User:Merzul/Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed/rewrite


 * This page is for work on a proposed rewrite of Expelled:No Intelligence Allowed

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a controversial 2008 independent documentary film, hosted by Ben Stein. The movie suggests that the scientific community suppresses criticism of evolutionary theory and that American educators and scientists who believe that there might be evidence of intelligent design in nature are being persecuted for these beliefs.

The general media response to the film has been largely unfavorable, receiving a 9% ("Rotten") meta-score from Rotten Tomatoes.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science describes the film as dishonest and divisive, aimed at introducing religious ideas into public school science classrooms, and the film is being used in private screenings to legislators as part of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaign for Academic Freedom bills.

Overview
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a film described by its promoters as a controversial new satirical documentary. It makes considerable use of vintage film clips to put over its message, and opens with scenes of the Berlin Wall being constructed, used to symbolize what it alleges are barriers to intelligent design being accepted as science. In Ben Stein's opening scene he gives a speech in a lecture hall, and throughout the film provides narration. Stein interviews those claiming to have been "Expelled", and several scientists who are atheists, selected by the producers to represent those supporting evolution, culminating in an interview with Richard Dawkins. Intelligent design proponents are also shown, including David Berlinski who raises the claim that Darwinism influenced the Nazis. Stein then tours sites of Nazi atrocities emotively describing the nightmare he implies was due to Darwinism. After a symbolic scene of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the film returns to the lecture hall for his closing statements.

Controversial issues
Discussion of the film has centered on numerous controversial claims or portrayals critical of evolutionary theory and supportive of the theory of Intelligent Design. These include arguments that evolution is not supported by scientific evidence, that evolutionary theory has led to negative social movements up to and including the Holocaust, that evidence of "intelligent design" in the Universe is ignored by scientists, and that supporters of Intelligent Design are persecuted in the academic and scientific communities.

Criticism of the film has characterized it primarily as crude propaganda which relies on heavy-handed imagery, misquotations, and other misleading or deceptive techniques while failing to offer any support for the ideas that it presents.

Intelligent design versus evolution
The main premise of the film, referred to in the title, is that "Intelligent Design", described by one proponent as a "study of patterns in nature that are best explained as a result of intelligence", is wrongly excluded from academic and scientific discourse. Stein says in the film that "Intelligent design was being suppressed in a systematic and ruthless fashion." Correspondingly, the film presents evolutionary theory, despite support amongst the vast majority of the scientific community, as a flawed explanation for the origins of life.

The thesis has been criticized from a number of angles. In a review of the film, Scientific American editor John Rennie comments on the vagueness of intelligent design's proposals, describing it as "a notion which firmly states that at one or more unspecified times in the past, an unidentified designer who might or might not be God somehow created whole organisms, or maybe just cells, or maybe just certain parts of cells—they're still deciding and will get back to you on that." Critics further dispute the idea of suppression. The National Center for Science Education states that intelligent design has been scientifically unproductive and has not produced any research to suppress, having failed to find any way of testing its claims.

In a scene in the film, Stein interviews Bruce Chapman, president of the Discovery Institute, and accepts his assurance that its support for teaching of intelligent design in science classes was not an attempt to sneak religion back into public schools. The film responds to the outcome of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial with Stein saying he thought science was decided by evidence, and not the courts. The trial resulted when a public school district required the presentation of "Intelligent Design" as an alternative to evolution. The court ruling concluded on the basis of expert testimony and the testimony of leading intelligent design proponents that intelligent design was a creationist religious strategy and was not science. It rebuffed the attempt to introduce it into public school science classes as a constitutional violation.

Academic freedom and methodological naturalism
The producers claim that those opposing intelligent design "don't like the very idea of an intelligent cause because they don't like the idea of allowing even the possibility of the existence of an intelligent 'designer.' That might lead to scientific evidence in support of the unthinkable, i.e. G-O-D" What one reviewer describes as four or five examples of "ordinary academic backbiting" are presented as evidence that scientists do not have the freedom to work within the framework of believing there is a god, and used to allege that there is widespread persecution of educators and scientists who promote intelligent design, and a conspiracy to keep God out of the nation's laboratories and classrooms. In the film Stein says, "It's not just the scientists who are in on it. The media is in on it, the courts, the educational system, everyone is after them."

