I was disgusted, absolutely disgusted when I heard what was being claimed in the new creationist propaganda film”Expelled” starring Ben Stein. There are two main ideas they are pushing in this film. The first is that mainstream science if trying to suppress criticism of the theory of evolution. This is just a flat out lie. It is an easy claim to refute for anyone who knows anything about how science works. Any scientist who studies evolution, or any other scientific theory for that matter, criticizes the theory all the time. That is their job, that is how science works. One of the qualifications of a scientific theory is that it is falsifiable. This means that you must be able to set up experiments that, if they fail, would disprove the theory. Evolution has withstood every test that has been thrown at it. The problem with the idea of creationism and so called “intelligent design” is that they are not science, they are religion. Once you propose a supernatural explanation for something, you have stepped out of the realm of science and into the realm of personal belief and speculation. Proponents of intelligent design know this and have tried distance their idea from religion and the word creationism so they can teach it in science class. The ironic thing is that in Expelled, they make no effort to cover up their religious beliefs. Their idea is more suited to a mythology class.

The other theme of the movie is very disturbing, offensive, and just plain stupid. This is where they try to say that “Darwinism” (they use that term for evolution) leads to atheism and then to Nazism. They are trying to blame the holocaust on evolution. Again it is the same old tactic of trying to paint atheists as horrible people with no morals or ethics. There is one problem here, Adolf Hitler was not an atheist, he was a Catholic. Now I am not saying he ordered the killing of all of those people because he was religious, but he was certainly not an atheist. The makers of Expelled are basically saying that we should not believe in the theory of evolution because some people might take that idea and do bad things with it. This is a logical fallacy known as the argument from final consequences. Let’s put that into perspective. By their twisted logic, we should not believe in the theory of gravity because someone might drop a piano on someone and kill them. Or maybe we should not believe in atomic theory because we can use it to make nuclear weapons. Likewise, because some horrible racist wackos might twist the theory of evolution does not invalidate the overwhelming evidence that living organisms evolve over time.

I am sick and tired of religious people seeming to think that they have some kind of monopoly on morality and ethics. I recently listened to the interview with Eugenie Scott on the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe and was furious at what the makers of Expelled did. They lied to Dr. Scott and others to trick them into being in the movie. Any normal, ethical person would consider that kind of deception wrong, I know I do. Eugenie Scott is one of my favorite scientists, and although I have never met her in person, seems to be an extremely nice person. Why not do the decent thing and just ask openly and honestly? Oh yea, these people are not honest, that would be a moral value.

I encourage anyone reading this to go to Expelled Exposed to get the entire story. Let’s make that the top site when people search for the movie online. And for further evidence of their hypocrisy, read what they did to PZ Myers here.