Religion & Law

Two Faces Are Better Than ...

By John Pieret

Hey Kids! Remember when Ben Stein took offense at being compared to Holocaust deniers?

Mr. Stein said in a telephone interview that he had not read [Orlando Sentinel movie critic Roger Moore's review of Expelled], but that ?being compared with a Holocaust denier is nonsense,? adding, ?This guy is extremely confused.? He said he decided to participate in the project because ?there?s just a lot of people who don?t believe that big science and Darwinism should have a stranglehold on academic life, and they have been waiting for a voice.?

But it's perfectly okay to compare scientists and educators to Hitler, as Expelled does with footage of the Nazi death camps, right? However, Mr. Stein is not a one-note denigrator of others, however. According to Stein, anyone who has the ridiculous notion that science should be taught in science classes rather than theology is just another budding "Bull" Connor:

Wearing a black suit and tan sneakers, actor Ben Stein strode to a podium in the House office building during a news conference Wednesday and likened the situation for teachers and scientists who challenge Darwinism to the struggle of African Americans' during segregation.

After that drive-by character assassination, bumping off the truth is only to be expected:

"Let us all debate. Let us think. Let us be open to new ideas and new thoughts. We don't see that happening now unfortunately in many parts of the academic world," Stein said. "The Darwinists, and the neo-Darwinists in particular, have become more Darwinist than Darwin in the sense that they will not permit any question of Darwin."

That's just stupid or deceitful or both, of course. Darwin's original work has been questioned, criticized, revised and expanded in major ways and continues to be. Nor is anyone being kept from expressing their religious views about evolution, though, in accordance with our Constitution, teachers are not allowed to do it in public schools at public expense.

But anyone who is dishonest enough or deluded enough to say that the "criticisms," borrowed wholesale by the "cdesign proponentsists" from the loony-tunes creation "scientists," are themselves part of the "full range of scientific views regarding chemical and biological evolution" deserves what they get in the world of academia, which includes contempt and lack of support for getting a guaranteed life-time job.

I suppose Stein figures that humping creationism under false pretenses will make a perfect bookend for his "career."
.

Full post as published by Thoughts in a Haystack on March 12, 2008 (boomark / email).