Ben Stein: "science leads you to killing people"
Stefan Jones says: "In an interview on the Trinity Broadcasting System, Expelled star and game show host Ben Stein lets it all out."
Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.Stefan continues: "This rhetoric should be familiar to anyone who has read the 'The Wedge Strategy', a product of the Intelligent Design-advocating think tank The Discovery Institute. Yeah, sure thing Ben. Before The Origin of Species was published, there weren't any massacres, pogroms, slavery, forced conversions or torture. Especially by people with religious beliefs." LinkCrouch: That’s right.
Stein: …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.
Crouch: Good word, good word.
I'm still convinced Ben Stein made Expelled as a comedic venture. He cannot possibly be fucking serious.
thumbs down, ben stein, thumbs down.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=six-things-ben-stein-doesnt-want-you-to-know
Not to be ugly, but before this whole "Expelled" thing came about I'd had no idea what an absolute moron Ben Stein was ... so I guess that's one useful thing this movie has achieved - maybe I'm not the only one to have been disabused of the notion that Ben Stein was a reasonably sharp guy thanks to this movie ...
Nixon was a peacemaker. Science makes you kill. It all makes perfect sense. Right?
I've had the pleasure of having dinner with Mr. Stein, and I found him to be an extremely intelligent speaker, but completely lacking in common sense. He was able to wonderfully craft an argument explaining absolute nonsense. He was the kind of person who sounds smart until you actually listen to the words.
Is it any surprise that his first prominent position was as Richard Nixon's speechwriter?
Nope. Those were ideologists, not scientists. Maybe some of them were also scientists, but they were ideologists above all. It's sophistry, don't buy the language. Just like the pro-life stance- ask a pro-lifer if they're willing to adopt a child from your list of foster homes. And there ya go.
Oddly, the image that popped into my mind was Karl Pilkington - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Pilkington .
When you assume people are normal, intelligent, thinking beings, and something like that comes out of their mouth, there is a moment of utter discombobulation, as if you have just walked into a transparent glass wall. You have to step back and run it over in your mind to make sure that's what they really said.
Pilkington, in a conversation about what he would do with a clone of himself, famously said "But how would I know which one was me?" - Ben Stein's comments hit me very much the same way - he can't really mean that, can he? Surely that's a joke, a character he's playing? ....
When you hang around rational, smart people, you tend to forget that a lot of people aren't.
Mr. Stein, please kindly stop driving, taking medicine, eating processed foods, going to / taking relatives to hospital, watching television, using the internet, using the telephone, and anything else science has brought you.
My wife is a molecular biologist. I guess should be afraid of her. Perhaps she's going to kill me in my sleep tonight. Great. Just great.
I don't think that's a good word at all...
Beuller... Beuller... Beuller...
Um... he's sick.
I saw a broadcast of this interview of Ben Stein by Lee Strobel. (author of Case for Christ)
I just googled it for reference and found it on
"GodTube: Broadcast HIM" lolz
This isn't the full thing I saw on local TV but it's worth noting:
http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=cd2c6616cf2eeaaa8fb3
This interview made my head hurt.
It included a lot of the same rhetoric about science leading you to death camps.
Stein: …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.
Oh...Does that mean Torquemada was a scientist?
Interesting also that the ADL has criticised the film. They sort of try to play nice with the Christian Right, so good to see they aren't too happy about people throwing around the holocaust every time someone disagrees.
What a fucking imbecile.
Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place...
Just to make that guy in the thread about dropping babies off of high towers happy...
There is certainly nothing like love, compassion and empathy. The Bible is just full of them.
For example, here is Deuteronomy 21:10-14 on the rules for raping prisoners of war: "When you wage war against your enemy and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take some of them captives, then if you see a comely woman among the captives and take a liking to her, you may marry her. You shall bring her into your house, where she shall shave her head, pare her nails, and discard the clothes which she had when captured. Then she shall stay in your house and mourn for her father and mother for a full month. After that you may have intercourse with her; you shall be her husband and she your wife. But if you no longer find her pleasing, let her go free. You must not sell her, nor treat her harshly, since you have had your will with her." Really, what could be more compassionate than that?
