Ben Stein insists, 'Science leads you to killing people'
By Steve Benen Thursday May 01, 2008 2:00pmBen Stein, a former Nixon aide and game-show host, probably best known for his role as a monotone teacher in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” released an anti-evolution documentary recently called, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” The premise, as I understand it, is that those who reject modern biology struggle professionally in the sciences.
Kevin Drum recently saw the movie, and reported back that towards the end, the documentary veered into the insane: “Stein spends the final half hour wandering around Dachau and telling us outright that his real motivation for attacking evolution isn’t any real flaw in the theory, but his belief that Darwinism leads directly to Nazi-ism, eugenics, atheism, the breakdown of morals, and mass slaughter. Can’t have that, so evolution needs to go too.”
Regrettably, Kevin wasn’t exaggerating. Stein recently chatted with Paul Crouch, Jr. about his film.
Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.
Crouch: That’s right.
Stein: …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.
Crouch: Good word, good word.
I vaguely recall the point, not too long ago, when Stein was considered something of a mainstream figure at the intersection of politics and entertainment. He’d show up on Fox News, and then make a cameo on “Married with Children.” He seemed quirky, conservative, and harmless.
And now he’s going on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, telling a crazed televangelist that science kills, and that modern biology led to the Nazi Holocaust. It’s breathtaking.








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I don't even know where to begin on this one. If he believes what he's saying, he's insane. If this is some sick ploy to make money from his movie, he's disgusting.
"What a douche!"
stein is a delusional, condescending POS.
Wow...what a fuckin nutcase!
religion must end...it causes brain shrinkage and outright dumbassness!
One word; Crusades
Nazis/science teachers continue to be misunderstood.
What the NAZIs were hockin' wasn't science but pseudo-science with their Aryan race BS, which is what makes Stein's defense of "Intelligent Design" funny because it is pseudo-science too.
the world we live in is just too much sometimes...
If he still peddles visine or whatever, I'm officially boycotting that or anything else that troglodyte sells!
Can't we just abolish religion? I mean REALLY?!?! WTF kinda stupid shit is he talking?
This kinda stuff make LBJ (little baby jebus) cry!
Didn't the Nazis use physics and engineering to create the V-1 and V-2 rockets? I guess those are out as well.
Guess what, if fascism is wrong (which it clearly is), you get rid of fascism, not some supposed underlying factor.
Sheesh.
Religion and Science have always shared each other's company when in the business of killing people...it's the only time these two agree with each other.
Of course Fear and Greed contribute to the misuse of Religion and Science anyway, so.......
I struggle every day to convince myself that I really am living in the 21st century.
"science leads you to killing people"
oh, and religion has never led to anyone killing anyone.....
*rolls eyes*
how do people take these fools seriously?
Fascists weren't scientists. Fascism is deeply, completely anti-intellectual. Stein needs to watch a real documentarian, like Jakob Bronowski, for instance, who ended his series "The Ascent of Man" by stating that the most dangerous thing that can happen in a society is for people to become certain that they are absolutely right. And absolute rightness is not part of the scientific method, which is why it quaintly refers to even established knowledge as being part of a theory
More people have died in the name of "God".
What a sad, pathetic, little man.
Many of the best German scientists, certainly the Jewish ones, left and ended up in the USA.
Being a republican leads to fascism.
"The general public can be lead to believe that good is bad, bad is good, success is failure and failure is success. How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think"- Adolf Hitler
how dare he invoke Galileo. I'm so angry just at that i cant even respond to the rest of that ignorance.
steve davis @ 13:
So is neoconservatism.
steve davis Says: "...absolute rightness is not part of the scientific method, which is why it quaintly refers to even established knowledge as being part of a theory."
even Newton's law of universal gravitation?
steve davis @ 13:
Damn! I remember that too, a scene where Bronowski is standing ankle-deep in a puddle at Auschwitz, sticks both hands down into it, comes up with two handfuls of muck made of the ashes of victims from the crematorium and cries out "THIS is what human beings are capable of when they accept absolutes!!"
Oops. There went Ben Stein’s credibility flying by my window. It was going pretty fast, too. I have a question for you Benny: What is the ration between the people killed in the name of science as compared to those killed in the name of religion? Dunderhead.
Many of the best German scientists, certainly the Jewish ones, left and ended up in the USA.
As did some of the Nazi scientists -- cuz we couldn't let the Ruskies get 'em!
Anyone harboring any doubts as to whether or not the reich wing in this country is trying to send us back to the dark ages? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Let's hope Stein comes down with something that only the science can cure. Then we’ll see what tune he hums.
What a Jackass.
To slam the dedication and endless sacrifice of the Scientists that have alleviated so much suffering in the world over the years is not just irresponsible, it is revolting.
Speaking of PZ Myers, he posted another youtube clip worth watching, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mIfatdNqBA
Looks like Ferris Bueller shoulda' taken the whole semester off!
just reading the soundbite/quote from the thread, ben stein is right about science. but the same can be said about religion. it's all about what the people that practice them use it for.
Yeah, right. And those who reject that 1+1=2 struggle in mathematics.
With any luck, at his passing Ben Stein will be remembered for this quote, both timeless and deeply meaningful:
"Bueller?"
Blaming evolution for what Hitler did. Complete idiot.
Remember when we used to see all of those "Far Side" cartoons? How they always picked on scientists. And then there would be huge riots of scientists and they would burn entire towns and threaten to kill because of those "Far Side" comics?
Science is so irrational. And violent.
woops, hit return too soon - said clip is from the Ascent of Man, as mentioned above by steve davis.
My bad: -ration, +ratio
According to Bush, God told Bush to attack Iraq. So to use Stein's flawed logic, God lead Bush to kill. Therefore, God should be rejected.
Dr. Acula @ 22:
Einstein left, but not before the SS had him write: "I can recommend the Nazis to everyone."
Breathtakingly idiotic. And Stein isn't dumb. This is yet another dangerous right wing freak.
But see, the NRA backed Bush because he wasn't going to take their guns away like Gore and Kerry were poised to do...?
Where's the NRA now? Their whole existence was based on fear-mongering about a Fascist State led by some gun-hating Democrat!
