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Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed [DVD]

Ben Stein (Actor), Richard Dawkins (Actor), Nathan Frankowski (Director) Rated:
PG
Format: DVD
IMDb3.7/10.0
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Format Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Contributor Ben Stein, Christopher Hitchens, Mark Souder, Nathan Frankowski, Richard Dawkins, Richard Sternberg
Language English
Runtime 1 hour and 30 minutes
Color Color
Available at a lower price from other sellers that may not offer free Prime shipping.

Product Description

Big science has expelled smart new ideas from the classroom ... What they forgot is that every generation has its Rebel! That rebel, Ben Stein (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) travels the world on his quest, and learns an awe-inspiring truth … that educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired – for the crime of merely believing that there might be evidence of design in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance. To which Ben Says: Enough! And then gets busy. NOBODY messes with Ben.

Product details

  • Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
  • MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.75 inches; 2.4 ounces
  • Director ‏ : ‎ Nathan Frankowski
  • Media Format ‏ : ‎ Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
  • Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 30 minutes
  • Release date ‏ : ‎ October 21, 2008
  • Actors ‏ : ‎ Ben Stein, Christopher Hitchens, Mark Souder, Richard Dawkins, Richard Sternberg
  • Language ‏ : ‎ Unqualified
  • Studio ‏ : ‎ Premise
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B001BYLFFS
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • Best Sellers Rank: #53,097 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

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  • Gord Wilson
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excelled
    Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2008
    Verified Purchase
    Now that the DVD is out, how does it differ from the film version? Even though Vivendi/ Premise won the lawsuit that Yoko Ono filed against the film for using ten seconds of John Lennon's "Imagine", the reference has been cut out of the video. I greatly respected Yoko as a performance artist and had the original records of Two Virgins and Plastic Ono Band. How very sad if a great modern artist's only interest now is gathering greenbacks. More on this in Steve Turner's excellent and revealing The Gospel According to the Beatles, which is full of absolutely unknown Beatlemania.

    If anyone actually watched Expelled, they'd see that it's not "thinly disguised creationism" but rather about the freedom to challenge entrenched views. Certain sectors are always taking the church to task for supposedly limiting Galileo's freedom of inquiry and speech (in a vastly distorted account of what actually happened). Hello! Exactly the same thing is happening now, although they seem rather more silent when the shoe is on the other foot. Ben Stein is merely trying to restore the freedoms of speech and inquiry guaranteed in the US constitution to the realm of academia and the hugely controlled "Big Science" of public science foundations and those funded by philanthropic grants, including the Smithsonian Institute, National academy of Science, and the National Science Foundation.

    After seeing Expelled in a theater, I wrote a long review of it elsewhere on the web. Now I see it's sparked a rather lively debate among reviewers. Actually, among those who, by their own admission, haven't seen it. One reviewer asks why people are voting against his review (which is against the film). Probably for the same reason people are voting against my review of Dawkins' book: not because the review is "not helpful" but as a way of voting for or against the book or film, as it were.

    Having said that, it's probably as impossible to be neutral about this film as about Michael Moore's Farenheit 911 or an Oliver Stone fictionmentary. In my view, however, it's a fine piece of film making. Witty, irreverent, inventive, thoughtful, and Ben Stein is at his likeable, deadpan best. A friend I watched it with said just the opening titles were better than most films he'd seen recently, and I'm inclined to agree. If this film had had the opposite message, I think it would be getting an Academy Award and the New York Times wouldn't stop raving about it (instead of at it).

    That's all well and good, one may be saying, but you haven't said anything about the subject. No, and I'd really rather not. If you hold a view generally called these days "Neo-Darwinism" you probably still will after seeing the film. If you incline to an idea called "Intelligent Design", you'll still incline so. If you're interested in battles between factions of the Academy in universities, however, or in free speech and press versus censorship (and this would likely be the topic of many reviews if this film had a different viewpoint), here's an engaging look at the salvos flying back and forth in a social and intellectual debate that much of the media have to date declined to cover.

    One interesting thing came out of this film, and that was a test case for "fair use" in relation to copyright laws, an idea everybody knows about, but which seems generally undefined. It concerned Yoko's suing Ben Stein and the producers for using a snippet of John Lennon's song "Imagine". Hasn't everyone and their dog used that song? Yes, but here it wasn't used to sell tennis shoes, but to be considered critically. Again, if the film had the opposite viewpoint, I don't think there would have been a suit, but the outcome was to define "fair use" in its original intent, so that common Joes and Janes don't have to fear cadres of corporate lawyers merely for referring to copyrighted songs, books, films and other materials.

