Output Stream of Consciousness

I've been a little preoccupied answering and posing questions over on the Expelled! blog. It's a blog related to the upcoming movie, Expelled!, which purports to show how "mean Big Science" is "unfairly oppressing" "noble truth-seeking Intelligent Design proponents". That's a lot of scare quotes to put around something, but that's because the movie is by all credible reports is little more than an exercise in swiftboating. It was projected to be such a movie, the blog entries and trailers led credence to it being such a movie, and Dan Whipple's review clinches it.

With all the protestation from the main personalities associated with this movie about "free speech", when really, as university and college employees, it should be all about doing your job, which also includes academic and intellectual integrity, it is funny to me that their press conferences are all about softball pre-screened questions.

Even there, with a chance to make sure that Ben Stein comes out looking good, he managed some total howlers. Dan Whipple lets us in on the story again.

To quote from the media extravaganza (all the quotes that follow are from the Expelled staff's transcript of the phone call):

Paul Lauer: You mentioned that Darwinism appears to be lacking on certain fronts. From your research, and your travels, and interviews with many different scientists, what are some of the areas that scientists are, perhaps, increasingly saying are problematic with the theory of, Darwin's Theory of Evolution?

Ben Stein:Well, just a couple of them, I've already hit one is: Where did life come from? Second one is: How did the cell get so complex? Third one, which I think is overwhelming, and just sort of blows the whole theory of Random Mutation out of the water, is, at least, let me say, raises big questions, that is. Assuming it all did happen by Random Mutation and Natural Selection, where did the laws of gravity come from. Where did the laws of thermodynamics come from? Where did the laws of motion and, of heat come from? Where, I guess that's the same as thermodynamics. Where did all these laws, that make it possible for the universe to function, where did they all come from? Why isn't all just chaos and everything collapsing in on itself and killing everything? I think that`s where the universe works. Who created these perfect laws, that keeps the planet in motion, keeps the blood pumping through our bodies? So, I think, all these are giant questions that need answers.

Assuming it all did happen by Random Mutation and Natural Selection, where did the laws of gravity come from??!???? .. ?!????

That's not just stupid. That's napalm stupid. The stupid, it burns, and it doesn't stop.

Ben Stein, you may be trivia smart, but your pretensions to knowledge outside your field are inexcusable. Evolution is a result of other natural laws. Nobody in their right mind claims it's the other way around, and that's not even a good argument against those physics oddjobs who claim spawned universes with different laws of physics... and it still wouldn't be an argument against biological evolution.

Mind you, this whole escapade could end up being a Visine-for-the-brain learning opportunity for the entire country for those who realize what a gaffe-a-pa-looza this is, and might be able to shake religious moderates out of their reverie.