What I Got Out of Ben Stein's 'Expelled'

This weekend I finally managed to see Ben Stein's film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, and I liked it. I am glad that the film didn't spend it's time trying to 'end the debate once and for all' or just add more fuel to the us vs. them battle between Creationism and Evolution. Here are some main ideas from the film that I really liked hearing:

• Intelligent Design is not Creationism. It is also not a religion, en effort to put God in schools, or a political agenda.
• Believing that life was formed by the design of nature or visiting Aliens is a form of intelligent design.
• Many professionals who have given credence to Intelligent Design as a possibility or a point worth debating have been fired from their jobs. This is unfair and shows that opponents of Intelligent Design do not know what they are talking about. (Are we all supposed to take a purely nihilistic approach to everything? Carl Sagan certainly did not take this approach in believing that the answer would be found in contacting Aliens.)
• It was once believed that the cell was a very simple thing. We now understand that a single cell is more complicated than the Starship Enterprise and our views about how such a cell could arise from non-living matter should be updated accordingly.

Let's talk about that last point. In science, it is normal to challenge older beliefs. We no longer believe in all 5 of Dalton's Atomic Laws. Current theories about physics are being created with the basis that Einstein was wrong about the speed of light. We must update our beliefs as new discoveries are made. Now that we understand how complex a cell is, we must not assume it could be formed in a simple manner from mud.

It is agreed that he may have spent too much time discussing the Holocaust, but this is an important point to Ben Stein and was part of his journey, so it belongs in the film.

I was very happy with this documentary. There are too many misunderstandings about Intelligent Design that make discussions between people of differing views complicated. This film may help clear the waters for better discussions.

How did Ben Stein's Movie, Expelled, Do Over the Weekend?

I don't have numbers for the entire weekend, but Ben Stein's film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, opened quite well. Another documentary film titled, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden, also opened this weekend. (It was made by the same guy who made Super Size Me a few years ago.) Here are some early facts from this weekend:

One notable success has been the intelligent design documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, featuring Ben Stein. Released on a little over 1,000 screens... the film picked up another $1.03 million on Saturday, and it will finish the weekend with just under $3 million. Not bad for a movie shot on a shoestring, released by a virtually unknown distributor and promoted very lightly.

Expelled earned a per theater average of $2800 on around 1000 screens, while Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden earned less than half of that, just coming in at $1373 per theater on about 100 screens.

An Interesting Film

By now, you may have heard of 'Expelled', a documentary film from one of my favorite people, Ben Stein.

This film deals with the touchy issue of creation vs. evolution, but, before you run away, let me tell you what this film is and what it is not.

What this film is not:

As far as I can tell from the trailers, this film is not, primarily, a defense of creationism or an attack on evolutionism. While these issues will, at some point, have to be a part of any discussion in this arena, it appears that this film has greater scope than simply feeding this debate.

What this film is:

Why can't anyone believe that God created the universe without being shunned? Why are creationist scientists denied tenure and ridiculed by their peers? Why can't we disagree on this issue and still get along? Ben Stein is investigating the lives of scientists and professors who aren't allowed to think outside the box.

Galileo faced the Inquisition because of his promotion of the Copernican view of the Solar System. Everyone regards this as a terrible crime, so why do non-believers feel they can justify such hatred against their colleagues, today?

There is a certain popular religion (which I will not name at this point) that teaches that the Earth is shaped like a triangle. A primary text from another popular religion (that many world leaders today are using to rule their countries) tells us that Genies populate the Earth. No one is attacking these high-profile religions for their non-scientific claims, but anyone claiming that the Universe was created by someone is completely shunned. How about a little tolerance?