Where is their outrage at Bush for destroying the country? Oh yeah..Bush didn't take their guns away...yet.
Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition...
This idea that morality can not exist independent of religion leads me to believe that if someone were to absolutely, positively prove God did not exist, then the world's formerly religious people would instantly begin an apocalyptic orgy of murder, perversion and destruction.
Stein should stop blaming science & read a book - it was religious fundies who caused the bigotry against jewish people:
"My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by only a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned me to fight against them"
-- Adolf Hitler (http://geneva.rutgers.edu/src/faq/hitler.html )
Darwinism leads to eugenics? Not as much as religion leads to genocide and war.
Hey Ben Stein....host of VH1's 'America's most smartest model'...
http://www.expelledexposed.com/
As always I start this off with my favorite quote about science...(it nearly completely describes my thoughts on the Right wingnuts/Republican/Religious Right/Con-servative War on Science):
It is a matter of overwhelming scientific evidence. To maintain a belief in a 6,000-year-old earth requires a denial of essentially all the results of modern physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology and geology. It is to imply that airplanes and automobiles work by divine magic, rather than by empirically testable laws.
This again represents a remarkable misunderstanding of the nature of the scientific method. Many fields — including evolutionary biology, astronomy and physics — use evidence from the past in formulating hypotheses. But they do not stop there. Science is not storytelling.
These disciplines take hypotheses and subject them to further tests and experiments. This is how we distinguish theories that work, like evolution or gravitation.
As we continue to work to improve the abysmal state of science education in our schools, we will continue to battle those who feel that knowledge is a threat to faith.
But when we win minor skirmishes, as we did in Kansas, we must remember that the issue is far deeper than this. We must hold our elected school officials to certain basic standards of knowledge about the world. The battle is not against faith, but against ignorance.
Lawrence M. Krauss is a professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University.
So Stein tells me that the Holocaust wasn't really a program of genocide of society's "undesirables", it was a scientific experiment to improve the human species.
To get an idea of how stupid Stein and his creationist cronies are, the Holocaust couldn't have anything to do with Darwin's theory of natural selection. The entire point is evolution is natural, not a process of artificial selection as occurred in the Holocaust. But since when were creationists actually concerned with facts?
Uncle_Jack @ 20:
Whoa! that's powerful stuff!
Stein needs to choose his cave, and then live in it. And I am so damn sick of the Nazi references. Maybe Stein can find a Nazi cave to live in?
Science doesn't kill people. People kill people.
It wasn't scientists flying those airplanes into buildings not so long ago - it was religious nutburgers.
Does this mean he will reject medical treatment from now on? 'Cause last time I looked science was driving medical advancements.
What does Stein do when he needs to see a doctor?
Stein is confusing Darwin's Theory of Evolution, the foundation of modern Biology with Social Darwinism, a pseudo-scientific race theory that was a bastardization of the Theory of Evolution. Having said that, his argument that "Evolution" should be abandoned because he believes it lead to NAZIs and eugenics is like saying we should get rid of Christianity because Hitler was a Christian. His argument is also incredibly misleading because it assumes that scientific "theory" means other alternative answers have equal validity and that is simply not the case. It is a profound misunderstanding of how the concept of "theory" works in science.
Lets not forget what the SS/Gestapo/Nazi Party shouted as their battle cry...
"Gott Mit Uns"
http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/belt.htm
I think these bozos like that moron Jonah Goldberg need to go back to History classes or stop confusing their followers...oh...my fault, that's how they make their money...
god is a sexual voyeur. when eve ate the apple that gave her the
knowledge what god was doing is wrong (and btw way god was also
the serpent in disguise), she was disgusted with the pervert.
there are many examples of what a sexual pervert god is.
he told adam and eve to go out and begat and for their children
to begat. this so smacks of incest. with only two people to
start with, this was just one fucking incestuous act after another.
god is not pious, he's incredibly full of the original sin.
"…Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people."
Mr. Stein seems never to have heard of:
- the Spanish Inquisition
- the Crusades
- Savonarola and the Borgia Popes
- the centuries of religious schism, Reformation, Counter-Reformation and religious wars in Europe
- the decisive role of the Catholic Church in the suppression and extermination of innumerable indigenous tribes and cultures throughout the Americas, over the course of hundreds of years (the destruction of the Inca Empire was a bloodbath fought in the name of God in order to gain the biggest hoard of gold and silver ever known)
- the Vatican's collaboration with the Nazis during the Holocaust
- centuries of progroms, persecution and atrocities against Jews perpetrated in Catholic and Orthodox Christian countries with the active participation of these churches
- persecution, torture and murder of innocent "witches" by the Puritans in Salem, Mass.
- the ongoing sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church
- the persecution and suppression of protestant churches by the Russian Orthodox clergy in present-day Russia
And so on, and on, and on.
Stein is an idiot. No coincidence his initials are B.S.
Concerned American @ 42:
Hitler is about the only person who can even sit in the same ballpark with God, in terms of killing. And it's a very big ball park.
Oh...and if those other links don't do it for you....
Here's the official STFU link for all the right wingnut trolls/con-servative morons/republican morons that buy all of that crap; hook-line-and-sinker:
http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm
My take on Intelligent Design.
Science and Religion are completely incompatible.
Science is based upon things that are observable and repeatable. I know that some science drifts off into the land of fill in the blanks; but, ultimately, those fill in the blank conjectures can be proven or debunked through observation.
Religion is based upon faith. Forget everything you know and believe the impossible.
Combining Religion and Science creates a system; whereby, the impossible should be believed; but, the possibility exists that it is all baloney sandwich.
Christians that believe religion and science are compatible have no faith in the existence of god.
They are not true believers and they are destined to rot and burn in the fiery depths of hell.
Sincerely,
An Anonymous Atheist,
He worked for Nixon. Nobody associated with Nixon has ever been "harmless." Even John Dean -- who Nixophiles like Stein hate with a passion -- only switched sides after basically filling the Alberto Gonzalez role (White House counsel) in the Nixon administration, and being privy to any number of Nixon's plans to subvert democracy.
When will people associated with him have to repudiate Stein? Jeremiah Wright had theories about where the AIDS virus came from that don't accord with the general consensus of science but he didn't repudiate science itself. Why the double standard?