    As the film shows, the use of Darwin's ideas to support Nazi ideology and eugenics was almost universal during and following the Victorian era, and was generally known as "social Darwinism". One may argue that these were actually Huxley's ideas, or that Darwin borrowed heavily from Alfred Wallace, but whatever their pedigree, they were pressed into service nearly at once. G.K. Chesterton wrote tirelessly against the Nazis as they were beginning to come to power, attempting to expose their plan of eugenics. In reference to another reviewer, I have read Mein Kampf (sp.) also, and Hitler's plan was entirely based on "social Darwinism". So were the ideas of Margaret Sanger and numerous other crusaders for what was known as "scientific planning". Numerous authors have pointed out the racist motivations behind the Royal Society in Britain and the ages of Victorian and Edwardian exploration, in which races were contrasted in elaborate displays during the world expositions and fairs.

    This was also the motivation in the Soviet Union, which forced a famine in order to coerce farmers onto state cooperatives. When Malcolm Muggeridge exposed this plan in the 'thirties, in Chronicles of Wasted Time he was widely denounced by Soviet supporters in the media who wanted this experiment in social planning to succeed. Among these were the Fabian Socialists, Sydney and Beatrice Webb. But Beatrice Webb wrote in her diary in 1933: "(There was) another account of the famine in Russia in the Manchester Guardian (a British newspaper), which certainly bears out Malcolm's reports....Fortunately for the USSR, the attention of the capitalist countries is today concentrated on the Mad Dog of Europe-- Hitler's Germany."

    This film may induce a sense of vertigo, being chocabloc full of information and history barely referenced in the media. The effect may be akin to sailing in a calm sea, only to find one has unaccountably hit an iceberg. Or rather the tip of an iceberg, and the film may spark curious viewers to explore the vast reaches submerged below.

    Extras on the DVD include: a trailer for Fossil Hunter, a novel by John Olson with a "female Indiana Jones"; An Important Message from Ben Stein (in favor of free speech and inquiry); an advance notice for Expelled: The Book by David Berlinski, not yet released as of this writing; "Practical Applications", called on the DVD cover: "Using Intelligent Design for Medical Research" noting breakthroughs resulting from assuming an engineered, rather than a random process; Theatrical Trailer (Called: "Theatrical Super Trailer" on the cover); Bonus music tracks by Andy Hunter: "Stars", "Technicolour", "Out of Control". Related links include: Expelledthemovie.com and AcademicFreedomDay.com.

    Expelled is written for a popular audience, and those with more interest or background may wish for more discussion of science. That comes in an interview with David Berlinski, author of A Tour of the Calculus and many other books, on a DVD called "The Incorrigible Dr. Berlinski". It's from Coldwater Media, the creators of Icons of Evolution, and may later have a general release. For now, it's available from intelligentdesign.org.
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  • USAF Veteran
    5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful
    Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2008
    Verified Purchase
    First of all, to set myself apart from the average one-star reviewer who never even watched the film, I not only watched the film, I watched it twice AND I own it. What a shame that so many "reviewers" choose to reveal their ignorance and bigotry rather than actually reviewing the film and its claims.

    Documentary films, until recently, were what you were forced to watch in High School when no substitute could be found for "business" (euphemism for remedial) math. That all changed with Michael Moore and his "Roger and me". Moore made other documentaries, won some awards, turned into a raving liberal lunatic (thus qualifying for awards), and made some big bucks, thus rejuvenating the genre. Much as Rush Limbaugh defines talk radio, Michael Moore is the poster-child for modern documentaries.

    This documentary, by actor, intellectual and comedian Ben Stein, concerns the persecution of gifted, intelligent scientists who dared to even consider the possibility of Intelligent Design, the term used for saying that something other than randomness resulted in the universe we inhabit.

    The film follows the persecution and mistreatment of several scientists who are victims of a witch-hunt by a scientific establishment whose current goal is not the advancement of knowledge, but rather the maintenance of a dogma held with such virulence and nastiness that it rivals the Inquisition. Scientist after scientist loses job, prominence or tenure, not because they are incompetent, but because they dare to question an atheist world view. None of them doubt genetics, molecular biology, or natural selection - none of them state the earth was created in 6 days (a belief held by some which is usually referred to as "creationism"), they simply wonder and study if the data aren't better explained by a Creator or creative force of some kind. That's it. And isn't that what scientists are supposed to do? Isn't that what Darwin himself did?

