Shag, you are completely in denial. How you can claim that the movie "went out of its way" to not implicate Darwinism with Nazism is just astounding.
I never said that. You either don't understand, or are distorting what I am saying. I said that the film didn't make an ad Nazium argument. the film says that eugenics (which is informed by darwinism) is evil and implies that the Nazi are evil (in part) because
they practices eugenics (the Holocaust).
For the argument to be ad Nazium, it would need to claim that eugenics (and by extension darwinism) is evil
because it was practiced by the Nazi. the film doesn't claim that, and doesn't imply that. In fact, as you noted (and tried to downplay), the film says as much.
If you wanna understand what an ad Nazium argument is and isn't, read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Nazium
Now tell me: What does the topic of eugenics even remotely have to do with the supposed message of the movie, unless the real purpose is something else entirely?
Ben Stein told Bill O'Reilly,
Intelligent design is an attempt to fill in the gaps; it might be totally wrong
Evolution is currently the ruling scientific paradigm in this area. As with any scientific theory, ID starts with questioning the current paradigm, looking at the holes in the current theory and seeing if there is a better solution.
As David Klinghoffer points out:
Expelled touches on Darwinism’s historical social costs, notably the unintended contribution to Nazi racial theories...The key elements in the ideology that produced Auschwitz are moral relativism aligned with a rejection of the sacredness of human life, a belief that violent competition in nature creates greater and lesser races, that the greater will inevitably exterminate the lesser, and finally that the lesser race most in need of extermination is the Jews. All but the last of these ideas may be found in Darwin’s writing
How is looking at the social costs of darwinism
not relevant to the questioning of darwinism?
At about the halfway point in the movie, between footage of Nazi atrocities, Stein attempts one very weak disclaimer along the lines of, "no one is suggesting that Darwinists are all Nazis" and then quickly moves on to a fun-filled tour of Dachau. Yeah, Ben sure went far "out of his way" to clear that up.
Dispite your disengenuous attempt to downplay the point, the fact is that this quote blows your whole premise out of the water. If you are trying to imply something in an argument, you aren't going premise the argument by expressly saying you are not trying to imply that.
Before the eugenics section of the movie, the audience was first warmed up with long segment showcasing short clips of "Darwinist" scientists explaining why they became atheists. But Ben isn't trying to suggest anything. Not at all. Apparently there isn't a single evolutionary scientist who still believes in God. Plu-lease.
No condesending distortion and hyperbole there.
Expelled never claims or implies that all darwinists are Athiests, or don't believe in God. In fact the whole point made in the film about Athiests and liberal christians vs. conservative christians blows that idea out of the water.
What the film is showing is how opponents of intelligent design have ulterior motives for suppressing any presentation of ID in classrooms or scientific journals, based on the theory's ideological implications. If ID is true, naturalistic evolution is false, which removes the ground on which one of the most successful arguments for atheism is built. Thus, advocacy for atheism is a huge motive to suppress ID.
Later, the film makes the outrageous claim that Darwinists' evil agenda is based on a pre-determined "world view", which is never expressly stated, but is clearly implied by the prior segments. Am I the only one who finds this "world view" argument downright slap-forehead-with-palm-of-hand astonishing? Pot? Kettle? Beuller? Anyone? Seriously, how can anyone accuse scientists of latching onto a specific world view and not question, let alone examine, the world view of people like Wells?
More exaguration and distortion of the argument in the film! This is becoming a pattern, it seems.
Since Beuller is home "sick" for the day, I will tackle this one.
The film makes the point that the facts are the facts. the two competing theories (Darwinism and ID) are dictated by the world view they are approached with. That world view, on both sides is not based in science. So the question is, which world view is a more accurate representation of the truth, given the facts.
The film in no way implies that ID'ers don't come at this with a bias. It implies that both do. It focuses on the bias of the darwinists in reaction to what you hear (implied and out and out claimed at different times) in the PC establishment; that ID'ers have a definite bias and that darwinists don't.
While I know you like to discredit people out of had for having any bias (specifically those you disagree with), bias alone doesn't impare judgement. You can have a certian bias and still be reasonably objective. It depends on if you are willing to question that bias and go where the info leads.
While both darwinists and ID'ers do have a decided world view that informs there interpretaton, the question is; which side lets their bias cloud their judgement and objectivity. While I doubt you would admit it, the answer (as very well documented in the film) is the darwinists.
A real good example is the debate to include ID in the classroom here in Kansas. The Kansas school board allowed for a day (maybe a week?) for hearings in which both sides could make their case. The ID'ers made their case. What did the darwinists do? "Boycotted" the hearings, protested outside the school board offices and got face time in the local media where they proceeded to demonize the ID'ers.
The fact of the matter is that ID'ers wanna have a debate. Darwinists work to avoid a debate. When Darwinists do debate, they demonize the ID'ers in an attempt to make the debate about them, and not the issue; argumentum ad hominem.
The film points out these underhanded tactics used by darwinists and examines their motivations behind those tactics.
So no, I categorically reject the notion that Stein wasn't trying to make a strongly emotionally-based case against Darwin by appealing to the (intended) audience's fears and pre-determined worldview.
Who ever said there wasn't a decided appeal to emotion in the film? I didn't. That is definately in there, though the film is not all (or even mostly) emotional appeal; there is a lot of substance there too.
He directly and dishonestly implies that if it weren't for evolutionary theory, the Nazis would have never come up with the idea of eugenics in the first place.
More distortion and obfuscation. No where in the film is it even implied that the Nazi came up with the idea of eugenics.
setting up a straw-man argument to knock down in your next line, I see.
That ignores the historical fact that eugenics has been practiced since the the beginning of recorded history, just under a different name - selective breeding.
Now you are sinking to using equivocation, I see.
Eugenics: a
social philosophy which advocates the improvement of
human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention
Selective breeding and eugenics are different things. Just because similar techniques and motivations are used doesn't make them the same thing. Eugenics is purely focused on humans, and race. The justification for Eugenics (as used in the Holocaust and throughout the 20th century) is couched in darwinist thinking. You can read the documents and various quotes justifying eugenics that bare this out.
The fact that Darwin originated a theory on the mechanism behind what had been practiced long before he was born doesn't make him responsible for the (sometimes evil) implementation of its principles. Even if Darwin was a raging racist (he was no more racist than other people of the time*), it doesn't invalidate the theory of evolution in any way.
Eugenics shows the moral implications of darwinist thought, as well as the potential social cost.
Human beings will always manage to find creative uses for science, politics, AND RELIGION to justify committing the most vile of atrocities.
I see you read Kluger's review in
Time.
"The truth, of course, is that the only necessary and sufficient condition for human beings to murder one another [in the Holocaust] is the simple fact of being human"
This is nothing more then an attempt to downplay the fact that the thinking behind the Holocaust was based in eugenics. This is done through "false analogy". While humans have distorted many views, ideas and theories to kill, eugenics isn't one of those. Eugenics doesn't distort darwinism, it simply adds a social agenda to it. That added social agenda (and the methods to achieve that agenda) is what makes eugenics evil. When enacted on the massive scale that only fascism and socialism allow, the result is the Holocaust.
