Expelled exposed

Ben Stein is a commentator and actor. He's produced a movie that's dying a quiet death--thankfully--entitled, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. In the film, Stein draws a connection between genocide and evolution as a scientific theory that he anachronistically refers to as "Darwinism," as many people do, unfortunately. His failure to distinguish between Darwin's contribution to the science of evolution and the science of evolution as a whole--which has post-Darwinian components and also includes the field of genetics--is representative of just one of several misunderstandings he has about evolution.

Stein advocates Intelligent Design, which is a faith-based, non-scientific understanding of the origin of species or life or both. Intelligent Design is wholly without merit by the standards of the scientific method because it lacks evidence and does not make testable claims.

Expelled Exposed is a website maintained by the National Center for Science Education that reveals some of the errors in Stein's film.

While we're on the topic of misunderstandings about evolution, New Scientist's Michael Le Page has drawn up a list of 24 common misconceptions about evolution. Check them out.