I once argued with a Christian who claimed that the Bible prohibited the rape of prisoners, and cited this passage. It was never clear to me why he thought that a passage detailing the rules for raping prisoners was a prohibition against it.
Then there is our acceptance of ourselves, from the son of god himself: "If your hand is your undoing, cut it off... and if your foot is your undoing cut it off... and if it is your eye, tear it out..." (Mark 9:43-47). Jesus never mentions what to do if your brain is your undoing, but I think we can see in Stein the recommended action.
But perhaps Stein believe the literal word: "Everything is possible to one who has faith." (Mark, 9:23). Everything, that is, except reaching rationally justified conclusions based on evidence.
I have to wonder what made Ben Stein decide to suddenly discard what had been a pretty good reputation as an entertainer and become a laughingstock instead. Is he now so rich that he can say any ridiculous thing he wants just for the pleasure of making people angry?
Science is fundamentally amoral. Therefore, a person armed with only knowledge (science) and without morals would be a very dangerous person. Religious institutions lead by men without any moral center would also do terrible things, as they have.
There really is such a thing as moral/ethical thought and much of it does spring from spiritual traditions. Traditionally though science hasn't asked itself those kinds of questions. After the Manhattan Project people began wondering if that wasn't a mistake.
Trinity Broadcasting, that's one fucked up network. Especially that freak Jan Crouch.
it's good when the enemy shows himself clearly
I dunno, I still kinda respect Stein. I don't agree with him on the anti evolution tirade he's been sponsoring, but I feel for the ID cause (if only to see it shown to be incredibly unlikely after dissolving it down to the base arguments of 'but how could an eye evolve without a designer?!')
human DNA is 440million bits which evolved in 3.2 billion years. That's a lot of complexity (7 years per bit considering age to procreation vs base pair size) and can easily cause some amount of doubt.
While it's natural for me (a former compsci/math student) to see exponential growth in the length of DNA emerging from mutations that cause DNA to double in size and also bring along some benefit (not necessarily an eye, as that can happen with the non doubling beneficial mutations inbetween), it's even easier to see in larger animals with billion years and only 14 mutations necessary. But no one seems to want to bring this kind of thing up, how exactly does complexity arise in nature? and not just one random mutation to one to three bits of data, but also a couple of random changes and a whole slew of crap attached at the end (obviously this is an edge case, and only has to happen a few times)
Evolution is an amazing law of nature, but it's amazing because of how simple yet complicated it is. I'm all for showing Ben Stein he's wrong, but I'm somehow against attacking him for being skeptical (even if he does evoke Godwins law and call science evil) when one of my greatest wants is to say 'this is how Ben Stein! look at my pretty graphs!! look the amazing data!!! behold its glory in biology & statistics being intertwined!!!!'
Stein can be as skeptical as he wants, but skepticism is no bloody good if it gets in the way of him learning stuff that is already known. Nobody's attacking him for the skepticism, we're excoriating him for remaining wilfully ignorant, and now accusing scientists of inventing time machines and going back to the ancient world to start anti-semitism. (That is what he's saying, isn't it?)
I think that Ben Stein suffers from the same problem as Tucker Carlson, Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. He wants attention. Narcissists commonly pick fights over beliefs that they don't really hold. It's a great way to get attention. In online communities, they're sometimes referred to as "trolls". Can you say "troll"?
I just caught this at IMDb:
At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper co-host Richard Roeper wrote today (Thursday) that he has been accused of "liberal bias" for not reviewing the "intelligent design" documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed on the TV show. In his column in the Chicago Sun-Times Roeper insisted that no liberal conspiracy was involved in the omission. "Expelled wasn't screened for us," he wrote, but given the attention the film has received he finally managed to see it. "Wow," he concluded, "What a piece of garbage."
@21
Bingo. It's not a belief, it's a pose. Exploiting the weak minded for screen time.
Warning!!!! Adolescent ad hominum attack!!!
Ben Stein is a complete fucking idiot.
