Posted on 10/16/2009 12:51:51 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
When a conservative group, the American Freedom Alliance (AFA), recently contracted to premiere a new documentary titled “Darwin’s Dilemma” at the Smithsonian-affiliated California Science Center, they couldn’t imagine the brouhaha that would ensue.
As soon as word of the screening went public, the Darwinian thought police started complaining about a government-supported science center renting its facilities to a group showing a film that challenges Darwinian evolution.
Why the outrage? Isn’t there academic freedom to express scientific viewpoints that dissent from the evolutionary “consensus”?
To give some background on the controversy, the fossil record shows that about 530 million years ago, nearly all major animal groups (called “phyla”) abruptly appeared on earth. Dubbed the “Cambrian explosion,” this dramatic burst of biodiversity without clear evolutionary precursors has created headaches for evolutionists ever since Darwin’s time.
There are two ways that modern evolutionists approach the Cambrian explosion, or what has been called “Darwin’s dilemma”:
A. Some freely acknowledge that the Cambrian fossil evidence essentially shows the opposite of what was expected under neo-Darwinian evolution.
B. Others deal with the Cambrian explosion by sweeping its problems under the rug and trying to change the subject.
Succumbing to pressure from Darwinian elites, the California Science Center chose option B.
The AFA had contracted with the Science Center, a department of the California state government, to show “Darwin’s Dilemma” on Sept. 25th at the center’s IMAX Theatre. The film explores the eponymous problem of how the Cambrian explosion challenges Darwinian theory and features scientists arguing that the best explanation is intelligent design (ID).
Apparently this was too much for the California Science Center, which abruptly cancelled the AFA’s contract just a couple weeks before the screening. The center claims it cancelled the event “because of issues related to the contract” but refuses to identify the issues.
Contract “issues” always make a nice pretext for censorship, but a little digging into history uncovers what likely took place.
The California Science Center is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, which has a long history of opposing academic freedom for ID.
In 2004, a pro-ID peer-reviewed scientific article authored by Stephen Meyer was published in a Smithsonian-affiliated biology journal. Once the Biological Society of Washington (BSW) realized it had published a pro-ID paper, it repudiated Meyer’s article, alleging the paper “does not meet the scientific standards of the Proceedings.”
Of course the BSW cited no factual errors in the paper; they just didn’t like Meyer’s conclusions.
Then in 2005, a critical New York Times story inspired anti-ID censors to pressure the Smithsonian to cancel the screening of a pro-ID film, “The Privileged Planet.”
To its credit, the Smithsonian honored its contract to show the film but publicly disclaimed the event, stating “the content of the film is not consistent with the mission of the Smithsonian Institution.” Smithsonian spokesman Randall Kremer said the institution objected to the documentary’s “philosophical conclusion.”
(Of course, when the Smithsonian featured Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” documentary in 1997, it volunteered no objections to the film’s bold opening statement that “The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.”)
The story picks up in 2006, when a congressional staff investigation found that "Smithsonian's top officials permit[ted] the demotion and harassment of [a] scientist skeptical of Darwinian evolution.”
The persecuted scientist was Smithsonian research biologist Richard Sternberg, who experienced retaliation for overseeing the publication of Meyer’s paper.
The Smithsonian Institution seems willing to go to great lengths to oppose ID and send the message that scientists who sympathize with ID will face consequences, but how does this relate to the current debacle with the California Science Center?
For one, Drs. Sternberg and Meyer are featured in the “Darwin’s Dilemma” documentary advocating ID. And second, Smithsonian spokesman Randal Kremer has reappeared, stating that he “spoke” with the California Science Center after becoming “concerned by the inference … there was a showing of the film at a Smithsonian branch.”
Though Kremer officially denies it, all appearances indicate pressure was applied from on high at the Smithsonian, and the California Science Center caved in and cancelled the event. Once we move past the customary pretexts, this is an open and shut case of censorship and the banning of free speech that dissents from evolution.
Darwin’s dilemma isn’t just about a lack of transitional fossils in ancient rocks. It’s about how the guards of evolutionary orthodoxy will treat contrary scientific viewpoints.
Will they silence minority views, or will they grant dissenting scientists freedom of speech and scientific inquiry to make their case?
That is the real question posed by Darwin’s dilemma. Let’s hope the California Science Center reverses its decision to cancel the contracted screening of “Darwin’s Dilemma” and chooses freedom of speech over evolutionary dogmatism.
