From this morning's Inside Higher Ed:A tightly managed conference call with Ben Stein and producers of the upcoming documentary “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” became the scene of yet another clash between proponents of intelligent design and defenders of evolutionary theory. Fresh from a botched attempt to crash a screening of the movie at the Mall of America last week, PZ Myers, a biologist at the University of Minnesota at Morris, had more success on Friday when he interrupted the call midway through a discussion of whether Darwinism inspired the Holocaust. Soon after one of the producers described ignoring Darwin’s influence on Hitler a “special form of Holocaust denial,” Myers offered some thoughts of his own (one participant in the call muttered, “You are a very persistent"). “The idea that Nazism is derived from evolutionary theory is pretty bogus,” he said. “Have you heard of a pogrom? Those have been going on for centuries.... You’re trivializing the whole thing to blame Darwin.” After one of the call’s organizers politely asked Myers to “do the honorable thing” and stay silent, the professor invited media to contact him for any clarifications about the producers’ “policy of lies.” (His latest blog post mocks Stein’s views by explaining why Newton’s theory of gravity is to blame for all force- and mass-related deaths.) Given that Stein’s new movie and campaign have him attacking higher education and pushing views that are widely seen as absurd by scientists and historians alike, he might not seem an obvious choice to speak at a major gathering of university leaders. But he is one of the featured speakers on the program of this summer’s annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Business Officers. A spokeswoman for the group said officials there were unaware of his latest campaign and movie when they invited him to appear.
