Ben Stein and Bill O'Reilly compete for "biggest idiot" award

Here is a typical creationist video cip that walks the fine line between amusing me and pissing me off. It amuses me that people so clueless as to the nature of science honestly feel qualified to debate specific aspects of it on National TV, but pisses me off because the fact that it involves well-known pundits Bill O'Reilly and Ben Stein means far too many people will take it seriously.

The topics of conversation they go over read like a laundry list of Creationist complaints and misconceptions. In a single viewing of the video I ticked off:

- Conflating evolutionary theory (the scientific explanation for the diversity of life on our planet) with abiogenesis (the scientific explanation for how life arose on the planet to begin with).

- Assertion that an acceptance of evolutionary theory is tantamount to atheism; that by teaching students good science we are somehow teaching them atheism. Clearly neither has ever read Ken Miller, or the hundreds of other scientists that possess strong religious faith.

- Unsophisticatedly linking ID to religion directly, talking about how "ID says that God created it." Actually, no, ID specifically distances itself from any religious implications. Amusingly, their little back and forth has gotten them some flak from the supposed defenders of ID for pointing out what is obvious to everyone, that motivations for support of ID are without exception religious. ID is a flagrant attempt to strip the overtly religious overtones of creationism, in direct response to the Edwards v. Aguillard SCOTUS decision that declared that the teaching of Creationism in public schools unconstitutional. The ID movement has spent the past two decades trying to distance itself from overt religion for precisely this reason, but apparently O'Reilly and Stein didn't get that memo.

- Whining about not getting the opportunity to advance their specifically religious agenda in public high school science classes.

- Treating "I find this unconvincing" style arguments as though they were a legitimate basis for determining the appropriate curriculum for a High School science class.

- Asserting that ID is the target of some sort of fascist exclusion from the scientific community on the basis that it challenges dogma. Hello? Scientists make their living, every last one of them, by challenging existing dogma. Without challenging existing dogma there would be no scientific progress. But unless one challenges dogma via valid utilization of the scientific method, one is just making up stories as one goes along. The few instances of people being removed from established scientific positions for "supporting ID" are invariably linked to people breaking the rules of that scientific establishment in order to get their views published. In contrast, Michael Behe remains in his tenured position at Lehigh despite spouting off his nonsense. As PZ Meyers is fond of pointing out, ID wasn't "expelled" - it flunked.