I particularly like the argument the evolution doesn't explain gravity. Like I said CFI.
And this movie is... Anyone? Anyone?
Utter nonsense.
It's intelligently designed to... Anyone? Anyone?
Separate gullible rubes from their... Anyone? Anyone?
Money.
@#20 posted by Nelson.C
The stuff that's already known and told over and over is that random mutations are good here and there, do nothing most places, and are horrible destructive a lot of the time. Then we're told 'but over -billions- of year humans evolve! without any models that show the increase in size of DNA or how millions of random changes to DNA that's been turned off can build up and when finally turned on randomly (over trillions of iterations a day/month/year) finally develop into useful new organs (punctuated equilibrium)... I agree with the idea, and while I'm confident that it's true no one has yet pretty pretty graphs out there that I'm aware of.
Spoon, you'll never get Stein to pay attention to your pretty charts, because he's not interested in actual reasoned debate. That's why he's claiming that science leads to the Holocaust.
That's also why he sticks "this is just an opinion" in the middle of his claim -- so that when someone rightly becomes outraged over Stein's outrageous nonsense, Stein can say "Hey, man, why get so angry over an opinion?". His whole argument is a set of nested rhetorical dodges of this kind. It's pure propaganda.
comical judeo-xstian interlude
http://www.rudrinking.com/sitebuilder/images/crucifiction-419x450.jpg
His whole argument is a set of nested rhetorical dodges of this kind.
Maybe he's under the malevolent control of Zombie Nixon.
...science leads you to killing people.
Could we please disemvowel this guy?
Noen: "After the Manhattan Project people began wondering if that wasn't a mistake."
That's one of the differences between scientists and the people-who-believe-without-evidence. Scientists are (in principle, eventually) willing to ask any question whatsoever, including, "Is this such a good idea?" It can take us a long time to get there, because we are only human, but the door is always open, however long it takes for us to walk through.
https://payperpost.com/opportunities/images/1230/Nixon800x600.jpg
I can't believe the guy who wrote so well in his "Monday at Morton's" series is the same douchebag who does this now.
@#27 posted by Avram , May 1, 2008 7:38 PM
Pretty graphs are my demand which would show upon cross examination of Stein if he is indeed bad shit crazy or just skeptical with years of derision under his belt from dealing with the wrong people. I, for the obligatory one, hope he's just bumped into one too many rabid evolutionaries who don't understand their cause from their own evolved anus... but I'm also optimistic that 99.999% of the world is grey and that Stein, who seems really cool in a lot of ways none of which have to do with his current agenda, isn't part of the .0005% black. Have a little hope, people aren't normally as bad as they seem.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1062/1460412074_b0cc05fc46_o.gif
@#31 posted by Takuan
I would vote for him, but his stance on sacrificing the brains of the living for the good of the zombie populace is just a little bit too far to the left for me.
Spoon
"how exactly does complexity arise in nature?"
Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker
"In this video I deconstruct the broken watch straw man argument used by creationist / ID supporters to attack evolution."
"The basic premise of the argument is that a bunch of parts will never randomly assemble into the correct arrangement to form a properly functioning complex."
"Here I deconstruct their straw man argument. Basically, I simulate clocks as living organisms. Selective pressure is focused on their ability to accurately tell time. NO goal is imposed on the design (you can tell this because every simulation ends with a differently constructed clock). And it works. Clocks evolve through a series of transitional forms"
The program is written in MatLab and you can download the video as well as the program.
MC Rove is at it again.
Vote flick
Thank you very much Noen, that was a truly elegant explanation, I'll definitely use it in future.
Of course,it can't work with some though since there is no mention whatsoever of Jeebus.
Yaa... Last time my ancestors were in a genocide I think it was because of there beliefes in JC not that the world was round. You hear it more and more about how people pray for there children to be cured I mean who the hell needs magic like penicillin? I'm sure glad that JC and prayer cured my kidney disease and not a transplant like normal people cause of course he looks out for the little guys all the time, even the ones who who died in the fire pits of Deir Ezzor.
Spoon.
