"I stand ready and waiting to examine evidence against evolution. No, really, I am, really! Don't you believe me? You blind ignorant uneducated peasant!" 
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.
The difference, IMHO is when we try to use educational based institutions (museams, art galleries, science exhibits) as a commercial enterprize. If I had my own IMAX theater, I would never show something that would alienate an audience, because people tend to associate the 'offense' more on the theater, than on the film. The film goes, the theater stays.
Only very narrow minded people refuse to see that life adapts. The cute Golden Labs are descended from wolves, no controversy there. Adam and Eve didn't let Cain and Able play with baby Labs, as the Lab simply didn't exist yet. Same thing for the domesticated house cat. Life changes, everywhere and constantly.
This may be observable fact; but again, if I want to sell Coffee, soda, popcorn, tickets .... I'll do everything in my power to maximize sales. You would never find me showing 'Bowling for Colombine' or any other Moore production; because the stigma of being the 'place' will last long after the film and it's proceeds have gone.
"I stand ready and waiting to examine evidence against evolution. No, really, I am, really! Don't you believe me? You blind ignorant uneducated peasant!"
Perfect analogy.
Then you should read the article again:
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. [...] 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.They sound offended and vocal to me.
Do they lie, or do they simply not know? There IS no answer that either "proves" or "disproves" Darwin theory as to the origin of species - all the Darwin theory does is concentrate a greater number of particular genetic combinations for specific conditions, but it does not, CANNOT, explain differences in chromosome numbers, or further interactions that cause sharp inheritable differences from the parent stock, sufficiently so to rationalize calling the offspring a different species altogether. Porcupines do not produce bears, and worms do not produce butterflies.
Flaming is such an unattractive quality.
I actually have a degree in Philosophy, and take it from me: the study of evolution isn't philosophy. It is science.
Evolution of the cosmos, time, matter, information, and life itself, does not occur.
Noone is talking about evolution (in this sense) of 'the cosmos, time, matter, information.' Except you.
Biology only takes place *after* life is begun.
Quite so, and on this planet that was about 4,5 billion years ago.
"What evidence? It's just a theory. (And one that's full of holes!!!!!!!!)"
Absolutely it's full of holes. By its very nature, fossil records are incomplete. When a plant or animal dies, there isn’t a taxidermist sitting by waiting to preserve and catalog it. I guess you are looking for a complete list of who begat who.
Where are you keeping the skulls of all the descendants from Abraham to Jesus? Oh, you don't have them. There were 38 begatings one immaculate conception and one virgin birth, and you mean to tell me you don't have a single skull? Well, isn't that link absolutely critical?
Well, science have hundreds of thousands of skulls and skeletons and feces and footprints and shells and imprints and deposits, not to mention genetics.
To an evolutionist there is one truth and it is not open to doubt. The most closed minded people in the world are evolutionists who refuse to allow competing theories to even be discussed in the classroom.
Evade the point, make broad sweeping accusations. How unexpected.
But there hasn't been enough time for macroevolution to take place, even according to the most generous speculations about the age of the universe.
Now you'll probably pull out the argument "well, the fact is that macro-evolution did happen, so that's a proof that there was enough time," or some other tautological argument.
Perfect analogy.
A perfectly disgusting, inaccurate, and childish one, yeah. Is your bigotry so in-grown that you really think conservatives who have no problem with evolution are Hitler-like hypocrites?
If so, learn something, and grow up.
Science??? When Antony Flew gets labeled 'senile' because he admits evolution has serious flaws and doesn't explain the origins of the Universe, much less LIFE, that's considered a scientific attitude?
If you redefine science to mean "pro evolutionary findings" instead of objective fact, then yes, we will take issue with that. And that is EXACTLY what you do. Christians are not afraid of science, if science is the study of truth and the pursuit of knowledge to that end.
Fascinating -- that "fact" has somehow escaped the notice of millions of biologists. Perhaps you'd care to provide supporting evidence for your claim. If you can actually do so, you'd be a shoe-in for a Nobel prize. Go for it.
Around here they show IMAX in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, and in the Smithsonian exhibit on Man, there is a constantly-paying 20 minute film showing how we evolved from a furry little mammal. This is presented as fact and science. I no longer let my kids watch it, having sat though it once and seen the agenda in play.
Your National Museum = Your tax dollars at work.
well, probably not Hitler himself, but there were a lot of people who stood by and let him get away with murder. "they didn't see what was happening." or some such silly Chamberlain-like excuse.
on these threads, yes
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