Did Ben Stein run over Rupert Murdoch’s Dog?
April 17th, 2008 RWA Posted in News |
I’m only asking, because not long after Fox News movie critic Roger Friedman’s pan of Expelled, NY Post film critic Kyle Smith hurls another rotten tomato at it. The highest-profile critic to review the film so far, Smith is less scathing than Friedman, and starts out giving the film too much benefit of the doubt, but totally comes around at the end:
Religion, the combination of philosophy and myth handed down to us, is blind to science. Science ought to return the favor. In a long, greasy detour, Stein shows that the Nazis were Darwinists. So what? They also liked skiing. Having Nazi fans doesn’t make Darwin wrong.
There is no “should” in the theory of evolution. Eugenics is a philosophy, not a science, even if Darwin indulged in it. Religion is normative, all about that “should.” It does belong behind that wall, separated from the search for fact.
Other than that the Nazis were most certainly not Darwinists and that Darwin’s only personal connection to eugenics was being a cousin to Francis Galton, Smith gets it right here. Science is science, religion is religion, and never the twain shall meet. Smith manages to penetrate the either/or fallacy employed by the Expelled filmmakers at least as well as Richard Dawkins did. Maybe even better, since Dawkins made the mistake of taking what many of us perceived as a cheap shot against those who disagreed with his politics.
And speaking of rotten tomatoes…9%, Benjy, and dropping like a rock. Hope you’re still getting residuals every time The Mask and Richie Rich play on TBS.
UPDATE: 8% and dropping like a pigeon. Stein’s career somehow survived after making North and Frankenstein General Hospital, but I don’t see how he’ll survive this one.
UPDATE #2: Well, it’s back to 9%, but still, just two fresh reviews, and one of them is from Christianity Today, and it’s more a mixed review than a positive one. It’s a lot like how most of the positive reviews for Lions for Lambs came from moonbat sites like Counterpunch.
April 19th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
You really don’t believe that the National Socialist party were not Darwinists? You are wrong. If you take a little time to think about it though, they are right. We are facing over population and widespread disease. Darwin himself said it plainly. Most people can’t understand the truth in natural selection. The people the Germans in WWII detained and executed were not strong enough to defend themselves. Further, many were a drain on all resources. Now, its not something most people want to hear, but quite truthfully, it was probably better for Europe. Look at it today. Look at the failing American economy. You can point fingers at greed, but you also have to go back to the events of WWII. I don’t get why some people are willing to take most of what Darwin established but leave its application to humans. Eugenics was simply hurrying natural selection along. Perhaps adopting some of these ideas in American society would help our condition. I am not advocating genocide, but I think we could benefit from constructive guidance. What about you?