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Chapter 5 - Ben Stein’s Blunder

Why Intelligent Design Advocates Are Not Free Speech Martyrs

from Part I - The Advocatus Diaboli: Reflections on Free Thought and Free Speech

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2020

Michael Shermer
Affiliation:
Chapman University, California
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Summary

This essay was penned in 2008 shortly after the release of a documentary film titled <italic>Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed</italic>. Directed by Nathan Frankowski and starring the popular conservative financial commentator Ben Stein, it claims that there is an academic conspiracy afoot among scientists and scholars to censor the speech of creationists and Intelligent Design advocates. As the film appeared in over a thousand movie theaters, grossing $7.7 million, and was widely discussed in popular culture and the media, evidently we aren’t very adept at censorship. More importantly, I felt I needed to set the record straight about what the film is really about and why the speech of those who hold a different view of the origins and evolution of life on earth is not being suppressed, inasmuch as I was featured in the film. The government never moved to censor the film, theater owners gladly screened it, and a nontrivial portion of the public viewed it. What Stein and his on-camera voices object to is that their theory (that’s too lofty a word – call it conjecture) of a top-down intelligent designer of life is rejected by scientists for lack of empirical evidence and internal coherency.

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Giving the Devil his Due
Reflections of a Scientific Humanist
, pp. 55 - 63
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Ben Stein’s Blunder
  • Michael Shermer, Chapman University, California
  • Book: Giving the Devil his Due
  • Online publication: 28 February 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108779395.006
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  • Ben Stein’s Blunder
  • Michael Shermer, Chapman University, California
  • Book: Giving the Devil his Due
  • Online publication: 28 February 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108779395.006
Available formats
×

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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Ben Stein’s Blunder
  • Michael Shermer, Chapman University, California
  • Book: Giving the Devil his Due
  • Online publication: 28 February 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108779395.006
Available formats
×