No intelligence allowed
This is my favourite time of month, because this is when one of my favourite magazines arrives on my doorstep. Scientific American has been a staple of mine for the better part of four decades and my virtually complete library of back issues is a glorious information source.
I can watch the march of science through its pages and read about the incredible successes from the scientists themselves, who prepare articles for this prestigious periodical’s educated layperson, who may or may not be an expert in a given field. Though I skim every article from the first page onward, I really dig in and settle into my favourites, physics, meteorology and paleontology, like an easy conversation with an old boyhood chum. Always well written, prepared and presented, they summarize the world of science like to other periodical. In addition to the sceince articles, like every other good news organ, Scientific American also has editorials and commentaries, which are always rich and rewarding. I especially like Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic, and regular contributor to Sci Am.
This month, Michael’s article pertained to his perspective on the interview he did with Ben Stein, who produced the documentary marketed to Christian Fundamentalists called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”. Ben set up an interview to query Michael on his views on Darwinism for inclusion in the documentary. Apparently, the interview didn’t go as planned from Ben’s viewpoint.
His viewpoint? Stein draws a ridiculous line that Darwinism leads Atheism, to evil, and can be traced to the Holocaust and other travesties of the 20th and 21st century. Because of this perceived connection, Ben’s central thesis is that the Intelligent Design premise or by any other name, Creationism, is the only viable alternative. Cut in the pseudojournalistic mold of Michael Moore, Ben Stein’s directed approach to enquiry is galling. I urge you to read Shermer’s article and see the machinations that Stein goes through to mislead, obfuscate and distort. Its not about information, understanding or clarification. Its about creating doubt, trying to trip up and hide the hidden agenda that Stein has. Questions are traps, hoping to lead the unwary into saying something that will unwittingly bolster the premise of Creationism.
It’s such a shameful exercise and in a nutshell shows the problems that we now have with vested interests. In this time when we have so many problems to solve, problems that threaten our way of life and the life on the planet, it is so sad to think that so much effort is wasted combating supercilious and spurious arguments whose sole purpose is to give credence to unsupportable and wrongheaded ideas whose only support comes from a conglomeration of ancient myth.
We need to seriously examine another unspeakable travesty in the making, one that could be even worse than the awful genocides perpetrated by the vile evil regimes of the past. Obfuscation and distortion in the name of fundamentalism is as wrong as the eugenics of our bygone eras and bear the same stamp of pseudoscience and ethical masquerades that led us to the holocaust. Is it time to make this type of distortion a crime when so much hangs in the balance and so little time left to act?