Win Ben Stein's Trojan Horse

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008)
Directed by Nathan Frankowski
Screenplay by Kevin Miller & Ben Stein

Expelled is possibly the worst Holocaust documentary I've ever seen.   First of all, it seems to conflate the tragedy of the Shoah with the erection of the Berlin Wall.   And then the filmmakers conflate all of this with the issues of evolution, eugenics, and contemporary academic freedom which are only tenuously related to the Holocaust.  

It's a shame that this film keeps mixing things up so badly, because Ben Stein's reaction to the Holocaust is genuinely moving.   You can sense his emotional connection.   Mostly you can sense this because of the way he sits at Dachau holding his head in his hands.  Ben Stein obviously feels the pain of the Holocaust deeply and while he does seem to get it confused with the Berlin Wall and the scourge of Soviet Communism I can tell that the Holocaust means a lot to him because everytime he disagrees with something or someone he compares it to the Holocaust (and sometimes to the Berlin Wall, but like I said, he seems to get confused sometimes.)

According to Expelled Charles Darwin was Hitler's intellectual forefather and people believing in Darwin's theory of evolution caused the Holocaust--and also the Berlin Wall.   Also, according to this film, people who believe in evolution are firing people from their jobs for not agreeing with them, which is sort of like putting up a Berlin Wall of ideas and then rounding up the ideas you disagree with and murdering them in some sort of metaphorical Holocaust.   And just because it's a metaphor doesn't mean that it can't be real, so Ben Stein goes to concentration camps and the Berlin Wall to show us that ideas can become real and that people who believe in evolution won't rest until they've put everyone else behind a wall and then murdered them.    It's really hard to disagree with this logic.   And I won't disagree with it, because Ben Stein is right and there really was a Berlin Wall and a Holocaust so he must be right about everything else too.    That means the people shown in this film are obviously being persecuted by the academic Evolution establishment.

Ben Stein is absolutely right about how academic institutions are against freedom of ideas.
I have a chemist friend who has been trying for years to get grants to publish his work on the transformation of base metals into gold but who is instead forced by the academic establishment to teach a form of chemistry he does not believe in just to keep his job.    This isn't the free marketplace of ideas he imagined when he escaped across the Berlin Wall carrying his Holocaust survivor father on his back.  There's something to be said for giving people the absolute freedom to say and do what they want in an academic setting.   Call me Laocoon, but I just can't shake the feeling that Ben Stein and his Trojan Horse gang don't actually want intellectual freedom and that there are plenty of ideas they'd like to shut down if they could.   That doesn't excuse the people who won't let my friend teach alchemy to his students, but it does make me awfully suspicious about the motivations of the "victims of persecution" that Ben Stein quickly equates with the victims of Hitler and Stalin.  
I just get a feeling that Ben Stein's friends are planning a party that I'm not going to be invited to.
I guess that's sort of the way people who weren't Nazis or Communists must have felt when confronted with the rise of said groups.  (See, Ben Stein.  I can equate what you're doing to what the Nazis and Communists were doing.   You've made it so easy.  All I have to do is stroke my chin gravely and close my eyes and suddenly it looks like I'm thinking of you as a threat as serious as Hitler or Stalin.   And maybe you and your Trojan Horse are that kind of threat to me.)

So why did I even bother to see this film?  Because I was curious.  Because I've actually seen how petty academics use their small power to enforce literary discipline on those who might question their way of seeing and talking about things.   And when academics can be this vicious in the relatively innocuous fields of literature and fine arts you can imagine the political stakes when we're talking about disciplines like science, politics, law and history.   So I was prepared to see someone go after the way that academics control the way we are allowed to speak about topics and the way the academy can use the badge of institutions to decide who is or isn't a credible speaker.   The tricky thing here is that if Ben Stein had gone after the literary enforcers he could have shot fish in a barrel when it comes to making people look silly for shutting other opinions down for arbitrary reasons.   But with science we know there's a lot more going on.   My other reason for watching this film is that I'm not an atheist, and I've found the radical atheism of the self-proclaimed defenders of science to be (to put it mildly) off-putting.
I was hoping that Ben Stein would have a go at them without resorting to the things which he (of course) resorted to.   But then, I should have expected that because Ben Stein has a Trojan Horse of the Apocalypse and it's about more than just Intelligent Design or finding a room to acknowledge God in science, it's about gaining ground for the religion of the rich and the ignorant to displace not only the secular creeds of academia but in so doing to also displace the religion of the oppressed and the religion of those who believe in a God that is not dependent on remaining ignorant of the natural world.   I suspect the people in Ben Stein's Trojan Horse are carrying a large number of corollary opinions that might even shock Ben Stein if he thought he'd have to live long enough to see his friends take dominion and make them come to pass.    But Ben Stein doesn't care, because he's made a strategic alliance and he's sticking to it.  

