. . . and it was well worth the sixteen bucks. I won't detail the whole film, but there are a few things I'd like to say about it.
- I read some reviews of Expelled ahead of time that complained of the film's lack of a specific definition of "evolution" and "intelligent design." While I did miss a detailed explanation of intelligent design, one of the interviewed scientists (his name escapes me now) did give a rough definition - namely, that ID posits that there is design in nature, and where we see design, one infers a designer. ID does not specify whether the designer is the Judeo-Christian God, Allah, Isis, or any other deity. A deist, a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian can all equally accept the tenets of ID.
- Another of the interviewed scientists provided a helpful and often overlooked distinction. He said that when discussing "evolution" one must specify what is being talked about. "Evolution" might refer to simply change within given species over time, or it can refer to Darwinism itself, which posits that all the plethora of species came from one single-celled organism billions of years ago. Failure to make this distinction renders much discussion about evolution meaningless.
- The film is worth seeing, if for no other reason than being able to see Richard Dawkins make a fool of himself - as indeed he does towards the end of the documentary. It staggers the mind to think that such dumb words can escape the mouth of even a mildly educated person. I won't ruin it for anybody who hasn't seen the film. I will only say that I always thought he was a moron (I mean, I am a Christian theist, and he did write a book called The God Delusion), but now I know that he is. As Richard John Neuhaus says in the current issue of First Things, there used to be atheists one could respect intellectually (Marx, Neitzche, etc.). Now we have Dawkins. What a shame. If he keeps up, he'll probably drive some fence riders into being theists. Maybe even Christians.
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