Commentary

By Shaunti Feldhahn

• Shaunti Feldhahn

Ben Stein’s controversial new movie, Expelled, explores the strange, extreme bias against any scientist daring to mention the obvious holes in Darwinian macroevolutionary theory.

Darwin’s theory was published 149 years ago, and has been the primary origin-of-life theory since the 1930’s. Since then, evidence to support macroevolution (one species mutating to a different species) has advanced only marginally, while evidence questioning it has exploded. Advances in genetics, cellular biology, chemistry and many other fields have been seized to map human DNA and create wonder drugs. Yet they also raise questions about Darwinian macroevolution - which no scientist can follow up without being “expelled” from the respect of the scientific community. It’s absolutely absurd.

Why the visceral reaction when scientists even mention problems with the theory, such as (for example) that genetic mutation usually harms organisms instead of building complexity? Using direct observation and hypothesis — a tool of the scientific method - it looks like the scientific community is fearful of alternatives that might (they think) muddle science and religion.

Remember, Galileo’s heretical observation that the earth revolved around the sun eventually separated science from both philosophy and religion. Science required a willingness to change one’s views based on observation instead of blind allegiance to authority or accepted beliefs. For that willingness, Galileo was ostracized, forced to recant, and no longer allowed to teach or publish.

Sounds oddly familiar. Expelled highlights scientists who have had their freedom of speech and scientific inquiry violated; have been harassed, fired or blacklisted. In a phone interview, Dr. Carolyn Crocker explained that she regularly taught evolutionary theory at George Mason University, but then made one mention of its contradictions and the “Intelligent Design” theory as one potential solution. She was immediately removed from teaching and later fired. A cellular biologist, she sees DNA complexity that “doesn’t seem feasible from random mutation. I don’t know if ID is right or evolution is right. We are not at a place to say it is right. As scientists we need to able to explore.”

The scientific community has apparently adopted Darwinian macroevolution not as a simple scientific theory that they’re willing to examine, adapt and change, but as a philosophy of life that is just as fiercely protected as the beliefs in Galileo’s day.