In Expelled: The Movie, economist, lawyer, presidential speech-writer, and all-around media personality Ben Stein will stare down the brutes of Establishment Academia with a singularly profound question: can modern cosmology offer any evidence of Intelligent Design in the universe?
The answer to this question can have unanticipated consequences, as Astronomer Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez learned earlier this year after he was denied tenure as a professor at Iowa State University.
Despite a uniquely brilliant and productive career as a scientist, Dr. Gonzalez was denied tenure just three years after the publication of his pro-Intelligent Design book, co-authored with Jay W. Richards, The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery.
Dr. Gonzalez has also published 68 articles in refereed astronomy and astrophysical journals including The Astrophysical Journal, The Astronomical Journal, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Icarus and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. He also co-authored a college astronomy textbook, Observational Astronomy, second edition.
Gonzalez’s chief defender in this apparent case of academic bias is The Discovery Institute, a group notable for its defense of Intelligent Design.
According to a Discovery Institute report, Gonzalez’s rate of publication in peer-reviewed journals exceeds by 350% the ISU Astronomy department’s standard for tenure.
The report also showed that he has the “highest normalized citation count among ISU Astronomers for publications“, and offered proof of his top rank in the department as demonstrated by a SMITHSONIAN/NASA database.
Even so, Iowa State University President Gregory Geoffroy declared that Gonzalez “simply did not show the trajectory of excellence that we expect in a candidate seeking tenure in physics and astronomy — one of our strongest academic programs.”
According to the press release available on the website of Expelled: The Movie,
Expelled uncovers that educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired in some cases for the fact that they believe there is evidence of ‘design’ in nature, challenging the idea that life is a result of random chance. For example, Stein meets Richard Sternberg, a double PhD biologist who allowed a peer-reviewed research paper describing the evidence for intelligence in the universe to be published in the scientific journal Proceedings. Not long after publication, officials from the National Center for Science Education and the Smithsonian Institution where Sternberg was a research fellow began a coordinated smear and intimidation campaign to get the promising young scientist expelled from his position. This attack on scientific freedom was so egregious that it prompted a congressional investigation.
The growing body of evidence for University witch hunts of ID proponents bothers Ben Stein. “Scientists are supposed to be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, no matter what the implications are. Freedom of inquiry has been greatly compromised, and this is not only anti-American, it’s anti-science. Its anti-the whole concept of learning.”
Stein put it succinctly: “Big Science,” he says “…has lost its way.”
“The incredible thing about Expelled,” said the co-Executive Producer of the film, Walt Ruloff, “is that we don’t resort to manipulating our interviews for the purpose of achieving the ‘shock effect,’ something that has become common in documentary film these days.”
Perhaps. But Expelled doesn’t just interview a few poor scholars famously bullied by the orthodox hoods of the academic street; they take their beef to the leaders of the gang: Richard Dawkins — a strict Darwinist and author of The God Delusion — appears briefly, as does famed atheist blogger PZ Meyers, and Eugenie Scott, head of the National Center for Science Education.
The creators of Expelled are said to have spent two years traveling and interviewing dozens of scientists, doctors, philosophers, and public leaders across the globe.
“People will be stunned to actually find out what elitist scientists proclaim, which is that a large majority of Americans are simpletons who believe in a fairy tale,” said Ruloff.
Expelled: The Movie comes at a good time, and will undoubtedly stir the debate among students about whether Darwin’s theory of “Common Descent” really holds up as the best explanation for the available evidence.
These are dangerous ideas among Darwin’s faithful, and it now appears that good scientists are being punished for sins of heresy – and for no other reason. Fortunately credible scientists around the country have “gone public” in voicing their collective “Dissent From Darwinism.”
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is scheduled for nationwide release in April 2008.
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