Ben Stein's Expelled Exposed

From Scientific American: (cross-posted on Just Whacked)

“Should I be worried about the Crips and the Bloods up here?” These were the first words out of the mouth of Ben Stein as he entered my office at Skeptic magazine, located in the racially mixed neighborhood of Altadena, Calif. I cringed and hoped that the two African-American women in my employ were out of earshot of what was perhaps merely Stein’s ham-handed attempt at humor before he began interviewing me for what I was told was a film on the intersection of science and religion entitled Crossroads.

That is not what the interview was about. And neither is the film, now called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The subtitle exposes its motif—intelligent design has been expelled from classrooms and culture, and Ben Stein sees a sinister conspiracy at work. This supercilious financial columnist and ersatz actor and game show host proceeded to grill me on whether or not I think someone should be fired for expressing dissenting views. My answer: it depends. Who is being fired for what, when and where? People are usually fired for reasons having to do with budgetary constraints, incompetence or failure to fulfill the terms of a contract. If you are hired to teach biology according to the curriculum standards of your school district but instead spend the semester telling students that science has no definitive explanation for DNA, wings, eyes, brains and that mystery of mysteries—bacteria flagella—then, yes, you should be fired posthaste. But I know of no instance in which this has happened, and the film’s examples of such alleged abuses have reasonable explanations detailed at www.expelledexposed.com, where Eugenie Scott and her tireless crew at the National Center for Science Education have tracked down the specifics of each case.

(read full article)

On Genies (and other irrational beliefs)

A husband took his wife for her first game of golf. The wife promptly hacked her first shot right through the window of the biggest house adjacent to the course. The husband cringed, "I warned you to be careful! Now we'll have to go up there, find the owner, apologize and see how much your lousy drive is going to cost us."

So the couple walked up to the house and knocked on the door. A warm voice said, "Come on in." When they opened the door they saw the damage that was done: glass was all over the place, and a broken antique bottle was lying on its side near the pieces of window glass.

A man reclining on the couch asked, "Are you the people that broke my window?"

"Uh...yeah, sir. We're sure sorry about that," the husband replied.

"Oh, no apology is necessary...! Actually I want to thank you. You see, I'm a genie, and I've been trapped in that bottle for a thousand years. Now that you've released me, I'm allowed to grant three wishes. I'll give you each one wish, but if you don't mind, I'll keep the last one for myself."

"Wow, that's great!" the husband said. He pondered a moment and blurted out, "I'd like a million dollars a year for the rest of my life."

"No problem," said the genie. "You've got it, it's the least I can do. And I'll guarantee you a long, healthy life!"

"And now you, young lady, what do you want?" the genie asked.

"I'd like to own a gorgeous home complete with servants in every country in the world," she said.

"Consider it done," the genie said. "And your homes will always be safe from fire, burglary and natural disasters!"

"And now," the couple asked in unison, "what's your wish, genie?"

"Well, since I've been trapped in that bottle, and haven't been with a woman in more than a thousand years, my wish is to have sex with your wife."

The husband looked at his wife and said, "Gee, honey, you know we both now have a fortune, and all those houses. What do you think?"

She mulled it over for a few moments and said, "You know, you're right. Considering our good fortune, I guess I wouldn't mind, but what about you, honey?"

"You know I love you sweetheart," said the husband. I'd do the same for you!"

So the genie and the woman went upstairs where they spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying each other. The genie was insatiable.

After about three hours of non-stop sex, the genie rolled over and looked directly into her eyes and asked, "How old are you and your husband?"

"Why, we're both 35," she responded breathlessly.

"No Kidding," he said. "Thirty-five years old and both of you still believe in genies?????"

Look Inside

Do you know what you believe?

It sounds almost silly. Your initial reaction may be an emphatic "Of course!", but have you ever taken a moment to examine any of the ideas in your head up close? Have you ever considered the assumptions on which are predicated your whole understanding of the world as you know it? Where did you get these ideas? On close examination, do you even agree with them?

Or perhaps they were just there in your environment as you grew from an infant to an adult. Assumptions absorbed early in life and reinforced through continued exposure to the people around you, who themselves held those assumptions, very likely also without ever examining or questioning them or their origins in their own minds.

Folk wisdom? Some. Folk folly? Some. The point is not that these ideas are inherently good or bad, right or wrong, but that we are generally unaware of their influence on our lives. Recognizing ideas for which we cannot account is the first step toward taking control of this situation and of our thoughts.

Once we identify one of these "unexamined assumptions", the next step is to examine it up close and in detail; to consider what it means and whether it makes any sense. For any such assumption, this process can result in rejecting that assumption entirely, in which case it becomes necessary to begin to reexamine ideas we may hold that are in some way predicated on that assumption. That can take quite a while but the good news is that it usually happens subsconciously, in the background. It can be unsettling, as it may require certain assumptions to be discarded, undermining whole sections of our understanding of fundamental aspects of our world-model, rather like the realization, usually during our adolescence, that our parents are just regular people. In other cases, this close examination can result in a greater understanding of the assumption and why it's valid, transforming a previously unexamined assumption into a stronger, well supported one. In either case, this process is very empowering.

Religious assumptions rarely survive this process. In fact, religious assumptions generally don't stand up to even minimal scrutiny. They are imprinted on most of us early and often, sometimes reinforced by vehement and urgent admonition; something we are pre-programmed to respond to in our early childhood and many of us never completely outgrow.

The religious establishment asks-- no, demands that we accept their stories basically "because they said so", or because it is written in books that they hold as sacred or insist were written by whichever deity they identify as their one true god. What does that mean? It means shut up and don't ask questions. This alone should set off our bullshit detectors, but so early and often subtly we are indoctrinated to these influences that they are in us before our bullshit detectors develop.

It's not too difficult to understand how ancient people could have come to accept the notion of gods in the first place and later of a single omnipotent god. If that progression had continued, that too should by now have passed. Instead, we now have a huge portion of the population that accept an absurd story involving a whole "new" pantheon.

When questioned, many very religious people resort to formulaic responses drummed into their heads by whatever clergy they've been listening to or reading; responses that often miss the point of the questions presented. They often counter by insisting that the nonexistence of their gods cannot be proven. But when presented with the reality that not only is there no evidence to support or prove that their gods do exist, but there's nothing even to suggest it, they often resort to making dismissive and hostile remarks.

The one thing most cannot be inspired to do is to think for themselves, examine their assumptions, ideas, beliefs, and see how they look in the light of day. Somewhere deep inside, they must know that to do so would destroy this fragile, often self-contradictory web of acceptance on which they rest their lives. But if this is so, then their professed belief is disingenuous. Do they think they are fooling their omniscient, omnipotent god?

The various religious establishments all claim to be the source of morality. Each faction within each religion has its own interpretation of what this moral behavior is. Most of them involve a considerable amount of denial of our basic nature. This is a recipe for repression that may be responsible for squeezing out some of the most abhorrent human behaviors that otherwise might not develop.

Moral behavior does not arise out of religion; it arises out of humble introspection. This should be a moral imperative for each and every one of us.

Look inside. Really, honestly look. You will find a whole lot of unexamined assumptions just waiting to be investigated. It's scary at first. Don't let that stop you. The fear will pass as you realize how empowering it is.