“EXPELLED” – A REVIEW

Garry D. Nation

The opening credits roll over black and white newsreel footage of the building of the Berlin Wall.  (Actually, the credits don’t just roll, they are digitally embedded in the footage.)  I had bought a ticket to a documentary film that’s supposed to be about how the concept of Intelligent Design is being arbitrarily excluded from serious scientific investigation and discussion.  So what’s the deal with the Berlin Wall?

That infamous symbol of the Cold War becomes a metaphor for the academic quarantine increasingly being placed on the proponents Intelligent Design and the hypothesis itself.  That wall was placed to protect the Communist establishment by preventing the free exchange of ideas (and everything else).  Even so an invisible but equally heavy-handed wall has been erected by “Big Science” to prevent any serious scientific discussion of the idea that could threaten the Darwinist establishment.

This is the central argument of “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” the new documentary from Premise Media and hosted by Ben Stein.

Pre-release publicity for this film brought forth all kinds of hysterical denunciations from ID foes, and perhaps overly enthusiastic expectations from the true believers.  Both sides need to calm down and watch this film for what it is.  Viewers should not expect this film to present a definitive argument for Intelligent Design, nor a full-fledged critique of Darwinism.  Fans of Ben Stein should not expect a comic satire.  There are elements of all of these, but all of them serve one narrow point, namely:  Let the issue be fairly and openly discussed.

That is, let the hypothesis of Intelligent Design be investigated, tested, and argued with all scientific rigor.  If Darwinism is true and Intelligent Design is false, it will stand and the other will fall.  But if ID does indeed provide a better explanation for how things came to be, isn’t that the purpose of science?

Along the way to making this point the film meanders through the thought processes of Ben Stein, who wears his trademark business suit and sneakers throughout.  He begins by confessing his ignorance of the whole ID issue until he is introduced to Richard von Sternberg.  Sternberg, a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution and the managing editor of a biological journal, saw his career take a sharp downward turn when —following the full peer review that is standard in a science journal—he published a paper critical of neo-Darwinism that mentioned Intelligent Design at the end.

Stein is incredulous that a recognized scholar of impeccable credentials should be blackballed for no more than mentioning, not even for advocating, the “heresy” of Intelligent Design.  He wants to know what the other side of the issue might be, but basically is stonewalled (and between us, a man who once wrote speeches for Richard Nixon should know what stonewalling is). 

From here the film follows a winding trail between proponents and opponents of ID.  He permits the former to explain what Intelligent Design means and doesn’t mean, and he likewise permits the latter to explain why it should not even be given a hearing.  He introduces us to other scientists who like Sternberg were blackballed (tenure denied, restrictions imposed, contracts not renewed) by their own institutions, which in turn show a manifest lack of candor and inconsistency in their explanations for their decisions.

Stein introduces us to some of the heavyweights on both sides of the debate. Having been assured that ID is not religion but science, Stein seems genuinely perplexed that some of its leading lights have positions in religious institutions.  Unfortunately he does not ask why (at least onscreen), so the audience is left to wonder.

We are not left to wonder about the virulence of the opposition, or its contempt for Intelligent Design. All the ID scholars insist that the point of the study is to find evidence of design that cannot be explained by random processes, not to prove the existence of God.  The Darwinist establishment, however, refuse to recognize that ID is a scientific investigation.  Not only to they view it as a religious viewpoint, they insist that it is thinly disguised, 6-day Genesis Creationism Lite, with a right-wing political slant to boot.

Stein’s response is, “So what?”  Without accepting the premise that ID is not science but religion, Stein asks, Why is it a problem to science if scientific investigation of the natural world points to a Creator?  Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education follows the line of thought that science is about factual knowledge and religion is about feelings, therefore the two must be kept strictly separate.

Others are more forthright.  In an early segment moderated by an off-camera interviewer, Prof. Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, makes it clear that he despises any idea of a deity, and the God of the Bible in particular.  Science is the only way to understand reality (i.e., materialism), and religion is a delusional way of thinking that should be permitted, but marginalized.  Prof. Will Provine, who in his youth was a Bible-believing Christian, saw his religious faith supplanted by materialistic science.  He passionately embraces atheism, along with its true corollary: ahumanism—i.e., there is neither point nor purpose to life, mankind is nothing special, and there is no transcendent meaning to life.

Though with equal passion I disagree with both of these esteemed scholars, to my surprise I found myself admiring these men for their candor.  [Others] seem disingenuous by comparison.

To keep things interesting for the video generation the filmmakers employed the now common technique of cut-aways—often to b&w clips of slapstick comedy—to intersperse humor and keep the discussion from getting too heavy.  (After all, even a documentary has to entertain its audience.)  These bits were amusing but sometimes seemed intrusive, and did not really enhance the discussion—they could have been done more smoothly.

The anti-ID personalities featured in the film can’t say that they were made to look bad visually.  If anyone has that distinction it is Dr. Gerald Schroeder, who slouches in a scoop chair during one of the most lengthy interview segments.  And yet the diffidence with which he answers Ben Stein’s questions somehow adds power to the interview. He comes across as a scientist pursuing a line of investigation, and not a missionary trying to convert the world.  This is in stark contrast to Richard Dawkins, who sets forth his atheistic Darwinism with evangelical passion.

