Expelled: A Topic Agnostic review
Several members of the Topic Agnostic team went to see Expelled No Intellegence Allowed. There have been a multitude of great reviews about this film, including a website that thorough discusses the major flaws in logic, reason and factual errors that are in the movie, Expelledexposed.com/. Here are a few of my thoughts to add to the list.
First off, this movie did nothing to actually explain what Intelligent Design is! Most of the movie is an attack on “Darwinism”, and really doesn’t do anything to explain what I.D. is other than to say that merely suggesting it to be considered in science has gotten people fired or in trouble with their academic institutions.
Another problem is the focus on”Darwinism”, it is a red herring and a straw man; modern scientists don’t worship or hold Darwin’s theories to be infallible, in fact much of today’s evolutionary science has proved some parts of Darwin’s theories to be true and others to be false. Darwin was a starting point; science advances and throws out things that turn out to be false. So to focus on “Darwinism” like it is some sacred cow of science is dishonest.
Much has been written about the movie making the connection between “Darwinism” and Eugenics, which in this movie was directly linked to Nazi Germany and the killings that happened because of it. Other than being and insulting connection, the facts are that science has advanced since then to have an even better understanding of evolution and “natural selection”; yet we have seen an improvement over time of the treatment and understading of people with mental difficiencies. Where are the mass sterilizatons now? Where are the Eugenics now? To make a connection between Hitlers actions and the understanding of evolution is absurd.
This movie felt like nothing more than propaganda, making huge leaps in logic and using inflammatory images to draw false conclusions. Deliberate attempts are made when a “Darwinist” was on camera to make them seem like “the bad guys”; their lighting was usually darker and more ominous, and the music used behind them was also more ominous.
This movie was not an honest presentation of the events. using terms such as “Big Science” and “Darwinism” do not paint an honest picture.
From browsing the Expelled website, you can see that part of the goal of the films creators are to bring the I.D. subject up in schools as a legitamite course of science discussion, and in the U.S. several states have had I.D. incorporated into their science classrooms as the behest of certain groups that advocate for it. I.D. is religion, and has no place in science, it is really that simple.
While it was good to go see the film for me to see what the fuss was about, I feel dumber for having viewed it.
[...] same source. Man, for instance, was put here by God on the sixth day). Read this if you were hoping Expelled was going to illuminate anything about the intelligent design [...]
Posted by Topic Agnostic » Blog Archive » Creationist trouble in Texas on October 28th, 2008 7:56 pm