Review of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) by Frankh. — 19 Apr 2008

Fails as both a film and as an argument. As a film: Is there an editor in the house? Some shots are held much too long, and the film drags as a whole. Where is the development, climax, denouement? They just beat on the same point over and over.

Lighting, contrast, tone? Too eclectic here. Finally, the heavy-handed music is just over the top. We grew out of that after our first couple of assignments in film school. And the Holocaust parallels, while offensive, are simply too commonly used now in such political propaganda to have any shock value.

As an argument: Let's see, if I'm an astronomer (even pre-1969, before we visited), and I claimed the moon might be made of cheese, should I have been let go from my academic position? Hmmm.

.. maybe that would actually be a good idea... The filmmakers ought to realize that science requires data. Their argument provides no supporting data. Criticizing Darwinism doesn't translate to support for ID - the onus is on them to come up with a better argument to replace it - i.

E. one that more of the data support, something they clearly fail to do. And where are the holes in Darwinism? Note to Ben Stein: simply repeating an argument without specifics doesn't make it so.

Seems the biggest potential argument against Darwinism is "irreducible complexity," which has now been fundamentally discredited (see recent Nova special on the Dover trial). Another note to Ben Stein: Social Darwinism and scientific Darwinism are not the same thing, and actually have little to do with one another (one is a flawed philosophy, the other a well-supported biological framework).

In the end, despite the protestations of the filmmakers, free speech is obviously not being squelched, or this movie wouldn't have been released. They simply don't understand what science is, and why ID is not science.

If a "scientist" promotes an idea and fails to find/provide supporting data that's fine (happens all the time). But if that person then fails to change their argument in the absence of solid experimental evidence, they aren't really a scientist after all, and they ought to be fired or let go from their academic position.