Mr. Stein rejects science, therefore Mr. Stein rejects medical science as well.
Healthcare professionals take note: if Ben Stein shows up in your waiting room or emergency room, please escort him to the nearest religious facility of his choice, without treatment. Under no circumstances do we want to inflict our scientific hatred on him.
i thought science lead to clear eyes. does treating my dry, red, irritated eyes make me a nazi? are there really stoner nazis?
Because of their incredible affinity for science and their dilligent study of anatomy, I'm sure the Nazis were on the verge of discovering that the distinctions between human races are trivial compared with their similarities. Once they reached that conclusion their great respect for Empiricism would have been forced to give up their racist ideology at once.
Or, you know, maybe they just liked hurting people while wearing a lab coat and pretending to be smart.
Uncle_Jack @ 20:
steve davis @ 13:
Fascists weren’t scientists. Fascism is deeply, completely anti-intellectual. Stein needs to watch a real documentarian, like Jakob Bronowski, for instance, who ended his series “The Ascent of Man” by stating that the most dangerous thing that can happen in a society is for people to become certain that they are absolutely right. And absolute rightness is not part of the scientific method, which is why it quaintly refers to even established knowledge as being part of a theory
Damn! I remember that too, a scene where Bronowski is standing ankle-deep in a puddle at Auschwitz, sticks both hands down into it, comes up with two handfuls of muck made of the ashes of victims from the crematorium and cries out “THIS is what human beings are capable of when they accept absolutes!!”
Whoa! that’s powerful stuff!
Guys, here is the Bronowski quote, and yeah he was in the muck at Aushwitz, where people in his family died, letting the soil that was once people fall through his fingers: 'It is said that science will dehumanise people and turn them into numbers. That is false, tragically false. In the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz, that is where people were turned into numbers. Into its pond were flushed the ashes of four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.' Jacob Bronowski,
Fascism as defined by the inventors of the concept - Giovanni Gentile & Benito Mussolini
The merger of state & business....
There...fixed for the 'free market'/con-servative apologists that bought Jonah Goldberg books (ie, supplementing his coke addition)
Leslie [Hussein] @ 44:
He does this
So FOX loves this guy, but thinks that AL Gore is just some has been trying to make a buck on a fake issue!
Reminds me of France, in this way. In France the radio stations have to play music made by french bands. The music can really suck but they have to play it. Here we have to show both sides of an issue, or Fox claims we are biased. So no matter how big an idiot you are, if you are a proponent of ID you will get air time! Ben is just a shitty two bit band singing crappy music, but it's on the right side of the dial and he'll get air time! He's just a french version of Yanni.
Stein is correct to a point - every form of technology can be used in a harmful manner if you think about it enough
But I think it takes a pretty sick mind (maybe Stein's?) to think about it enough to make such a broad generalization like this. As mentioned earlier, what happens to Ben if/when he contracts some medical condition that only science can cure?... Methinks we'll hear the "Intelligent Design" trap door creaking open again...
You are substituting "modern Biology" for "Evolution." They are not synonymous. Louis Pasteur himself was an avid creationist the believed the Bible was an accurate account of history.
And he is not insane. Evolution teaches that different people groups (Mongoloid, caucusiod, Negroid, etc..) are at different stages of evolution. Hitler took this too far and started teaching that Jewish people are merely animals compared to his highly evolved Arians. His comments about the Olympics clearly indicate this. He said it was unfair to compete against a Black man because it would be the same as competing against a gezelle. This is very founded.
Religion leads to killing people too. And historically it does so with far more regularity and certainty.
That said, Darwinism DID historically provide the fig leaf for racism, eugenics, and nazi dogma in the first half of the last century. It also provided the intellectual justification for this nations regressive social policys at the first part of the century. The robber barons advanced social darwinism to fight against anti-trust legislation and justify regressive labor policies. The left needs to engage these kind allegations seriously and vigorously, and show that these represent a misuse of science rather than its natural outcome.
How is this insane Christian fascist any different than the Islamic crazies that this pile of shit hates and wants to murder?
Anybody?
Dana @ 57:
Nah Dana, Stein could only enter a manmade building to listen to a preacher leading prayer over an electronic microphone if he believed in science, which made it all possible. Since Stein rejects science and all things scientific....
Toi Su @ 61:
The christian looneys are closer; therefore, they are more dangerous.
Here is my OWN link to a quote from a well known anthropologist:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/Tools/Quotes/hitler_keith.asp
Bitter for Hussein Obama (aka right wing hater) @ 49:
I'm sure there's some irony to be found in the fact that, were it not for science, there'd be no way to take Ben Stein's argument and put it INTO A MOVIE, let alone allow him to stand in front of a television camera that will somehow transport his image into millions of people's homes...
...OK, DOZENS of people's homes.
I guess the science that led to the creation of movies and television is A-OK in Stein's book. Likewise, working with Nixon, I'm sure the science that led to Napalm, surveillance techniques and improved golf swings were also boons to mankind according to the has-Ben. Nah, just that gutter science that allows people to be smarter, THAT'S what needs to be nipped in the bud.
Ahh, Ben? Really, you should get that MRI done. It's really becoming obvious that the fam is trying to get you to see a doctor about your mental health, and you won't go...in fact, you created a whole movie to try to explain why you won't go. But seriously, you should get this checked out. You used to be very intelligent, but you're losin' it. I know it's scary. they may have bad news. But it is better to know, right?
Verdillac @ 19:
Yup. It is the job of scientific researchers to discover circumstances under which theories don't hold up. Although I'm no expert on gravity, as I understand it, quantum physics, black holes, and Einstein's introduction of time as a dimension in general relativity have (at least together) demonstrated scenarios under which Newton's three dimensional system analysis/theory of gravity doesn't hold up.
In modern science, as opposed to imagining a finite spectrum from absolute ignorance to absolute knowledge--which is basically the positivist view--post-positivism frames scientific knowledge as a vector which begins with absolute ignorance but extends infinitely away from it. So, we'll never be any closer to absolute knowledge, as it will always be infinitely far away. The more we "know," the more we know we don't know...