In the film, Stein claims that scientists do not have the freedom to work within the framework of believing there is a god. On the Expelled blog, Stein wrote:

"Under a new anti-religious dogmatism, scientists and educators are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator. Do you realize that some of the leading lights of 'anti-intelligent design' would not allow a scientist who merely believed in the possibility of an intelligent designer/creator to work for him... EVEN IF HE NEVER MENTIONED the possibility of intelligent design in the universe? EVEN FOR HIS VERY THOUGHTS... HE WOULD BE BANNED."

However, describing the film for New Scientist, Amanda Gefter wrote:

Its selling point is that academic freedom in the US is threatened by a vast conspiracy of atheist scientists, hypnotised by what Stein labels in the film the "Darwinian gospel". Supporters of ID are fired from their institutions or denied tenure, the film argues, while journalists who report on ID are silenced or shunned. This is an old trick. By claiming their views are suppressed, proponents of ID hope to be protected from criticism. When someone argues that ID is bogus, all they need do is yell: "See? Suppression!"

The film alleges that scientists and the scientific enterprise (which it calls "Big Science") are dogmatically committed to atheism, and that intelligent design proponents are "suppressed in a systematic and ruthless fashion." It alleges a previous commitment to materialism in the scientific establishment as the cause of this "persecution". Stein contends that "There are people out there who want to keep science in a little box where it can't possibly touch a higher power, and it can’t possibly touch God." The National Center for Science Education says that the film represents scientists who are atheists as representative of all scientists, without discussing the many prominent scientists who are religious, and thus creates a false dichotomy between science and religion. In an interview with Scientific American, the associate producer of the film Mark Mathis said they had excluded scientists who are religious, such as Roman Catholic biologist Kenneth R. Miller, because their views would have "confused the film unnecessarily". Mathis also questioned Miller's intellectual honesty and orthodoxy as a Catholic because he accepts evolution. Miller later noted that 40% of the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science profess belief in a personal God, and that the film by "avoiding these 50,000 people, tells viewers that 'Darwinists' don't allow scientists to even think of God."

In its review, the Waco Tribune-Herald said "That’s the real issue of Expelled — atheist scientists versus God — even though it wholly undercuts statements by intelligent design researchers early in the film that ID has nothing to do with religion." It described the "failure to cover how Christian evolutionists reconcile faith and science" as "perhaps the film's most glaring and telling omission", and said that the film rather "quickly dismissed [such proponents of theistic evolution] by a chain of quotes that brand them as liberal Christians duped by militant atheists in their efforts to get religion out of the classroom." Defending the movie, the producer, Walt Ruloff, said that scientists like prominent geneticist Francis Collins keep their religion and science separate only because they are "toeing the party line". Collins, who was not asked to be interviewed for the film in any of its incarnations, said that Ruloff's claims were "ludicrous".

The film portrays the modern evolutionary synthesis as a theory that refuses to accept ideas with a theistic component like intelligent design. The National Center for Science Education states that this ignores the many scientists who are religious but do not bring God in as part of their theories, as testing requires holding constant some variables and no one can "control" God; consequently scientific explanations are restricted to the natural causes that are testable, regardless of the religious views of the scientists.

On the film's portrayal of science, Lauri Lebo, a York Daily Record journalist who covered the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, noted "The first half of the movie is devoted to explaining how intelligent design is not religion" and then "the filmmakers seem to completely forget their earlier message. The rest of the movie is devoted to proving that atheistic scientists hate God and are trying to suppress intelligent design because, well, it's all about belief in God".

Nazism and evolution
One of the more controversial aspects of the film is its portrayal of evolution as a corrupting social influence that has contributed to a rise in Communism, Fascism, atheism, eugenics, Planned Parenthood and, in particular, Nazi atrocities in the Holocaust. The film does this through argument as well as imagery, which features Nazi gas chambers and concentration camps prominently throughout the narrative of the movie. Stein presses the message of evolutionary biology being a major factor.

Responses to this portion of the movie have said that it is misleading and inaccurate, ignoring both the Nazis' aversion to Darwin and direct causes such as the economic ruin of Germany after World War I and the racism and antisemitism dating back over seven centuries before Charles Darwin. Similarly, critics have argued that the imagery is a crude and misplaced response to a scientific theory. As Scientific American notes, the film almost always labels the modern theory of evolution with the outdated term "Darwinism" to imply an ideology. Arthur Caplan, Professor of Center for Bioethics University of Pennsylvania, stated, "[w]hat is especially startling and monumentally deceptive is that the movie never bothers to tell us what Intelligent Design actually is."

