Clash of Civilizations or Cultural Jihad?

Richard Dawkins wants to reach out to the Muslim world. The question is: how will he do it?

While copies of his books like The God Delusion and The Greatest Show on Earth (the former about atheism and the latter about evolution) routinely come off book store shelves in the western world, Richard Dawkins acknowledges that there is one place where his books don't sell nearl as well:

The Muslim world.

“To be a bestseller in a Muslim country would be a personal triumph,” he muses.

“I would like to see my books translated into Arabic," Dawkins insists. "They haven’t been. They are all translated into Hebrew. Persian, I’m not sure. My books are translated into Turkish and they regularly get censored and suppressed.

“The experience of my Turkish publisher of The God Delusion was that he was threatened with arrest for blasphemy," Dawkins continues. "He may even have been arrested, and my website has been banned in Turkey. I feel amused really. There’s something to be said for being suppressed, it makes people want to read you.”

Dawkins doesn't merely blame Islamic thought for hostility to the teaching of evolution in the Muslim world -- he also blames it for increasing hostility to the teaching of evolution in Britain.

“I hear that from colleagues at the coalface of teaching," Dawkins insists. "There has been a sharp upturn in hostility to teaching of evolution in the classroom and it’s mostly coming from Islamic students."

“It is nothing like as serious as it is in America, where the hostility comes from Christians, but the consequence can be very poor scientific education," he continues. "When I go to schools, as I occasionally do, I do get depressed when I see children coming out as evolution deniers. I don’t think they would have 30 years ago.”

Yet if Christianity has truly rendered the United States hostile to Dawkins' work, one may wonder how it is that his book spent three weeks as a New York Times bestseller. Compare this to Turkey, where Dawkins' website is banned and his publishers have been intimidated.

If Richard Dawkins intends to reach out to the Muslim world, an important question presents itself.

How, precisely, will he reach out? Will he reach out in good faith -- as he has failed to do with Christianity -- or will he reach out in hostility?

By his own rhetoric, Dawkins' choices seem to be firmly limited to "clash of civilizations" or "cultural jihad".

While Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations thesis has often been used to justify hostility to the Muslim world, this is not necessarily anything that is inherent in its text. Rather, it's been a choice made by those who have interpreted his work and put it to its most popular use.

Meanwhile, there is a deeply-inherent hostility in provoking a cultural jihad. As noted from Dawkins' approach to Christianity, this seems like it would more likely be Dawkins' choice -- one that will be every bit as damaging to his actually-laudable goal of promoting the theory of evolution in a portion of the world where it seems sorely misunderstood.

As the creators (and re-publishers) of the infamous Prophet Mohammad cartoons can attest, perceived hostility to the Muslim world draws quite the reaction from it. It isn't an approach that will win Richard Dawkins many converts.

Enshrinement of Half-Truths Makes For Bad History

Comfort, Cameron, Stein and critics all indulging in revisionist history

As Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort continue their campaign to distribute copies of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species with a specially-written introduction, many of those who are concerned about their campaign are still struggling to formulate a fitting response.

Randy Olson seems to have predicted that particular response.

Well, maybe predict isn't the right word. As Olson notes, the response to the kind of ideas proposed in Comfort's introduction -- blaming Darwin's theory for the Holocaust and for the Eugenics program carried out by Nazi Germany -- has been seen before.

It was seen throughout 2008, as critics vented their spleen at Ben Stein's Expelled.

"Both Stein and Cameron invoke the dishonest and inaccurate suggestion that Darwin inspired Hitler," Olson writes. "Both are celebrities playing the lead role for the anti-evolution forces. And both will elicit the same response from the world of science: thousands of furious, hateful comments on the science blogs crying foul -- and in both cases, all that ranting and rage won’t compete with the anti-evolution messaging."

There's a reason why all that ranting and rage won't compete with the "anti-evolution messaging".

It's because in this case, the anti-evolution messaging is true. Or, rather, half-true.