    One of the main problems with this debate is that the terms used are often mis-interpreted (often purposely) by the opposing side. For example, as previously alluded to, Creationism is not Intelligent Design. Creationism or Creation Science is a theory that the earth was built by a creator in a very short time, some using times as short as the 6 "days" of the Bible. There are institutes, journals, and professional scientists who hold this theory - more than you would think. One of the assignments I had in my senior Zoology-major class in evolution was to pick a subject ( I chose vestigial structures like our coccyx, appendix or third eyelid remnant), and then compare the standard literature to the creationist apologetic literature. (And there is a surprising amount out there.) It was no big deal. (I think the evidence fits with an old earth (billions of years), but I see no reason to ridicule or insult those who think the data doesn't necessarily show that.) And that, in my opinion, is how Science should work - free inquiry by free minds that are free to follow the data anywhere and come to their own conclusions and then try to support their conclusions with logic and experimental or observational evidence.

    As a scientist, I can sadly tell you that it just ain't so. This documntary, in a dispassionate and reasoned way, demonstrates this. Stein interviews both sides and you can't help but cringe at the weasely atheists who lie and obfuscate to hide their religious bigotry.

    Intelligent Design simply posits that there are findings better explained by a creator than random mutation. Stein notes that the atheists continually lie and say that all the Intelligent Design people can say is that evolution can't yet explain certain things (an argument often called 'irreducible complexity' - that is that some features of life like eyes or cilia are so complex and require so many simiultaneous things to occur that natural selection alone cannot explain them). And while this is indeed one of the arguments against standard atheistic evolution, it is by no means the only argument. So the reviewers here that claim that the film uses this argument, are simply showing that they not only didn't see the film (which specifically notes that this is not their only argument), but shows an utter lack of familiarity with the subject since they don't even bother to note other objections. As a matter of fact, this film doesn't even get into the pro and con arguments - it simply shows that reasonable, intelligent people with reasonable intelligent questions that even have evidentiary reasons for their opininions are mericlessly hounded and persecuted by radical Nazi thought police who patrol the academic streets. I urge you to read several of the one-star comments and how many complain and refute the pro intelligence design arguments that aren't even part of this film. Then you will also know they didn't even see the film.

    The problem with terminology also goes the other way. You will note i use the terms atheistic evolution. There are many believers in evolution in various permutations who are not atheists. But the atheists like Dawkins are the controlling interests in the field, so I am simply trying to specify who is involved in the issue rather than implying that all believers in evolution are atheists (unlike the majority of the critics of this film who are forever using false definitions and making unwarranted accusations.) Evolution can mean anything from adaptation to atheism. Stein's interviews show that many big guns use evolution as a catch word to describe their world view of atheism, immorality, and as they themselves state, lack of "free will".

    This is, of course, utterly ridiculous and without foundation. Plenty of people accept both evolution and a Creator. (God could simply have used evolution in his creation, for one thing) But there is a large segment, and a controlling segment, of Science that has jumped to these ridiculous metaphysical beliefs. I know, because I too have experienced them.

    Darwin also wrote other books beside Origin of Species. In one he says, "With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."

    This sentiment was the basis for what was called by Darwin's cousin "eugenics" which morphed into the racial superiority of Hitler. The movie then shows the fruits of eugenics. Stein notes that National Socialism (the formal title of Fascism and thus a left-wing variant, not a right-wing one - the mis-naming of this type of socialism into a false right-wing movement is one of the triumphs of the Left) is not the end-all of all eugenicists - in spite of what the idiots who gave this extraordinary film one star say. Throughout this movie Stein is careful to not overstate or misconstrue the opposition - one of the reasons I gave this careful but powerful movie 5 stars.

    The movie ends with further interviews with Dakwkins (author of the God Delusion) and others who resort to name-calling of the lowest sort to describe those who don't accept their world of amorality and meaninglessness.

    The 2 most powerful parts were the "hospital" where the socialists murdered the handicapped and the simple interview with a Polish scientist who simply points out how there is almost no intellectual freedom in America. And being part of this scientific establishment for so many years, I can only hang my head in shame and admit that Stein is 100% right.

    You can't help but compare this documentary to those from Michael Moore. This film has better production values, allows the opponents to express their views, has no profanity, and doesn't ram its viewpoint down your throat like L'enfant terrible Michael Moore, so this film is much better.

