With the big release of EXPELLED planned for next weekend, the interviews of Ben Stein keep coming:
Mocked and Belittled
By Megan Basham | WORLD MagazineInterview: Ben Stein’s new documentary may give macro-evolutionary theory a deserved hard time, and he plans to have fun with it along the way
Though audiences probably know Ben Stein best as the economics teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the actor had a distinguished career preceding the classic ’80s movie—just not in the entertainment industry.
Long before ad-libbing the world’s most famously boring free-market lecture, Stein was a Yale-trained trial lawyer, a professor at Pepperdine University, an economist, and a speechwriter for presidents Nixon and Ford. Even today, along with his acting, voice-over, and game-show-hosting work, he writes regular business columns for The New York Times and Yahoo! Finance Online, as well as numerous books and articles on various political topics. Of all of Hollywood’s politically outspoken celebrities, Stein’s impressive resumé makes him the likeliest candidate for most credible.
Recently WORLD chatted with the modern Renaissance man about his latest film, Expelled—a documentary opening nationwide on April 18 that makes a compelling case against Darwinism and for academic freedom.
WORLD: How did you get involved with Expelled?
STEIN: I was approached a couple of years ago by the producers, and they described to me the central issue of Expelled, which was about Darwinism and why it has such a lock on the academic establishment when the theory has so many holes. And why freedom of speech has been lost at so many colleges to the point where you can’t question even the slightest bit of Darwinism or your colleagues will spurn you, you’ll lose your job, and you’ll be publicly humiliated. As they sent me books and talked to me about these things I became more enthusiastic about participating.
Plus I was never a big fan of Darwinism because it played such a large part in the Nazis’ Final Solution to their so-called “Jewish problem” and was so clearly instrumental in their rationalizing of the Holocaust. So I was primed to want to do a project on how Darwinism relates to fascism and to outline the flaws in Darwinism generally.