Germ Theory of Disease vs. Evil Spirits; you decide.
I was recently in a store and saw Ben Stein’s “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” Although the reviews of this film were similar to the reviews for the 1996 smash hit “Kazaam,” I thought the premise behind the film brings up a good point. Actually the film brings up a horrible point, and let me show you why.
Here’s some of Mr. Stein’s arguments;
1.) Evolution should be taught alongside Intelligent Design in public schools because both are non-religious scientific theories.
2.) Although evolution is a brilliant theory, it does not offer any information on how the Universe or life began; thus the theory is lacking information.
3.) Professors and teachers 1st amendment right is being trampled on because they are being censored into not talking about intelligent design in school.
Firstly, intelligent design IS NOT a scientific theory on the variations of life anymore than Astrology is a scientific theory on how stars are formed. It is someone’s guess about how life came about and does not have any empirical evidence to support it, nor does it make any predictions. Evolution essentially says “Man we’ve got a bunch of different types of animals, where did they come from?” the answer, after collecting extensive empirical evidence was “Hey, it looks like all animals that are alive today have ancestors and if you go back far enough all living things have the same ancestors.” On the other hand, intelligent design says “Hey we’ve got a bunch of different types of animals, where did they come from?” the answer, after collecting zero evidence to support this claim was “Hey, it looks like all the animals were created from some sort of ‘designer’ whom we know nothing about and have no evidence for their existence.” This is a guess, not a theory. Unless you want Astrology, Flat-Earth Theory, and “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Guide to the Holocaust” to be taught in school, you cannot include Intelligent Design.
Secondly, Evolution is a theory that tries to answer the question “Why do we have such a huge variation of animals?” It is not asking about the origin of life, origin of the Universe or any type of spiritual question. The theory of evolution is just an explanation for the variation of different animals we see on Earth and how they got to be so different. To claim that the theory of evolution has holes in it because it does not explain the origin of life or of the Universe would be similar to saying that Newton’s theory of Gravity is incomplete because it does not give any information about the origin of gravity. Scientific theories are not supposed to explain everything possible on the subject.
Lastly, this is just stupid. Granted I’m sure some professors are getting into trouble over teaching this stuff, but they should be. If you’re trying to run a good school and Professor Joe Blow is taking 3 hours a day explaining to the students that the Earth is flat, he should be fired. This argument is ridiculous. The first amendment protects against the government censoring you. I guess if it’s a public school you could argue this, but again I cannot cry that my first amendment rights are being violated if I’m teaching my History class that the Holocaust never happened. I should promptly be fired because clearly I don’t know what type empirical evidence is needed to support something before something can be taught as a theory or fact.
The whole premise of the film is ridiculous, but it made some money and I’m sure the choir was happy. To end, I’ll leave you with a quote from Ben Stein himself that is so enlightening that I nearly accepted the premise of Intelligent Design.
“When we just saw that man, (PZ Myers)…talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you. Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.”
-Ben Stein
Ben Stein: Lawyer, Economist, Actor, Writer and perhaps most famously, not a Scientist.
-TheMinorDrag
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