Of course, this seems very fatalistic if one focuses on the distance between here and infinity. However, if one turns around to see how quickly absolute ignorance is vanishing from sight (obvious jokes about neocons notwithstanding), it's pretty cool.
I would suppose, though, that if I were to say to Ben Stein that I think science is "pretty cool," he'd think, "them's fightin' words."
Once again it is demonstrated that religious belief is orthogonal to rational thought and discourse.
Is anyone getting as tired of this as I am??????
Some people are nuts.
Some people are f**king nuts.
Stein's among the latter.
Well... I am Christian, but I am also a scientist (Bachelors of Science in Biology, Minor in Chemistry)... Ben Stein is engaging in an utterly dishonest campaign against science. It is not that he is a crack-pot who has it wrong... it is that Adolph was a religious fanatic. He believed that the Aryan race was the chosen race (hence his hatred of Jews... he didn't come out against Jews because he was an atheist or obsessed with science). Moreover, many Nazi's where obsessed with the occult and paganism. It was religion and nationalism and elitism that lead to the hatred. I have to believe that Stein knows this, and is now engaging in the worst Nazi'istic propaganda yet (using the horrible inhumane suffering, death and mass murder of his own ancestors) to push an absurd agenda...
leslie @ 33 -
My response to Alice @ 15 : Many of the best German scientists, certainly the Jewish ones, left and ended up in the USA.
was: As did some of the Nazi scientists — cuz we couldn’t let the Ruskies get ‘em!
People were killing each other for religious reasons long before science. See Genesis, regarding Cain & Able.
If conservatives knew a damn thing about history, they wouldn't be conservatives.
See what happened to PZ Myers ... a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris, when he went to see Expelled with a friend.
From his blog:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/expelled.php
Does that mean that 'showers' kill people too ...?
what a floon.
He does say one thing that is really intelligent - he tells people to walk out of on his movie
Yes, here is Ben Stein's beloved Nixon:
If Ben Stein were at Auschwitz, he would have been one of those traitor Capos, no doubt about it.
How does a seemingy intelligent person (knowingly) support crazy ideas like this? What does he (a Jew) get by supporting christian fundies?
What a fucking crock that clip is.
Stein claims the "scientists" he interviews are being persecuted. How? They have every right to publish their views, and so they have. No government or agency thereof has persecuted them. What they have said is rejected and attacked by professional colleagues - with the latter have EVERY RIGHT TO DO.
What about the Bush administration's well-documented efforts to suppress scientific research in the area of climate, human reproduction and stem cells, to name a few (and appointment of fundamentalist conservatives to scientific posts)? Is Stein a champion of freedom of speech for people he disagrees with, or only for those who share his views?
What about historians who deny the Holocaust? Since Stein thinks freedom of speech is vital, and so worthy of defense in the case of religious theories of life-origin, does he also stick up for Holocaust deniers? What about people who speak up against the Holocaust deniers - does Stein question their right to free speech? I fucking doubt it.
No one expects the inquisition.
Is there an attack on intellectuals?
At least he's consistent. stupid...but consistent.
Would he blame bucket manufacturers for torture because they are used in waterboarding?
No! It's the polymer scientists who invented the plastic used to make the bucket. Good God, he's right!
Rich Santoro @ 69:
If a person is a religious believer, they have no respect for epistemological honesty or consistency. This is the core of the problem of
the religious who call themselves scientists. Believing all the demonstrably fallacious garbage in religious texts weakens one's morality and renders the human mind unfit for serious scientific inquiry and rationality.
No, Ben. That's where ignorance leads you.
No, Ben Stein, science does not kill people. And neither does religion for that matter.
You know what kills people? Crazy people. Evil people. People who exploit science and religion to meet their own malevolent ends.
So this 1/2 witt thinks science and not religion has gotten more people killed in this world.
"God does not make cowardly nations free." -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
I guess he's never heard the Nazi slogan "Gott mit Uns"
http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm
Definitely NOT smarter than a fifth grader. Go back to tv land ben. Where you can play "smart".
I've been studying darwinism for a while now. I completely support the theory, but I also know that it is far from being a complete theory. There are loads of unexplained occurrences in speciation and symbiotic relationships. I feel that there is absolutely room for the idea of intelligent design, and that it can co-exist with darwinism to form a new theory. I really can't understand why we have to think of 'God' the almighty creator as a big white man with a beard who lives in the clouds. The idea of god and what it represents means so much more here. As for what ben stein says, he was a speech writer for nixon, end of story. and if he really thinks religion doesnt lead to killing but science does, he clearly cut a lot of history class in highschool - too bad he never learned about the crusades.
Wasn't there some science involved in making eye drops? Or, is it simply holy water? Wow!
Stein's alternative to Darwinism seems to be theological retardation. What a farce this film must be. I'm going tohave to watch it.
Imagine Ben Stein's Ethics. Go ahead, imagine...
++++
Why do these creationists always say that belief in evolution is belief that life came about through a "cosmic mistake"? It implies that anyone who believes in evolution somehow believes that life is a mistake, that somehow we would be better without it. It's a deliberate and unfair attempt to depict people who believe in evolution as bitter, twisted, evil and condemning.
Anyway, if evolution operates through chance that is still not the same as operating by mistake. But evolution doesn't operate by chance; it operates by SELECTION, which is the opposite of chance. There is NO chance and NO mistake in it. Mutations may occur through random chance; but those mutations that arise are SELECTED FOR or SELECTED AGAINST by how well they allow the mutated creature to exploit available resources. There is zero chance in that.
This, like so much the right does, is a twisting of language that intends to paint a distorted picture of reality. It's an attempt to use language to create reality; it's the most post-modern thing going.
"Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." Ben Stein
Fuck - and these fruitcakes think liberals are condescending? He just elected himself an angel. I guess he can do no wrong with his religious innoculation.
Name one war that didn't get a golden foundation from nutball religious folks who thought they were doing what's godly?
Annoyed Canuck @ 48:
Your list seems overly weighted toward Christian atrocities. As a recovering Jew, I demand equal time:
"When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you may nations...then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy." Deuteronomy 7:1-2,
"...do not leave alive anything that breaths. Completely destroy them...as the Lord your God has commanded you..." Deuteronomy 20:16, NIV.
