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Ben Stein Wins Intelligent Design Money

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American



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Ben Stein was the goofball host of the cable show “Win Ben Stein’s Money.” A Christian University in southern California has just announced that it is honoring Stein for his upcoming movie that makes the case for taking intelligent design seriously. The press release, issued today, declares: “Ben Stein Wins Money from Intelligent Design Community.” Stein is scheduled to receive from Biola University the Phillip E. Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth, named after a well-known creationist. “The award,” according to the release,” recognizes Johnson’s pivotal role in advancing our understanding of design in the universe by opening up informed dissent to Darwinian and materialistic theories of evolution.” The release does not mention how much Ben Stein won, but it does cite Stein’s upcoming movie “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed:” “In his new movie “Expelled,” Stein wonders whether humans were designed by an intelligent being or whether we were simply the result of an ancient natural accident. In his search for an answer, he discovers an elitist scientific establishment that punishes the scientific proponents of Intelligent Design because they reject some of the claims of Darwin’s theory of evolution. ‘Big science in this area of biology has lost its way,’ says 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.’

 “In light of Stein’s contribution to the pursuit of liberty and truth, particularly as it relates to the field of Intelligent Design, he is being honored with the 2008 Johnson Award. The award ceremony will feature premiere clips from the forthcoming movie, the personal appearance of scientists who were expelled from their jobs because they are sympathetic to Intelligent Design, and will include a brief address by Stein..” The movie is a potential setback to science educators’ continuing efforts to set the record straight because Stein, the son of renowned economist Herbert Stein, lends a patina of respectability to neo-Creationist science as a result of his status as a minor celebrity. Perhaps more egregious than the movie is Stein’s contention in his writing that "Darwinism, perhaps mixed with Imperialism, gave us Social Darwinism, a form of racism so vicious that it countenanced the Holocaust against the Jews and mass murder of many other groups in the name of speeding along the evolutionary process." What can only be hoped is that a trenchant critical response by journalistic and science publishing institutions (and, of course, the blogging community)--will suffice so that Ben Stein never gets funding to make an Expelled II. 
Please download the recent National Academy of Sciences report “Science, Evolution and Creationism” to get the straight story.

Gary Stix, Scientific American's neuroscience and psychology editor, commissions, edits and reports on emerging advances and technologies that have propelled brain science to the forefront of the biological sciences. Developments chronicled in dozens of cover stories, feature articles and news stories, document groundbreaking neuroimaging techniques that reveal what happens in the brain while you are immersed in thought; the arrival of brain implants that alleviate mood disorders like depression; lab-made brains; psychological resilience; meditation; the intricacies of sleep; the new era for psychedelic drugs and artificial intelligence and growing insights leading to an understanding of our conscious selves. Before taking over the neuroscience beat, Stix, as Scientific American's special projects editor, oversaw the magazine's annual single-topic special issues, conceiving of and producing issues on Einstein, Darwin, climate change, nanotechnology and the nature of time. The issue he edited on time won a National Magazine Award. Besides mind and brain coverage, Stix has edited or written cover stories on Wall Street quants, building the world's tallest building, Olympic training methods, molecular electronics, what makes us human and the things you should and should not eat. Stix started a monthly column, Working Knowledge, that gave the reader a peek at the design and function of common technologies, from polygraph machines to Velcro. It eventually became the magazine's Graphic Science column. He also initiated a column on patents and intellectual property and another on the genesis of the ingenious ideas underlying new technologies in fields like electronics and biotechnology. Stix is the author with his wife, Miriam Lacob, of a technology primer called Who Gives a Gigabyte: A Survival Guide to the Technologically Perplexed (John Wiley & Sons, 1999).

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