What happened to you, Ben Stein

*sigh… I used to be a fan. You were funny and apparently highly intelligent. Not so much now…

Ben has a movie coming out called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” in which he states (basically) that Intelligent Design is a valid theory that is under relentless persecution in the scientific community. For those not in the know, Intelligent design is (via Wikipedia):

Intelligent design is the assertion that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.” It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, modified to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer as a method to avoid scrutiny from the courts. Its primary proponents, all of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute, believe the designer to be the God of Christianity. Advocates of intelligent design claim it is a scientific theory, and seek to fundamentally redefine science to accept supernatural explanations.

There is absolutely no evidence that stands up to the scientific method to support this theory. Its widely considered an effort by the Christian right get creationist theories into classrooms and pushed into the minds of our kids.

Ben’s movie has already been picked to pieces and widely discredited.

I think this DIGG comment says it all:

I have lost a lot of repsect for Ben Stein just because of this movie. It is nothing but a media attention grabber designed to stir up “controversy” and get free publicity. This movie will make huge amounts of money just because people want to see its controversial nature, even though almost everything in it has been refuted or is pure conjecture. The mere mention of Darwin causing the Holocaust is enough to make me want to punch Mr. Stein in the dick.