There are many examples of spontaneous complexity in nature- next time it snows, look at a snowflake up close. Look at any crystal for that matter. Or consider the many complex molecules that spontaneously assemble if the physico-chemical conditions are right.
You parrot creationist (whoops, I mean ID) arguments that are largely based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (that all systems always tend to move towards greater disorder / entropy). If you're really curious about how complexity arises naturally without the intercession of a higher power (and I suspect you're not), there are a number of excellent books out there, starting with Christian De Duve's "Vital Dust".
DANGER! THE CENTERS MEMETIC CONTROL AND PREVENTION HAS DETECTED A HIGHLY INFECTIOUS MEME IN THIS POST.
MEME: Scientists as evil
INFECTIOUS: HIGHLY
DANGER: POSES THREAT TO FURTHER SOCIETAL DEVELOPMENT
PLEASE REMEMBER WHAT IS SAID IS FALSE, DO NOT SPREAD THIS MEME!
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THE CENTERS MEMETIC CONTROL AND PREVENTION
@#36 posted by noen
It doesn't appear that new clock pieces ever evolve into different pieces (one of the major issues that they have from my limited reading of ID propaganda), the clocks seem to have been 'seeded' with pendulums, gears, springs, and hands :/
I'm sure if complexity (lots of it) was added to the program so that a gear was an incredibly complicated piece with a one in a billion chance of hundreds of the base pairs making a functional one (and all other chances making it horridly decremental) and with springs being another incredibly complex beast, and the hands also being complex, that the result would be the same but over a much longer period of time (or much faster with new methods of time keeping we haven't yet thought of!), but I'm looking for that added complexity :)
A big thanks for the link, theres a one in a million chance I will try to add complexity to the code at some point :D
I'll see your Zombie Nixon and raise you...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianloic/2302758714/
@#40 posted by Chorske
I'm definitely interested in incredibly uncomplicated things (Game of Life/FSM/PDA/Turing machines: the first can emulate all of the last three... it can even emulate the last one emulating the second to last one emulating the second one.. and is easier for a 4 year old to understand what is going on in the first one then any of the last three...) displaying infinitely complex behavior, and I would have gone out, gotten, and read that book if the amazons description hadn't ended with "species may evolve into a "human hive"" which, to me, sounds like the 'individuality is bad' crap that I generally protest, even when dressed up in 'well it's lots of individuals thinking mostly alike!'.
That you associate the words I have written to being for Intelligent Design (with more then a grain of bile even) makes me wonder what Stein and other advocates of ID had to put up with, which is exactly why I feel for the poor buggers, not only are they most likely wrong, but no one is allaying their doubts with any amount of respect. It's like going to a child who cannot yet add and telling them that they're stupid and undeserving for not knowing how exponents work... you don't seem like you want further work done on complex systems arising from uncomplicated parts, you seem like you want pie in the sky assumptions on how even more wildly complicated (and most likely terribly flawed and thus unlikely) systems will arise, like a 'hive mind'...
Or why not
http://www.cthulhu.com/?p=15
Oh, please suggest that link to BB. That's brilliant.
It's easy to dismiss an argument or a person entirely by taking an ever so brief quote out of context and without granting the dismissed any rebuttal. Keep up with the excellent work.
The mere fact that Stein has the experience he does and has given himself over to scientific work as much as he has would lead even-handed persons to understand that his words in isolation are not as they would appear.
The mere fact that Stein has the experience he does and has given himself over to scientific work as much as he has
Nixon speechwriter, game show host, comic relief to Ferris Bueller, creationist pimp ...I'm not seeing your point.
Umm, Mr. Stein, this here is the internet, and over here we have a few rules:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
Also, Noen - great video. thanks for sharing that with us
@#47 posted by dvrcthewrld
Stein hasn't contributed anything new to the ID debate, he's simply dropped LOX onto the fire... The real 'debate' is an extended question and answer session where the evolutionists have decided it's not worth showing up (because it's much more enjoyable to stay home and think about how the human race is going to evolve into a hive mind rather then, the much more realistic prospect of, it destroying itself.)
