Posted on 03/20/2005 12:01:05 PM PST by wagglebee
Some IMAX theaters are refusing to carry movies that promote evolution, citing concerns that doing so offends their audience and creates controversy – a move that has some proponents of Darwinism alarmed over the influence of "fundamentalists."
It's a decision that affects not only the network of 240 IMAX theaters operating in 35 countries, but some science museums that show IMAX-formatted films.
IMAX, which bills itself as the "ultimate movie experience," promises to take viewers to "places you only imagined." The 8-story high screens and crystal clear images have made the theaters ideal venues for documentary science films showing the splendor of nature.
Now, however, about a dozen IMAX theaters, primarily in the South, are shunning movies that carry evolution themes, the New York Times reports. Fear of protests by those objecting to films that contradict the Biblical account of creation is cited as the reason.
A dozen science centers rejected the 2003 release, "Volcanoes," because of it speculation that life on Earth may have originated in undersea vents, says Dr. Richard Lusk, an oceanographer and chief scientist for the project.
Because a only small number of IMAX theaters show science films, a boycott by a few can reduce the potential audience to the point that producers question whether projects are financially worthwhile.
"We have definitely a lot more creation public than evolution public," says Lisa Buzzelli, of the Charleston, South Carolina, Imax Theater. "Being in the Bible Belt, ["Volcanoes"] does have a lot to do with evolution, and we weigh that carefully."
When the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History played the movie for a test audience, the responses were sufficiently negative for the museum to drop it from its offerings. Responses like "I really hate it when the theory of evolution is presented as fact," or "I don't agree with their presentation of human existence" doomed the film's chances.
"Some people said it was blasphemous," says Carol Murray, the museum's director of marketing. "If it's not going to draw a crowd and it is going to create controversy," she concludes, "from a marketing standpoint I cannot make a recommendation" to screen it.
The film's distributor says other science museum officials turned him down "for religious reasons" and because "Volcanoes" had "evolutionary overtones" – a claim that makes Hyman Field, a former National Science Foundation official who played a role in its financing, "furious."
"It's very alarming," he says, "all of this pressure being put on a lot of the public institutions by the fundamentalists."
The economics of large-format science documentaries being what they are, it might not take too much pressure for filmmakers to begin avoiding Darwin.
The films "are generally not big moneymakers," notes Joe DeAmicis, former director of the IMAX theater at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. "It's going to be hard for our filmmakers to continue to make unfettered documentaries when they know going in that 10 percent of the market" will reject them.
Bayley Silleck, who wrote and directed "Cosmic Voyage," another IMAX offering that drew religious complaints, expects to encounter criticism on his upcoming project about dinosaurs. While he's critical of "overcaution, overprotectedness" by theater operators, he recognizes that in the end, it's the audience that counts.
"We all have to make films for an audience that is a family audience," he observes, "when you are talking about IMAX, because they are in science centers and museums."
A Gallup poll, released earlier this month, reveals that 81 percent of U.S. teenagers believe God was somehow involved in human origins, with only 18 percent holding a purely secular view of evolution.
You find Hovind's lying and quote mining amusing?
The reason scientists ask for the cites is to verify that Hovind's assertions are true. Do you accept what people say even though their statements have been 'proven' to be lies?
I don't expect any to be forthcoming, Hovindites are prone to believe assertions with no evidence and are positive no evidence is necessary.
We didn't evolve from modern day apes. Rather, we share a common ancestor with modern day apes. After that common ancestor, our species' went in separate directions.
This is absurd, theories do not get promoted. A theory is the pinnacle of the scientific method. If you think 'laws' are the be all and end all check out Newton's laws and relativity.
The fact is that many learned scientists are openly ridiculing evolution as totally without merit because the theory is so full of holes that it cannot be proven and the harder science tries to produce proof, the more evidence there is to disprove it."
You are just repeating outright garbage. Very few scientists doubt the mechanisms of evolution and even fewer doubt evolution as a theory. If you want to compare numbers, compare the few hundred that profess to doubt evolution compared to the few hundreds of thousands that not only believe in but use it to a certain extent in their research.
No one now living (or ever living for that matter) observed God create the universe or Earth.
"Hence, both Darwinism and creationism are theories. "
Evolution is a theory. Creation does not meet any of the criteria for a theory, therefore is not a theory.
Why did you change from discussing evolution as a theory to hypotheses Darwin postulated? Surely you must realize that much has been discovered and developed in the past 150 years. Besides, his hypotheses of natural selection and sexual selection have borne true.
Just Google on 'ring species'. There are quite a few.
Just as I thought. You are afraid that your assertions have been or will be refuted. You would be quite correct.
It's your turn to get the pat on the back.
Unfortunately for me, you beat me to it and I was loaded for bear. Oh well, maybe next time.
Support it first.
I did, (You dodn't think I carry the scientific names of gull species around in my head, do you?)
The point is that the two ends of the ring (or more strictly "loop", as the ends meet but not not join) are, despite genetic transfer around the ring, two species - non-interbreeding, morphologically different.
Besides Google in sinful. (That's the only explanation I have for Creationist posts of the "I'm not sure where I heard it, but I helieve that Charles Darwin was Karl Marx's gay lover" standard.)
The non-human great ape brain isn't all that different from a human's brain. It is more of degree than stark difference. You'll find that there are chimps and gorillas that have comparable IQs to some humans. The reason they haven't accomplished as much as we have is we took over that niche and they never evolved a fully upright stance.
"Where are the animals that should be filling the gap between modern-day apes and man?"
The extant hominins are the remnants of a much larger family that has mostly died out. Before we and our relatives appeared the great apes (hominins) just about disappeared.
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/M/Mutations.html
As shown in the link above mutations primarily occur during meiosis and are replication errors. Within that class of mutation, both duplications and insertions occur, both can lengthen the DNA strand. Since 97% of our DNA is non-coding, these mutations are neutral, but may at a later date code for new function. The non-code to code scenario is speculative but replication errors lengthening the strand is not.
Now it is up to you to prove your assertion!
You don't? I'm shocked. Don't you realize that all us 'evilutionists' have to keep our ammo in plain sight? :)
Eventually that particular gull group will be burned into your skull. Painful as it is.
Projection is very telling. Thanks for the "info" on you.
Trisomy 18 syndrome is a disorder of human chromosomes which occurs in approximately 1 in 6,000 live born infants. Trisomy 18 is due to the presence of an extra #18 chromosome. Over 90% of infants with Trisomy 18 syndrome will have a full trisomy while the remainder will have a trisomy due to a rearrangement called a translocation or have mosaicism (two different cell lines).
Major impact of Trisomy 18 is a predisposition to congenital malformations (birth defects), increased infant mortality, and a developmental disability in older infants and children.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.