I think what bothers me most about this film is that technically speaking I believe in the notion of "intelligent design" insofar as I believe in one God (indivisible) who created the universe and who cannot be quantified or contained by our meagre senses and imagination.    So I should be on the side of people arguing against people like Richard Dawkins who insist on the absolute belief that God doesn't exist.
But something about this film just sticks in my craw and so I feel like Laocoon staring at the Trojan Horse wondering what's hidden on the inside of it that makes me mistrust it.   I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about this whole project makes me feel like a little queasy, like these people are secretly plotting to put up a new Berlin Wall and then commit a Holocaust-like genocide.
I suspect a bait and switch here and that I'm not actually welcome in the ID camp because the intelligent design in question is much more specific than they want to let on and Ben Stein won't spoil their game by admitting it.  Because Ben Stein has a whole herd of Trojan Horses and multiple agendas at play.
It would be facile to say that Ben Stein is unleashing something he may not be able to control.   And maybe Ben Stein has come to some sort of arrangement wherein he won't find the world he's created all that uncomfortable.  But for me, I look at the people at the Discovery Institute and I have to wonder if my belief in God would in fact be welcome there or if I would be first on their list of people to be sent to the work camp.  (Oh, did I just equate the supporters of Intelligent Design with Hitler and Stalin?  Who do I think I am?  Ben Stein?)

Of course, this is all part of the theological problem I have with both the extremist atheists and their ID opponents all of whom seem to insist on the need to "prove" the existence of God.
Everybody seems to be missing the point about what God is.   If you believe in a limited God that can be proven then you don't really understand the concept.    God is not an atom.   There is no molecule of God any more than there is a molecule of Love or Goodness or Evil or Hate in this world.   Mr. Dawkins is incorrect in his insistence that this disproves the existence of such things.   But Ben Stein is equally wrong in hitching his wagon to people who are bent on trying to prove that there are such atomic proofs of inanimate concepts.    I believe that God exists.  Unlike other concepts which I believe only exist because of our belief, I believe God exists with or without our belief.   Some might say that the existence of a universe and existence is sufficient proof that a prime mover had to create these things.   I say that God would exist even if there was no universe and even if there was no "existence" as we know it.
Any God that can be proven to exist in a finite way is a paltry idea compared to this perception of God.
God isn't a particle and can't be proven or disproven by us.   God is everywhere and nowhere.   You don't need to come up with a numerological code or a cipher to prove that God exists and the existence of a fossil from millions of years ago does not disprove God.   It only disproves those beliefs of man that have nothing to do with God.  
And maybe that's my real problem with Ben Stein and his Trojan Horse friends:  they believe in a small weak God who they can trot out when they want something and when they need an excuse to put their dirty hands on me to rule me with their tyranny.   The want to believe in a God that needs them.  I believe in a God that I need.

I guess if I wanted to think about important things then this film was a great launching point for arguments and discussions about things I care about deeply.   But as a piece of propaganda, I hope Ben Stein chokes on this film someday and I hope his Trojan horsemen suffocate in their wooden decoy.  

Documentis Personae
Ben Stein -- former speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford
Dr. Richard Von Sternberg -- with a name like that you'd think this guy would be the villain of a film about the Berlin Wall and the Holocaust.  Von Sternberg is secretly planning on acquiring a nuclear device which he will most likely detonate in order to precipitate the apocalypse....just kidding.  (Seriously, you litigious bastard, I was just kidding.  If you even try to sue me for this little bit of satire I'll make you eat your own feces, you lousy kraut.)
Dr. Caroline Crocker -- an immunopharmacologist adjunct professor whose contract with George Mason U. wasn't renewed because she may have said that Jesus intelligently designed brownies in her home-ec class.  Just kidding.  Actually, Sweet Caroline is a rogue CIA vampire hunter who is trying to stop the evil Dr. Von Sternberg from acquiring a weapon of mass destruction.
Dr. Michael Egnor -- a neurosurgeon who doesn't like evolution.

Dr. Robert J. Marks II -- Firstborn son of the Holy Roman Emperor Robert J. Marks I who first came up with the plan to detonate a nuclear device with the hope of precipitating the apocalypse.   Just kidding.

Actually, Professor Marks II is a cybernetic drone who consumes old people's medicine as fuel.   

Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez -- A Cuban astronomer (which is something like a real astronomer only pressed together and grilled)

Dr. Paul Nelson -- grandson of Byron Christopher Nelson and a believer that the Earth is younger than we think and thus not old enough to drink.   

Dr. William Albert Dembski -- A mathematician whose name is perilously close to Dumbski which is perilously close to being Eastern European and thus he must be a secret communist.    

