Ben Stein insists, ‘Science leads you to killing people’
By: Steve Benen on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 12:00 PM - PDT

Ben Stein, a former Nixon aide and game-show host, probably best known for his role as a monotone teacher in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” released an anti-evolution documentary recently called, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” The premise, as I understand it, is that those who reject modern biology struggle professionally in the sciences.

Kevin Drum recently saw the movie, and reported back that towards the end, the documentary veered into the insane: “Stein spends the final half hour wandering around Dachau and telling us outright that his real motivation for attacking evolution isn’t any real flaw in the theory, but his belief that Darwinism leads directly to Nazi-ism, eugenics, atheism, the breakdown of morals, and mass slaughter. Can’t have that, so evolution needs to go too.”

Regrettably, Kevin wasn’t exaggerating. Stein recently chatted with Paul Crouch, Jr. about his film.

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.

I vaguely recall the point, not too long ago, when Stein was considered something of a mainstream figure at the intersection of politics and entertainment. He’d show up on Fox News, and then make a cameo on “Married with Children.” He seemed quirky, conservative, and harmless.

And now he’s going on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, telling a crazed televangelist that science kills, and that modern biology led to the Nazi Holocaust. It’s breathtaking.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/02/ben-stein-insists-science-leads-you-to-killing-people/

Now that's anti-science. :eek:

God damnit Ben, instead of doing this crap bring back "Win Ben Stein's Money"!

Ben Stein has been rapidly pissing away his credibility. He's a full-fledged kook, now.

Still has the right idea about economics, though.

I took that to mean that pure scientific thought without compassion and empathy is a bad thing.

You know, Brooks, I wanted badly to believe that Ben Stein was anything other than an utter loon. You see, I'd bought one of his books previously about success, and I thought it was just the bee's knees. But the things he's saying, the lengths he's going, the constant linkings of evolution to genocide, his insistence that supernaturalism should play a role in science, his asinine use of "Darwinism" to label evolution with, I can't respect him any longer. He is, as Borghunter says, pissing his credibility rapidly down the shitter. If it was just a few isolated remarks, a statement or two, I'd overlook it as just the sort of eccentricity that often accompanies genius. But this seems to be a Howard Hughes sized character flaw without the endearing mental disorder to compassionately dismiss it over. This is what Ben Stein has turned his entire career into, these utterly ridiculous statements denouncing the practice of science at every turn. He's completely sane when he utters these fanciful claims, and that's what scares me.