People tend to just attack with strawmen built to defeat the other sides strawmen... and it's all based on an unwillingness to debate the finer points because, lets face it, that's just too difficult to even bother...
Wow, they're so far off it's astounding.
To join a group which rallies around an irrational idea is to agree that the idea is authoritative and must therefore be obeyed mindlessly. From this submission the leaders of the group are able to demand and justify any action, because the idea takes precedence over everything, including human rights. This is where persecution and genocide are born.
Only people who see themselves as individuals are able to stand apart from the "might makes right" philosophy that is inherent in all religious organizations, and instead cooperate with their fellow men, eschewing violence.
Ben Stein is the new Cat Stevens.
Ben Stein is the new Cat Stevens.
Minus the talent and good looks.
To join a group which rallies around an irrational idea is to agree that the idea is authoritative and must therefore be obeyed mindlessly.
Maybe this behavior is hard-wired into humans as some aspect of pack mentality.
is there a Zombie Jeff Wall?
@#51 posted by Scoutmaster , May 1, 2008 9:31 PM
You're right, lets group all the ID believers together as they must all be 'obeying mindlessly' and put them on an island for 'taking precedence over humans rights, where persecution and genocide are born' and then sink that mother into the ocean!... crap that would be a 'might makes right' philosophy and wouldn't eschew violence in the least... you're right, and shame on me for making people think I disagree :)
Spoon
"It doesn't appear that new clock pieces ever evolve into different pieces (one of the major issues that they have from my limited reading of ID propaganda), the clocks seem to have been 'seeded' with pendulums, gears, springs, and hands"
Did you even watch the video spoon? He explains why he makes the choices that he does. The reason that the clock universe was seeded with gears and springs was because that is what clocks are made of. He pointedly does not attempt to demonstrate abiogenesis and says so in the video you.
"I'm sure if complexity (lots of it) was added to the program so that a gear was an incredibly complicated piece with a one in a billion chance of hundreds of the base pairs making a functional one (and all other chances making it horridly decremental) and with springs being another incredibly complex beast, and the hands also being complex, that the result would be the same but over a much longer period of time (or much faster with new methods of time keeping we haven't yet thought of!), but I'm looking for that added complexity :)"
This makes almost no sense at all. I have to wonder if you are putting us all on and really don't know what you are talking about. Gears aren't complicated, they are flat discs with teeth. Clock hands are thin rectangles. Same with springs.
There is no need to "add complexity". Indeed this shows that you don't understand what natural selection even is. cdk7000 has several videos, you should check them out. "How Evolution Causes an Increase in Information[complexity]" looks like it might answer that question.
Come on people. I know we can get this thread up to 300 comments too. If we just try.
Jeff Walls' Zombies
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/5431/rm8deadtroopslrgxe5.jpg
I know we can get this thread up to 300 comments too.
The cud chewing thread is over 600.
Um, SPOON, I don't think it's a serial process. 99% of our DNA is shared with other creatures, from great apes to viruses.
I agree that saying just "science makes people kiill people" is pretty stupid. On the other hand, I wouldn't say "Religion leades to killing people" either. People don't need perticularly any reason to go crazy/selfish and kill other people.
#53: Minus the talent and good looks.
I actually think Stein is talented, and his looks are perfectly suited to his persona.
This doesn't mean he isn't wrong, wrong, wrong.
There's something that isn't getting picked up on enough here:
I don't think it really matters to Ben Stein, or the creepy moralizing social engineers at The Discovery Institute, whether ID is valid or defensible.
The whole ID thing is a ruse. It's a tool. Specifically, it's the "wedge" of the Wedge Document.
What this whole thing is about is unimaginative conservatives who are scared shitless of the modern world. They're trying roll back Modernity and bring us back to a time when moralizing blowhards called the shots.
Go read the fricking "Wedge Strategy." That the game plan. Expelled is one of the moves of Phase II.
So...I'm pretty sure this means he won't win Ben Stein's Money.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy
antidote
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World
A fun project might be to compile all the old episodes of Win Ben Stein's Money to show him being quite facile in matters of science or, conversely, all the answers on the topic he got wrong, interspersed with his deadpan "Wow" from his Clear-Eyes campaign.
