Photo via lifesitenews.com

Ben Stein "Expelled" from University of Vermont

The University of Vermont has cancelled a speaking engagement by Ben Stein, the writer and actor whose film "Expelled" has enraged the secularist academic community with his critical views on their strident devotion to the secularist Darwinian theory, reports Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com.

The university's president, Daniel Fogel, said that the university was deluged with email complaints at the choice of commencement speaker, some of which accused Stein of being "anti-science". Fogel said that when he was informed of the criticism, Stein declined the invitation.

"I did not ask him not to come," Fogel said. "I was not going to let him be blind-sided by controversy." In a statement, Fogel said that "profound concerns have been expressed to me by persons both internal and external to the university about his selection."

Stein is a comedian, lawyer, commentator, financial columnist and former presidential speechwriter. He called the controversy "laughable" and "pathetic". In an emailed message to the Burlington Free Press, he said, "I am far more pro-science than the Darwinists. I want all scientific inquiry to happen not just what the ruling clique calls science."

The complaints held that Stein's views of science were "affronts to the basic tenets of the academy." Fogel admitted that only about "half a dozen" of the emailed complaints had come from people associated with UVM.

Stein called the university's response to the furore "chicken sh**, and you can quote me on that."

"I like Dr. Fogel," Stein wrote, "and feel sorry he is caught in the meat grinder of political correctness. My heart goes out to him. He's a great guy trying to do his best in difficult circumstances."

"Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," released last year, interviews research scientists who have been ostracized from their professions because they dared to question the secularist Darwinian theory accepted as the orthodoxy of the scientific world. The film reveals the pervasive loathing of the concept of a divine creator within the academic, particularly the scientific, world.

In the film, Stein is seen addressing an audience saying, "There are people out there who want to keep science in a little box, where it can't possibly touch God…Scientists are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator."

SALE! 40% OFF! How to Be Happier 7 Days a Week

TAGS: USA University of Vermont secularist academic community Darwinian theory

[02/06/2009]

Print Version