Several months ago I somehow learned about Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. I was intrigued by the project and signed up for e-mail updates. I’ve been following the development and progress of this work ever since, and was so excited to get to see it this weekend. I don’t know much about Ben Stein, only that he’s quirky, so his involvement in it intrigued me even more. The documentary exposes how big science (primarily in the halls of academe) has suppressed the dialogue and inquiry that is so central to its very core by basically blackballing a great many very well-credentialed scientists who dare whisper the concept of intelligent design (ID).
CNS News review states:
"Expelled" calls attention to the plight of highly credentialed scholars who have been forced out of prestigious academic positions because they proposed Intelligent Design as a possible alternative to Charles Darwin's 150-year-old theories about the origins of life.
Instead of entertaining a debate on the merits of competing theories, the scientific establishment has moved to suppress the ID movement in a "systematic and ruthless" way at odds with America's founding principles, the film asserts.
Many are quick to dismiss ID as the delusion of religious fundamentalists, but a great many of the most well-known and well-credentialed scientists who espouse ID do so not because they believe in the Genesis account of creation by God but because they see the terrible failings of the Darwinian theory of evolution. Expelled blows the whistle on their literal expulsion from jobs, careers, funding, even from realms of credibility and respect.
My question is: What are the evolutionists afraid of? They won’t admit that evolution isn’t something that can be proven, but the fact that it can’t be proven (via the hallowed and requisite methods of scientific theory) is so obvious as to be trifling. The issue seems to boil down to more than trying to uphold an outdated “theory” – it truly seems as though the evolutionary scientists are bent on disallowing any room for an inkling of a concept of a Creator (i.e., God). When you have the renowned Richard Dawkins stating that the origin of life could have been designed/orchestrated by a higher being, but not from this planet, it seems pretty obvious that the argument is against God the creator and not the “fallacy” of ID outright. And another prominent scientist repeatedly explains the origins of life as developing as molecules mutating on the backs of crystals and is astounded that Ben Stein can’t grasp that as plausible. Science fiction, anyone?
Again, what are they afraid of? If they’re so sure that their THEORY is the correct one, why do they go to such great pains to kick out and discredit people who should rightly pose no threat? My answer? They know their days are numbered. When Darwin was alive, cells were thought to be primitive, merely a simple building block of something more complex, much as simple letters are the building blocks of the complex structures of words. But the technological advances in electron microscopy have given us an incredible view and understanding of the astonishing complexity of cells. (By the way, the film’s animation sequence of the inner workings of the cell is worth the price of admission.) This understanding has led to the concept of “irreducible complexity” to describe a unit so complex in its intricacies and the interrelatedness of its parts that to take away one of its parts would render the entire unit useless. But Darwinian evolution (macroevolution) requires just that: parts of a cell or organism to develop independently of one another, based on favorable circumstances, until a workable unit is created. (See http://answersingenesis.org/video/ondemand/ -- search for “The Seeing Eye” in video clips.)
The evolutionary scientists are quiet about the many holes in the theory of evolution, including the lack of observable scientific evidence and causation. Among other difficulties, Darwin acknowledges: “The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formations has been urged by several paleontologists . . . as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species. . . There is another and allied difficulty, which is much more serious. I allude to the manner in which species belonging to several of the main divisions of the animal kingdom suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks. . . . The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the [evolutionary] views here entertained.” No observable cause and effect; no means to observe, replicate, or measure the process; no transitional forms; no new species.
In a nutshell, atheists have to believe in something when it comes to the origins of life. By default, it can’t be God, so anything that is NOT God will do. I do not have the faith required to believe that life originated from nothing. Lightning in a swamp? Are you kidding me? Because of a massive jolt of electricity, amino acids suddenly arranged themselves into 250 complex proteins that then randomly ordered themselves in a such a way as to become ALIVE? And what on earth in nature (which evolutionists find to be revered rather than its Creator) actually INCREASES in complexity in order over time if it is not directed? Nothing! Non-directed events result in chaos and decay, not order and growth, which is what Darwinian evolution requires. Why is it so far-fetched to believe that anything that exists in order must have order in its origin? Did these words miraculously appear on this page? Aliens, crystals, primordial ooze … apparently many people find these things preferable to believing that something with a mind of order and purpose designed life as we know it with order and purpose. After all, belief in that pretty much requires belief in God, and belief in God requires us to change ourselves. They rail against “religion” yet fail to see that they put their whole FAITH in Darwinism – THAT is the opiate of those masses. Yet, these same people profess to believe in freedom of thought and speech and academic pursuits? Common sense has, indeed, been expelled.
Frightening links from Darwinian theory to Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood and Hitler and ethnic "cleansing" are poignant and well documented and attributed.
One additional note that doesn’t fit in anywhere else but I feel compelled to share. Stein visited a museum of Darwin and a few long seconds were spent on a shot of a statue of Darwin. I couldn’t help but think that he looks sad, even in marble – almost as though he realizes now that he was wrong, but it’s too late for him now.
People who say it better than I:
http://www.icr.org/home/resources/resources_tracts_scientificcaseagainstevolution/