Individuals like Olson seem to be operating under a wishful delusion. They insist that Darwin's theories didn't inspire Adolph Hitler to lead Nazi Germany in the planning and execution of its atrocities. Oddly enough, their insistences are also half-true.

But history rarely copes well with half-truths. Wherever someone chooses to tell only half of any story, the other half forever remains to put the lie to the conclusions these individuals draw.

Olson -- and a great many other commentators omitting fully half the story -- choose to overlook the fact that Darwin's theories weren't only central to Hitler's atrocities, but central to the very idea of eugenics as a whole.

The problem for these arguments -- as forwarded by Cameron, Comfort and Stein, among others -- is that these programs have always been based on a very selective reading of Darwin's work. These selective readings often omit entire sentences from within the passages they use to justify their plans. In other cases, they're based on wishful and self-serving interpretations of what is actually there.

What is quickly emerging is one of the more insidious elements of many modern debates: history is being subverted for the purpose of rhetoric, with competing revisionist histories -- each predicated on half-truths -- vying for dominance.

It's becoming clear that the appropriate response to the efforts of individuals like Cameron, Comfort and Stein may not come from the scientific community. Rather, the appropriate response will ahve to come from those who are willing to embrace all the facts surrounding this controversy, and present history as it actually happened, not as either side wishes it did.

The ongoing debate between the pro-evolution and anti-evolution camps is simply not worth suberting history for.

Turnabout Has Got To Be Fair Play

Darwin, from the Creationists ought to be countered with Jesus, from the Darwinists

Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort did the intellectual discourse surrounding religion a few -- but not many -- favours when they took Brian Sapient and Kelly O'Connor from the Rational Response Squad and spanked them on national TV.

The debate, in which both sides exchanged some silly arguments over the question of whether or not God exists -- an insipid topic for a formal debate -- revealed Sapient and O'Connor for the vapid, pretentious and self-righteous thinkers that they are, and spoke droves about those who have chosen to fall into lock-step behind them in their so-called "Rational Response Squad".

Now Cameron and Comfort are replicating the feat -- this time by embarking upon an endeavour that reveals themselves for the vapid, pretentious and self-righteous thinkers they truly are.

There has been a great deal of discussion about Cameron and Comfort's plan to distribute 175,000 copies of The Origin of Species on college and university campuses.

This, however, isn't any ordinary edition of Darwin's benchmark work. Rather, this edition features a special foreword written by Comfort outlining what they describe as Darwin's "undeniable" links with Adolph Hitler, Nazism and the Holocaust.

In a way, they are right. But only half right.

Comfort's writing is expected to suggest -- if not outright state -- that Darwin's theories were directly responsible for the Holocaust and the eugenics program carried out under Hitler's Third Reich.

Certainly, many people get offended when it's suggested that there are links between Darwinism and Nazism. This is an insipid outrage. As unpleasant as it is to recognize it, there very much are links between Darwin's theories, the body of facts that supports it, and Nazism.

Where Comfort goes awry is in distorting the scope and context of those links.

In carrying out his eugenics program in particular -- an endeavour formulated feverishly in Hitler's mind -- Hitler relied heavily on Darwin's writings. Hitler was known to have been fond of this particular passage from The Descent of Man:

"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."

In Expelled, Ben Stein (who is Jewish) uses this same passage in his attempted indictment of Darwin.

The problem is that this particular reading is incomplete. The following paragraph is extremely enlightening as to what Darwin's thoughts on the matter really were:

"The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage."

History shows us that Hitler didn't share this particular opinion.

Hitler's partial reading of Darwin's work -- taking only what was useful to him for his purposes, and discarding outright anything that is very telling. In fact, it shows us that the links between Darwinism and Nazism are actually born of the misuse of Darwin's theories.

Hitler's partial reading of Darwin's work is also reminiscent of the "Christian" who accepts only portions of the Bible that justify hatred of non-Christians and homosexuals, and discards entirely the benevolence and compassion of Christ's message.