Intelligent design proponent David Berlinski says in the film that Darwinism was a "necessary though not sufficient" cause for the Holocaust. However, Michael Shermer, who was interviewed for the film, wrote of this portion of the film:

Caplan wrote in his MSNBC column that the movie is a "frighteningly immoral narrative" and wrote that "this film is a toxic mishmash of persecution fantasies, disconnected and inappropriate references to fallen communist regimes and their leaders and a very repugnant form of Holocaust denial from the monotone big mouth Ben Stein." The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement that "Using the Holocaust in order to tarnish those who promote the theory of evolution is outrageous and trivializes the complex factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry."

Claims that film producers misled interviewees
The movie has been criticized by several of the interviewees, including Myers, Dawkins, Shermer, and National Center for Science Education head Eugenie Scott, who say they were misled into participating by being asked to be interviewed for a film named Crossroads on the "intersection of science and religion", with a blurb which described the strong support that had been accumulated for evolution, and contrasted this with the religious who rejected it, and the controversy this caused.

On learning of the pro-intelligent design stance of the real film, Myers said, "not telling one of the sides in a debate about what the subject might be and then leading him around randomly to various topics, with the intent of later editing it down to the parts that just make the points you want, is the video version of quote-mining and is fundamentally dishonest." Dawkins said, "At no time was I given the slightest clue that these people were a creationist front." Mathis responded that he "went over all of the questions with these folks before the interviews and I e-mailed the questions to many of them days in advance".

Charles Darwin quotation issue
In support of his claim that the theory of evolution inspired Nazism, Ben Stein attributes the following statement to Charles Darwin's book The Descent of Man:

Stein stops there, then names Darwin as the author. However, the original source shows that Stein has significantly changed the text and meaning of the paragraph, by leaving out significant portions without indicating that he had done so. The original paragraph (page 168) (words that Stein omitted shown in bold) in the book state:

The film leaves out the next sentences, which John Rennie and Steve Mirsky of the Scientific American consider crucial in showing that Darwin "explicitly rejected the idea of eliminating the 'weak' as dehumanizing and evil":

A critical website, Expelled Exposed, points out that the same selective quotation was used by anti-evolutionist William Jennings Bryan in the 1925 Scopes Trial. It notes that the passage in context clearly argues against the idea attributed to Darwin by Stein as a violation of morality and human nature.

Critical reception
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was not screened in advance for film critics, and when the film was released it received generally negative reviews. As of April 26, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 3 critics gave the film positive reviews and 30 gave negative ones. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 20 out of 100, based on 13 reviews.

Response to the movie from conservative Christian groups and the Discovery Institute has been mostly (but not exclusively ) positive, largely praising the movie for its humor and for focusing on what they perceive as a serious issue. One otherwise critical review in the mainstream press praised the movie for highlighting the idea of academic freedom. Not all conservative reaction has been positive; conservative National Review columnist John Derbyshire described the movie as "creationist porn" and "propaganda for ignorance and obscurantism."

Response from other critics was largely negative, particularly from those in the science media. The film's extensive use of Michael Moore-style devices was commented upon,  but the film was widely criticized as unamusing and unsubtle, boring, poorly made, unconvincing,  insulting, and offensive to the religious.

The film's rhetorical approach was subject to much criticism, widely considered to be misleading  and was compared to that used by Big Tobacco and propaganda. The movie's use of Holocaust imagery (and other techniques) to demonize evolution and those working in the field was a particular cause of concern and was considered distasteful and manipulative of the audience, with many critics surprised that Stein, a Jew, was involved in a movie which exploited the Holocaust in a "dishonest" way. Several writers wondered whether Stein was involved for purely mercenary reasons and some expressed concern for his career direction and the film's effect on his reputation. The film's evasiveness with regards to factual information was criticized, in particular that the movie failed to coherently define either evolution or intelligent design,  or to adequately explain the nature of the scientific debate, in particular omitting pertinent facts regarding the "expelled" scientists. The movie was further derided for a lack of historical accuracy with regards to Stalinism and the Holocaust, regardless of evolution's involvement in either.