Thus saith the LORD of hosts ... go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. 1 Samuel 15:2-3
"So Joshua smote the whole land; he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded." Joshua 10:40
“They took the king's sons, and slew seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent him them to Jezreel. And there came a messenger, and told him, saying, They have brought the heads of the king's sons. And he said, Lay ye them in two heaps at the entering in of the gate until the morning.” 2 Kings 10:7-8
"Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die." 2 Samuel 12:14
“And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and ... offer him there for a burnt offering.... And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. Genesis 22:2,10
I'm sure there will be a lot of people who will look at this trailer and say, "You know, he might have a point.....". It's very insidious how he attempts to make his point. So, when you run across a friend who thinks Ben Stein may have a point, here are a few points to offer in return.
- ID would have been published during the time of Galileo, as the Catholic church held sway. What is ironic was that Galileo himself was imprisoned and forced to denounce his own theory because he dared to write that the sun was the center of the universe, not the Earth. So, while ID could have been published, science couldn't.
- Hitler didn't use true science to defend his claims of supremacy: he used pseudo-science to attempt to justify his own beliefs. Hitler believed in part that keeping the races pure would lead to stronger, superior humans. In fact, simple genetics has proven that the opposite is true. Keeping bloodlines pure tends to lead to inbreeding, which results in both physical and mental defects in humans (true for most species, actually). Mixing races results in greater genetic diversity.
- ID does not get published in scientific journals not because scientists are afraid of new ideas. Any scientific hypothesis that is disproven, isn't objective enough to be testable, or has insufficient data doesn't get published. It's how scientists separate the wheat from the chaff. Since proving an intelligent creator is currently impossible, ID suffers from a lack of hard data and, as a result, won't be published until it does.
- Similarly, scientists who attempt to publish ID tend to get mocked for the same reason as above. Scientists rely on hard data. A scientist who doesn't is going to be mocked for promoting sloppy science. We just tend to label them as theocrats because we're tired of explaining to them why cheating the process makes them a failed scientist.
“Stein spends the final half hour wandering around Dachau and telling us outright that his real motivation for attacking evolution isn’t any real flaw in the theory, but his belief that Darwinism leads directly to Nazi-ism, eugenics, atheism, the breakdown of morals, and mass slaughter. Can’t have that, so evolution needs to go too.”
That's not even an original thought. This was how William Jennings Bryant rationalized his participation in the Scopes Monkey Trial.
But then monkeys need a dose of Scope mouthwash.
This became known as the Social Darwinist thought. But now days the wealthy more reflect that with their I got mine from my own hard work now get yours.
Never mind that quite a large number just inherit.
The idea that science kills goes all the way back to 1818 with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus, and later the Victorian novels by HG Wells.
"Most wars are justified on religious grounds.
Of course if a soldier felt uneasy about slaughtering others, they could always turn to a chaplain who would then patiently explain to them that killing is allowed by God and about the righteous morality of war. He might then give a few Biblical examples of God ordained killings. And then he might tell them that Jesus will forgive them and send them to Heaven if they should happen to die."
I wonder why Armies don't have science officers to tell idiotic soldiers it's ok to kill?
Seems like the best liberal response to this movie would be to buy reams of tickets to it and have packed audiences laugh at every faulty remark.
Treat it like a comedy. It is.
Actually, if Dachau proves anythiing Industrialization kills, but no corporationist worth his salt will admit to that.
During the 40th "anniversary month" of Dubya's dubious entry into the Texas Air National
Guard, coincidentally the month that the greatest number of American military was killed during the entire Vietnam War, let's not forget that Ben Stein is another CHICKENHAWK!!!
Science doesn't kill people, Christo-fascist fucks who use science kill people.
Who really listens to Stein ? He should stick with doing cartoon voices for Nicktoons and cliche' monotone announcers in commercials.
Ben Stein is an idiot.
Ben,
The Nazis who forced the Jews into the showers were soldiers with guns, not scientists with test tubes.
Scientists were often forced to work in prison like conditions, much like Stalin's Russia.
With the exception of a rare few, they were not trusted by Hitler and his senior staff because they were seen as intellectuals and not fanatical followers.
Back to the game shows with you because you are clearly a bigger idiot than anyone ever thought you were.
You guys,
Stein also had a rant on CBS last Sunday wherein he said the state of Texas had no right to take those pregnant teenagers from their dirty old men polygamist husbands.
Anjd he also wrote that Senator Larry Craig was lynched twice, once by police and once by the media, for doing nothing more than tapping his foot in a bathroom.
The guy's a wack job. Now, can we get back to the important stuff, like what Tweety thinks of Wright?
How could I forget, a number of the Death Camps inmates were rescued by the Soviet Union...communist ATHEISTS.
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/5277_52.htm
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today issued the following statement regarding the controversial film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.
The film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed misappropriates the Holocaust and its imagery as a part of its political effort to discredit the scientific community which rejects so-called intelligent design theory.
Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people and Darwin and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler's genocidal madness.
Using the Holocaust in order to tarnish those who promote the theory of evolution is outrageous and trivializes the complex factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry.
You guys,
Stein also had a rant on CBS last Sunday wherein he said the state of Texas had no right to take those pregnant teenagers from their dirty old men polygamist husbands.
And he also wrote that Senator Larry Craig was lynched twice, once by police and once by the media, for doing nothing more than tapping his foot in a bathroom.
The guy's a wack job. Now, can we get back to the important stuff, like what Tweety thinks of Wright?
Even if you don't watch the movie, at least watch the trailer. It's sickeningly smooth in its use of deceptive rhetorical techniques, including taking quotes completely out of context from evolution advocates who were told they were being interviewed for a completely different film. As is true of most propaganda, the most important details are the ones the author intentionally withholds from the viewer. What you get instead is a carefully framed advertisement for the philosophical equivalent of a Hummer - a disastrously illogical product that nobody should buy.
The end-product of such deception naturally suggests that the author is not sincere in his views, but with people like Stein it's hard to tell. Their beliefs include excusing themselves for any dirty tactic that gets their way. Everything is kosher if it helps make more people doubt non-religious, secular science. In fact, that may be the best way to confront pseudo-intellectuals like Stein: Ask them if lying and deception is okay if it helps persuade people that a god exists. When they say no, then confront them with their lies and deceptions.
