Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Stars: Ben Stein
Director: Nathan Frankowski
*** 1/2 (out of five)
Like the subject it explores, Expelled is either going to comfort or infuriate most of the people who see it. That�s a shame, since the middle ground � curiosity mixed with healthy skepticism � is probably the wisest reaction to this film featuring writer and TV personality Ben Stein as narrator and host.
The film follows Stein on a journey, as he explores a controversy that�s been simmering for years in the U.S. about Intelligent Design, a school of thought that suggests that some evidence of innate logic or plan might explain the gaps in evolutionary theory. It�s been called a Trojan horse for Creationism, with some good cause, but its defenders charge that anyone who dares speak its name in the hallowed halls of academia are subject to loss of tenure, jobs and reputation.
Needless to say, there are proponents on both sides of the issue willing to argue adamantly for their case � you need only visit the film�s web site, or expelledexposed.com to explore their arguments. If you�re already convinced of either viewpoint, then actually seeing the film is almost beside the point; it�s those in the middle who might actually benefit from a viewing.
The ID side of the debate is hammered home with occasionally overexplicit visual counterpoints, and there have been charged of deceitful practice in obtaining interviews, but Stein and the film make a few queries worth asking, such as why Darwin�s more vociferous defenders often sound so high-handed, even emotional, about a theory they claim is proved with rational evidence, and how Darwin�s theory was so easily transformed into a justification for one of the most barbaric social programs of the last century � eugenics, which was ultimately enacted on a lethal and monstrous scale by Nazi Germany.
Darwin�s defenders might want to ask why a science they claim is self-evident provides such unsatisfying proof for so many people, while ID�s proponents should ask themselves if they�re being entirely honest when they claim that there is no religious agenda behind their program. Answers are unlikely to be forthcoming from either camp, but that doesn�t mean that these questions � and so many others raised by Stein in the film � shouldn�t be asked, and openly.
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