Ben Stein is proof that there is no God. (Huffington Post)

[pokerfan]

You wouldn't think Ben Stein could sink any lower. Here's an apologist for Richard Nixon, the author (ostensibly) of a book (or rather an Ann Coulter-style wad of airport toilet paper) on how liberals are more dangerous to America than terrorists, a man who has espoused the belief that the amount of assets one dies with is a direct indication of one's value to society - here is a mind so mediocre that he regularly lost battles of wits against MTV game show contestants

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-dorchen/emexpelledem-ben-steins-f_b_99368.html">Ben Stein's Fall from Disgrace... to... Something Even Lower

[Cobalt-60]

1. you may have a point

I never lost a lot of time sweating the god/no god thing.
I figured the Grim Reaper would tell me the answer all too soon.
God or not, there's rarely an excuse to act like a Republican.
But when I see this creature Stein shilling for religion industry,
I wonder what a hypothetical God might have been thinking.
Stein was already a belly crawler.
He smelled of Nixon, but was nerdy enough to be amusing.
But this shit is beyond the pale.
If god was there he would have done something to prevent the
formation of a Ben Stein.

[zonmoy]

2. ben is the type of christian that gives god a real bad name.

although gods biographies did that a long time ago.

[caraher]

3. I thought he was Jewish

But he's certainly hanging out with the wrong sort of "Christians"

http://www.nndb.com/people/371/000022305/">a profile of Ben Stein

[Benfea]

4. "Wrong sort"?

You're running precariously close to making a No True Scotsman argument.

Slightly more than half of all Americans have doubts about evolution. For this statistic to be possible, a majority of Christians must believe in creationism.

[edhopper]

5. And slightly more than half

of all Americans are dead WRONG. Most Christians are wrong about many things. But the wrong sort are the ones who want to cram it down our throats.

[Benfea]

6. They may be wrong...

...but if you are making a "No True Scotsman" argument, you can't let the Christian community as a whole off the hook with the "few bad apples" defense when the majority of them buy into this nonsense.

[caraher]

10. I'm certainly not making a "no true Scotsman" argument

If anyone is, I think you are.

A "no true Scotsman" argument on my part would be for me to say that the folks Ben Stein fell in with are not true Christians because of their idiotic response to the idea of natural selection. I don't claim this. There certainly are Christians who believe the nonsense spouted by "Expelled," far too many of them, and maybe even a majority.

I'm simply pointing out that there are many Christians who object to that kind of nonsense and who accept the scientific explanation of the diversity of life. I'm not asserting that they are in the majority among Christians, or that they are the only "true" Christians.

By contrast, your claim, as I understand it, actually does seem to be a "no true Scotsman" argument. If I point to a professed Christian who accepts the science of evolution and considers creationism in all its disguises reprehensible rubbish, you seem to be telling me that person is "no true Christian." The "no true Scotsman" argument is about denying the existence of less common or even exceptional cases by defining them out of existence. Evidently, part of your definition of Christian includes a hostile attitude toward evolution, dismissing my implication that there are more reasonable Christians than Ben Steins pals on the basis of... what? Your stereotype of Christians?

There are Christians who accept science, oppose war, seek social justice. Those are the "right kind" I have in mind. You might view their religious beliefs as prima facie evidence of an anti-rational mindset, but even if that's true it in no way undercuts my observation that there are many Christians who do not seek to inject their non-scientific thoughts into science classes.

[Benfea]

11. You have a funny definition of that fallacy

I was only pointing out that the majority of Christians believe in evolution to debunk an argument, and only if you were making that argument. I was not claiming that creationist Christians are "true" Christians since the definition of Christian has nothing to do with the evolution-creation debate.

My argument was simply that a minority cannot be claimed to be representative of the group as a whole.

[caraher]

12. Which is not a claim I came anywhere close to making.

I'm not quite sure how we got our wires crossed here; I was just trying to figure out where you were coming from. Oh well...

[Benfea]

13. I wasn't sure.

That's why my post started out with if, as in "if this is the argument you are making then..."

[vixengrl]

7. Could well be. I had this to say about him lately:

Ben Stein (propagandist for ID in the charmingly dumb film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed) has said a lot of stupid things in his time, but I think "science leads you to killing people" really takes the cake. The bit about the scientists and the Holocaust was a nice, over-the-top touch. This is a splendid rebuttal:


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Really--what can I add? But I did give it a good think, and I wondered about this little part:

"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"

Scientists never told them to eat right, excercise, take vitamins, or get their kids vaccinated? Scientists never warned them against smoking or pollution? It's a very weird outlook he has.

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Take Dr. Jonas Salkas an example of a person who used science to save millions of people. Take, for that matter, Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur, Sir Alexander Fleming
or . All of these men of science used their abilities to save more lives than Hitler destroyed. That's good science! Science is a tool, and as such, can be used for good or ill. But just because it can be misused doesn't mean anything like "all science is bad" or "all scientists are bad." That would be a very simplistic and unfair way to think.

It's like politics, really. Politics is a tool--it can be bad or good. For example, President Nixon and Dr. Kissinger started an illegal plan of carpet-bombing Cambodia in 1969 that killed something like a half-million people and weakened the Sirhanouk government in a way that made the decimated and agitated population flock to an until-then marginal group--the Khmer Rouge. Pol Potwent on to become a world class genocidal killer. But it would be a real stretch for me to than say, "Anyone who worked for the Nixon administration </a>is tied to genocide."

>

That would be akin to saying that just because Joseph Goebbelswas instrumental in Hitler's rise, speechwriters are killers.

In other words, Ben Stein is a moron.

(Hard to convert Bogger to DU-- link is at: http://vixenstrangelymakesuncommonsense.blogspot.com/2008/05/ben-stein-and-killer-science.html

[pokerfan]

8. Good observations

I also liked http://www.youtube.com/v/1vOT6UDERug&hl">this review by a muppet.

The muppet makes a good point. Darwin wrote about natural selection. Humans have been practicing un-natural selection for thousands of years by breeding plants and animals. You might as well say Hitler was simply practicing animal husbandry on human beings; no Darwin required. Farmers could be held responsible for the holocaust using Stein's logic.

I note note that he lets religion off the hook for its hand in the holocaust. Maybe it had something to do with hundreds of years of anti-semitism practiced by the Catholic Church and the Lutherans. "Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." What the fuck is Stein smoking here. Read http://reactor-core.org/jewish-lies.html">this for just one example of the church's glorious love. You don't need to read the entire thing as it's 60,000 words. The first couple of paragraphs are enough to give you the gist of the church's love for the Jews.

And speaking of Martin Luther, how about that Thirty Years War that depopulated a third of Germany? Yet Stein wants to pin it on Darwin. Hey Ben, how about the Inquisition, the Crusades, the witch hunts, pogroms, slavery, the eradication of the Cathars. How about the Taiping Rebellion, that killed twenty million people?

There was a time when religion ruled the world. It's called the Dark Ages.

[Jim__]

9. Great post - thanks.