| | In the film's trailer, Stein states that there are "people out there who want to keep science in a little box where it can’t possibly touch God" and that "freedom of thought and freedom of inquiry have been expelled from publicly-funded high schools, universities and research institutions."<ref name="nyt"/> | | In the film's trailer, Stein states that there are "people out there who want to keep science in a little box where it can’t possibly touch God" and that "freedom of thought and freedom of inquiry have been expelled from publicly-funded high schools, universities and research institutions."<ref name="nyt"/> |
| − | Before the film opened, some critics trashed the movie using the same kind of illegitimate tactics which the movie describes. For example, ''Time'' said Stein misrepresented evolution as saying that the first cell "arose whole" from the primordial soup, which is unlikely as the movie website correctly acknowledges the evolutionary view that it took millions or billions of years for the first cell to be produced by random, natural processes. The ''Time'' reviewer, having put words in Stein's mouth, then claims that this supposed misrepresentation is a typical example, probably hoping that potential viewers will choose not to watch the movie. Actually, all it shows is that ''Time'' is so desperate to keep people fooled about the weaknesses of the theory of evolution that they will stoop to misquotation and character assassination.
| + | Several critics deny that the ideology of "[[survival of the fittest]]" led to the [[Holocaust]]. But the connections that the film makes can hardly be disputed. By the 1920s, German textbooks were teaching evolutionary concepts including heredity and racial hygiene. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics was founded in 1927; in 1933, Germany passed the Law for the Protection of Heredity Health. [[Josef Mengele]] studied anthropology and paleontology and received his Ph.D. for his thesis entitled "Racial Morphological Research on the Lower Jaw Section of Four Racial Groups." In 1937, Mengele was recommended for and received a position as a research assistant with the Third Reich Institute for Hereditary, Biology and Racial Purity at the University of Frankfort, and subsequently became the "Angel of Death" for directing the operation of gas chambers of the [[Holocaust]] and for conducting horrific medical experiments on inmates in pursuit of [[eugenics]]. [[Evolutionist]] [[Stephen Jay Gould]] admitted: "The Nazi racial hygiene program began with involuntary sterilizations and ended with genocide."<ref>http://www.georgetown.edu/research/nrcbl/scopenotes/sn28.htm</ref> |
| − | Several critics deny that the ideology of "[[survival of the fittest]]" led to the [[Holocaust]]. But the connections that the film makes can hardly be disputed. By the 1920s, German textbooks were teaching evolutionary concepts including heredity and racial hygiene. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics was founded in 1927; in 1933, Germany passed the Law for the Protection of Heredity Health. [[Josef Mengele]] studied anthropology and paleontology and received his Ph.D. for his thesis entitled "Racial Morphological Research on the Lower Jaw Section of Four Racial Groups." In 1937, Mengele was recommended for and received a position as a research assistant with the Third Reich Institute for Hereditary, Biology and Racial Purity at the University of Frankfort, and subsequently became the "Angel of Death" for directing the operation of gas chambers of the [[Holocaust]] and for conducting horrific medical experiments on inmates in pursuit of [[eugenics]]. [[Evolutionist]] [[Stephen Jay Gould]] admitted: "The Nazi racial hygiene program began with involuntary sterilizations and ended with genocide."<ref>http://www.georgetown.edu/research/nrcbl/scopenotes/sn28.htm</ref>
| + | Before the film opened, pro-[[evolution]] opponents of the film engaged in the same kind of illegitimate tactics that the movie describes. For example, ''Time'' said Stein misrepresented evolution as saying that the first cell "arose whole" from the primordial soup, which is unlikely as the movie website correctly acknowledges the evolutionary view that it took millions or billions of years for the first cell to be produced by random, natural processes. The ''Time'' reviewer, having put words in Stein's mouth, then claims that this supposed misrepresentation is a typical example, probably hoping that potential viewers will choose not to watch the movie. Actually, all it shows is that ''Time'' is so desperate to keep people fooled about the weaknesses of the theory of evolution that they will stoop to misquotation and character assassination. |