It's on this note, however, that perhaps those who support Darwin and his theories ought to consider responding (somewhat) in kind. Perhaps distributing an annotated edition of the Holy Bible outlining how, just as an incomplete and misguided reading of Darwin's theories can be used to support historical atrocities such as the Holocaust, incomplete and misguided readings of the Bible have been used to justify the oppression of women, religious minorities, and homosexuals.

Anyone bold enough to formulate such a response would be doing the intellectual discourse surrounding religion and evolution a big, big favour.

The Begining of the End of the Alberta Conservative Party

When Ralph Klein stepped down as Premier of Alberta and leader of the Conservative Party of Alberta, I thought to myself “Thank god, that drunken asshole of a leader is finally gone.” Two years later I find myself thinking “Wow at least under Klein things were fun."

It’s difficult to admit that Klein is a better leader then Stemach. I mean, looking back on his history the honorable Klein had these gems under his belt.

-Barging into an Edmonton Homeless shelter, then telling homeless man, Mark Shea, to “get a job” while throwing money at him. It turned out Shea had a job, but was unable to afford a home in the Edmonton Area.

-Throwing a book at legislative paige Jennifer Huygen while yelling the immoral phrase “I don’t need this crap”. This incident becomes 100 times worse when people meet Huygen and realize that she is possibly the nicest person on the planet.

-Showing off a paper from a communications class in the legislature and bragged about the grade he received. Later people found out that Klein copied and pasted important sections of the paper from various sources. Since then Albertan students have had to deal with stricter anti-plagiarism laws.

Any one of these incidents would have ended most political careers, so it’s not surprising that Premier Stelmach acts as if Albertans will continue to vote for the Conservative Party till the end of time. However, Stelmach doesn’t seem to understand this simple truth about Albertans – they are a pragmatic people.

So long as his the books were balanced, cash continued to flow, jobs were created— Albertan’s would continue to support the Conservative Party. Klein could have sacrificed Jennifer Huygen to Satan on national television, then throw Mark Shea into a tailings pond and so long as he doled out another “Prosperity Bonus Check” he would have gained another majority government.

The thing when King Ralph began to indicate certain controversial political views such as private healthcare or banning gay marriage – he would eventually back down. He understood that while Albertans would support him on the managing of the economy, if he ever acted on his right wing rhetoric, he’d find a revolution on his hands.
Ed Stelmach doesn’t seem to understand this fact. Since he has taken the reigns he’s managed to redo the royalty system in such a way that he’s managed to anger corporations that felt the increase was unfair AND people that wanted an increase in royalty rates in the first place. Instead of convincing Albertans that nuclear power is safe and emphasizing the economic benefits of it, it feels like the government is ramming it down Albertans' throats. And then there is Bill 44, a bill that is an embarrassment to the Albertan Education system.

The recently passed Bill makes it possible for parents to withdraw their children from classes if a “controversial subject” is brought up— sending fears down everyone’s spine that it will be used to allow parents to pull their children out of class when subjects like evolution, homosexuality, and others are brought up with the justification of protection “human rights”.

Environmentalists, The Teachers' Union, Gay Rights Activists, Athiests, The Oil Industry, all are amazingly being systematically infuriated by the Stelmach Government. And while an election is still years away, legislation like Bill 44 will only serve to rally people against their government.

Evolution is a Fact

Someone please alert Zorpheous

Some may recall the witch hunt that ensued even after Canadian Minister of State for Science Gary Goodyear affirmed his belief in evolution.

Various ridiculous excuses have been offered for the continuing witch hunt well after such hysteria may have been warranted. Some attempted to argue that because Goodyear spoke about adaptation he wasn't talking about evolution -- some of those individuals ahve been forced to eat their words after admitting that not only is adaptation central to the process of evolution, but that the specific examples cited by Goodyear fit squarely within that context.

Another, particularly insipid, argument is that Goodyear merely accepts adaptation but not the common ancestry of species. This argument basically amounts to the argument that, because Goodyear didn't speak about common ancestry, he's a secret creationist.

