Ben Stein's money to fund documentary to challenge Florida's new evolution standards.

[madfloridian]

With the aid of Florida lawmakers, Allen Hayes, and Ronda Storms (who wants to ban evolution and everything connected with sex and masturbation)...Ben Stein is putting his money where his anti-science beliefs are and making a documentary.

The purpose of the documentary will be to sell Florida lawmakers on just how bad their new teaching standards are that include the word evolution. I hate to say it, but I don't think that will be hard to do at all.

First let me credit Stein's buddy Allen Hayes with one of the best zingers of the year:

"I want a balanced policy. I want students taught how to think, not what to think," Hays says. "There are problems with evolution. Have you ever seen a half-monkey, half human?"

Okay, who claims this guy as their legislator?

More about Ben Stein's anti-evolution documentary:

Documentary may sway Fla. lawmakers weighing bill aimed at questioning theory of evolution

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. _ In the latest evolution battle, pop-culture figure Ben Stein will show his new documentary challenging mainstream science to Florida lawmakers Wednesday as they consider legislation that makes it easier for teachers to question Darwin's theory in science classes.

The legislation, like Stein's documentary called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," has been bashed by critics as a front for advancing the agenda of biblical creationists who want to sneak religious teachings into the classrooms.

But Umatilla, Fla., Republican Rep. Alan Hays says he's not touting Stein's documentary or his "academic freedom" bill to destroy evolution. He said the bill is simply drafted to allow teachers and students to discuss, without fear of punishment, "the full range" of problems and ideas surrounding Darwin's theory. Neither Hays nor his co-sponsor, Brandon, Fla., Republican Sen. Ronda Storms, could name any teachers in Florida who have been disciplined for being critical of evolution in the science classroom. Better known for his "Win Ben Stein's Money" gameshow, Stein made the documentary to document how evolution critics have supposedly run afoul of mainstream science in higher academics.

They will never give up. Some scientists who appeared in this documentary later complained to the New York Times that they were bamboozled about its real intent.

The ACLU and the judge noted that the Intelligent Design backers, the Discovery Institute, had written something called the "Wedge Strategy" document, which laid out a multi-year plan to introduce "theistic and Christian science."

Stein, a former Nixon speechwriter, actor, columnist and game show host, faced bad publicity from scientists who appeared in his documentary when they complained to the New York Times that they were misled about the film's intent.

The press and public are banned from Wednesday's pre-screening at the Challenger Learning Center.

Just in case you think this idiocy about learning real science in Florida classrooms is limited to folks like Stein...take a look at what the Florida legislature's Speaker of the House wants to do, what he revealed to the Florida Baptist Witness.

Florida House Speaker may consider bill to protect teachers who criticize evolution.

TALLAHASSEE (FBW) – An evolution compromise approved on Feb. 19 by the State Board of Education was the best that could be achieved in that body but legislative action to protect academic freedom of teachers offering criticisms of Darwinian evolution is possible, House Speaker Marco Rubio told Florida Baptist Witness in a Feb. 20 interview.

Rubio said the Board of Education’s addition of “scientific theory of” before each reference to “evolution” in new science standards for Florida’s public schools was “the best fix available” with “the way those votes were lining up.”

Although he and other House leaders supported the theory compromise in a Feb. 19 letter to members of the Board of Education, Rubio said critics who believe explicit language protecting academic freedom is necessary “may be right.”

And here some of you were thinking we could only mess up elections.

:think:

[Teaser]

1. "Have you ever seen a half-monkey, half human?"

The joke just writes itself...

[awoke_in_2003]

17. Punch-line being

"Yeah, he lives in the white house"

[Hissyspit]

2. Waste Ben Stein's Money.

What a moran.

[madfloridian]

5. Agreed.

Love that kitty avatar.

[silverweb]

9. Dat kitteh avatar is speshul.

That kitteh is _Ceiling Cat_.

[madfloridian]

15. That was funny...I love ceiling cat.

Thanks for sharing.

[muntrv]

3. Allen, evolution is backed up with fossils. Creation is only backed by some

stiff rolling on the floor speaking in tongues.

[catnhatnh]

4. Sure have Ben....

...and your party committed fraud to elect him President.

[Canuckistanian]

6. The smartest man ever

to throw away 400 years of reason and enlightenment.

Suddenly, he ain't looking that smart.

[Johonny]

7. Stein

I enjoy the comments he made this week about protecting the public from "Big Science". Like I guess Big Oil. You know that giant lobby that is Big Science. You know pushing things like gravity, evolution, thermodynamics, kinetics, continental drift... damn you Big Science.

[HuffleClaw]

8. "The press and public are banned from Wednesday's pre-screening"

that really says it all i think.

[silverweb]

10. Ugh.

I always did think Ben Stein was a horse's ass.

[madfloridian]

11. Ben Stein posts at the Florida Baptist Witness website...the Southern Baptist voice.

Everybody's catering to the Southern Baptists here. That's power.

http://www.floridabaptistwitness.com/8526.article

"Alas, Darwinism has had a far bloodier life span than Imperialism. Darwinism, perhaps mixed with Imperialism, gave us Social Darwinism, a form of racism so vicious that it countenanced the Holocaust against the Jews and mass murder of many other groups in the name of speeding along the evolutionary process.

Now, a few scientists are questioning Darwinism on many fronts. I wonder how long Darwinism’s life span will be. Marxism, another theory which, in true Victorian style, sought to explain everything, is dead everywhere but on university campuses and in the minds of psychotic dictators. Maybe Darwinism will be different. Maybe it will last. But it’s difficult to believe it will. Theories that presume to explain everything without much evidence rarely do. Theories that outlive their era of conception and cannot be verified rarely last unless they are faith based. And Darwinism has been such a painful, bloody chapter in the history of ideologies, maybe we would be better off without it as a dominant force."

eeeek



Ben Stein, a lawyer, former presidential speechwriter, economist, actor and comedian, stars in “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” a major motion picture documentary which critiques Darwinian evolution and highlights censorship of scientists who disagree with evolution. For more on the movie (www.expelledthemovie.com), set for nationwide release April 18, see the Feb. 28 editorial by Witness executive editor James A. Smith Sr.

[Javaman]

12. Sure, why not? let these tools piss away their money on a bad movie. nt

[PA Democrat]

13. No flu vaccine for you, Ben Sten! Last year's version will do, because after all

viruses do NOT evolve. No vaccine for any future pandemic either.

[PVnRT]

14. For. Fuck's. Sake.

:banghead:

[varkam]

16. Expelled is a documentary?

:rofl:

[madfloridian]

18. Did you see it? I haven't seen it yet.

That's what he calls it, but I would think it is likely to just be propaganda.

[varkam]

19. No, I haven't seen it...

but I've seen enough clips from the movie and have read enough about it to know that it's just pure propaganda. The movie is essentially a straw-man attack of evolution coupled with the pumping of intelligent design.