I have just seen an advanced screening of Bill Maher’s latest film “Scienticulous” and it is not to be missed. It follows the same format as his earlier film “Religulous”, with a review of nutty ideas of science past, and with interviews with colorful characters espousing zany ideas. But this time, there is much more.
Scienticulous is a better film, in part because Maher manages to avoid the intellectual dishonesty of the Jesus=Krishna segment in “Religulous.” But the key difference is that “Scienticulous” has a plot. In “Religulous,” absurd beliefs were tossed out in no particular order. “Scienticulous” has an inexorable flow, and it is quite moving.
Maher begins with humor, with clips of men trying to fly with feathered wings, a series of interviews offering contradictory and amusing explanations the meaning of astrological signs, and a cornucopia of goofy patent applications. He moves into medicine, or what used to pass for medicine — bloodletting, leeches, and various poisons that were prescribed to cure diseases. He brings us to the 20th Century with the story of how the “food experts” helped create a nation full of diseases of the affluent, and how medical science profited, providing an expensive drug for every ailment that food science helped create . Much of what Maher says here is no news to readers of Michael Pollen, but the visuals really help make the point.
Finally, Maher turns dark. He tracks how the theory of natural selection fueled the growth of eugenics, attracting adherents such as Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Margaret Sanger, and, of course, Adolph Hitler. In horrifying detail, Maher shows how the tools of science were used to exterminate millions of people in the name of science. The final ten minutes of Scienticulous are as riveting as anything I have seen on film, as Maher recounts how science has made us increasingly effective killers. The shots showing the effect of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons on the human body are not for the faint of heart.
In the end, we can only pray that we will be spared the effects of these triumphs of scientific genius.
