Saturday, April 19, 2008

Movie Review>Expelled

Just got back from Ben Stein's documentary. After some poking around on the internet, here's some things I should link to:

www.getexpelled.com (already on the sidebar)

Rotten Tomatoes rating- 9% ouch!

www.expelledexposed.com- a rebuttle site created by the National Center for Science Education

When I was in 2nd grade, I would get very frustrated when eating tacos at home (a meal and method all good midwestern homes should employ) at how difficult the tacos were to manage while arranging ingredients inside the shell. I thought to myself, "they should make a kickstand like aparatus to make this process easier". Low and behold years later, Old El Paso comes out with a taco shell that can stand up by itself. Obviously, when I recently saw these at the grocery store, I was thrilled.

Thats a little bit like what seeing this movie was like for me. Obviously, I'm going to be a fan of a movie that as a whole expounds upon smaller parts that have already occured to me. It doesn't take itself too seriously, although there is maybe a bit much Moore-esque old movie footage/campy cartoon cut scenes.

Stein investigates how free inquiry, a foundational component to academia is being stiffled around the country: by universities denying tenure or outright firing professors who so much as mention a remote possibility that intelligent design could be "on the table", by gate keeping grant organizations, and by the media characterizing people from all over the religious and political spectrum as fundy-religious-rightors.

The problem is, it doesn't appear that everything was kosher. The expelled exposed website documents dishonesty in the production process. If this stuff happens, its not cool; but still has no effect on the subject matter. For instance, if the producers seemed “pro-science” and “sympathetic to science and evolution” (taken from here)why would you only do interviews with people who are friendly towards your cause?

More on this later. I could see myself beating this into the ground, so I'll try not too. At any rate, I think its a great way to get people thinking and get conversation going. See the movie for yourself, check out the dissenting websites for yourself. I thought it was great.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I recently saw Ben Stein on Pat Robertson's show talking about this movie. They were like old chums and very agreeable...weird.
-Mitch

Anonymous said...

just saw Expelled... Ben Stein's goal in making Expelled (i gather) is to promote free thought, especially more thinking about motivations that drive American academia and a lot of other behind-the-scenes worldview that we tend to take for granted.