirty word" according to Big Science. So many of the Darwinists in the movie even admitted their own dreadful hostility towards those who don't believe as they obviously do - i.e. in their own atheistic worldview. How did such brutal hatred spawn from Darwinian thinking? Stein's movie answers that question, too. However, the impact of seeing it on screen is much greater than reading it if I typed it out on this blog.
If you haven't seen the movie yet - go see it. I personally think that it might even be a type of enlightenment similar to the one that many people experienced after reading David Kupelian's book, "The Marketing of Evil." Exposure of cultural evils and idols can change one's worldview...drastically.
Johnson answers it in his own way:
They want to substitute another god—an idol—that they can control. An idol is simply a man-made god, a man-controlled god.
Paul uses the example of little figures of birds or beasts. In our day, the idols tend to be theories that come from the human mind. The theory of evolution is the latest fashion in idols. This myth of Darwinian evolution has helped a certain class of people to become wealthy and powerful and to be able to control the whole culture. They are mostly not scientists; they are the rulers of science and culture—the ones who decide how science will be presented to the public through television and elite newspapers. Science is extremely profitable to them. That's why they spend all their efforts and resources making sure everybody believes their particular creation story and no one is allowed to consider another one. It also explains why those of us who challenge that power can expect not just a lot of criticism but downright abuse. (bold mine)
Challenging the Darwinists power.
Spewing out criticism.
Exhibiting downright abuse.
These are all of the trademarks of the Big Science elitists who have heaped such things upon those who do not walk lock-in-step with their dogma.
Stein has done a marvelous job of turning the tables upon them. Dawkins, Myers, and other Darwinists are squawking like hysterical turkeys who sense the chopping block of challenge that would erode their current stronghold of power in science when more people find out about their idol and motives for silencing their opponents.
I see this already happening in the blogs and various articles in newspapers. The Darwinists are screaming about the "harsh treatment" or "how they were tricked into appearing in the movie," or "how their words have been taken out of context" ....yada yada yada!! You see, they have never been held up to such scrutiny by a large portion of the public before.
They don't like any challenge to their power.
They don't like criticism about cherished portions of their idolized theory. Portions of Darwinism are being debunked through the revelation of the irreducible complexity of the cell and the question of "where did this information come from?"
What's their answer to such a question?
'Real scientists don't ask such questions!'
Johnson's interview:
Q: Describe the premise and process of intelligent design.
A: The premise of intelligent design is that the evidence of science, understood impartially, points to the need for an intelligence. This is shown in two particular ways. First, there is the irreducible complexity of living organisms, like the biological cell. This is best explained in the book "Darwin's Black Box" by my friend and colleague, biochemist Michael Behe. He shows the incredible complexity of each cell and the systems that require many complex parts to work. If you're missing one part, you don't get an almost-perfect system; you get no system at all. Any creative process would have to produce everything all at once. The Darwinian says that you produce one thing that has some function, and then you add on another one and another and so on until you get the complete cell. Each step is supposedly superior to the last. But irreducible complexity makes that impossible. That is the first feature.
The second feature of living organisms is that they contain what is known as complex specific information. To explain that, just think of a book like an encyclopedia or a computer program like Windows 98. Computer programs don't write themselves; they need computer engineers. A computer program has a very complex set of instructions. Richard Dawkins, the arch Darwinist promoter and atheist, admits forthrightly that a single cell in your body has more information in it than all the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together. That information is what coordinates the activities of the cell. Now, you know how impossible it would be to produce an encyclopedia by mixing letters at random until they came together in a certain way.
Neither of these things can be explained by the Darwinian theory. They don't even try to explain them; all they do is huff and puff and bluff and say, "You're not allowed to challenge our scientific fact." This dogma is not science at all. None of it has been demonstrated by experiment, which is what would have to happen for it to be truly scientific.
"Expelled" shows how impossible it would be to produce the information that coordinates the activities of the cell randomly (as Darwinian materialism-only suggests) through a cartoon of Richard Dawkins playing a slot machine and getting all of the information in just the right order. His "prize" would be a biological cell. He gets it right at the first machine, but then the host tells him that he must repeat that, in the same exact order, on 249 other machines. It's quite humorous to see Dawkin's frustration in the cartoon....kicking and screaming at the "dumb machines." Speaking of rants, I have heard that Dawkins has written a 3,000 word rant against the movie "Expelled." He really does look very foolish in it. However, it is his own words that he says in the film that make him appear that way!
Foolish is as foolish does! (to slightly change a phrase by Forrest Gump).
Johnson:
Q: At the pinnacle of your arguments against Darwin's theory is the reality that there is a Creator God whom we can know.
A: Yes. Some people don't want to see it because they are afraid it would mean a loss of their power. They want to be their own God. They think that naturalism offers them maximum power and freedom. It doesn't. Romans 1:20 makes that very clear. They turn away because they do not want to honor the true God as God. So they turn to gods of their own making, false gods. That is what idolatry is all about. Idolatry is what our present culture is all about. Sex is an idol and science is an idol. When science becomes an idol, it's always bad science, and that's what we're getting. (bold mine)
Near the end of the movie, Ben Stein does a sit down interview with Richard Dawkins that alone is worth the price of admission. For the sake of those who have not seen the film, I won't quote it here. But Dawkin's answers provide true evidence of what Johnson states in the above question and answer.
Expelled reveals Big Science's idol. It reveals the fact that holding such an idol leads to bad science. It reveals that this is what our students are getting in the public schools, universities, because of watchdog groups that want to stifle free speech; because of liberal elitism in the media; because of liberal judges in the courtrooms; and because of adherence to Darwinian dogma that has erected a Berlin Wall between themselves and those that question their unscientific dogma.
[Phillip E. Johnson interview from the August 2003 issue of "Decision" magazine.]
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