Good riddance. Don’t get me wrong, I fully support his right to believe what he wants. But, as Pat Moynihan once remarked, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”
Stein told the Burlington Free Press that he was not “anti-science” as some critics have labeled him.
Yeah, and Archie Bunker never saw himself as a bigot, either.
“I am far more pro-science than the Darwinists,” Stein wrote in an e-mail to the newspaper. “I want all scientific inquiry to happen not just what the ruling clique calls science.”
So what he’s saying is that science, which is the study of the natural world, should also study the supernatural. Yeah, great idea… puts me in mind of this incredibly apt Sidney Harris cartoon.
Ben Stein is no dummy, and while his dogged (or should I say dogmatic?) adherence to this ridiculous assertion that ruling-class scientists are somehow suppressing some ‘higher truth’ is, at first blush, so laughable as to not even warrant reply, the fact of the matter is that there are plenty of people out there willing to simply take his word for it. He’s able to perpetuate this nonsense because so many Americans don’t really understand what science is and isn’t, and in the face of utter ignorance, Ben Stein doesn’t sound that crazy. I’m glad he’s not the only one doing the talking.
3 Comments
That is good news. He was not an appropriate choice for a commencement speaker.
Don't laugh when you get to heaven and Ben is waiting for ya at the pearly gates!
Why, thank you so much helensilvergoldstein–really. How refreshing it is to hear a believer tell me that I'm going to HEAVEN!
But believe me, if heaven exists and I go there when I die, and Ben Stein is waiting for me at the pearly gates, I'll still be of the opinion that he's full of shit on this specific issue.
But the real question is, how many scientists does it take saying the same thing that I'm saying here, to convince you that Stein's allegations are unfounded?