
NEW YORK — A handful of journalists filed into a small theater at the Park Avenue Screening Room here last night to see a preview for "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." The 90-minute documentary-style flick features Ben Stein, a comedian, lawyer, actor and former speechwriter. It is a movie about the so-called debate between supporters of "intelligent design" and Charles Darwin's scientific theory of evolution.
Some scientists, however, are outraged about the conduct of the filmmaker during production and screening as well as the film's effort to tie Darwin's ideas to Hitler. One prominent scientist who is in the movie has since called it shoddy and sinister.
The basic principles of neither evolution nor ID are clearly explained in the movie.
"Expelled" opens in theaters nationwide starting on April 18.