by Tucker Lieberman

Created on: May 08, 2008

Ben Stein's much-hyped "Intelligent Design" documentary "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed!" is almost devoid of science and philosophy, and frankly, it is boring.

Stein conducted a series of interviews with American scientists who believe their academic careers were ended as a result of mentioning Intelligent Design (ID). These dismissals, which could have had as much to do with personnel management as with free intellectual exchange, were not thoroughly investigated. Nor did Stein paint an adequate picture of why scientists might disapprove of fellow scientists' ID beliefs. His use of sound bites, many from pre-recorded videos of unknown subject matter, does not inspire confidence in the soundness of his argument.

In cinematography mimicking Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," the film opens with a lonely image of Stein in a suit, waiting to walk on-stage to give an academic presentation on an inconvenient topic. He uses footage of the building of the Berlin wall and ridiculously invokes the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. to proclaim that Americans are losing their freedom in science.

About 15 minutes into the film, it looked like some actual content might begin to unfold. An ID representative said not all adherents are Christians. Another noted blandly that "questions that aren't properly answered don't go away." Others said the debate should be settled by "arguments and evidence" rather than by popularity or by lawsuits. Then, flaunting the foundation of civility that had just been established, an ID scientist, reclining in his armchair, called atheist scientist Richard Dawkins a "crummy philosopher" and a "reptile."

Instead of granting interviews to Darwinists to allow them to explain their positions, Stein represents them through the insertion of extraneous, mid-20th-century video clips, thereby variously depicting them as slapstick goofs, religious prelates, shushing schoolmarms, Nazis, executioners, cowboy gangsters, Dr. Frankensteins, and Planet of the Apes villains.

Stein asks rhetorically: What are we to make of the fact that science is aware of more cellular complexity today than it was in the 19th century? Who has a theory about the beginning of life, given that Darwin's theory begins after the appearance of the first cell? And, since Darwin was a non-conformist in his day: "If Darwin wanted to challenge the consensus today, how would he do it?" All good questions, but no answers are attempted, which does not speak to the usefulness of

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