Dishonesty in "Expelled"

I well recall going with three friends to see "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed", partly out of curiosity and partly out of encouragement from one of my creationist coworkers whose church was sponsoring the showing. At that point, two of us had been convinced that evolution was true while the other two were transitioning from creationism to Intelligent Design (and have since made the final step and accepted evolution, seeing it as no threat to their devout faith). I remember being singularly unimpressed by the film, more horrified that such a trite piece of anti-intellectual screed existed than I was impressed by the strength of the arguments contained therein. Though I knew very little about evolution at that point compared to what I know now, I was shocked at the attempted linking of Darwin to Hitler (a favorite tactic of creationists) as much as I was shocked by the lack of the "there are no transitional fossils" argument which I expected to see and knew how to answer.

Though my coworker hoped the film would convince me that evolution was incorrect, it had rather the opposite effect in that not only was I unmoved by these bad arguments (Darwinism is dogmatic, leads to Nazis, life is too complex, etc.) I was only strengthened in my belief that evolution is correct and in need of vigorous defense against a host of uninformed, misinformed and malicious critics. I was more impressed by the performance of the supposed villains of the film like Dan Dennett, Richard Dawkins and Eugenie Scott than I was with Stein.

Creationists, and their proxies in the Intelligent Design movement, commonly deal in lies and deceit, semantic tricks and argument to advance their cause rather than evidence. Turns out that Expelled is no different. The interviews conducted with prominent defenders of evolution were deceptive; they were informed that they were to be interviewed for a documentary on the intersection of science and religion called "Crossroads." Only later, when they realized that "Crossroads" was actually going to be "Expelled" did Scott, PZ Myers and Dawkins realize they'd been had. When attempting to view the movie, not only was Myers prevented from entering but other tactics were used that kept Scott and several others from attending. I find this to be rather ironic given the entire premise of the movie was about a cadre of Darwinists shutting Intelligent Design out from academia and the classroom.

There is more that could be said about the film itself rather than just its production, but that is for another time. Being three years removed from when I saw the film, I don't trust my memory alone to tackle the main arguments without having re-watched it. For now, it suffices that Expelled was made in a dishonest manner, something that should shame Ben Stein and his friends at the Discovery Institute.