Parenthetically, as a Jew, even a secular one, I find that his tendency to pander to sectors who behind closed doors likely call him a Christ-killer and worse, to say nothing of his pedigree as a speech-writer to one of the most virulently anti-Semitic presidents of the past 60+ years, betrays a self-loathing that outstrips even the most burlesqued caricatures. I'm tempted to compare it to Zionist lapdogs of fundamentalist immanentizers, but that's a tired discussion that I'm satisfied to put to bed.
Funny thing about ID - if you mentally replace "god" with "aliens", it suddenly makes sense.
As for killing people, ideologies are killing people; not science, not religion. Communism, fascism, various other -isms killed more people in last century than all religions combined through history of mankind.
"Not to be ugly, but before this whole "Expelled" thing came about I'd had no idea what an absolute moron Ben Stein was"
Hmm, can top that. Before this whole "Expelled" thing came about no-one outside a small TV audience in the US had any idea about the hell Ben Stein was. As far as most of Europe is concerned it's just that Ferris Bueller bit-part guy waffling some unintelligible fantasy nonsense and offending a bunch of people by trivialising the Holocaust.
Give it a month, maybe two. No-one will even remember this film ever existed, except Mr Stein who will remember it as the last time he ever got hired...
If science leads us to genocide, then what does religion lead us to?
I propose taking Mr Stein, stripping him of all products of science (eg, leave him naked) and drop him in the middle of Gaza. Or maybe the Congo. Darfur? The choices are endless.
Can someone explain to Mr. Stein that:
Nazi Scientists = mostly evil
Regular, run-of-the-mill Scientists = not Nazis
?
It's not a hard concept to understand!
...and there was me thinking that it was an ideology that led to the the nazi death camps. Glad you cleared that one up for me Ben (with your spiffy new ideology).
Ben is still pissed about his entire "Win Ben Stein's Money" audience vanishing at almost the exact moment the door slammed behind Jimmy Kimmel's departing ass. So he's taking his frustrations out on all of us.
Maybe this behavior is hard-wired into humans as some aspect of pack mentality.
The herd instinct is strong.
In response to the hateful rhetoric expounded in Ben Stein's documentary, P. Z. Meyers posted a powerful video clip from Jacob Bronowski's BBC documentary The Ascent of Man on the history of science:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/antistein.php
In it Bronowski, who lost family members and friends to the concentration camps, stands at Auschwitz to discuss its very anti-scientific foundation. Here is a transcript, but watch the video. It is profoundly moving.
@40 posted by Chorske:
Be careful, you've misstated the law. From Wikipedia:
"The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics
The key here is that the second law applies to isolated or closed systems. When it is trotted out to "prove" ID, that part is dropped. The Earth is not a closed or isolated system. It has energy input from the Sun, not to mention a small amount of outside matter being added from space.
Are you all deliberately misunderstanding the argument Stein made?
What about Eugenics? Or Hitler's desire for racial purity, or Stalin's acts of "animal husbandry", Or Darwin's explicit call for weaker people to be killed like farm animals?
Calling Ben Stein an idiot or pointing out that religious people also do evil things is not a valid argument.
But here is an argument:
If man evolves through natural selection, then when weak are culled the health of our species is improved. (or am I missing some mysterious component of Darwinism which commends compassion?)
Time after time the vast majority of commenter's talk about what's right and what's not right as if morality just falls out of the sky. Well how about doing some of the philosophical homework for once?
Most of you may despise Christianity, but the fact is that our culture is so steeped in the Sermon on the Mount that we just take it all for granted, as if everyone just knows we should all play nice.
Given evolution, genocide, slavery, and rape are the most natural and logical acts in the world. The strong propagate their genes and the weak are prevented from doing so.
Sorry, but there's only one candidate who could possibly defeat Zombie Nixon.
Was Stein always this loopy?
Yeah, I know, he worked for Nixon, but there are degrees of crazy.
