On the matters of faiths, beliefs, sciences and worldviews.

So I just finished watching Ben Stein’s horrible documentary on Intelligent Design, “Expelled: No Intelligent Allowed“, and about how there’s a big conspiracy in the scientific society to suppress any and all mentions of ideas that challenge the theory of evolution. I spent most of the 90 minutes yawning, and shaking my head at the TV, but here are a few things that I wanted to highlight for those who’ve watched this film and think it’s important.

Unarguably the most important criticism of this film is the fact that it contains no facts. The entire 90 minutes consist of Stein (or someone else) interviewing people who feel they’ve been wronged by science, and are left without jobs or, in some cases, without the possibility of ever even getting a new job in their field. Sure, there’s a valid point in investigating the circumstances of these people’s claims to have been ostracized from science in general, I’ll admit that much. But does Stein even do that? No, of course not. The few cases he even felt the need to investigate were done sloppily so, and without any depth or reasoning whatsoever. He’s content with the assumption that these people lost their jobs because of their opinions.

The validity of the hypothesis of Intelligent Design, then. Does Stein actually bother to find out if it really is what proponents claim it is? No, not that either. He assumes, throughout the entire film, that the mere fact that the idea of Intelligent Design exists means it is on equal ground to the theory of evolution in any debate over the two. He disregards the scientific scrutiny either due to gross ignorance in the subject, or malicious intent.

For 90 minutes, the people he interviews talk about holes in the theory of evolution, gaps in many fields of science, great controversy and all kinds of disturbing notions. Disturbing, had they been true, that is, and which is something that he doesn’t bother at all to verify. When asking about one certain idea of how life might have evolved from non-life, he dismisses the answer simply because he doesn’t understand it. Admittedly, the interviewee didn’t exactly make himself very clear, but doesn’t that just mean that Stein should have sought a more detailed explanation elsewhere? Of course, he didn’t.

Near the end, he interviewed Richard Dawkins and asked some pretty much non-essential questions that had nothing to do with anything else in his film, and had some very telling reactions to his answers. At 1hr and 31 minutes he seems baffled at the idea that Dawkins rejects all possible gods (by contrast, Dawkins is also equally baffled at the reaction to his answer). The problem here is one that is central to those who call themselves ignosticists rather than atheists or agnostics, and that is that it is meaningless to discuss the existence of a term you’ve not yet clearly defined the meaning of. In the same interview, Dawkins tries to explain the possibility of Intelligent Design by creator that itself is a product of natural evolution, and it is doubtless this that confuses Stein. He goes so far as to express his confusion in a voice-over during the interview clip. What he probably doesn’t understand is Dawkins’ definition of God in scientific terms, as applied to the context of Intelligent Design. The idea of an intelligent designer is plausible even within evolution if that designer itself was a product of evolution. However, science can not, and will not, ever allow the idea that the designer is “magic” and came out of nowhere. This is not a fault in science, but rather it is the very point of science.

Overall, the film left me rather irritated. The intent of the film was to show that the freedom to express ideas and have them taken seriously is under attack. What he didn’t mention, however, is that Intelligent Design is an idea that has only ever been expressed, but never scientifically verified by either side. Surely Stein isn’t proposing that we assign equal scientific value to any idea proposed, no matter how ridiculous? Of course not, he only proposes this when it comes to the thinly disguised version of Creationism, a religious and non-scientific movement, that is renamed and rebranded as Intelligent Design. Even early on in the film, Stein wants to assign credibility to ID’s secular validity by stating how many theistic religions there are that accept it and back it up. Surely, finding a single atheist to support ID would have been more constructive, but I also suspect that it would have been much, much harder.

By all means, watch this film if you want to. Just keep your mind alert while you do, and I guarantee that you won’t miss the glaring holes, gaps and fallacies in the arguments that he presents, nor the suspiciously missing facts to support the very claim of validity for Intelligent Design that he’s repeatedly making through the 90 minutes of it.

You might not be overly surprised that I read Ray Comfort’s blog daily – purely for laughs. His overall incompetence in grasping even the very basics of evolutionary science is comedical in the extreme. So what could possibly top that? His commenters, of course!

Consider the following statement by user ‘Its ALL about JESUS !!!‘:

Atheists,
We have gone over this so many times and you still fail to see the basic understanding of a “THEORY”.

[...]

Here is Webster’s definition:
“a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation b: an unproved assumption : conjecture “

A conjecture would be something like this:
I see the sun rise and the sun sets, I also see the moon rise and the moon setting. Therefore the earth is the center of the universe! WRONG !!!

Just as wrong as evolution.

Remember that we’re discussing whether the theory of evolution is to be considered scientific or not. You would expect, then, that it would be judged against what is unarguably science. Let’s see what the scientific definition of the word ‘theory’ tells us:

Main Entry: the·o·ry
Etymology: Late Latin theoria, from Greek theōria, from theōrein
Date: 1592

1. the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
2. abstract thought : speculation
3. the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art <music theory>
4. a) a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action <her method is based on the theory that all children want to learn>
   b) an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances —often used in the phrase in theory<in theory, we have always advocated freedom for all>
5. a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena <the wave theory of light>
6. a) a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation
   b) an unproved assumption : conjecture
   c) a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject <theory of equations>

What we gather from this host of explanations is that ‘Its ALL about JESUS !!!’ has ignored points 1-5 and jumped directly to 6.a and 6.b (mysteriously omitting the immediately following 6.c). In fact, points 1, 3, 5 and 6.c directly support evolution as being a scientific theory.

Regardless of what ‘Its ALL about JESUS !!!’ thinks about the actual scientific evidence behind the classification of evolution as a scientific theory (after all, if he can’t even read a dictionary right, would you trust him as a scientist?), those who actually are scientists almost unanimously agree that evolution does indeed fit the definition of a scientific theory.

The added beauty of the scientific method, and theories, is that they are not required to be absolute truth. They’re both allowed doubt, in that they can be immediately discarded as untrue should another theory arise that does a better job at explaining something. Science is not about truths, but only about the search for understanding. In this sense, the theory of evolution is the most valid explanation in existence, to date, of how life on earth evolved from beginning to present day.