I watched Expelled: No Intellengence Allowed tonight. Kudos to The Rave in Chattanooga for playing it, though I guess they won’t get tenure now. Before I tell you about it, let me say I can see why some liberals will hate it. Not only does it argue that Darwinian Evolution has flaws, it criticizes abortion, euthanasia, eugenics, atheism, and closes with images of Ronald Reagan. That’ll boil the blood.
Expelled appears to be a solid, well argued movie. It’s premise is clearly communicated in the long trailer. I’m amazed in part by the effort the producers put into giving credible scientists deserved credibility. They spend no time arguing specific scientific findings, which would go over our heads probably. Instead they explain that Darwinian Evolution may be mostly correct, but Darwin’s theory is unclear and cloudy—to use one scientist’s words—and for a scholar to suggest Intelligent Design over random mutation as a cause for evolved life should not be unacceptable. The fact that good scientists and teachers have lost their jobs for either discussing or advocating an Intelligent Design theory argues for a clash of worldviews, not a clash over hard evidence.
Sidenote: Scientists, like journalists, want to appear objective. Some of them are; I assume most believe they are. And scientists, unlike many journalists, are highly educated, intelligent people, so when they draw a hard conclusion, they will naturally believe it is the rock solid truth. That’s why they argue about certain things as if anyone who could see all the tangible evidence clearly would draw the same conclusion they did. But piles of scientific evidence do not draw conclusions on their own; interpretation of that evidence does. And when researching the origin of species, one’s philosophy of science and origin plays a large part in one’s interpretation.
But Expelled is not content to argue against freedom in philosophy of science debates. Continue reading Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Except Maybe Aliens)