Ben Stein

After hearing that the new Ben Stein movie resembled one made by Michael Moore, I was a bit skeptical, but now that I've seen it I can legitimately recommend it.  Here are some thoughts...

The movie was about Darwinian Evolution and Intelligent Design.  Stein interviewed several experts from both fields as well as other academics and journalists who were more neutral.  The movie tracks a debate regarding academic freedom of scientists and certain avenues of scientific research, not the specific theories themselves (although Stein clearly favors ID.)  The present day science community has defined for itself a paradigm that involves certain standards and a specific methodology / or "how we do things."  Through time these standards change, often instigated by a science breakthrough e.g. geocentrism to heliocentrism; Newton to Einstein.  Darwinian evolution is largely uncontested and, as a part of today's scientific paradigm, it takes a dominant role in genetics.  This is common in the history of science, part of how scientists progress is precisely by limiting the bounds of its methodology and clearly establishing an organized framework within which the community operates.  When newcomers challenge this methodology, its not always pretty, and that is exactly what Stein captures in his movie.  Scientists have been challenging the Darwinian Theory as a way to explain the Origin of species (Title of Darwin's book.)  The alternate theory is Intelligent Design, and advocates have been ostracized within academia.  For example, professors are being denied tenure and in some cases are being fired for as little as mentioning Intelligent Design in their papers.

The objections that ID poses to Darwinian theory are substantial, I'll let them speak for themselves, but I also understand the reluctance of the science community to include ID as "science."  Stein made it sound like it was simply a matter of being nice and supporting "free inquiry."  But it's much more than this.  Science does not concern itself with avenues of inquiry that cannot be tested / falsified.  This is the first point of contention: Does ID lend itself to being falsified?  Is there a concrete way to "test" for the existence of a designer?  With the evidence available, scientists make inferences, but those inferences have excluded everything "non-physical."  The worry is that ID would accept such conclusions.  If so, science would be eligible to investigate the "non-physical" and traditional scientists probably consider this a contradiction.

there's a lot more to write...maybe later...