Dr. Stephen C. Meyer -- A major dude in the Discovery Institute.
Dr. Jonathan Wells -- a biologist who was inspired by Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church to go out and take on Darwinism.
Dr. David Berlinski -- claims that he lives in the oldest building in Paris, really likes to lean back in chairs
Dr. Walter Bradley -- Engineering prof.
Dr. Uta George -- Director of the Hadamar Memorial  (Hadamar was the site of mass sterilization and killing of "undesirables" by the Nazis.)   

Dr. Peter Atkins, British chemist and atheist
Dr. Hector Avalos -- author of Illness and Health Care in the Ancient Near East
Dr. Richard Dawkins -- scientist, atheist, brewer
Dr. Eugenie Scott -- scientist, chief lightning rod for intelligent designees
Dr. Michael Shermer -- founder of The Skeptics Society, if you think you can be sure of that
Mark Souder -- former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana.  Resigned in 2010 after admitting to an affair with one of his part-time staffers.
Pamela Winnick -- a writer
Dr. Daniel Dennett -- another atheist
Dr. P.Z. Myers -- one more atheist

School Janitor, a school janitor....John Deonarine
Sara, a student....Lili Asvar (Viva Laughlin, Hannah Montana, Dexter, Greek, Women's Murder Club, Worst Week, The Haunting of Molly Hartley, Love Hurts, An American Carol)
Student....Toi Rose aka Antonio Christina
Multiple animation voices....Adam Behr

Original Music by Andy Hunter

Cinematography by Nathan Frankowski & Ben Huddleston

Previews

An American Carol 

A comedy about a Michael Moore-like character who is visited by several ghosts and also there will probably be some fart jokes in this film.  Was David Zucker ever funny?

Special Features
1. Fossil Hunter by John B. Olson -- An illustrated ad for a novel.  
"Fossil hunter is a delightful romantic thriller.  A female Indiana Jones off on a scientific treasure hunt..." -- Philip E. Johnson
Ugh.   I wonder if this Lara Croft ripoff at least has the decency to also believe in moral virtues or is that too much consistency to ask of people?
I'm fairly sure that even my curiosity will not prevail upon me to read this book, but hey at least I got to see the pretty drawings of the fossil hunter lady.  

2. An Important Message From Ben Stein:  Academic Freedom Petition 
Is one Trojan Horse not enough for Ben Stein?  Nope.  Here's a little Trojan Pony for you kids.  
This is the sort of thing that sounds like something I should get behind.  I want academic freedom.  I want to be able to write papers about phrenology and to criticize Derrida and Habermas without being pilloried by some jerks with tenure.   But the Academic Freedom Petition is a little like the Keep America Clean Act.  It sounds nice until you get to the second line where they slip in the part about the people they want to clean out of America.   That's the Academic Freedom Petition in a nutshell.  It's a good idea if all you know about it is the title.   It sounds downright patriotic.   But it's about as patriotic as the various actions of the government that allow for tossing people into our Cuban dungeons based on secret evidence that nobody has to show to anybody else.  

3.  Expelled: The Book 
David Berlinksi, who really likes to lean back in chairs and who lives in Parisian luxury has written the companion book to this film.   It features an attractive female archaeologist who fights off vampire trolls in the search for true science and faith.    Also, it has some pictures of Ben Stein holding his head in his hands and pretending to be sad about something.  

4. Practical Applications
The Design Hypothesis and Medical Research 
I think this is technically speaking a deleted scene, but since admitting that any scene from this film was deleted in editing would be tantamounting to saying that the director's creation was imperfect it's not called a deleted scene.    Oh, and I know I'm only half-joking about this being the reason it's not called a deleted scene.   At any rate, I don't know why this gem about medical science benefitting from the idea of a design (and thus a designer) was left out of the film.   It is of great comfort to me to think of HMOs in the future using this great science as their guide to

5.  Expelled Theatrical Trailer
If only Ben Stein had run this documentary like an actual classroom instead of like the kind of propaganda film created by the Nazis and Communists who he claims to hate but whose style of information he really seems to have internalized.   If this had been set up as an actual classroom discussion and had been left up to a certain degree of genuine improvised questioning and answering the end result would have been something along the lines of the academic freedom that Ben Stein is asking us to sign up for.   But Ben Stein doesn't want academic freedom.  He just wants to make sure that his ideas can shut up other people's ideas.  

6.  Bonus Music Tracks by Andy Hunter
"Stars"
This song is certainly not making the case for intelligent design of music.  
This is the worst piece of music I have intentionally sat through in a long time.
"Technicolour"
I stand corrected.   THIS is the worst piece of music I've sat through in a long time.   I used to believe in music until I heard this song.  Now I realize that music is just a haphazard collection of sounds clobbered together and given a name.
"Out Of Control"
I believe in God, but I don't believe in Andy Hunter.   Why did you make this music Andy Hunter?  Why?   I guess this is better than crappy metal, but not by much.   Is this Ben Stein's way of punishing the people who watch this DVD?