But the most humourous argument raised was put forth by Wingnutterer and general Sycophantic Groupthink worshipper Zorpheous:

"One does not believe in Evolution, one either accepts it as the a Scientific fact, or at least as the best Scientific theory, or you don't. 'belief' is for the sky fairies.

I do not believe in Newton's Laws of Motion, I accept them as being fact and true (with in a Newtonian frame of reference). I accept The Laws of Thermodynamics as fact, no belief is required.

Also Goodyear's clarification demonstrates that he doesn't have a freaking clue about macro and micro evolution, and most like doesn't even under either and their place in complete Evolutionary Model.

In short, Goodyear only confirmed his ignorance."

The overwhelming stupidity of Zorpheous' argument is apparent almost immediately, the instant that one considers the meaning of the word believe.

It's amusing to hear someone who devotes so much of his time trying to label the entire conservative wing of the blogosphere as stupid insisting that one cannot "have confidence or faith in the truth" of a fact, or that one cannot accept a fact as "true or real".

Not to mention the fact that it can be confirmed that human adaptation to sun intensity -- as alluded to by Goodyear -- has an evolutonary basis.

As Ryan Gregory notes, these things are facts. One can only wonder how it is Zorpheous can imagine that one cannot believe in fact.

Warning: Witchhunt in Progress

Evolutionary theory being bastardized in the name of manufactured scandal

A controversy was recently sparked when federal Science Minister of State Gary Goodyear recently refused to answer a question about whether or not he believed in evolution.

"I'm not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don't think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate," Goodyear explained.

"I do believe that just because you can't see it under a microscope doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It could mean we don't have a powerful enough microscope yet. So I'm not fussy on this business that we already know everything. I think we need to recognize that we don't know," Goodyear later added -- a comment that some individuals have jumped upon as apparent proof that Goodyear believes in creationism.

Yet in a later interview, Goodyear further explained his refusal to answer the question.

"I didn't answer the question because it's not relevant to the portfolio, it's not relevant to what we have to do, [to] what Canadians are worried about," Goodyear explained on CTV. "It's unfortunate a reporter has chosen to take this as something of interest when in fact the focus should be on ...creating jobs and securing our economic future."

"The interview was about our science and tech strategy, which is strong," Goodyear added.

When asked in that interview whether or not he believes in evolution, Goodyear confirmed his belief.

"Of course, I do," he said. "We are evolving every year, every decade. That's a fact, whether it's to the intensity of the sun ...or to the effects of walking on concrete. Of course, we are evolving to our environment. But that's not relevant."

Many of the most intellectually dishonest among those who are out for Goodyear's head are insisting that Goodyear's latter comments reflect an understanding of adaptation, not evolution.

The fact that they're ignoring is that, as a fundamental principle of the theory of natural selection, adaptation is also a fundamental principle of the theory of evolution.

It's very interesting that PZ Myers, a blogging biologist who has helped spread this controversy, has yet to acknowledge Goodyear's comments or correct any of his followers who are twisting evolutionary theory in order to preserve the controversy.

Unshockingly, the usual suspects think they have a real winner on their hands.

As usual, they'll ignore facts -- and apparently even bastardize the theory of evolution -- in order to enjoy a hollow triumph.

Canadians who aren't indulging themselves in willful ignorance will recognize Goodyear's comments for precisely what they are: affirmation of his belief in evolution.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Larry Moran - "Gary Goodyear 'Clarifies' His Stance on Evolution"

Pearce Richards - "Gary Goodyear - National Embarrassment"

Ian Bushfield - "I'm Not Buying It Gary"

The Quest to De-Canonize Science

Vatican concerns that science is for everyone, not just atheists

When someone who uses science and rationality as the backbone of his cause is found to be far more out of touch with science and rationalism than his allegedly irrational and superstitious opposition, one simply knows that individual is in trouble.