There's a range, in the mental health spectrum, and it seems like the needle on Mr. Stein's gage is leaning into the red zone, edging past batcracker into the "shithouse rat" zone.
This is another example of celebrity mental illness. He's not all over the tabloids with Spears and Cruise and Gibson, and all the other stars having their meltdowns, but only because he isn't pretty. But Stein has got the tinfoil beanie cred. He's totally in the club. He might be more articulate than average, but in the internal battle between smart and nuts, crazy trumps intelligence every time.
One feels sad, in the supermarket checkout lines, that the World Weekly News is no longer with us. I always thought it must have been a really great gig, cooking up those headlines.
The World Weekly News is gone and we don't get our alien news anymore. Or do we? Next time you run out for a carton of half & half and some TP, scan the magazine rack at the check out. Clues!
Is Angelina really a human? How about Travolta? I say they are escapees from Rozwell, the lot of them. They climb over the chain link fence and head straight to Hollywood! If the WWN were still around, they'd be on the story like white on rice.
"If man evolves through natural selection, then when weak are culled the health of our species is improved."
That is what NAZIS said. NOT Darwin. He didn't talk about "improving" the "health" of the human race. He talked about adaptation that increases the chance for survival of species. Nazis (and others) twisted that into eugenics. That isn't science, it's a kind of cultish religion.
Darwin--this may come as a shock to you--at no point said, "We should use my theory of evolution to exterminate people I decide arbitrarily to be inferior."
Incidentally, I'm furious with Newton for his so-called "theory of gravity." (Henceforth to be referred to only in snide tones as "Newtonism.") Or am I missing some component of compassion? I jump off a cliff and I fall to my death.
THANK YOU ISAAC NEWTON!
Ben Stein's words are an outright lie.
Hatred and mistrust of Jews was rampant throughout European Protestant / Lutheran / Russian Orthodox / Catholic / Orthodox Christendom for hundreds of years before the 20th century. Accusations ranging from well poisoning to host desecration to deicide were levelled against Jews as a whole. Luther hated Jews, and wove his anti-Semitic views into Lutheran culture.
Twentieth Century: Along came The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Along came Hitler, and Mein Kampf - which made its' argument not on science, but on divine right of the German people to hold historically German lands. Hitler hooked into religious sentiment. He got blessings from the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches.
Did Nazi Germany employ scientists? Yes. Did they force some scientists to work? Yes. Did some leave before the forced detainments began? Yes. Did some people who weren't scientists get to claim to be scientists because they were Nazi ideologists? Yes.
The incredible irony is that Mein Kampf - and Hitler's ideology and propaganda - draws very heavily on the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion - which explicitly call out "Darwinism" as being a lie and a supposed tool of "Zionists"!
Ben Stein is depending on his audience to not know the history he's talking about. And he's laughing all the way to the bank.
There is no pejorative fit to print for Stein's hypocrisy and utter cynical craven pursuit of money.
Fightcopyright @74: Darwin's theory is often characterised as the survival of the fittest. The sense of "fit" in this case is not synonomous with "strong" it is in the sense of fitting a key in a lock, or even a pebble fitting in a gap in the shingle on a beach.
That the mischaracterisation as survival of the "strongest", i.e the most brutal, is adopted by the most brutal as an excuse for their actions has nothing to do with evolutionary science. It's a pernicious meme, having as much truth to it as trickle-down economics, adopted by those who feel it benefits them.
fightcopyright,
In the above post Ben Stein does not make an argument. he draws a speculative line between holocaust and science, culminating in the science leads you to kill people line, which, lets all agree, is a bit mad.
To say Evolution only allows the strongest to survive is a misconception; the best adapted to its environment will tend to reproduce more prolifically would be more accurate. There is nothing mysterious about that, unlike ID which leaves everything up to mystery. And if you look at the evolution of mankind, no other mammal is capable of living in such large groups. I personally go against the prevalent grain when I posit that it is that ability which sets people apart; there is a fossil record that suggests the ability to speak gradually took the place of social grooming in early primates, and in doing so facilitated larger and larger group size. But yes, in other words, there is an evolutionary imperative in humans to feel compassion; man evolved to live in groups because the species would not survive as independent people.