Sadly, even if you do win a debate with the Ben Steins of this world, they just go on their jolly way and pitch the same debunked argument in the next town. Fortunately, the internet allows the debunking information to follow Ben Stein and his fellows wherever they go. Yay, internet!
The ancient religious texts were mankind's earliest written attempts to explain the origin of our universe and our place in it. The first and the worst. Show me an ancient religious text that states a basic understanding of some very simple things a modern grade school science student today should understand:
1) We live on a sphere of mostly rock, it rotates on its axis and revolves around a much larger sphere of mostly hydrogen which by virtue of its mass and therefore gravity undergoes nuclear fusion at its core thus producing the light and energy necessary for life on Earth. The Earth tilts on its axis at 23° to the plane of its revolution around the sun. We have a companion, the moon, which revolves around the Earth. The rotation of the earth produces night and day, the revolution around the sun combined with the tilt of the axis produces the seasons. You could go on to the rest of the galaxy, the local groups of galaxies etc., I will leave it at the Earth, moon and sun.
2) The ancients observed the night and day, they observed the seasons, they even built astronomical edifices to track the sun up and down in the sky. They did not understand the fundamentals and the religious texts had it all wrong.
They had it wrong and they still have it wrong. For some there is no scientific relief in sight. If there was something other than the mind of human beings behind those texts, it never showed itself.
If there was this or that deity that created, watched or whatever, this universe or any part of it, and they were telling their tale in any of these texts, at least they could have mentioned a few of the facts CORRECTLY.
There is no evidence to me that there was ever anything more than the human mind and imagination at work.
The calendar says the 21st century of the Common Era.
Everything Stein says in that clip is melodramatic at best, and outright false at worst. Darwinists aren't a cult who have 'something to hide.' Scientists, rather, use evidence to form theories. Until proponents of intelligent design have something in the way of emperical evidence to offer, they're merely speaking out of their asses. And if we let every single person who had a half-baked theory into the science classroom, it would no longer be a science class. Case closed.
na man, this guy is smart and conniving... I smell a strong whiff of Israeli crusade propaganda for US support all over this guy. He probably doesn't give a toss if science leads to killing or not.
Death-cults with an afterlife promise don't sell so well when science can do this! Science gives man finger via "pixie-dust" extra cellular matrix powder
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7379745.stm
Wow, combined with efforts all over the world, this has more power than if everyone sat down and said "moo" on a day of prayer.
Science is a threat to silly dying nonsensical beliefs. It can actually deliver us into a paradise of eternal youth and exciting challenges, while religion offers stupidity and death, and delusions of a rather boring afterlife.
ID does not "follow the evidenced." The ID movement has an agenda. That agenda is to forcibly inject ID (Creationism) into the science classrooms of America under the false flag of a controversy. The only controversy is the minds of ID proponents. Look at the methods of the ID movement. Their preferred method is to lobby local schools instead of having their "theories" peer reviewed. They are unable to be published in scientific journals because they do not follow the scientific method, and therefore can not pass peer review, not because of intellectual censorship.
That's interesting ... You never see a group of atheist warring against christians. There are no atheist "compounds" where children are being sexually abused.
How do the Atheist keep all this stuff so secret?
Stein is now, and forever will be a nincompoop.
(oh, I just noticed that even the spell-check wants to try to Capitalize the word christians but doesn't care that i use lower case for atheist.)
Hopefully Mr. Stein will not come down with a disease that requires antibiotics or other remedies that the evil of science has rendered. I find it interesting that he doesn't mind appearing in films, on tv and on radio, all things derived from science, as long as they further his agenda. He and his kind should be ridiculed as the disingenuous scum that they are.
God Damn the Creationists! Those nutty windbags think they are preaching (pun not intended) Gospel truth, when most of these types would have been burned in Medieval Europe. These idiots are dangerous. More dangerous than the Joel's Army band of fruitcakes. Joel's Army nuts are already blatant assholes. These assholes disguise it with God and the Flag. Here's one half of your American fascism right here, folks. Fucking Louisiana governor's already started spreading Cretinism in Louisiana public schools in the first 100 days of his term, BTW.
As a Christian in the Alexandrine tradition (though I'm kinda iffy on some other stuff), these literalist nuts have 1) bad theology. Evidently they've fixed it so the whole message of Christ and His salvation collapses if Joshua slew, say 1,000 less Canaanites than the Bible says.
2) Bad history. In nearly every culture that developed the state, religion caused atrocities. Both Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany were equally motivated by their religious traditions. The Muslims in India slaughtered so many Hindus that blood flowed to horse's bridles. Charlemagne massacred pagan Germans and converted much of Western Europe by the sword, as his descendants did the rest. Moctezuma's Mexica, even allowing for exaggeration were just as evil in their time and place as the Nazis were. There was a reason all those Indians rallied to Cortez, and it wasn't because the Triple Alliance was candies and sunshine. In our own history, the slave trade and later the "peculiar institution" and the Confederacy founded to defend it, the genocide against Indians, and the WWII headhunting and atrocities against the "pagan" Japanese. Religion doesn't as an aggregation produce nice people when it serves the state, or is the state. It should have no place in politics, period.
3) Bad historical memory of religion's relation to science. From the time the pagan Athenians murdered Socrates for not believing in the gods, to Ken Ham and his band of merry idiots, religion has been on the wrong side of every scientific argument.
This is reason #567654324567543212345 why we need a new Inquisition to purge Christendom of Creationism and other heresies...
From the Simpsons Archive:
First stop: the Museum of natural history. The gang runs in and batter
a Tyrannasaurous skeleton to the floor. Then they smash down the
observatory. Meanwhile Moe is clubbing a mammoth. The tusk falls off,
landing on top of him.
"Oh, I'm paralised, I just hope medical science can cure me!"
I believe Ben Stein. everything devolved from science is evil and must be destroyed... like this keyboard I'm typing on. It must be destroyed.a,sdma.,msdf xcvl;kj0[9ojj adsl;fias;dfl kasd asdadmsf. ,asv./, 'A
ds;a/s.dA>?Sdf>?masdm,l;kl;'adsf;'adkls (that's me pounding on the keyboard)(snark)
Wow, what a psycho-crank. Mel Gibson had to be liquored up to have his meltdown; Ben Stein starred in his, preserved forever on video.
