It was from an obsessive Darwin-defender that I learned of the Anti-Defamation League's attack on the theatrical documentary Expelled, for "misappropriat[ing] the Holocaust." This guy is constantly emailing me. He warned that the ADL had just "issued a terse press release today condemning the equation of ‘Darwinism' with Nazism in Expelled. How can you call yourself a religious Jew and still believe in such Fundamentalist Protestant Christian nonsense like Intelligent Design?"

I thanked my email correspondent for a good laugh. The idea that, having defended Expelled's thesis concerning Hitler's intellectual debt to Charles Darwin, I would now feel chastised and repentant because of a statement from the ADL, an organization for which I have not a feather's weight of respect! This was rich stuff.

Just to be clear, however: Expelled doesn't equate Darwinism and Hitler. That basic point was also missed by Professor Sahotra Sarkar, who published a confused attack piece on me here on Jewcy. Sarkar attributed to me the view, "If you believe in the theory of evolution, you are an anti-Semite" -- something that, obviously, I would have to be a fool to write or believe.

Dealing primarily with the academic suppression of Darwin-doubting scientists on campuses around the country, Expelled only spends about 10 minutes on the Hitler-Darwin connection. But it draws upon a solid, mainstream body of scholarship by the chief Hitler biographers and others.

Undeterred, the ADL wailed that "Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people and Darwin and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler's genocidal madness."

Much the same view has been propounded elsewhere. Once again here at Jewcy, Jay Michaelson seemed to argue that all science is by definition value-neutral: "Last I checked, Hitler also made use of automobiles. Indeed, he based a lot of ideas on militarism and machines; does that mean technology is morally wrong? Should you turn off your computer right now?"

No, Jay, there are obvious differences between Darwinian theory and auto and computer technology. Most important, the latter make no claims to answering ultimate questions, like how life originated, from which ethical corollaries are naturally drawn.

Auto and computer technology are also proved reliable every day by our experience. But no one has ever reported seeing a species originate in the manner described in Darwin's Origin of Species - not now, not in the fossil record, not ever.

More interesting than these observations is the hypocrisy of the ADL's outburst: "Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan."

It's funny how when the subject of conversation is Darwinism, then Hitler needed no one particular inspiration. But when the conversation shifts from Darwinism to - oh, I don't know - Christianity? Ah, then suddenly the genealogy of Nazism becomes eminently traceable.

One of the ADL's main fundraising technique has long been to scare Jews by demonizing Christianity. The group accordingly isn't shy about tracing the genealogy of the Holocaust back to the New Testament. In an essay on the 40^th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, for example, Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, director of interfaith affairs wrote:

"The anti-Judaism that begins in the New Testament was transformed through the admixture of political, economic and sociological prejudice into the anti-Semitism of modernity. This reached its ugly and inhuman nadir during World War II with Hitler's Final Solution for the Jewish people."

Blaming the earliest Christian writings for setting off a chain of influences resulting in the Holocaust evokes little outrage in the liberal Jewish community. Visitors to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, for instance, are greeted by a film, Anti-Semitism, purporting to uncover the "religious root of this phenomenon, the pervasive anti-Jewish teachings that evolved from overly literal readings and misreadings of New Testament texts."

Yet when Hitler successfully sold his ideology of hate to the German people in his bestselling tract Mein Kampf, he phrased his argument not in Christian terms but in biological, Darwinian ones.

Ignoring Hitler's evolutionary rhetoric, of course, some commentators brandish a famous quote from the same book -- "by defending myself against the Jews, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." They don't realize that Hitler was referring not to the God of the Bible but to Nature and her iron laws, as his preceding sentence clearly indicates.

In a curious irony, the modern paperback edition of Mein Kampf, available in any Barnes & Noble, includes an Introduction by - guess who? None other than the ADL's national director, Abraham Foxman. Did he, I wonder, even read the book?