    This review should have really been quite short, simply explaining what the film was about and commenting on its presentation, but the insane reviewers who gave this one star without seeing the movie or understanding it (assuming their drug-addled, brain-washed cerebral cortices are still capable of any reasoning higher than exclaiming, "Pass the doobie, vote for Obama, and turn on the porn") required this more detailed review in the hopes that you will actually watch this film with a somewhat open mind.

    And one last comment on whether evolution is settled fact or not - a common problem with evolution was noting that evolution proposed gradual change via mutation and fitness, but the fossil record showed no such thing. So, believing in evolution and wondering how to explain this discrepancy, Eldredge and Gould in 1973 came up with a theory called "punctuated equilibrium", meaning that evolution sometimes works really slow and then it works really, really fast and then it stops again. We have no idea why or how, but there it is.

    And you guys call Intelligent Design proponents delusional?
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  • Benneng On
    5.0 out of 5 stars Nur für Selbstdenker!
    Reviewed in Germany on February 15, 2010
    Verified Purchase
    In diesem Film geht es um Freiheit, Wissenschaft und Forschung, vor allem aber über ein Tabu.
    Es wird allgemein angenommen, dass wir im Westen Meinungsfreiheit genießen; dass dies aber nur bedingt stimmt, versucht Expelled aufzuzeigen.
    Freiheit ist - auch 90 Jahre nach Rosa Luxemburg - nach wie vor das Privileg derer, die nicht zu den "Andersdenkenden" gehören...

    Konkret geht es um das Hinterfragen der naturalistischen Weltanschauung.
    Der Film nennt Wissenschaftler die in ihrer Forschungsarbeit zu einem Umdenken bewegt wurden.
    Viele Strukturen in der Natur, die in den letzten Jahrzehnten erforscht wurden sind in ihrem Wesen derart genial (z. B. die Komplexität der Zelle, DNA, Feinabstimmung des Universums etc.)
    dass sie mit klassischen Deutungsansätzen nicht mehr hinreichend erklärt werden können.
    Diese Wissenschaftler, plädieren folgerichtig für eine Forschung die im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes frei ist,
    eine Forschung die die Annahme einer Intelligenz als Ursache der beobachtbaren Natur nicht apriorisch verbietet.

    Das ist für alle Vertreter der "Big Science" zu viel. Wer es wagt diese Gedanken nicht nur zu denken sondern auszusprechen, hat mit dem Schlimmsten zu rechnen.
    Es werden bewährte Geschütze aufgefahren wie Verleumdungen und Rufmord. Karrieren werden beendet und Wissenschaftler landen auf der Straße.
    Wer das Sakrileg begeht die Fundamente von "Big Science" infrage zu stellen, erhält die Quittung von deren "Wachhunden".

    Es ist schon interessant, dass der Film auf amazon.com hauptsächlich mit fünf bzw. einem Stern bewertet wurde.
    Bei Fragen die Weltanschauungen, Macht und daraus resultierende Ethik berühren ist eine sachliche Beurteilung offenbar nicht einfach.
    Da bleibt wohl nur eines: kaufen, ansehen und selber denken...

    Der Film erhält von mir 5 Punkte, weil er offen ein Tabu anspricht, dass in Deutschland in den kommenden Jahren wohl kaum öffentlich thematisiert werden wird.
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  • Hadrian
    5.0 out of 5 stars Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
    Reviewed in Canada on October 18, 2008
    Verified Purchase
    Before even watching it, I must say that I have the highest respect for Ben Stein. He is a very intelligent, accomplished, and brilliant man.

    After reading so many angry and negatives responses to Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, my curiosity was stirred, so I decided to make up "my own mind" and I bought the DVD. After I watched the entire DVD, I was blown away with the excellent points made. I can't see how everyone complained about how the Nazi's were used in this movie because they did base their new master race on darwinism and eugenics. If you hear a lie enough times, "evolution" it will become fact. Intelligent Design says that cells, DNA could not of evolved, that its impossible and that cells , DNA are so complex, a designer was involved. Natural selection and Micro Evolution are true and are facts, scientifically proven, observed and recorded, but Macro Evolution to this day has never been reproduced, recorded, or observed and species always suddenly appear and transitional fossils are usually incorrectly identified which then takes decades to be made known to the public. Lucy being the latest example of this. The belief of evolution is so strong, even questionable fossils are put on display as fact when they are incorrect. Even Mendel's Law states that the there can be interchanges and variations from genes to genes but never anything new and improved. There are also no partially evolved species, only fully developed species, which is very odd. A computer code is like DNA, insanely complex with so much information, its incomprehenseable. If you run Windows 3.1 for years and years, it will eventually get buggy and possibly crash, requiring a re-format and re-install of Windows 3.1 program. It will not evolve itself into say Windows Vista. To improve the computer code or DNA, you have to write complex patches, test them and install / insert them. If there are even minor bugs, that will lead to instability and crashes. DNA or computer code doesn't evolve itself from nothingness and then program itself or take info from other programs/DNA to improve itself, it always stays the same and gets worse if not maintained or patched/upgraded. DNA has a fail safe mechanism to prevent serious bugs/crashes by the way.

