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Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Two stars (PG)

Science and religion are incompatible! Darwinism leads to a lack of respect for human life, which is how the Nazis justified what they did in the concentration camps! Smug academics and cynical scientists team up to stifle ideas that differ from the liberal norm! Their goal? To squash hope like a bug and to destroy people of faith!

Or something like that. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is another in a line of sorta-documentaries, where the filmmakers sell their point of view by pretending to go on a quest for truth. Ben Stein, conservative commentator, Nixon and Ford speechwriter, lawyer, law professor, economist, game show host, comedian and actor well-know for using his humorous monotone voice and deadpan expression in everything from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off to The Wonder Years, is the co-writer, narrator and star of Expelled.

The web site for the film states the “why” of the project is that “Ben realizes that he has been ‘Expelled,’ and that educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired — for the ‘crime’ of merely believing that there might be evidence of ‘design’ in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance.”

Discrimination against people with unfashionable ideas? An interesting premise for a thoughtful documentary, but wait a minute. An article on the web site states that Expelled connects atheism and Darwinism with no missing link. Expelled producer Mark Mathis says, “This is not a scientific battle, this is a worldview battle.” The web site’s article goes on to say that “not only is Darwinism foundational to atheism, it is foundational to eugenics, the other reason for the left’s apoplexy against Expelled, according to Mathis. They cannot tolerate the connection Expelled draws between Darwinism and Adolf Hitler. Or Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.”

Of course, I doubt the makers of Expelled really expect many of “the left” to see their movie. As with most sorta-documentaries, the film is aimed at those who already share the basic beliefs of its makers. The inflammatory material is included to try and make them more militant.

Or not. I’m no mind reader, but I wish Expelled had been a low-key, incisive look at its stated subject matter rather just another screed. It starts off well enough, despite the inclusion of lots of film clips and stock footage positioned to be ironic or comic. But the early debate gives way to extremes, from the Nazi stuff to multiple appearances by irksome atheist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, who delights in mocking the belief systems that so many hold dear.

Ben Stein meets with Dawkins late in the film and I hoped to hear a spirited conversation. Instead, Stein appears content to merely collect more rude statements about religion from Dawkins. What a shame. Every day science explains more about the mechanics of life. But who or what started it all? And if it is a who, how was he/she/it created? Questions like those have banged around my head every since I was little. I was brought up Christian, but I’ve been filled with doubts for nearly as long as I can remember and I don’t think I’m the only one. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed had the potential to challenge, intrigue and enlighten a wide audience. Instead, it settles on further shoring up the polarizing mindset that is crippling this country.