I'd recommend downloading it for preservation's save; like Reverend Moon's magnum onus Inchon, it's liable to "disappear" from the face of the Earth. At least that and Battlefield Earth are works of fiction...
Kick Ben Stein's Dog
Alice (formerly Hussein, live free of the Borg or die) @ 105:
Exactly! Bibliolatry is heresy, and it deserves a special place in Hell. People worship the Bible, the Avestas, the Vedas, or the Kokiji instead of the deities they claim to worship, but all such texts are merely words on paper.
The Fundie deity is a horror. That's why I am currently undecided on what nature Deity has, save that Pure Goodness obviously ain't it, as otherwise most of the world wouldn't be a Hell of the West's own making.
Underground pirate...
I am afraid that you are committing the fallacy here... Your conclusion is not supported by evidence. It is non-emperical and completely indefensiveable. You are entitles to your opinion, but you make many assumptions in your proposition that you have not supported. Thus, I would suggest that you have exhibited "no respect for epistemological honesty or consistency" by stating your belief as something to be known, without evidence of its truth.
But you make the dishonesty of your postion apparent with - "Believing all the demonstrably fallacious garbage in religious texts weakens one’s morality and renders the human mind unfit for serious scientific inquiry and rationality."
An adhominem, a "from ignorance" fallacy, begging the question, and a few other fallacies are in there too, I am sure...
Moreover... I suppose a fella like Gregor Mendel may disagree with you as well.
Jesus. Preservation's SAKE.
This is a two hour lecture by Ken Miller destryoing ID. The funniest part is when he describes a situation that happened in court, when arguing against ID. He said that if ID were allowed to be taught in schools, based on the arguments of the ID lawyers, we'd also have to teach astrology and magic in science classes as well. Michael Behe, the biggest proponent of ID, had to agree. Funny and scary.
Anyway, this is a great presentation, if you want to see how ridiculous the idea is, take a look, it's worth watching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg
...jeez.
And I was getting flustered with C&L posters comparing everything/one to Hitler and the Nazis...
Stein is a delusional idiot.
"Social Darwinism" (e.g. eugenics) is a misappropriation of Darwin's theory... A philosophy propagated by modern conservative republicans under the guise of "survival of the fittest," "the invisible hand of the free market," and other convenient fictions of power.
Ben Stein, like others who promote "intelligent" design, miss the point: there is no inteligent design or evolution or outside world at all (and Ben Stein for that matter), there is only me, a solipsist. Stein's movie is really a figment of my imagination (I suspect this chimera I call Stein will say the same).
Okay, even assuming you exist, Ben, prove me wrong. I reserve the right to disregard criticism which comes from entities who I do not believe exist. (See how silly things can get once you go down the sloppy logic and sloppy thinking trail which Republicans often walk down?)
Zak44 @ 92:
And as a soon-to-be history major, I demand recognition of pagan, non-white, and non-Abrahamic horrors:
1) Dalai Lama-ruled Tibet.
2) Imperial Japan in WWII.
3) Moctezuma's empire
4) Pre-Jewish Levantine deities (some of them make Yahweh look like a sissy choir boy)
5) Rome's destruction of Carthage, of the early Italians, of the Germans
6) Kievan Rus's destruction of the Khazars.
7) Ghenghis Khan
8) Sargon of Akkad
Now for the non-white Abrahamics:
9) Muslim conquest of India
10) Tamerlane
11) Taiping Rebellion
12) Shaka Zulu
13) Shi Huangdi's Imperial reign
and one European example that also bears remembering:
14) Alexander the Great
someone needs to explain to stein, that if we were living in the time of gallileo, and stated that the earth is not the center of the universe, we would be burned as heretics
dumbass twit
uncle joe hussein mccarthy @ 123:
Or that extraterrestrial life existed, like Giordano Bruno.
For that matter, just being non-Christian was far more hazardous in Europe than people tend to remember, particularly when compared to the nearest neighboring society (the early Caliphates.) Ironic that Christians forget that, no?
ben stein is not a smart man, he just plays one on TV...
and, just for old times:
intelligent design, in its absurd glory, is mainly pushed by one group, the discovery institute. of course, naming their group the 'discovery' institute is a great irony, as they attempt to shut down research and discovery.
intelligent design is NOT science, it is anti-science. science has functioned as a never-ending search for the truth and information. while intelligent design, at its core, says we can't know, we'll never know, so we have to stop looking at just declare that some higher power was involved.
this is anti-science. imagine if newton, galileo, einstein, enter other cliche scientist here had bought into this apathetic idea. we would still be treating the bible as if it is the literal truth... oh wait, some still do...
*smacks forehead*
It must be a terrible thing to lose control of your mind as you age. Poor ben.
I, for one, actually saw the movie... on a Christian's dime. He bought out the theater and offered tickets to my school
It was terrible. He didn't even try to disprove evolution or prove intelligent design was a good alternitive. He just portrayed it as a "free speech" issue. Yeah, free speech as in teaching kids crap with MY tax dollars.
Save your money, folks. This was garbage.
Dr. Acula @ 70:
That is true but it is a different story.
After the war it was 'our' German scientists against the 'Russian' German scientists.
Before the end of the war it was 'our' German scientists who made major contributions to the Manhattan project.
Three self observed Jewish scientists, Albert Einstein, Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner had written the seminal letter to Roosevelt warning of the possibility of Hitler getting the bomb.
One byproduct of Hitler's insane hatred of the Jews, was that he deemed nuclear physics to be a 'Jewish science'. To whatever extent his rabid outlook lessened his nuclear ambitions may be the only positive light to shine past his diabolic treatment of the Jews. The Allies certainly did their best to disrupt his program.
If he had gotten the bomb the first detonations would have been over London.
The "ID" wedge strategy is much, much more insidious than just the "Expelled" movie.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120967537476060561.html
uncle joe hussein mccarthy @ 123:
To Stein's way of thinking, Galileo deserved his persecution.
Stein's reasoning is a gold mine for the NRA:
Guns don't kill people. Science kills people.
