Last night we went to see Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Going into it I was unaware of all the controversy about this film because evidently I either (a) travel through a different orbit, or (b) live under a rock. Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel gave it a one star (*) in our local paper here in Duluth. A quick jump to RottenTomatoes.com shows that the critics in general are in agreement that this is a bad film. Reviewer Ken Hanke’s remarks reflect the majority view: “Junk science meets even junkier filmmaking in Expelled -- a no more shameless, stupid and loathsome piece of propaganda has ever skulked its way into the theater.”At the end of the day it is criticized for being biased, one sided, and manipulative with a 9% favorable rating by the critics. But these same critics loved Michael Moore’s biased, one-sided Fahrenheit 9/11, which they described as “Extremely one-sided in its indictment of the Bush administration, but worth watching for the humor and the debates it'll stir.” And this one from Bill Clark of TheBalcony, “Moore's best and most mature effort to date.
Reviews at the IMDB site are no kinder. One reviewer calls Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed “pure unadulterated crap” and others label it “useless propaganda.” Another quoted the New York Times reviewer who calls it a “conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.” Another declares the film to be “willfully ignorant and intentionally deceptive.”
Yet the Expelled raises a number of good questions. Like, are scientists permitted to pursue honest doubts about Darwin’s opus? Is there true freedom of inquiry in academia? Are some questions off limits because they violate the Sacred Edicts of Political Correctness?
But wait, why is it that Michael Moore can raise questions in an entertaining way, and Ben Stein cannot? Michael Moore can manipulate and Expelled cannot? Who’s kidding whom?When Bernard Goldberg blew the whistle on bias within the network news, he was immediately persona non grata at CBS. Admitting the truth that everyone on the inside already knew… well, this is an unpardonable sin. Despite three decades of outstanding work, Goldberg was immediately marginalized and put out to pasture.
As you read the reviews by movie critics (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/) on these two films (Fahrenheit 9/11 and Expelled) it is apparent that the critics are merciless toward one of these films and falling all over themselves to praise the other. I find it pretty revealing.
As for me, I would strongly recommend seeing this film. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is well done, entertaining and thought provoking. The defenders of Darwin were not pretending to believers here. Their words (men like Dawkins, for example) were not twisted to produce different meanings from what they declare here. The film is not dishonest, and the concerns of those who created this film are not fabricated from tissues of fantasy. In point of fact, the amusing thing is how fantastically bizarre the purportedly scientific explanations can become once you wipe out the possibility of God as part of the equation in life’s origins.
You said- "But wait, why is it that Michael Moore can raise questions in an entertaining way, and Ben Stein cannot?"
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is because Ben Stein wasn't in the least entertaining?
You really really need to see this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.expelledexposed.com/
Okay, Dave, I saw it. (the website)
ReplyDeleteRegarding Ben Franklin's comment, well, if you did not see the old B&W footage (like Beaver being strangled, etc.) amusing, well, I guess that's just the way it is. Not everyone found Jerry Lewis entertaining, or the Three Stooges for that matter.
What I found interesting are these comments from the expelledexposed site.
"Dishonesty permeates the content of the film as well: quote-mining, selective editing, and misinterpretations permeate the movie from start to finish, as discussed in The Truth behind the Fiction."
Everyone knows that Michael Moore does the exact same thing. Quote mining, selective editing, misinterpretations... Therefore these are not the real issues. The problem with the film is its content. There are people who do not like what he says because they disagree, not because of how it is handled.
The reaction against it seems quite visceral. The praise for Moore's work, a guy who uses identical techniques, is laudatory beyond its truthfulness.
The reason men like Newton and others of his ilk were able to build the edifice of scientific understanding that our present scholars stand on was because they believed in a rational God, who would create a rational design to the universe that would reveal logical rules and order behind the universe. If the laws of the universe were arbitrary, like the gods of previous eras, it would make no sense to eve try to understand it all.
I don't really understand the purpose of not allowing Meyers to attend the screening. It appears to be a bad PR move, giving the opponents ammo. But that wasn't my call and I don't know the full story.
There were valid questions raised by the film, and none of us really knows all the answers. We're pretty much doing the best we can with the information we have.
Perhaps one issue is that a lot of Christians would love to see science PROVE there is a God, but as Kierkegaard notes, faith ultimately relies upon a leap of faith. Nevertheless, the flip side may be true as well. Some scientists would love to see science PROVE there is no God. In light of the incredible order and design of the universe, even more phenomenally revealed with each generation, it takes an increasingly greater leap of faith to believe this all "just happened."
I guess I'm kind of surprised at the vehemence of your outrage against Michael Moore.
ReplyDeleteThough I agree he was manipulative in his ways of proving his basic points, those basic points about the Bush administration's lies and incompetence have been AMPLY proven many times over by others.
In fact, the Bush administration has proven it's OWN criminal incompetence, time and time AGAIN, both before AND after Moore's little movie:
3,000 American dead on 9/11, more than 4,000 American dead in Iraq, 100's of thousands of innocent civilian dead in Iraq, including little children, no WMD in Iraq, Bin Laden still safe and sound in Pakistan while Bush starts murderous wars for oil in Afghanistan and Iraq, government-approved torture of suspects, including American citizens, near total loss of US reputation and influence world-wide, the housing crisis and tanking of the economy and Bush's ludicrous attempts to convince people that the economy is sound, the US having less than 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's prisoners, the highest execution rate in the world, forced drugging of dissidents, police brutality against civilians, the US in debt to its ears to China, saber-rattling against Iran, the administration thumbing its nose not only at world opinion, but at the opinion of the great majority of American people .........
I'm outraged at the lies and manipulations and murder and warmongering and torture and fearmongering, and actually scared for the future.
As far as God's role in the creation of the world? His approved religion? The names of his mother and son? I'm not exactly sure. I won't comment.
In re-reading my remarks I don't see any outrage against Michael Moore at all. I essentially say that he and Ben Stein did very similar things, but the media critics criticized Ben Stein for doing things that they even acknowledge in their own statements that Moore did. I find it more amusing than outrageous, since the bias seems so blatant.
ReplyDeleteI found Sicko thought provoking. I read magazines from both left and right. I can understand some of the criticisms of Expelled, but do not see many levelled against the fundamental issues it raises. The chief controversy is HOW Stein made the film, and these are no different in kind or degree from those used by Moore.
Pre-Christian philosphers raised the question, who or what is the Unmoved Mover. But modern science rules this kind of inquiry as unscientific and unacceptable, therfore verboten.