Saturday, May 03, 2008
Science and Shitheads
Okay, I'm sure that by now, we all know Ben Stein went all crackpot nuts with Expelled, right? How he associated the belief of evolution (or, as he puts it, "Darwinism") with eugenics and the Nazis? Well, guess what; he just done gone bugfuck insane:
Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself 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 … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.
Crouch: That’s right.
Stein: …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.
Crouch: Good word, good word.
Yes, I'm quoting John Derbyshire on this. That's just how fucking absurd it is.
Obviously Ben Stein has some deep scars from a family trauma (that's putting it lightly, it was the fucking Holocaust), but for the love of God, the sheer anti-intellectualism here makes my mind blank. No, screw that; it makes my mind want to tear itself from my body, head to the nearest dive bar it can find, and drink itself into oblivion. Science -- a large, nebulous body of works that has given us cures, vaccines, the combustion engine, airplanes, the Internet, and many other wondrous things -- is all evil, and will eventually result in genocide. This is a man who worked for Nixon, for fuck's sake. Either he's playing one of the most disingenuous money-making scams I've ever seen, or he drank the Kool-Aid to the point where his eyes have turned cherry red.
Then again, it could always be both.