Required @ 11:
So eloquent---and so true! It gets tougher every minute of everyday, to see & hear such insanity as Stein's.
Alice (formerly Hussein, live free of the Borg or die) @ 135:
Lest we forget, Germany split the atom first. Going from creating fission to creating a full-fledged bomb took us four years of planning to use it on Berlin, only to end up having to use it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki instead because (no joke) the reasoning was "Well, we made them, so let's use them."
Germany also was approaching the nuclear question from the wrong angle. It also wouldn't have used the bomb on London first. Moscow would have been the target. Stalin was occupying 3/4 of the Wehrmacht at the time.
This video is a big piece of bullshit.
wtf is up with the charles dawkins snippet "I as a scientist am hostile towards other doctrines". clearly out of context. the faux-persecution angle is so so bad and outplayed. this film is clearly designed to mislead, not inform.
the scientific community has never been for the faint hearted. it is a rigorous process to get to the TRUTH. its not for lamen science, its not for anyone to waltz in with a crazy idea and expect it to be taken seriously. its up to the theorist to find the evidence. science is not an open book, there are bad ideas and bad scientists. they are to be filtered out.
Hmmm "Dr." Myer and the "Discovery Institute" which began with 3 people with an agenda in a building in Seattle, WA. Their sole intent is to " "drive a wedge" into the heart of "scientific materialism" " funded mostly by evangelical Christian groups although they purport to be secular in nature.
Western science tends towards observations and what happens in nature in order to extrapolate natural law. It doesn't make the world any less amazing if a creator didn't have a hand in it, in some ways creation is even more amazing if it didn't. And IMHO, science has created more questions even in it's quest to answer a few.
Make no mistake, although it is packaged as if it is legitimate science, "intelligent design" is definitely not science.
They have a pretty slick website though, designed to draw you in. By all means explore, but make sure you have a lifeline to get back to reality.
People are free to believe as they will, but don't teach it to our children in science class.
General_Rennenkampf @ 140:
Whether London or Moscow would have been first or second, he would have used whatever he had in whatever way he could have used them. The V2s would not have reached Moscow.
That they were seriously in line for nuclear weapons development was what gave the Manhattan project its urgency and the relatively huge investment in resources that was devoted to it.
It was a deadly serious business.
Hmm. Science leads to nazi-ism.
I don't buy it... but let's set that aside for a moment. Even if you granted that far out assumption, isn't Stein's argument something like:
The sun leads to skin cancer. Therefore, I do not believe in the sun.
John Kiel @ 139:
Annoyed Canuck @ 137:
Annoyed Canuck: The irony is that in Evangelicaland, some people are trying to twist the argument about the persecution around. Galileo was undoubtedly persecuted for contradicting church doctrine, but it wasn't the issue of heliocentrism alone. The theory had already been put forth by Copernicus, and then Galileo and later, Kepler provided much of the evidential backup for the theory. Galileo's persecution not only involved the idea of heliocentrism (which evidence backs up), but also his studies with early gravitation, and his discoveries of moons around Jupiter. Both ideas were contrary to then-current science, and to contradict the Church in Tuscany, even though it only bordered the Papal states (once upon a time, the pope ruled a damn good-sized chunk of Italy) was to play with fire. And evangelicals want to defend that. :shakeshead:
John Kiel: Creationisitiantiy is half of America's future fascism with everything else that goes with being a Creationist.
I wonder if his head would explode if he was forced to have dinner with Dawkins, or Sam Harris. His entire premise is essentially O'Reilly's 'war on christmas'. To compare the discounting of intelligent design to Nazi persecution is ridiculous. The level of notoriety that theory has is insane. As LibertyLover said "Make no mistake, although it is packaged as if it is legitimate science, “intelligent design” is definitely not science." Beyond that IT WILL NEVER BE A SCIENCE AS LONG AS REAL CHALLENGES TO IT'S VALIDITY ARE OFF LIMITS. That's why people do trust scientific law, because to become elevated to that state, years and years of constant questioning took place. That's why intelligent design is just an offshoot of faith. There are no responses when you question it, just offense and anger. Science will never be taboo.
"Don't just question authority, question yourself." E. Debbs
Truth Eagle @ 144:
Alice (formerly Hussein, live free of the Borg or die) @ 143:
Alice: True, but then Hitler could have developed the thing by 1942, had he done it the right way (which would require such a different Hitler it might well have meant no WWII at all due to the butterfly effect). In 1942, Army Group Center wasn't that far from Moscow. Who'd notice a single Luftwaffe plane flying over, until Moscow was nuclear ashes.... At least the world was spared a nuclear Nazi Germany...
....
With an early Cold War-style ICBM.
Truth Eagle: Science, and I know you agree with this, but I want to say this anyhow, does not lead to either Nazism, or to Stalinist/Maoist Communism. Nazism as an ideology was inherently opposed to the Galilean spirit of discovery. It was reaction on the march, and a dangerously pseudomedieval form of it, too. Sovietism/PRCism is also equally opposed. Stalin embraced Lamarkism (so, any Creationist who states Stalin was a Darwinist fails their research grade) and Lysenkoism with the lovely result first of the Holodomor, then of making the USSR so dependent on outside grain production it had to buy stuff from guess who...the USA. Science also isn't inherently atheistic, but it's worth noting that whatever bastardized resemblance Hitler's movement had to Nietzche's ideas, he fought free-thinkers just as much as Communists.
It's ironic that Stein has become the Joseph Goebbels of the anti-science movement.
Wow. "science leads you to killing people" --- it is true that science is and always will be a double edge sword... it can create phenomenal cosmic power to kill and has given us the frightening tools to do so, this is true.
But it is also true that it has provided tremendous incite into prolonging the pitiful lives of human beings ( and other living things) through the understanding of germs and medicines and nutrition and exercise and how the brain works.
Again, it gets back to the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives and their world view: Liberals tend to believe that people are basically good until something forces them to change ( environment, upbringing, hunger, etc.)
Conservatives tend to believe that people are basically evil and need to be controlled ( be it by the fascist state, religion, or death camps)
Ben Stein proving once again what Woody Allen said long ago: This just proves you can be absolutely brilliant and have no idea what's going on.
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