This is the dilemma that crusading Atheist Richard Dawkins finds himself in recently, as the Catholic Church, of all places, has cast some serious doubt on some of the conclusions Dawkins has reached and the obvious absence of the scientific method therein.

Richard Dawkins has been known to insist that the theory of evolution decisively proves that "God almost certainly does not exist".

At a five-day conference commemorating the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of the Species, Vatican theologians discussed the theory of evolution with biologists, molecular geneticists, paleontologists and philosophers. They noted that while Christians still accept God as the divine creative force behind they universe, the Catholic Church "does not stand in the way of scientific realities".

Pontifical Council for Culture head Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi noted that there is no a priori incompatibility between the Bible and evolutionary theory.

Of course, Darwinian evolution and the creation account in Genesis may not be entirely compatible... if you take the word of the Bible literally. Such views are more generally described as fundamentalism.

Oddly enough, Cardinal William Levada offered his criticism of "those who have a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible which they want to see taught to their children in the schools alongside evolution or instead of it."

Yet interestingly enough Richard Dawkins has to insist on a fundamentalist interpretation of the creation story as related in Genesis in order to argue that the theory of evolution decisively disproves the existence of God. If one acquiesces to the more widely-held view that the Bible is written predominantly in allegory and metaphor, Dawkins' claim becomes much harder to justify.

If Dawkins' claim that evolution proves "god almost certainly doesn't exist" relies so heavily on a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible, it becomes very difficult to regard Dawkins himself as anything other than a fundamentalist.

Dawkins and his ilk have far too long been allowed to canonize science and hold it up to be the scripture which disproves religious scripture.

But if those who are allegedly most predisposed toward the fundamentalism that would validate such an argument instead reject fundamentalism, this is an argument without any kind of a future.

The best way to de-canonize science was for religious authority to accept it. Now that this has been done individuals like Richard Dawkins are going to need to find themselves a new scripture for atheism.

Finally, Richard Dawkins Can Be Good For Something

Dawkins should trounce Ray Comfort and get paid for it

Most of thsoe truly rational-minded people who've paid any passing amount of attention to Richard Dawkins have long realized that he isn't good for much of anything.

Once upon a time Dawkins was an educator. However, since retiring from Oxford Dawkins has dedicated himself to single-mindedly promoting atheism. Which would make him about as useful as Canadian Cynic on Valentine's Day.

However, some use for Dawkins may have just come up.

Eager to test the arguments from his most recent book, You Can Lead An Atheist to Evidence But You Can't Make Him Think, Ray Comfort has offered Dawkins $10,000 to participate in a debate.

Comfort's intentions are very simple -- he wants to convert Dawkins.

"Richard Dawkins is arguably the most famous living atheist, now that Anthony Flew doubted his doubts and backslid as an atheist," Comfort said. "Flew said that he simply followed the evidence. I would like to see Richard Dawkins follow his example."

"One of Dawkins' major gripes is against religion," Comfort explained. "I am in total agreement on that one. I abhor religion. It is the opiate of the masses. It has left a bloody trail of destruction and human misery throughout history. Hitler even used it for his own ends. His other big beef is that he believes that the God of the Old Testament is a tyrant. If I had the image of God Dawkins has created in his mind, I, too, would be an atheist. The problem is that the god Mr Dawkins doesn't believe in, doesn't exist."

"I will donate $10,000 to him, or give it to any children's charity he names," Comfort announced. "All I ask is that he goes into a studio and gives me 20 minutes on why there is no God and why evolution is scientific. Then I will give 20 minutes on how we can know God exists and why evolution is nothing more than an unsubstantiated and unscientific fairy tale for grownups. Then we both will have 10 minutes to respond."

Comfort doesn't expect Dawkins to accept, however. He believes that Dawkins may be too afraid to debate him.

"Sadly, I have found that even evolution's most staunch believers are afraid to debate, because they know that their case for atheism and evolution is less than extremely weak," Comfort insisted. "I would be delighted (and honored) if Mr. Dawkins has the courage to debate me, but I'm not holding my breath."

