Review of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) by Hamad S — 22 Mar 2009

Asks great questions and speaks about a topic that's taboo among academic circles, unjustifiably so as Ben Stein tries to demonstrate. As with all film-documentaries it isn't a true documentary in that it isn't totally unbiased, and therefore some of the interviews and discussion points that the film presents have to be taken with a grain of salt.

However it is shot in a far less stylized manner than most film documentaries which adds to its credibility, as a rule the more flair a documentary tries to have the less factual or honest it is. Yes Ben Stein believes in Intelligent Design, as I do, but more than anything he's appalled by the unwillingness of the academic establishment to even allow an open debate on the subject, and he's right on the mark on that one.

Academia has unfortunately ceased to be a marketplace for ideas and instead bludgeons competing ideologies and theories into submission with little or no regard for the evidence involved. If we want intellectual freedom and diversity to flourish as any freedom loving society should, we would do well to listen to Ben Stein's cautionary film.

And it's great that he challenges the ridiculous notion that if you remove all religion from society everyone benefits and war ceases, people will always find reasons to kill each other. As Mr. Stein points out the USSR was militantly atheist, and it still killed a hundred million people.