That passion is obviously shared by a large segment of the Internet community, which has rushed to post anti-Expelled screeds on the web.  Even the Wikipedia article on the film spends more time refuting it than to describing it.  All of this negative reaction tends to confirm the central idea of the film: that Darwinism apparently can’t defend itself against a straightforward challenge, and so must attack its challengers with ad hominem arguments.

Three of the most powerful segments are also the most controversial.  One is the animation sequence that takes us through the universe of the cell.  The apparently irreducible complexity of the cell is a centerpiece argument for ID (made persuasively by Michael Behe in his book Darwin’s Black Box).  Darwinists have been dismissive of this argument and tried to talk it away, but they haven’t refuted it.

To the layman it may seem abstract and hard to get hold of, but the CGI animation of what is known of the cell shows that the simple cell isn’t simple at all. Forget about your 4-part high school diagrams.  A single cell is a complex metropolis of coordinated activity whose origin, ID theorists argue, is inexplicable by random processes.  The controversy (stirred up just prior to the film’s release) was not whether that segment misrepresented the known facts, but that the filmmakers were accused of plagiarism.  A court of law concluded otherwise, and the segment remains in the film.  Its visual impact is stunning.

Another highly controversial segment is toward the end of the film, where it is shown how Darwinism provided an intellectual foundation for the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.  In this case the pre-release outcry led the filmmakers to make some cuts of footage of the death camps, but the argument itself remains in the film—and it should, because it is cogent.  One of the most vigorous intellectual/activist movements of the early 20th century was eugenics, the theory that human evolution can be directed through selective reproduction.

No, the film does not try to argue that Darwinism equals anti-Semitism. It indisputable, however, that eugenics provided the rationale in the Nazi regime for the elimination by extermination of the mentally ill and mentally retarded from society.  Stein’s visit to the basement of the “asylum” where thousands met their death is chilling—but the most disturbing part is the admission of his guide that she did not think it was up to her to judge what went on there.  It is clear that Stein believes it is up to all of us to judge what went on there.

Reviewers have various takes on the scene in which Ben Stein silently stares at the majestic statue of Charles Darwin, following so closely on the heels of that scene in the asylum.  Here’s mine: Ideas have consequences, and the actual consequences of Darwinian ideas have already been horrifying.  It may be debated whether the Holocaust was a valid extension of Darwinism, but it cannot be denied that the perpetrators of it thought it was.  Nor can it be argued that Darwinism provides any moral foundation for resisting such a program.  In fact, Darwinism destroys all moral foundations period, for if it is true, then there is no meaning to existence.  If Darwinism is true, then there is no moral standard by which to judge the Holocaust.

Most of the squawking about “Expelled,” however, has centered on the climactic interview.  Stein draws Richard Dawkins into a seemingly damning admission, or rather a series of damning admissions.  First, Stein leads the author of The God Delusion to confess that there is no certainty that God does not exist, only (in his view) a high probability, say 90%.  As Stein keeps probing (“Why not 50%?”) it becomes obvious that Dawkins has no basis for any calculation of probability. 

Having opened the door ever so narrowly to the mere possibility of a deity, Stein begins to press Dawkins on the issue of design.  Dawkins has since disavowed that he admits the presence of intelligent design in nature, but that is not the point.  What Stein draws out from Dawkins the irrationality of his categorical, a priori opposition to the very idea of ID.  According to Dawkins, even if intelligent design could be demonstrated, it would be better to assume that earth was “seeded” by extraterrestrial beings rather than to postulate a transcendent Designer.  That, of course, begs the question of the origin of design.  What has happened to Occam’s Razor (favoring the less convoluted of two explanations), of which Darwinian naturalists have always boasted?

I would like to have heard more in this film from Walter Bradley (who appears in one brief clip), and even more from William Dembski (one of the leading lights of the ID movement).  But these are quibbles.  The filmmakers certainly show enough to make their case that ID is a valid hypothesis worthy of investigation. 

They also make a persuasive case that the response of the Darwinian establishment to squelch ID through academic persecution and legal action (should courts really determine what constitutes science?) is intellectual tyranny.  The Berlin Wall was only made of concrete.  The Darwinian Wall is more elusive, and in order to bring it down it will be necessary first to convince those who love liberty that it is there.

Do the filmmakers’ prove that Intelligent Design is true and Darwinism false?  No, but that is not the point of the film.  “Expelled” is content to make the case for academic freedom, extended to the scientific investigation of Intelligent Design.  It is enough to show that ID is worth investigating and Darwinism is worth questioning.

Driving the point home is the most surprising witness of all:  Prof. Will Provine.  Already introduced as an unashamed atheist and a vigorous opponent of ID, Provine comes in at the conclusion to declare a higher allegiance to academic freedom.  Let all people pursue knowledge and conclude what they will.  Let scientists follow evidence and argument where it will take them, and if it finally points toward Intelligent Design, let it do so.  Science must not adopt a priori conclusions about truth, for once it does so it is no longer science.