"too scared to hear the truth, you whores?"
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Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a controversial film which presents claims of persecution to promote intelligent design, "an ideological cousin of creationism" or a "creationist idea", according to the New York Times.[1] Proponents of intelligent design assert that it is not creationism[2] and have objected to this description being used in promotion of the film.[3] Starring Ben Stein, the film is due to be released in February 2008.[4]The film describes four or five ordinary academic disputes[5] as persecution of educators and scientists who promote intelligent design, the idea that there is evidence of a supernatural intelligence in biological processes, and claims there is a conspiracy to keep God out of the nation’s laboratories and classrooms.[1][4] However, in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial a United States federal court ruled that intelligent design is a religious view and not science, and that its promotion in public school science classes violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[5][6]The film blames the theory of evolution for a range of things conservatives consider to be societal ills, from Communism to Planned Parenthood, while failing to define or explain either evolution or its supposed alternative, intelligent design.[5] The evidence that evolution is responsible for social problems does not exist[7] and within the scientific community the theory of evolution is accepted by scientific consensus[8] and intelligent design is not considered to be valid science,[9][10][11] but is viewed as creationism.[12]Although not yet released, the film is being promoted by Christian media[13] and by organizations affiliated with the Discovery Institute, the hub and source of the intelligent design movement.[14][15][16] As part of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns claiming discrimination one of the institute's websites, Intelligent Design the Future, makes the claim that Expelled "reveals the stark truth: Darwinists have been conspiring to keep design out of classrooms, out of journals, and out of public discourse."[15] However, the Discovery Institute has been critical of some of the statements made in promotion of the film, such as American television personality and social commentator Bill O'Reilly equating intelligent design with creationism.[3]