Of course, Comfort couldn't be more wrong about this. If anything, scientists are avoiding debating Comfort on the topic because they don't believe there legitimately is a debate.

But while Dawkins really couldn't debate his way out of a paper bag in regards to religion -- he's well known for making numerous dead-end arguments and his book The God Delusion is really just a rehashed collection of other people's arguments -- Dawkins can win a debate with Comfort over evolution hands down. That is the best reason to take Comfort on.

Comfort has seemingly grown cocky since his 2007 encounter with the Rational Response Squad when he and Kirk Cameron managed to wipe the floor with them using some extremely unconvincing arguments.

Comfort's famously debunked banana argument, in which he suggests the shape of a banana is evidence of it being intelligently designed, is an example of the kind of argument Comfort is prone to. And while the Rational Response Squad may be so intellectually helpless as to be unable to counter such an argument, Dawkins is much smarter than them.

Comfort's classicly weak arguments against evolution have left him extremely vulnerable and just begging to be mowed down.

That is the best reason of all for Dawkins to crush Comfort on the topic of evolution, and actually have Comfort pay him to do it.

Questions of Academic Freedom Right on Ben Stein's Money

Expelled controversial, mostly benign and -- unsurprisingly -- a target

To a certain extent, there's a degree of silliness enrapt in the Evolution/Intelligent Design debate that lies at the heart of Expelled.

Proponents of the theory of Evolution insist they can't be bothered to share academic space and time with proponents of Intelligent Design because it reeks too much of creationism. Meanwhile, those studying Intelligent Design -- who are applying engineering principles to molecular biology -- implicitly suggest that they deserve as much academic time and space as the theory generally accepted as the basis of modern biology, and one of the historical heavyweights of scientific thought.

Although trying at length throughout the film to make himself seem like an impartial observer abruptly converted to the virtues of at least discussing intelligent design, Ben Stein has clearly chosen sides. One need only consider the broader implications of his film's title, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

In other words, all the intelligent people believe in Intelligent Design, and anyone who doesn't is... well, not so much.

Whether or not Stein intended this when changing the name of the film project from Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion is truly known only to himself and possibly the film's producer, Mark Mathis. But it isn't as if anyone interpreting it as such isn't reading anything into it that isn't already there.

The film circles around what it outlines as a movement within the scientific establishment to stamp out Intelligent Design by blackballing its proponents.

The film explores cases such as that of Richard Sternberg, who was allegedly run out of the Smithsonian Institute for so much as publishing a pro-Intelligent Design article.

Serious questions have been raised about the circumstances of Sternberg's employment at and departure from the Smithsonian. However, a an investigation by Special Counsel James McVay revealled a certain degree of malice in Sternberg's colleagues reaction to the publication, and their intent to discredit him.

In other words, the truth seems to be neither what Sternberg insists, nor what his detractors insist.

A similar case emerges when considering the case of Caroline Crocker, who claims to have been disciplined after merely mentioning Intelligent Design while teaching one of her courses.

The autors of Expelled Exposed insist that Crocker was teaching various inaccurate facts in her class, as outlined in a Washington Post article.

Yet they also credit "student complaints" for the discipline levelled against her. But a quick view of Crocker's rating on Ratemyprofessors.com makes one think twice about this. In fact, your not-so-humble scribe was able to rate Crocker without any modicum of proof whatsoever that he had even studied under Crocker.

Many of the other ratings on Rate My Professor seem to be nothing more than malicious attacks aimed at Crocker, and are notably fraudulent.

Throughout the film, Stein falls back on a Berlin wall metaphor that, when considered afterward, is actually fairly tortured. He insists that the wall was built to keep western ideas out of Communist East Germany. But anyone even passingly familiar with Cold War History knows quite differently -- that the Berlin Wall wasn't built to keep capitalist ideas from getting in to East Berlin, but rather was built to stop East Germans from fleeing from communism into West Germany, discrediting the ideology.

