Expelled

The above is an extended trailer for the upcoming Ben Stein film / documentary titled, "Expelled: No intelligence allowed." Movie trailers are notoriously poor representations of films' actual content, but my initial impression is that this is a critique not of Darwinist thinking itself (though elsewhere Stein has said that Darwin's "ideas led to genocide not once but many times"), but of our culture's open hostility toward those who question scientific dogma. Stein seems implicitly to second Mark Twain's observation, that "whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."

A quick glance at the online reaction (update: here's some) suggests that the movie will be controversial, and the public discussion surrounding it will be reactive and uncivil. In short order, Ben Stein will be vilified as The Right's shabby response to Michael Moore (update: they did), an erroneous association.

The film may turn out in the end to be an anti-Darwinist piece, but the larger question is still well-considered: "Why do we demand that some popular ideas - even ideas grounded in empirical evidence - must not be questioned, and that other, minority beliefs must not be held at all?" If anything, the answer to that question suggests rigid limits to the essential American value most frequently given meaningless lip service: tolerance.