- The big guns are coming out already.
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- This scorching is by Roger Friedman. Notice how
he puts his own beliefs in wrapped up as "conventionally accepted
Darwinism. "
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- Ben Stein: Win His Career
- By Roger Friedman
4-9-8
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- After seeing a new non-fiction film starring Comedy Central's
Ben Stein, you may not only be able to win his money, but also his career.
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- Stein is that whiny little guy with the monotone voice
that makes him seem funny and an unlikely "character" for TV
appearances. But that career may be over come April 18 when a movie he
co-wrote, narrates and appears in, called "Expelled: No Intelligence
Allowed," is released.
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- Directed by one Nathan Frankowski, "Expelled"
is a sloppy, all-over-the-place, poorly made (and not just a little boring)
"expose" of the scientific community. It's not very exciting.
But it does show that Stein, who's carved out a career selling eye drops
in commercials and amusing us on sitcoms, is either completely nuts or
so avaricious that he's abandoned all good sense to make a buck.
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- To wit: Stein, Frankowski and pals say in "Expelled"
that perfectly good scientists and educators are being stigmatized for
wanting to teach their students creationism and "intelligent design"
- in other words, junk science - in addition to or instead of conventionally
accepted Darwinism. You see, Stein, like some other celebrities, finally
has shown his true colors and they aren't so pretty.
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- The gist of Stein's involvement is: He's outraged! He
believes in God! God created the universe! How can we not avail our students
of this theory? What do you mean we're just molecules?
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- What the producers of this film would love, love, love
is a controversy. That's because it's being marketed by the same people
who brought us "The Passion of the Christ." They're hoping someone
will latch onto an anti-Semitism theme here since there's a visit to a
concentration camp and the raised idea - apparently typical of the intelligent
design community - that somehow the theory of evolution is so evil that
it caused the Holocaust. Alas, this is such a warped premise that no one's
biting.
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- The whole idea of Stein, a Jew, jumping on the intelligent
design bandwagon of the theory of evolution begetting the Nazis is so distasteful
you wonder what in - sorry - God's name - he was thinking when he got into
this. Who cares, really, if "Expelled" is anti-Semitic? It will
come and go without much fanfare.
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- But Stein is another matter. Can he really be amusing
selling eye drops or acting like a nebbish on game shows if we now have
this new insight into his thinking?
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- You know Ben Stein from his voice. He used it to intone
Ferris Bueller's name iconically at the beginning of that 20-year-old Matthew
Broderick movie. His laconic delivery and deadpan presence have given him
a benign celebrity - until now.
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- But this is what he wrote last fall on the "Expelled"
movie Web site:
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- "Darwinism is still very much alive, utterly dominating
biology. Despite the fact that no one has ever been able to prove the creation
of a single distinct species by Darwinist means, Darwinism dominates the
academy and the media. Darwinism also has not one meaningful word to say
on the origins of organic life, a striking lacuna in a theory supposedly
explaining life.
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- "Alas, Darwinism has had a far bloodier life span
than Imperialism. Darwinism, perhaps mixed with Imperialism, gave us Social
Darwinism, a form of racism so vicious that it countenanced the Holocaust
against the Jews and mass murder of many other groups in the name of speeding
along the evolutionary process."
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- In a word: Urgggh. Suddenly Stein is not so amusing anymore.
I want my eye drops from someone else.
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- PS: Following "The Passion" release pattern,
"Expelled" will open wide on the 18th but mostly in rural and
poor neighborhoods. It's got just one theater in all of New York City,
in Times Square, none in places like Beverly Hills or wealthier, better-educated
urban neighborhoods where more "evolved" people might live.
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- According to the film's Web site, the producers are in
a whopping 45 theaters in North Carolina, and a mere seven in Massachusetts,
35 in Georgia, 11 in New Jersey, four in Connecticut and one in Vermont.
And so on. There are huge numbers of screens in Florida and Texas taking
the film, particularly seven in San Antonio. If I lived in the Deep South,
I'd boycott the filmmakers for thinking of me as this gullible and unsophisticated.
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- http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,348468,00.html
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