Ben Stein "Science Leads to Killing People"

You've said the consequences of Darwinism have been "terrifying and horrible." Is that why you signed on to this project?

Darwinism had led to academic suppression. Anyone who questioned the orthodoxy of Darwinism was losing his job, getting harassed, losing his grants, losing his office, her office. This was not supposed to happen in a country based upon freedom of speech. I was very worried about that...

What do you hope people, specifically teens, will do after watching Expelled?

If you're taught something, and asked to take it on faith, in your science class, then you should say, "Sir, you're asking me to take it on faith. And if we're talking about things that are taken on faith, then could we also talk about Intelligent Design, which is my faith?"

No science teacher can tell a student how life originated on this earth, or anywhere. No science teacher can tell anyone for sure where matter originated. A biology teacher cannot offer any evidence of a single, distinct species that has evolved under observation. You can clearly see the effects of gravity. Where is the observed proof of Darwinism?

Do you think this film will help restore freedom of speech in the classroom?

I think this will open the eyes of a number of people, of parents and children, about how they're being taught things that cannot be seen. Little by little, that may shake some foundations. What we eventually want is a judge who would say, "I don't see why this couldn't be taught in the classroom, at least as a hypothesis." At that point, it's Katy bar the door.

What would you like to say to Darwin?

"You are a wealthy man, you married a wealthy woman, why don't you just live quietly out in the countryside and not torture us with your half-baked suppositions, which have caused so much misery?"

I want to emphasize, Darwin was not like the crazed neo-Darwinists of today. Darwin believed in the freedom of inquiry. He encouraged there to be further study and debate. He said that in writing before he died.

Neo-Darwinists ask us to believe in things not seen. We're not supposed to have an established religion in America, but we do, and it's called Darwinism.

There are a number of scientists and academics who've been fired, denied tenure, lost tenure or lost grants because they even suggested the possibility of intelligent design. The most egregious is Richard Sternberg at the Smithsonian, the editor of a magazine that published a peer-reviewed paper about ID. He lost his job. Some of the people we interviewed wouldn't even talk on camera for fear of the repercussions. Our goal is to encourage free speech.

In the film you compare Darwinism to Nazism. Is that fair?

Darwinism was very popular with Hitler's Nazi party, who explicitly said life is about survival of the fittest. [That] led to horrible consequences.

I also started reading more about a subject that had long interested me, the connection of Darwinism with Nazism, and the fact that Nazism had rested in large part on the idea of Darwinism, that there are superior and inferior races, and that the superior ones deserve to live and they should stamp out the inferior ones…

What can people of faith do? What do you hope comes from this film?

Well, we hope that people who have children in schools will tell their children that if the teacher says Darwinism created everything and that there is no explanation for anything in the scientific world except Darwinism, that the student will say, well, Ms. Smith — or whatever the teacher's name is — how did life begin? What keeps the planets in their orbits? Is there any proof of a separate species ever being seen to evolve?

We're saying teach what is… what the evidence takes you to. I mean, the evidence does not take you to Darwinism about, uh, about, uh, as to the foundations of life. Darwin just had nothing to say about that. The evidence doesn't take you to Darwinism about astronomy or about the laws of physics or of thermodynamics.

(speaking about the Holocaust): …that was horrifying beyond words, and that's where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that's where science leads you.

… Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.