...according, at least, to Ben Stein's (!) upcoming 'documentary' Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. This is the type of movie where, the more you read about it, the more you're convinced it's an elaborate prank on the part of the Colbert Report. Allow me to quote a snippet from the website's own summary, and tell me if you can discern this from a Colbert Report segment:

"Big Science has expelled smart new ideas from the classroom...what they forgot is that every generation has its Rebel!"

The smart new ideas? Intelligent design. Just check out the website.

Oh boy.

Join me after the break, won't you? There'll be the trailer, and it'll be fun. I promise.
((youtube YxGyMn_-J3c))

(If I play "Born to be Wild" as I talk about the science behind witches and gremlins, does that too make me an anti-establishment rebel?)

Even once you get past the initial shock factor of how brazenly a film like this stretches the truth in pretending there's some 'debate' within the scientific community (big or otherwise) about the validity of intelligent design, it's still hard to get over the blatant dishonesty. Consider - the website that'll be seen by 99% of its visitors claims to have no political/religious agenda, but simply be in favor of academic freedom. I guess we're not supposed to read the press kit, which shouts:

If in our publicly funded schools, universities and institutions our children continue to be taught only this: that all life on earth is the result of a purposeless, meaningless and undirected process of random mutation and natural selection...

What are the consequences over time of teaching this one-sided worldview as if it were fact rather than theory?

* How will ideas of morality change, if life is thought to be purposeless and undirected?
* How will the role of Government change, if the individual is taught by The State that one is accountable only to ones self?
* How will the role of "science" change, if "Big Science" alone determines our worldview?

Such a change in our government's official policy represents a deeply troubling shift in our cultural identity and a radical departure from the very principles upon which our country was built. America is the first Democracy that was founded on the distinctive worldview that "a Creator" conferred "inalienable rights" on human beings, rather than the State, or another institution, such as "Big Science."

Even if one buys the (ludicrous) premise here, this is still an intellectually dishonest argument: as The Onion hilariously pointed out not too many years ago, the 2nd law of thermodynamics might contribute to a nihilistic view of the universe, but that doesn't mean you discount it as untrue.