Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Whew.

Just whew.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was a documentary that raised up quite a stir when it was released. Like. A lot of stirs, a lot of negative feedback, and a lot of controversy. I think I vowed never to watch it back in the day, didn’t want to accidentally give it any money. So yeah, watching it was totally biased, and I probably made up my mind ahead of time. Deal with it. Reviews (and life) are sometimes not fair.

Hey, stop looking at that Darwin statue. Stop it right now.

The “documentary” was split into four basic parts. First, Intelligence Design as an alternative to Evolution, and the scientists who have tried to do research in it who have been “expelled”. Then eventually, that Nazis are a result of Darwansim/Evolution being taught. Whoa whoa whoa.

That seems like quite a jump, but yes. Ben Stein went full on Godwin’s Law. Made in 1990, he stated that “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

I used to love Ben Stein. Not for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off either. I hate his scene, and I hate everyone who quotes it when there is any silence. That isn’t original or funny. People should stop that. I liked him for Win Ben Stein’s Money. A great and funny game show, and well, it proved Ben Stein was kind of smart.

But a movie entirely about Intelligent Design? That isn’t even the big issue. The biggest issue is the amount of deception that went into this propaganda, to show only his (/their?) side of the coin. I realize that most documentaries are biased, which is why I rarely review them. But at least they try to hide the biases a little bit.

How could you Ben?? I trusted you!

So here is why it is bad. First off, in between the clips of interviews and scenic shots, there are clips from old shows and movies thrown in, to make light of certain arguments and mock them. Serious documentaries don’t do that, but comedic ones might. This one was not going for comedy.

Secondly, the amount of distortion done to the interviews, and facts not shown just to show one side and lie about it, is astronomical. That is a big science unit. In fact, there is a really long wikipedia article on the movie, that not only explains complaints by many of the interviewers, but also why their examples are wrong based on the facts they showed in the documentary. Literally, almost everything is wrong in this documentary, making it deceitful as fuck.

Even better, two professors at Iowa State University were mentioned in this, and at the time of writing, I am a graduate student there. Heck, I have talked to both of these professors, including Dr. Hector Avalos, a religious studies professor here, and he confirmed the same things. They were told they were getting interviewed for a different movie. The questions they were asked were misleading, their responses cut up to different questions to make a point that wasn’t made, and other shady tactics.

The scientist in me is literally exploding with rage over the attack on science in this movie, using underhanded tactics. The good person in me is similarly exploding, at the deception and lies thrown about. This is why I have a rating system that goes from 0 to 4, not 1 to 5.