I used to like Ben Stein, but not anymore.

:)

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=six-things-ben-stein-doesnt-want-you-to-know

My bad.

The documentary is not by any means dead. Plato demonstrated the guileful potential of rhetoric thousands of years ago. All it means, and this has always been true, is that you must always question your sources.

With the ubiquity of information these days, false and otherwise, the younger generations are going to become phenomenally good at that. Advertisers have been in a war with their audiences for years, and they’re fast falling behind. The next Ben Stein has his work cut out for him if he’s going to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.

That said, I may underestimate the power of religious brainwashing. But it’ll be due to that, not twisted science. If Google can turn up counter-arguments, the kids are going to find them. Whether they’re convinced by them will depend on their own willingness to question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World

The point here is that attacking ID is the wrong way to go. The discussion has moved from Ben Stein, though his inability to distinguish the use of the scientific method from the application of ideologically motivated results is relevant, as it is the same flaw being made in a blanket attack on ID. The way to stop being frustrated by ID is to assume good faith in, but a poor understanding of, the scientific method. Taking that, a rigorous application of the scientific method to ID will show it as flawed. Important care must to taken, however, to show that evolution, which is a process, does not exclude the possibility of God (which is a worldview that may or may not pertain to the overall shaping of the process, but given a vague enough input doesn’t have to interfere with the science of the process). Also, evolution needs to be understood as a natural process, but not one that automatically leads to the dehumanizing “survival of the strongest” ideology (that’s eugenics, which is based on altering natural selection, but is not itself part of the understanding of the process of natural selection).

ID is an attempt at science, and it is poor form for people who are fond of science to throw away an opportunity by dismissing ID as just ideology.

Parenthetically, as a Jew, even a secular one, I find that his tendency to pander to sectors who behind closed doors likely call him a Christ-killer and worse, to say nothing of his pedigree as a speech-writer to one of the most virulently anti-Semitic presidents of the past 60+ years, betrays a self-loathing that outstrips even the most burlesqued caricatures. I’m tempted to compare it to Zionist lapdogs of fundamentalist immanentizers, but that’s a tired discussion that I’m satisfied to put to bed.

Is it any surprise that his first prominent position was as Richard Nixon’s speechwriter?

As for “socialism”…

You know what’s ironic? Stalin himself boasted once to have “killed more Communists than Hitler”, for putting to death the majority of party members who had a part in the October revolution. He didn’t want to have historic revolutionaries standing between him and absolute power.

When you assume people are normal, intelligent, thinking beings, and something like that comes out of their mouth, there is a moment of utter discombobulation, as if you have just walked into a transparent glass wall. You have to step back and run it over in your mind to make sure that’s what they really said.

Pilkington, in a conversation about what he would do with a clone of himself, famously said “But how would I know which one was me?” – Ben Stein’s comments hit me very much the same way – he can’t really mean that, can he? Surely that’s a joke, a character he’s playing? ….

When you hang around rational, smart people, you tend to forget that a lot of people aren’t.

A society composed entirely of individuals seeking only their own rational self interest would, I think, fall apart rather quickly. And one made exclusively of highly altruistic people would be easy pickings for a few ruthless sociopaths.

And so we have a mix of different strategies. Currently the sociopathic motherfuckers are on top, hopefully this too will change. I think we need to start thinking a little more long term.

Besides, isn’t the view that society is composed of individuals seeking their rational self interest only precisely that promoted by the right? Why then give Ben Stein any support at all? If you are a consistent rightwinger shouldn’t you denounce Ben Stein for his heresies and fully embrace your inner genocidal sociopath?

I don’t think that’s a good word at all…

Um… he’s sick.