Ping!
Watched the ARDI thing on DSC Channel.
Seems Humans didn’t evolve from MONKEYS (who knew)
I found it interesting that they have found even older remains.
I guess when they finally get far enough back, God will say..Oh ye of little faith.
GGG, if you had done just a little research you would have seen that the cancellation of Darwin’s Dilemma was due to the fact that the Discovery Institute violated the rental agreement by issuing this press release http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS135002+05-Oct-2009+PRN20091005 without obtaining the necessary approval from the California Science Center.
PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS:
It is required that the Event Services Office approve, for technical and factual accuracy, all promotional materials mentioning the California Science Center produced for your event (including invitations, programs, press releases, etc.) prior to printing or broadcast. Please allow sufficient time for this approval.
So since they violated the contract that they signed the event was cancelled. No censorship here, just the usual distortion, and misdirection.
But why lets the fact’s get in the way of a good story? Doesn’t the 9th commandment say something about bearing false witness?
"The Cambrian explosion, so called, is a failure of the geological record rather than of the Darwinian machine. Its radical new groups reflect not a set of exceptional events, but something more banal: the first appearance of animals with parts capable of preservation. Before then, there were soft creatures that decayed as soon as they died. Why shells appeared all of a sudden is not certain. Perhaps the first predators evolved and drove their prey to don expensive armor, or perhaps a surge of oxygen enabled animals to grow large enough to need a skeleton. Whatever the reason, the Cambrian marks the origin of a fossil record, rather than of modern life."
Jones goes on to write:
"A few discoveries from an unknown land prove that biology's supposed preface, the Cambrian, is in fact well into its plot. So deficient was the evidence of earlier times that nobody guessed it was there. Single celled creatures stretch back even further. The balance of isotopes in carbon trapped in Greenland rocks three-thousand eight hundred million years old resembles that of the modern bacteria that live on methane. They evolved when Earth was in its infancy and show that it took several times longer to develop a cell with a nucleus than it did for life to appear."
You should study the 9th Commandment a little more carefully, and then look in the mirror. It was not the Discovery Institute that was putting the even on, it was the American Freedom Alliance.
“Why the outrage? Isn’t there academic freedom to express scientific viewpoints that dissent from the evolutionary “consensus”? “
of course not, you have to ask?
THEY are evolved and have all wisdom and knowledge now.
You are not allowed to have public dissent in their
sanctuaries.
ampu
You really should pay attention, I have already advised you that the misdirection, avoidance, and ridicule will not work.
:::shrug::: I just don't care enough to research that, so I guess we'll never know.
Ira, you really ought to follow your own advice. Otherwise, people might think you’re a hypocrite or something.
What violation was that, Ira?
Beep!
I guess you did not fully read my first post. So I will go over it again for you.
This press release was issued: http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS135002+05-Oct-2009+PRN20091005 Without approval thus violating this clause of the rental contract:
PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS:
It is required that the Event Services Office approve, for technical and factual accuracy, all promotional materials mentioning the California Science Center produced for your event (including invitations, programs, press releases, etc.) prior to printing or broadcast. Please allow sufficient time for this approval.
http://www.californiasciencecenter.org/GenInfo/EventServices/PoliciesAndProcedures/PoliciesAndProcedures.php
The press release states “Intelligent Design Documentary to Premiere at Smithsonian Affiliated California Science Center” and the contract states that all promotional materials mentioning the California Science Center must be approved prior to printing or broadcast. This press release was not approved.
Is that clear enough for you? See no censorship just a violation of a signed rental contract.
Here we see the the ID'ers admitting they're guessing as to underlying motive. Personally, I think they have a point, regardless of the technicality.
If you are arguing that the contract technicality itself, is the full and complete story, I'd guess you might do well selling used cars, or in a government job, or in politics??? Aim High! --- like the saying goes...you show promise! /s
Did the D.I. issue the press release?
Was the press release approved?
Does the rental contract not state that all promotional materials require approval prior to printing or broadcast?
Do the id/creationists/cdesign proponentsist have a separate set of rules from everybody else wishing to rent this space?
It looks very much like the press release was from the Discovery Institute not The Freedom Alliance. so who contracted for the showing?
Can’t have any of that intelligence stuff allowed, now, can we?
LMAO... what a crock of horse shi-.
Evos sure would know that when they see it, wouldn’t they?
So how can a press release from a third party violate a contract between the California Science Center and The Freedom Alliance?
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