Poop Shute

Ben Stein said what?!?!?!

I was puttering around on the interweb just now and I saw a clip involving Ben Stein. It made kind of an oblique joke that implied he was anti-evolution. I always knew he was a republican, and a former speech writer for Nixon, but beyond that and his status as a pop culture icon I didn't know anything about him. So, I pulled up HIS WIKIPEDIA PAGE.

I was horrified to find the following:

Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. 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.

And this is not "gotcha" journalism here. It turns out he is a VERY vocal anti-Darwinist. Google his name and Darwin and you will find a plethora of quotes like this one.

FIRSTLY, I think it's important to mention that I'm really getting tired of hearing people drop the Hitler/Nazi reference. Any time somebody disagrees with something on the world-stage they've always got to link whatever it is they disagree with to Nazi Germany. It's cliched and ineffective, and in this case just plain stupid.

It's true that there were scientists involved in engineering a lot of programs to further the aims of The Third Reich, but it wasn't the scientists themselves who actually led people to the gas chambers, and that's an asinine image to conjure up. The men that ran the camps and did the gassing were armed soldiers. Not to mention the fact that most scientists who worked for them did so only out of fear for their lives and the lives of their families because those same soldiers could just as easily point their guns elsewhere. And what about the scientists that were working for the Allied countries at the time? Were they also evil? Was the whole holocaust just a big scientist conspiracy, and Adolf Hitler was merely a puppet figurehead?

What about the continuing innovations that lead to significant improvements in our quality of life since then? What about medicine? What about flying in a plane? What about electricity? Space exploration? The birth of the information age?

But to Mr. Ben Stein, science will only lead us down a spiraling vortex of evil. Really Ben? Well, if you're so opposed to science then I suppose you should stop going in front of cameras and using microphones, because those were all designed by scientists. And you really have to pull out of any deals you've got for cartoon voices (he has tons of those) because cartoons are made on computers, and those are not only the products of science, but they are instrumental in furthering the aims of scientists the world over.

And YOUR WEBSITE has got to go, Ben. It's created, distributed and viewed on computers.

Sorry to be the one to tell you, but I think your best bet is to leave modern society and go join an Amish community. You'll be safest there. Safe from science.

How does someone SO smart say things that are so idiotic?