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IMAX steers clear of Darwin's theory
WorldNetDaily ^ | 3/20/05 | WorldNetDaily

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.


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: bible; creationism; crevolist; darwin; evolution; gallup; imax; movies; religion; science; secularhumanism; secularism
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To: Prov3456
What's the point? You wouldn't believe any evidence Terrriergal provides you anyway.

Sure I would. I go where the evidence indicates, which is why I have accepted the truth that evolutionary processes are heavily involved with the formation of modern life, and that life has arisen from common ancestry. That's where the evidence overwhelmingly points.

Unfortunately, the creationists tend to shy away from actually presenting any evidence. Note that Terriergal has already given her excuses for failing to support her accusations.

Now perhaps you'd care to retract your unfounded slur on me.

21 posted on 03/20/2005 12:23:07 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Col Freeper

good one!


22 posted on 03/20/2005 12:23:08 PM PST by Terriergal (What is the meaning of life?? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.)
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To: wagglebee

" This means that seven decades of leftist anti-religious secularism is FAILING!"

COME ON!! Science is not a religion and it is not a god it is not even a leftist thing. Science is, at its core, a method. It is a four step process, nothing more, nothing less.

I’m sure most people covered this in High School, but apparently many were not listening, so for their benefit, here is science in a nutshell.

1. Observe something. Make notes about what you see.
2. Formulate a hypothesis. In other words, make up an assumption to explain what you see.
3. Use your hypothesis to predict something else.
4. Run tests to see if your hypothesis holds true and have others repeat them

That’s it. It is not good, not bad, and really very simple. In fact, we do this in our head everyday.

1. I see a lot of traffic and there are people running across the street.
2. I hypothesize that running across the street is safe.
3. I predict that if they can run across the street and not get hit, I can too.
4. I run across the street and do not get hit

But my hypothesis has not withstood the test of peer review. Something working once does not mean it will work in every case. So I ask my friend, also a “scientist”, to run across the street. He protests, something about too much traffic. I insist that my hypothesis has been tested and urge him to just do it.

He runs across and gets creamed by a passing truck. My hypothesis was proven false.

Now there are two key points here.

1. A hypothesis can work once but fail when tried again later. In fact, it might pass the test a million times, but if it fails even once, it is proven false. Therefore, the goal of the scientific method is not to prove your hypothesis true which is impossible, it is to prove it false.
2. No matter how many times you test something; there is always the possibility that it will be proven false later. In science, nothing is true; everything is a hypothesis, a theory or a law.

There are levels of acceptance in science each one stronger then the last.

* A hypothesis is basically an educated guess.
* A theory is a hypothesis that has been tested many, many times by many, many people using the scientific method without a single case of its being proven false occurring.
* A law is a theory that has been tested so damn many times that hardly anyone even bothers any more.

Since each level of acceptance has received more and more scrutiny, the “scientific community” becomes increasingly more hesitant to accept claims that somebody has proven something false as it moves from hypothesis to theory to law.

If you say “I have proven that hypothesis false” you will hardly get a shrug.

If you say “I have proven that theory false” you better be ready and able to prove it again and again and show others exactly how you did it so they can do it too, because people will be very hesitant to accept it.

If you say, “I have proven that law false”, hold on to your hats and glasses, because hell is about to break loose in the scientific community. It does not happen often, but it does happen, and when you can prove it, it is accepted.

That is the fundamental difference between science and Christianity and why there is no such thing as “Christian Science”.

To a scientist, everything is conditional, nothing is absolutely true and everything is open for questioning.

To a Christian, there is One truth and it is not open to doubt.


23 posted on 03/20/2005 12:24:23 PM PST by ndt
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To: wagglebee

Evolution, postulated as random occurences over a very long span of time, is just too speculative as a theory. But combine "intelligent design" with the mechanics of evolution, and it is possible that sufficient proteins could be built up to form the basis of the very first DNA unit, and from there, proceed to more complex DNA combinations and recombinations, still occurring at a relatively slow rate, but producing viable life forms that represent a niche in the overall ecology of a particular environment. All this time, "intelligent design" keeps being introduced to guide and define the various permutations of each of these life forms.

Hey, you believe in your magic, I'll believe in mine.


24 posted on 03/20/2005 12:24:30 PM PST by alloysteel ("Master of the painfully obvious.....")
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To: wagglebee

The bible is being rejected by more and more Americans, so it is just a matter of time till creaetoids have no voice of protest. Evolutionists are hardly in fear, in fact...Yawn.


25 posted on 03/20/2005 12:24:49 PM PST by Step_Into_the_Void (Don't take my money and don't hire the government to take if from me for you. You theif.)
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To: Ichneumon
Evolutionary biology is not "leftist anti-religious secularism", but thanks for playing

Oh, well, since YOU say so I guess that makes it true.

I see NO evidence to contradict evolution here...

26 posted on 03/20/2005 12:24:52 PM PST by Terriergal (What is the meaning of life?? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.)
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To: Terriergal
[So tell me -- do you approve of bearing false witness like this?]

Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

Wow, what a lame dodge. Now are you going to answer the question or not? Do you approve of creationists lying about science and the scientific evidence? I know that's one of their top techniques to attempt to raise public doubts about evolution (i.e. lying about what it actually says, and lying about the nature of the evidence in favor of it), but despite the utility of such lies in order to advance your preferred agenda, do you or do you not approve of such dishonesty?

