eXpelled - there’s always a rebel!
Freedom of speech is being squashed in favour of dogmatism and freedom of enquiry is being compromised in the scientific field, and Ben Stein wants the world to know about it!
Ben Stein, the lovable, monotone teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Wonder Years is on a journey to answer one of the biggest questions ever asked: Were we designed or are we simply the end result of an ancient mud puddle struck by lightning? Stein, who is also a lawyer, an economist, a former presidential speechwriter, author and social commentator, is stunned by what he finds on his journey. He discovers an elitist scientific establishment that has traded in its skepticism for dogma. But even worse, along the way, Stein uncovers a long line of biologists, astronomers, chemists and philosophers who have had their reputations destroyed and their careers ruined by a scientific establishment that allows absolutely no dissent from Charles Darwin’s theory of random mutation and natural selection. @prnewswire.com
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The blade of reason compromised
“But what if the vast majority of scientists all have faith in the one unverified idea? The modern ’standard’ scientific version of the origin of life on earth is one such idea, and we would be wise to check its real merit with great care.
Has the cold blade of reason been applied with sufficient vigour in this case? Most scientists want to believe that life could have emerged spontaneously from the primeval waters, because it would confirm their belief in the explicability of Nature the belief that all could be explained in terms of particles and energy and forces if only we had the time and the necessary intellect.
They also want to believe because their arch opponents - religious fundamentalists such as creationists - do not believe in life’s spontaneous origin.
It is this combative atmosphere which sometimes encourages scientists writing and speaking about the origin of life to become as dogmatic and bigoted as the creationist opponents they so despise.” A. Scott, ‘The Creation of Life: Past, Future, Alien’, Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1986, p.111-112
New Poll Question
Please note … that there are marked differences between ID and Creationist Theory - here is an article that explains the differences well.
You can have a person very much in favour of the ID model or even in IT (Information Theory) but they can still disagree that the information needed for intelligent life forms to exist could come from God of the bible, via the way of the Genesis account. The can and sometimes do say that intelligent life could have from came from aliens from other universes and have been known to suggest this possibility. They can also be adherents to Theistic Evolution. So just because they say they believe in ID or IT does not necessarily mean they believe in the Genesis account as a literal account of mans beginnings. As the following quote says…
[...]they dispute the idea that natural selection, the force Darwin suggested drove evolution, is enough to explain the complexity of the earth’s plants and animals. That complexity, they say, must be the work of an intelligent designer.
This designer may be much like the biblical God, proponents say, but they are open to other explanations, such as the proposition that life was seeded by a meteorite from elsewhere in the cosmos or the new age philosophy that the universe is suffused with a mysterious but inanimate life force. @In the News
I reckon this film will ignite further debate and judging by Stein’s blog and most of the comments he has received over this new project of his just proves that dogmatism and critical thought is being shouted down not only on websites such as his, but in the halls and corridors of learning institutions around the western world.
Just found this which is an interesting article that analyses the ID theory from a creationists point of view…
This and more can be found at CMI’s views on the Intelligent Design Movement.