Review of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) by Justin D — 02 May 2010

The whole film was an argument for intelligent design and why it should be allowed in the science class room. I think I'd have to agree with them on the freedom of ideas part. It seems according to the documentary that people really get abused for even bringing up the idea of intelligent design. They were scrutinized and many were fired for an opinion. I can't stand for that in America. It makes you wonder if Darwinism, as the film puts it, is really dictating our societies world view in the 21st century. This is why I'm agnostic and not atheist or creationist. I believe claiming to have ultimate knowledge in any area of study is dishonest and just leads to all kinds of problems.

One of the parts of the film I found interesting was their discussion of the cell and how complex it really is. How in Darwins day no one really understood how complex the cell was with all its codes, language, and information that is the building block for life. I'm by no means a science scholar so when I hear all this science mumble jumble all I can do is my best to understand it. The way they were illustrating the cell made it look like it was in fact a product of intelligent design and I could see how some intelligent people could draw a conclusion from that.

The film also went into some controversial territory when they discussed the similarities between Darwinism and Nazism. However there were some points made about this as well that I could see maybe where they were drawing their conclusions from. One of the professors they were talking to for example claimed to be a humanist and in no way a religious man. He made a point that a person bedded in Darwinism tended to lean further and further left on issues like abortion and euthanasia. Obviously the mass killings by Hitler was inspired by deep hatred and racism, but was his inspiration really just that cut and dry? The film argues Hitler wasn't an insane man just a man who was wrong in his world view. The film argues that for Hitlers case evil was reconciled by science and what science by Darwinism was teaching. They claim Hitler was a hardcore Darwinist who actually thought he was doing humanity a favor by exterminating the weaker ones so that the stronger ones could progress in the evolutionary chain. They then go on to ask the question would humanity really benefit from having less religion and more science and/or less creationism and more atheism?

Another funny part in the film was when Ben tried to get Richard Dawkins to put a number on the probability of Gods existence. Dawkins slapped a 99% probability that God didn't exist. Ben with his smart ass remarks then asked how he came to the conclusion of 99% instead of say 97%? Dawkins then admitted that he couldn't put a figure on it he just didn't believe in God because of the lack of evidence. Dawkins also admitted that evolutionary theory has a lot to do with him being atheist and that he firmly believes that evolution is not just a theory but a fact. Ben then asked him a question that was rather interesting, "would you ever except intelligent design if science discovered something that demanded it." Richard Dawkins then shared a hypothesis that he believed was the only way intelligent design might work. He stated that, "perhaps in a galaxy there is an alien race that evolved to a state where their technology far exceeded anything we have today. Perhaps a such race could have dropped off a seed on our planet that began the process. That could possibly be argued, he claimed, but this intelligent designer like the rest of nature who'd have had to have come about by the process of evolution." Ben then said to his viewers "oh so Dawkins is open to intelligent design as long as were discussing aliens instead of God.".

The documentary is getting a lot of hate and understandably, but I can't hate this film. I actually admire the work by Ben and his team and think that they put together a rather nice documentary. As far as the look and movement of the film goes it kept my interest. What the documentary ultimately is about is freedom, freedom of ideas and I can't argue against that.