Ben Stein: Schoolboy rebel Ben Stein has worn many hats throughout the course of his professional life. He has been a writer, a professor, a lawyer, a Hollywood consultant, and, famously, an actor and gameshow host. He even had a stint as a speechwriter for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Now Stein is simultaneously taking on some new roles: Documentary filmmaker, self-proclaimed rebel of our generation, and…Intelligent Design proponent? Beginning April 18, he’s bringing his rebellious self to a theater near you with his new movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a documentary about the freedom of speech (or lack thereof) surrounding the Intelligent Design/Darwinism debate.

Stein lays the foundation for his quest in the opening to the film’s impending-doom-filled trailor:

Like most people, I also have questions. Very big questions, like how did we get here? Where are we going? Is there a meaning and purpose in life? Or are we, the universe, and everything in it, merely the result of pure dumb fate and chance? For most of my life, I believe the answers to these questions were fairly straightforward. Everything that exists was created by a loving God.

Fair enough. Respecting that very smart people, namely Darwinist scientists, believe otherwise, Stein remained untroubled by the matter, acknowledging that Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Inquiry entitles everyone to express his own opinion and to pursue his own research. But then the primordial soup hit the fan. Stein heard about Richard Sternberg, former managing editor of Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, a scientific journal affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute, who lost his job and suffered academic and professional persecution simply by allowing an article by Discovery Institute mastermind Stephen C. Meyer to be published. Stein regarded this event as a tragedy, with dangerous implications.

“We believe in a free society,” Stein says. “This isn’t Nazi Germany.” He claims that we are living in a “Era of Darwin” in which people must learn to shut up and play along with the paradigm of evolution, or to face dire consequences. And, according to Stein, everyone is in on the conspiracy, including the media, the academy, and the court systems. The logical conclusion: Darwinists are afraid and are hiding something.

The Mouse Trap: Too complex to work without one of its parts His main argument is that in the time of Galileo, Intelligent Design theorists would have had no problem propagating and vocalizing their ideas. Too bad that in making such an argument, Stein completely overlooks the fact that Galileo was placed under house arrest, had his books banned, and was forced to discredit all of his research, simply for having the audacity to say that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around.

Ultimately, Stein concludes that “Darwinism is not only improbable, it might actually be dangerous.” In a November 2007 interview with Bill O’Reilly, Stein says that he sees gaps in Darwinism that no one is attempting to fill except for Intelligent Design Theorists. Whether or not these theorists turn out to be right is irrelevant, he says—the simple fact that they attempt to provide a counterpoint is noble in itself.

Even if this is a fair argument, it is hard to pick out amid Stein’s use of Design-smattered terminology. In the interview, he refers to Darwin’s theory as a “relic” left over from 19^th century imperialism which states that humans evolved from monkeys (Darwin never said this, by the way) and that life started when some lightning hit a puddle of mud, a theory about which Stein says, “that has never struck me as convincing.” When he says that the cell’s perfectly moving thousands of parts can only be explained by the hand of a benevolent God, he sounds like Michael Behe in “Irreducible Complexity.” These little comments makes it seem like Stein has already made up his mind about which camp is emitting the most truth.

With the releasing of Expelled, Stein sets himself up to be the voice of the subjugated Intelligent Design theorist. And he’s expecting to change some opinions and to raise some controversy. He says:

I now realize that it was my duty to get the word out, to warn others before it’s too late. So I’m gonna begin by warning you. Feel free to watch this film if you must, and I hope you do. But you’ve got to know that doing so could land you in a heap of trouble. Some of you are gonna lose your friends for watching this film. Some of you may even lose your jobs. In fact, if you’re a scientist with any hope of a future, I suggest you leave right now…but if you do leave, will anyone be left to fight this battle? Anyone? Anyone?

Advanced screening reviews are, uh, mixed – according to the Expelled newsroom, Richard Dawkins gave it a thumbs down, but Rush Limbaugh thought it was great! But the question remains: Is it even possible to criticize the movie without being written off as narrow-minded? I guess we shall see, starting April 18.