Intelligent Design Foes No Match for Stein in ‘Expelled’

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1

Actor, commentator, and comedian, Ben Stein promises he hasn’t lost his mind. "Well, he says with his famous dry monotone humor, "at least not in this instance."

On the contrary, Stein - whose documentary film “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” opened April 18th, believes he’s involved in one of the leading cultural and political battles of his life: the fight for academic freedom against an establishment that teaches Darwinian evolution as fact. Intelligent Design (ID) - the belief that certain aspects of the world are so complex that they must have been created by an intelligent being, instead of by a random process - deserves a place at the academic table, he says.

“I think I’m engaged in a struggle that’s very much uphill in which the establishment is very much against me,” he said in a recent telephone conference call with reporters. “But I’m a rebel to my core...and happy to be in an uphill struggle, as long as the cause is right.”

Obviously, conservatives and supporters of Intelligent Design don’t believe Stein has lost his mind. Rather, they believe “Expelled,” one of the year’s most controversial films, has a chance to change dramatically the landscape in the ongoing struggle between evolution and Intelligent Design. In the film, Stein travels the globe, interviewing scientists, philosophers, and doctors who believe in evolution and those who believe in Intelligent Design. In case after case, Stein recounts the story of ID supporters who lost their jobs or couldn’t get tenure because of their supposed controversial beliefs.

The documentary, rated PG for thematic material and very brief language, ends in a climatic scene with Stein interviewing one of the world’s leading backers of evolution, atheist and author, Richard Dawkins.

Stein’s humor is on display throughout the film, although supporters of evolution likely won’t find it too funny. Christian conservative leaders are on board, supporting it. The film was shown at the recent National Religious Broadcasters meeting. It’s also scheduled to be the topic of an upcoming Focus on the Family broadcast.

ID supporters, Stein, and the film assert, are facing staunch opposition in the academic world, in the media and in the courts. “The case we’re making,” associate producer Mark Mathis said, “is that there needs to be freedom in science, that we have highly qualified scientists who are being persecuted for unscientific reasons and are being driven away by a philosophy. That is the core content of the film - the persecution of scientists needs to stop.”

A secondary theme is that evolution, taken to the extreme, can have deadly consequences. In one part of the documentary that likely will stir controversy, Stein tours a Jewish concentration camp and interviews an expert who argues that evolution was a contributing factor to the Holocaust. For Stein, who is Jewish, the moment was personal.