Ben Stein's "Expelled'' Documentary

Almost everyone willing to go see Ben Stein’s new documentary Expelled is going to drink from a poisoned well. After all, the nature of the debate is not a singular discussion of evolutionary theory versus intelligent design theory (the film itself presents little evidence in the support or contradiction of either,) it is framed under the broader umbrella of “Science versus Religion.” It is the “versus” which is wrong.

Science purports to explore the nature of the physical universe, with all of its encompassing laws and processes. Religion claims to explore the metaphysical universe, by definition a section of human knowledge unknowable by scientific means. The closest area of academic discourse where the two intersect is perhaps the study of Philosophy, which can never be confused with the physical sciences. Ben Stein falls into a familiar intellectual conundrum of setting up a discourse in which the two distinctly separate areas of human knowledge are part of a balanced equation which must cancel each other out. It is as if one were comparing the physical density of metal to the compassion one may have for stray animals. They are not mutually exclusive nor should they be. They speak of different things in different languages without the aid of an obvious Rosetta stone.

Dogmatic scientists should channel their venomous intellectual disdain into the study of metaphysics, while dogmatic religious fundamentalists should not burden themselves with a scientific defense of supra-scientific matters of ‘God.’ Otherwise we shall all endure nothing more than petty, infantile mud slinging by those most ignorant of a ‘bigger picture.’

There is one extraordinary occurrence in the film which needs further exploration. Richard Dawkins, leading author and intellectual vanguard of the atheist / evolutionary movement, incredibly allows for the possibility of intelligent design as the source of life as we know it. Except that for him, if there is such a possibility, it is by Aliens from outer space. Just goes to show that one person’s Deity is another person’s Xenu.

Albert Einstein quite readily reconciled himself to the notion of a God quite integrated into physical science, and after a lifetime of the highest intellectual and scientific inquiry, concluded that he simply wanted to “know God’s thoughts, the rest are details.” I wonder if Princeton would still grant him Tenure under today’s scientific orthodoxy.