Review of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) by Jiana W — 13 Aug 2009

Interesting movie. I have such a hard time seeing Ben Stein as an actual comedian. He's so.... Ben Stein-ish. There were some funny quips from him. The cuts to random archival footage was kind of cheesy, especially when he kept contrasting himself with Ronald Reagan. Unlike Bill Maher in "Religulous", Stein doesn't come off as a jerk who cuts people off during their discussions. He seems pretty open to hearing what other people have to say.

Now, to address some points that a few reviewers are making. They say Stein is not backing up his "claims with evidence". I don't think he's really *making* any claims in the first place. He is encouraging the scientific world to open up to challenges and discussions regarding this, especially considering that, even though there might not be that many, there still ARE brilliant scientists who believe in intelligent design. Secondly, I just *love* the angry reviews from the big-time critics. The same ones who held Bill Maher's "Religulous" as funny, eye-opening, honest, and important simply go to town on "Expelled" as being dishonest, narrow-minded propaganda. It's really cute, actually. Thirdly, I do recognize the wonders of editing when doing films like this and I don't believe Stein is free of at least a little bias.

If you don't get much of anything out of "Expelled", the final conversation with Richard Dawkins, King of the Atheists, was really all it took for me. The same guy who thinks all religion is ridiculous and that those who believe in God are akin to primitive beings, also bent and opened the possibility that the humans WERE intelligently designed. He just says that intelligence was from a superior race of aliens, which of course begs the question of who created the superior race of aliens. As I already suspected, for all the praise and attention bestowed upon him, Dawkins is still just a windbag.

*Another bonus- Ben Stein's "origins" conversation with the guy who had the shoddy-looking gray beard (Rousse, I believe). The guy made fun of those who believe in intelligent design, and then proceeded to talk about molecules riding on the backs of crystals or something daft like that and that helped start life. I really couldn't believe what I was hearing. You can't mock ID and then offer something like that in its place.