An argument could potentially be made that proponents of Evolutionary theory have, indeed built such a wall. But Stein's metaphor is inept, and even noting that such a metaphorical wall has been built to prevent students from straying into Intelligent Design theory would have worked for Stein's purposes.

A great deal of protest has also been raised regarding Stein's equation of Darwinism and Nazism.

In particular, the authors of Expelled Exposed attempt to write Nazism off as part of a reactionary response to Darwinism, when nothing could be further from the truth. The specific combination of (perverted) Darwinist thought with some of the subtle Nietzchean underpinnings of Nazi ideology lent themselves quite conveniently to the brutal eugenics program undertaken by Nazi Germany.

Expelled Exposed also accuses Stein of deliberately omitting a portion of The Descent of Man that follows the portion Stein quotes. Stein quotes:

"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick, thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."

The omitted portion reads as follows:

"The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature."

Yet this does nothing to expel the very real tendency of people such as Adolf Hitler to take portions of such tracts that confirm their beliefs -- and Hitler is noted to have had a pathological obsession with killing in the name of eugenics, musing in one writing that Germany would anually euthanize up to 100,000 "unfit" newborns -- and ignore what does not.

Not to mention the fact that Stein doesn't simply denounce Darwinism as akin to Nazism, but rather Nazism as a destination for Darwinism left untouched by any sense of morality, such as that offered by religion.

Even then, as we've seen in Canada with Alberta's historical eugenics program, Darwinism can still lead to unethical and unjust eugenics when religious morality, although present, breaks down.

The most amusing portion of Expelled arrives as Stein moves toward his final confrontation with Atheist fundamentalist and Evolutionist Richard Dawkins.

In the course of a conversation as to why Dawkins believes Intelligent Design should be definitively rejected by the scientific community -- and Dawkins is only one of many scientists interviewed who insist such -- Stein mercilessly grills Dawkins, and eventually Dawkins suggests it's plausible that life was seeded on earth by a vastly advanced alien civilization.

Which is far from a scientific hypothesis.

It reveals, however, the dogmatism of Dawkins and those like him. He is perfectly willing to accept the idea of an intelligent designer, but refuses to consider that perhaps a "loving god" -- as Stein alludes to in the trailer for the film -- could be that designer. Instead, he relies on a "magical sky daddy" of a different -- and equally unproven -- colour.

Which reveals the amount of faith Dawkins has really based his argument on. Considering the number of proteins that would have to align in perfect sequence in order to become living cells, Richard Dawkins could sit and watch a pool of proteins for every second of every day in his life and never witness it.

For an Atheist, to thusly believe in the Darwinian model of the origins of life, that requires an awful lot of faith. It certainly isn't empirically or scientifically proven (the process of evolution certainly is -- the origins of life not so much).

So for Dawkins, it certainly can't be about science. Perhaps for individuals like Dawkins, the struggle against Intelligent Design is really about stamping out any scientific theory that carries even the vaguest traces of Creationism. It would certainly explain why such individuals have sought to associate Intelligent Design and Creationism as closely as possible.

But a lot of this is actually immaterial: where Expelled excels is in underscoring the slow erosion of academic freedom on University campuses and within Science Acadamies across North America and Europe. He's entirely justified in noting that if Darwin himself wanted to propose such an alternative to Evolutionary theory in today's academic culture, he would face incredible opposition spanning scientific, religious and political divides.

One thing is for certain: Ben Stein certainly hasn't done himself any favours when he made this film, nor has he done himself many favours in the course of commenting on it afterward (this will be commented on here in coming days).

Ben Stein has effectively been villainized by the scientific establishment that he questions throughout the duration of Expelled. Which brings one to an important point:

From a group of people who insist that there is no shortage of freedom in modern academia, it's interesting to see how personal a cost they clearly intend to exact upon someone who isn't even an academic.

Then again, no one forced Ben Stein to wade into this debate. He certainly knew he was taking certain risks, and far be it for those whose orthodoxies he's clearly offended to prove him wrong.