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!