27 posted on 03/20/2005 12:25:53 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Terriergal

Come up with the % of creationist, trained paleontologists and geologists yet?

It SHOULD be the key to your claim evolution is crumbling, as those two groups of people are the closest to the evidence for evolution.


28 posted on 03/20/2005 12:28:07 PM PST by Strategerist
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To: Terriergal

Please reveal that earth-shattering evidence of yours. Biologists all over the world would love to examine it.


29 posted on 03/20/2005 12:29:25 PM PST by sumocide
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To: Ichneumon; wagglebee
Evolutionary Biology is an oxymoron. Evolution isn't science, it is philosophy. Biology is science. Evolution doesn't occur in biology, except for microevolution. Evolution of the cosmos, time, matter, information, and life itself, does not occur. Biology only takes place *after* life is begun. Evolution is supposed to give rise to all these things magically in direct contradiction to all physical phenomenon. I guess if... and only if... you want to totally deny your senses and logic, you *will* believe evolution. Sorry, can't deny my own mind THAT much that I must give up all rationality just to embrace a philosophy that gives me no real understanding of anything.
30 posted on 03/20/2005 12:29:40 PM PST by Terriergal (What is the meaning of life?? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.)
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To: Terriergal

I see you've met the evolutionary taliban brigade. You will think as they do or they will shoot your buddha


31 posted on 03/20/2005 12:29:52 PM PST by D Edmund Joaquin (Mayor of Jesusland)
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To: sumocide
Biologists all over the world would love to examine it.

They already are. But they ignore what doesn't conform to their preconceived notion that a transcendent intellect is impossible.

32 posted on 03/20/2005 12:30:21 PM PST by Terriergal (What is the meaning of life?? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.)
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To: D Edmund Joaquin
I see you've met the evolutionary taliban brigade

Oh I know about them already. They're as religous about evolution as Teddy Kennedy is about socialism, and more religious than most Christians I know.

33 posted on 03/20/2005 12:31:47 PM PST by Terriergal (What is the meaning of life?? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.)
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To: Terriergal

"Evolution doesn't occur in biology, except for microevolution."

Microevolution IS evidence for macroevolution. What is “increasing complexity” if not a series of small changes? Unless you can propose a method by which microevolution is halted, given time microevolution will necessarily result in macroevolution.


34 posted on 03/20/2005 12:33:16 PM PST by ndt
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To: Ichneumon
Since that bothers them then maybe they should stay away from these IMAX (and other) presentations that deal with scientific issues, rather than screaming about how "offended" they are.

Isn't that exactly what they indicated that they planned to do? I.E., take their money elsewhere.

BTW, I missed the part about anyone "screaming" about being offended.

Regardless of your position on the issue of the content of the pro-evolution films (as defined in the article), you seem to be proposing exactly what the "offended" people were planning on doing, yet somehow attempt to give it an aura of being "bad".

I certainly hope it is still ok in America to take their money wherever their interests, beliefs, or perhaps in your view, their "prejudices" lead them.

35 posted on 03/20/2005 12:34:48 PM PST by Col Freeper
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To: Terriergal
[Please state which portions of the mountains of evidence for evolution]

Oh pullease. I have been through this so many times I am tired of it.

If that's really true, then feel free to stop picking fights by making slanderous accusations.

You're like a sniper wants to take potshots, but when someone lobs a round back in your direction, you say, "oh, please, I'm so *tired* of conflict..."

You have access to the same stuff I have, yet you come to the opposite conclusion.

Because I actually *look* at it, instead of ignoring it as you do despite such "access" and making it up as you go along. I remember the "retina" thread where you ridiculed my accurate description of the retina's structure, and thought you had scored "points" with taunts to the effect that if the retina was so simple structurally, why couldn't I make one -- demonstrating your total ignorance of the fact that "silicon retinas" have been routinely constructed for years now, and even used in several commercial products (such as the M64282FP chip, used as the optical element in the optional camera for the Nintendo Gameboy, among other products, for pete's sake).

Even evolutionists are steering away from it,

There you go, just making things up again. Sure, a very small handful of self-proclaimed "former evolutionsists" now speak against it, but that's hardly the sort of mass exodus you're trying to imply here -- and overlooks the larger number of folks "converting" in the opposite direction.

and immediately get tarred and feathered for being intellectually honest.

Horse manure.

If you can't see that happening, you're incapable of honest debate.

I'm quite capable of honest debate, which is why I don't fall for the dishonesties and half-truths of the creationist lobby. I actually research their claims, and the vast majority of the time I find them either incompetently false, or shockingly dishonest. That sort of behavior gives good conservatives and good Christians a bad name.

36 posted on 03/20/2005 12:36:17 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Terriergal
Biology only takes place *after* life is begun.

The same is true of evolution. Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life.

If I were you, I'd be pretty embarassed to debate a subject you know nothing about. But that's just me.

37 posted on 03/20/2005 12:36:28 PM PST by Strategerist
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To: Ichneumon

Ouch. I guess that smarted. Yes, evolution is indeed leftist anti-religious secularism fostered by pseudo-intellectuals much more ignorant than they know.


38 posted on 03/20/2005 12:39:35 PM PST by plain talk
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To: Ichneumon
The Truth is that the evidence overwhelmingly supports evolutionary biology

What evidence? It's just a theory. (And one that's full of holes!!!!!!!!)

39 posted on 03/20/2005 12:39:36 PM PST by mtg
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Comment #40 Removed by Moderator


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