Flunking Expelled

58. Most of the things I know (that I’m good at) are self-taught. This makes my CV look far sparser than I really am. For instance, I never took a graphic design class, but I was a graphic designer for a few years. I haven’t taken a bio class in eight years, but I can show I know enough to be a grad student at the No. 1 philosophy of biology university in the world.

For those of you who haven’t heard, Ben Stein came out with a “documentary” recently. The documentary is called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” which I won’t stoop to making fun of. Though you’d think that maybe he should have run that title by some friends before putting his name next to it…

Anyway, the movie is based on a series of false premises. Such premises include ID being an explanatory hypothesis in direct competition with evolution, the existence of “Big Science,” and Darwinian natural selection being more responsible for the Holocaust than, say, religion.

Furthermore, the entire ‘theory’ of Intelligent Design is based on an argument from ignorance. (”I don’t know what else could have caused this, therefore it must have been a God.”) Basically, whenever I hear something that takes this approach, I become extra careful. It’s far too easy to commit a logical fallacy and I like catching them when I see them.

This movie bothers me on a fundamental level because I like exposing myself to knowledge in the hopesthat I will learn more. As a result, exposing myself to ignorance bothers me because I fear I’ll end up remembering falsities and poor arguments as truth. And, if I fear it in myself, I’m doubly scared for the public as a whole.

The National Center for Science Education even made an entire Web site to contradict the claims made in the movie. Go to www.expelledexposed.com for more.

Update: My pal Trumpet Rob just pointed out this video to me:

Last Year: Why would anyone make a private blog post? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose?
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