    My 2 cents for this DVD, is if you can think outside the box and not be blinded to the theory of evolution as fact, you will be amazed with Ben Stein. But if you can't think outside of your box of evolution, it doesn't matter how much evidence and excellent points are made, you just won't see them or want to see them.

    I've studied both theories for a long time and have come to my conclusions. Many others I know have also come to similar conclusions about evolution and that number is always growing.

    Keep up the inquisitive work Ben, good job.
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  • V. Ago
    5.0 out of 5 stars This is a war, but the big guns haven't been used yet...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 26, 2010
    Verified Purchase
    Personal opinion aside, the Film is very well put together. The colours remind me of those old American productions - rich in colour but discrete with the soundtrack. It starts gracefully; has a profound moment when the narrator seems to finally reach an understanding of the whole issue, then it moves on to the consequences of Darwin's Theory on society. It then concludes, as one would expect, on a high - to hopefully galvanize the viewer. As documentaries go, this is a highly-polished presentation. The pace is just right and it will keep your interest.

    On a personal note; the issue of Intelligent Design, may be invoking in the establishment a sort of paranoia. After all, the Church monopoly on "truth" was finally broken by Darwin's Theory. For the establishment, to allow any notion of "God" back into the mainstream mind of America, will be like giving that victory flag back to the Churches.

    It is not that "Science" is incompatible with Intelligent Design, as Isaac Newton demonstrates for example, a man seeking to understand the designer better, can produce good science. Its just that this Theory of Evolution, has directly replaced the Designer with "Natural Selection - acting on random mutation." Evolution replaced God. The other Sciences, such as Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry etc - had no such requirement. It is, however, false to state that admitting I.D. into the Scientific fold, will destroy science; it will only destroy Evolutionary Biology, as it currently undermines with pertinent questions. In truth, the rest of the sciences - do not readily take Evolution as their reference point; Quantum Physics for example - does not consult Darwinian Evolution when it tries to explain particles. The rest of the Sciences do like wise.

    Darwin's Theory, relies on the creative power of Natural, unguided selection; acting on random variation/mutation. But the rest of Science, proves that random, unguided forces cannot produce information. Richard Dawkins in the end, does acknowledge that there may be a designer, but that he has to originate within the material universe; and that he/she himself would have to have been generated by natural processes. Dawkins would certainly qualify his statement, in that a non-material source, such as the Judeo Christian deity is highly unlikely.

    The outcome of this debate is of course, the establishment is going to win. Despite the noble efforts that may be galvanised by this film, those in power feel really threatened by this idea, and will seek drastic measures to assure victory. So, the I.D. movement had better prepare for an all out assault with the might of the whole political, commercial and judicial establishment being brought to bare, not just on them, but on Religion itself.
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  • Rob
    5.0 out of 5 stars A must watch for Families.
    Reviewed in Canada on April 7, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Is it the end all be all for the intelligent design debate? - definitely not. But it does what i think the “creators” ;) intended and that is to question our society’s status quo in light of modern discovery and science. Is your theory or origins ideological or is it scientific? Are you sure? If you care about that question - watch this with your family.
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  • M. Parkes
    5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth watching ... absolutely stunning in places ...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 21, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    When you see a large number of reviews with 5 stars and 1 star (and nothing in the middle) you know that you have found something truly controversial. Whatever you feel about Evolution you should probably watch this film - if for no other reason - just for balance. I have read some howling complaints about this movie but I am afraid that as somebody with a Ph.D. who has worked in academia that they seem totally unjustified to me. The situation is precisely as shown and I have had personal first-hand experience of it. Moreover, it has been this way for at least 20 years. What I like about the movie more than anything else is that people speak for themselves. How they got Richard Dawkins to openly admit to stuff (everyone has known about for decades) is astounding. Some clips I had to play 2-3 times just to take it in.
    I should mention that if you are a closed minded atheist you should probably not watch this movie as you are bound to be hugely offended. This is only for people who are genuinely open minded or who honestly want to understand the other side of the argument.
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