Also, is that the meek will inherit the Earth sermon on the mount you're talking about? You really think the English speaking world seems seeped in those values? If you like to talk about philosophy, perhaps compare the Christian right in the US to what Freud describes in Civilisation and its Discontents. It is quite interesting. Or discuss ID in relation to Marx's theory of ideology. ID, cui bono?
BACK OFF!
I've got one of these http://www.grabup.com/uploads/d6067bb093905c602f99c83b8de62ac7.jpg
And I'm not afraid to use it!
not to be pedantic, but it was woody guthrie, not Pete Seeger who wrote this machine kills fascists on his guitar.
http://usuarios.lycos.es/alavora/_guthrie.gif
Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.
I thought Intelligent Design WAS science.
So much for that argument. But it is nice that Stein has managed to create the religion vs. science war, because no we're able to cast ID out from school science curriculums using his own arguments.
Thanks Ben!
Wow, a whole bunch of hate here for a man who stated his honest opinion. So you disagree, that doesn't make him any more a moron than it makes you a genius for agreeing with Darwin.
Props to Ben for sticking to his beliefs. And I must admit, in the grand scheme of things, peace and love does sound better than death and war, regardless of who or how it comes about.
hippie.
he believes in money. He is a liar. He is a fool.
@#24: "Warning!!!! Adolescent ad hominum attack!!!
Ben Stein is a complete fucking idiot."
Actually, an ad hominum attack would be if you insulted him for something completely unrelated to the argument, like: "He wears ugly ties!"
Pointing out the fact that he's a frakking idiot is actually quite on point. :)
#83 Scottfree
Thank you for the correction!
The Scientific Method in action. A statement was made, a correction offered, with a proof, and the error is corrected.
No Divine Intervention Required!
To be accurate, I have one of these:
http://www.sliderulemuseum.com/Pickett/S219_Pickett_Microline_140-ES.jpg
which I use when it's too much bother to switch on my HP-45 calculator.
@#8
@#68
I've felt the same sentiment about creationists for years. I recently put the thoughts down after encountering a commercial pilot reading a creationist book.
Should Creationists Pilot Planes:
http://www.halfheartedfanatic.com/2008/03/should-creationists-pilot-planes.html
Doctors and hospitals take note: By renouncing science, Mr. Stein has renounced medical science as well. The next time he shows up in a doctor's office or hospital emergency room, please show him the door. You can't have it both ways, Ben.
"survival of the fittest" = "survival of those luckiest enough to avoid disease, starvation, predators, and accident long enough to breed the next generation".
Funny how that gets missed.
can I get a badge?: "I clickvoted crock of shit"
In other news, look:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2008/may/02/wildlife?picture=333868122
its baby gollum!
This thread came pre-Godwinised, so I feel entirely safe in saying: Props to Hitler for sticking to his beliefs. He just stated his honest opinion.
GTomkins, that was a pretty silly thing to say. Ben Stein is just getting back what he gives out. He gets hate for trying to propagate hate against science and its practitioners. He gets more ridicule for doing it ineptly. There are some opinions that are just plain factually wrong. This one is one of those. If Ben Stein is entitled to give out factually incorrect information, surely we're entitled to point out he's wrong?
More evidence that religion makes people's brains turn to cheese.
This is crazy talk.
Science has made modern life possible.
The abuses of scientific discoveries have mostly been done by business and the military. Scientists I know (and I know hundreds) are more moral because they tend to think deeply and consider all sides of things.
When people adopt the scientific method they finally see what is actually real and are more immune to propaganda.
I think the movie and the ID reasoning behind it is awful as well.
But let us be clear: religion falls in WAY last place compared to "scientific socialism" as far as death and killing are concerned. Mao and Stalin and Pol Pot dwarf to a mere speck the Inquisition and Crusades and Witch Hunts.
The only reason we cite religion is that they ought to know better. And they should!
Stepping into slightly more murky waters is the science of "choice" and whether you consider the unborn "human" or not. If so, then scientific clinical choice/abortion takes the top position.