The movie's promotional campaign also raised eyebrows, with many reviewers characterizing it as an attempt to drum up support from those who already agreed with its viewpoint while shielding the film from outside appraisal. Many were of the opinion that the movie is 'preaching to the converted', and at least one reviewer was concerned that those asking questions at preview screenings were planted. There were also fears that the film was another step towards "sneaking" the teaching of intelligent design into schools.

Promotional efforts
The promotion of the film is being managed by four different firms, including Motive Marketing, which was also responsible for promoting The Passion of the Christ, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Polar Express. The film's website includes trailers, additional material, press articles, and a blog. The blog's first entry was an open letter from Ben Stein which explains his personal premise for the movie. Stein discusses freedom of inquiry, teleology and the beliefs of historically prominent scientists. He also accuses the modern American scientific establishment of being "a new anti-religious dogmatism". The letter claims that Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein based their work and discoveries on creationist assumptions, and that they would not be allowed to pursue their science in the scientific atmosphere that exists today. The film's website asked for submissions of personal stories of discrimination against students for suggesting design or questioning Darwinian theory, with the enticement that a winning story, or stories, would be featured in the film.

Stein appeared on the cable television show The O'Reilly Factor, where Intelligent design was described by Bill O'Reilly as the idea that "a deity created life". Stein stated, "There's no doubt about it. We have lots and lots of evidence of it in the movie. And you know Einstein worked within the framework of believing there was a god. Newton worked within the framework of believing there was a god. For gosh sakes Darwin worked within the framework of believing there was a god. And yet, somehow, today you're not allowed to believe it. Why can't we have as much freedom as Darwin had?"

In advance of the film's release, executive director Walt Ruloff, and producers Mark Mathis and Logan Craft provided interviews to various Christian media outlets, explaining what they thought of the movie, why people should see the movie, and why it would have an impact on the evolution debate. Producers also gave away a free, limited edition Ben Stein bobblehead doll to anyone who brought 25 people to see the movie.

The "Expelled Challenge"
The website "GetExpelled.com" launched "The Expelled Challenge" which offers to pay schools up to $10,000 to send students to see the movie. The program offers between $5 and $10 for every ticket stub submitted by the school within the first two weeks of the release of the film. Wesley R. Elsberry noted that at the upper end of the range, the value of the reward is probably greater than the actual ticket price.

The program also recommends a "school-wide mandatory field trip" as "the best way to maximize your school's earning potential". Elsberry criticizes this as a call to "take children away from classrooms, fill their heads with obnoxiously delivered misinformation, and profit off of it."

A similar program called the "Adopt-A-Theater Campaign" was announced in March 2008. The goal was to produce a competition among church groups and other organizations to see which can generate the largest group sale of movie theater tickets to see the film. The five largest groups to register and attend a screening will be awarded $1,000.

Press conferences
Stein and the producers held a 50 minute telephone press conference in late January 2008. Dan Whipple of Colorado Confidential reported that journalists had to submit their questions by email in advance for screening, and at the conference "softball" questions were posed by Paul Lauer, a representative of the film's public relations firm. Only four outside questions were used, all from Christian organizations with only two of them from "the press". Questions came from the policy/lobbying groups Focus on the Family and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Christian program Listen Up TV, and the Colorado Catholic Herald. Whipple described Expelled as appearing to be anti-rational, and cited Stein describing problems with Darwin's Theory of Evolution as being the unanswered questions "Where did life come from?... How did the cell get so complex? ... Assuming it all did happen by Random Mutation and Natural Selection, where did the laws of gravity come from. Where did the laws of thermodynamics come from? Where did the laws of motion and, of heat come from?"

Producer Walt Ruloff claimed that they had interviewed "hundreds and hundreds of scientists who wouldn't even talk" because of their fears for their career prospects if they strayed from the current orthodoxy or from a "Darwinian position". Whipple contrasted this with his own experience of interviewing many scientists holding very unorthodox ideas who were "forthright, diligent and feverishly eager to promote their ideas", and not finding any refusing to defend their research.

Another telephone press conference was held March 28, 2008. PZ Myers listened in on the initial part of this press conference, and then (having heard the password to talk into the call during pre-conference chatter) challenged the producers for "lying". The producers were flustered when Myers confronted them with the information that there had been persecution of Jews long before Charles Darwin's theory. Myers asked them if they had ever heard of the word "pogrom". At this, the producers claimed that Myers was dishonestly listening to the telephone conference, and Myers was asked to leave the conference call. He did so, after first providing the press with an email address where he could be contacted.

