WORLD interviews Ben Stein
| April 11, 2008 | Posted by William Dembski under Expelled |
With the big release of EXPELLED planned for next weekend, the interviews of Ben Stein keep coming:
Mocked and Belittled
By Megan Basham | WORLD MagazineInterview: Ben Stein’s new documentary may give macro-evolutionary theory a deserved hard time, and he plans to have fun with it along the way
Though audiences probably know Ben Stein best as the economics teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the actor had a distinguished career preceding the classic ’80s movie—just not in the entertainment industry.
Long before ad-libbing the world’s most famously boring free-market lecture, Stein was a Yale-trained trial lawyer, a professor at Pepperdine University, an economist, and a speechwriter for presidents Nixon and Ford. Even today, along with his acting, voice-over, and game-show-hosting work, he writes regular business columns for The New York Times and Yahoo! Finance Online, as well as numerous books and articles on various political topics. Of all of Hollywood’s politically outspoken celebrities, Stein’s impressive resumé makes him the likeliest candidate for most credible.
Recently WORLD chatted with the modern Renaissance man about his latest film, Expelled—a documentary opening nationwide on April 18 that makes a compelling case against Darwinism and for academic freedom.
WORLD: How did you get involved with Expelled?
STEIN: I was approached a couple of years ago by the producers, and they described to me the central issue of Expelled, which was about Darwinism and why it has such a lock on the academic establishment when the theory has so many holes. And why freedom of speech has been lost at so many colleges to the point where you can’t question even the slightest bit of Darwinism or your colleagues will spurn you, you’ll lose your job, and you’ll be publicly humiliated. As they sent me books and talked to me about these things I became more enthusiastic about participating.
Plus I was never a big fan of Darwinism because it played such a large part in the Nazis’ Final Solution to their so-called “Jewish problem” and was so clearly instrumental in their rationalizing of the Holocaust. So I was primed to want to do a project on how Darwinism relates to fascism and to outline the flaws in Darwinism generally.
41 Responses to WORLD interviews Ben Stein
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People of faith, Seekers, Agnostics, lovers of freedom.
This movie is going to be alot of fun.
Francis Collins a household name?
Maybe on your planet. Craig Venter ran circles around Collins then left him in the dust.
—–”I think I used “unsetteling” appropriately.”
—–”As I understand it. Collins think that God set off the big bang and let things work themselves from there.”
Your instincts are sound and well worth trusting.Typically, TE’s believe that organisms evolved through a Darwinian process, which, by definition means, NOT DESIGNED. What they mean is that, while design is “illusory,” it is, nevertheless, “inherent in the evolutionary process.”
In other words, God designed a Darwinian “non design” process. So, evolution is designed, except that it isn’t; the process is directed, except that it isn’t; the universe has purpose, except that it doesn’t; God had us in mind; except that he didn’t.
We must understand that, for a TE, contingency is all part of God’s plan. But wait, contingency means “without plan.” Not to worry. For God contingency is certainty. We do not understand the world the way God does. He made it one way so we could see it another way. It’s an intellectual madhouse.
So now we are now prepared to do our comparison contrast to determine the champion of irrational assumptions?
Dawkins (something came from nothing)
vs.
Collins (something came from nothing, except that God created it).
Collins wins in overtime.
Hi StephenB. Good to know my thinking is sound.
Have you read the Edge of Evolution by Dr. Michael Behe?
—-Deep Design: “Have you read the Edge of Evolution by Dr. Michael Behe?”
Hi Deep Design. Yes.
As I noted above, I have no problem with that. But once you’ve decided to make an unbalanced movie, it seems disingenuous to claim it was anything else.
leo
I live on a planet where
- using $500 million in private investment capital to produce the first fully sequenced human genome
is far more impressive than
- using $2 billion in taxpayer revenue to produce the first fully sequenced human genome
Venter did it in the same amount of time at one fourth the cost. If the calculators on your planet work the same as on mine it shouldn’t be hard for you to figure out which achievement was more noteworthy.
Stein was Nixon’s speech writer, too bad Henry Kisinger’s dead, Probably could have gotten the zealots to say alot more… Then again, the dialogue between his droll voice and Dawkins’ squeaky obnoxious condescending one, would have probably caused me to hurl.
Davescot,
Amen.
I’m not really sure why Allen MacNeill’s “opinion” is necessarily relevant to the film. Based on what Allen shared here, it seems he only discussed what happens at his particular university in his interview with Expelled’s producers. What does his interview have to do with a film exposing that academic freedoms are being suppressed at some institutions? Must the film have listed all the institutions where academic freedom is not suppressed in order to be considered balanced? That seems like an arbitrary requirement to me.
Furthermore, in a film that sets out to expose the existence of academic persecution, the notion of “balance” seems a little odd. If you are writing to expose the horrors of prostitution, must you really strive to balance your work by including the fact that some pimps don’t beat their prostitutes? How useful is such a standard for judging this kind of documentary?
Phinehas says,
Furthermore, in a film that sets out to expose the existence of academic persecution, the notion of “balance” seems a little odd.
The promotional material I’ve seen does not emphasize “existence.” The word “many” seems to come up pretty often. Why aren’t there many persecuted ID people interviewed in the film? Do many exist?
The scale of persecution seems to be very small. Is the way to get more oomph to say that Darwinism caused the Holocaust? (I listen respectfully to what ID people have to say about ID, but this is a crazy take on history.) Even if this was true, what is the connection to people losing their jobs unfairly?