On March 28, 2008, many members of the staff at Scientific American were invited to view the film. After which, they began an interview with Mark Mathis which was recorded and is hosted on their website. In the interview, Mathis claims the overt use of Nazi imagery and quote-mining of scientists was not his decision, but instead blames unnamed superiors. He concedes that the cases of the scientists shown in the film are inflated (again, not his decision) and makes erroneous claims regarding the Dover vs. Kitzmiller case which the editors factcheck on the same page.

Promotional efforts by others
The film is being promoted by Christian media and by organizations affiliated with the Discovery Institute. As part of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns claiming discrimination one of the organization's websites, Intelligent Design the Future, makes the claim that Expelled "reveals the stark truth: Darwinists have been conspiring to keep design out of classrooms, out of journals, and out of public discourse." The Discovery Institute has published more than twenty articles featuring on its evolutionnews.org website and blog, tying its promotion of Expelled in with its effort to pass the "Academic Freedom Bill" in Florida.

Many others in the Christian and Creationist communities are anxiously anticipating this movie. For example, Georgia Purdom of Answers in Genesis, a young earth creationist organization, discussed the film and the promotional campaign in an article that appeared December 17, 2007 on the AiG website. Purdom is glad that the film will highlight the discrimination against scientists who rely on the Bible, instead of human reason, for their work. She complains that the only scientists featured appear to be connected with the intelligent design movement, rather than creationists like herself. Purdom also expresses uneasiness about the "big tent" approach of intelligent design and this film, since it does not look like it will promote the Bible as a better source of truth than the Koran or human reason. She equates the use of human reason with agnosticism.

Ray Bohlin of Probe Ministries also wrote about the upcoming film on his website. He also states that it was possible to doubt Darwin in biology graduate school in the 1980s, but it is no longer possible because of increasing restriction of academic freedom.

Kent Hovind's Creation Science Evangelism ministry has also promoted the film on its website as well as selling Expelled resource material.

Box office
Expelled opened in 1,052 theaters (the largest ever for a documentary ), earning $2,970,848 for its opening weekend with a $2,824 theater average. In its second weekend, it earned $1,394,940 at 1,041 theaters for an average of $1,340 per theater and its third weekend it earned $678,304 at 656 theaters for $1,034 per theater. Originally, Walt Ruloff, the movie's executive producer, "said the film could top the $23.9-million opening for Michael Moore's polemic against President Bush, Fahrenheit 9/11, the best launch ever for a documentary." Reviewing Expelled's opening box office figures, Nikki Finke of the Los Angeles Weekly wrote that considering the number of screens showing the film, the ticket sales were "feeble", demonstrating "there wasn't any pent-up demand for the film despite an aggressive publicity campaign." Referring to its opening weekend, Joshua Rich of Entertainment Weekly said the movie "was a solid top-10 contender" and "[t]hat's a very respectable total for a documentary, although non-fiction fare rarely opens in 1,052 theaters." In contrast, Lew Irwin (StudioBriefing) wrote that the film "flopped", and "failed to bring out church groups in big numbers".

"Expelled" has reached 5th highest gross in the Documentaries-Political genre, 12th in the Documentaries genre, and 10th in Christian genre, on total revenue of $6,906,488, as of May 8th, its 21st day.

Legal issues
In pre-screenings of the film, animation sequences portraying the internal functioning of cells as having machine-like complexity were seen to resemble a video from Harvard University entitled The Inner Life of the Cell produced by XVIVO, which intelligent design proponent William Dembski had used in lectures until he was stopped in November 2007. XVIVO issued the film producers a cease-and-desist letter on April 9, 2008, alleging infringement of copyright. The producers then filed a suit claiming that they owned the copyright on animations in the film, and a different animation was publicized, apparently as a substitute. Other animation segments in the film have also been questioned.

The film's use of John Lennon's song "Imagine" led to a lawsuit by its copyright holder Yoko Ono on April 23, 2008. The film producers responded by claiming use under fair use doctrine. In response to the lawsuit, a federal judge in New York issued an injunction preventing the further distribution of the film pending a hearing on May 19. A song by The Killers is used in the film under a license which they claim was obtained by misleading them about the film.