The Smithsonian withdraws sponsorship of intelligent design film

NY Times ^ | 6/3/05

[Crackingham]

The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History has withdrawn its co-sponsorship of a showing later this month of a film that supports the theory of "intelligent design."

The museum said it would not cancel the screening of the film, "The Privileged Planet," but would return the $16,000 that the Discovery Institute, an organization that promotes a skeptical view of the Darwinian theory of evolution, had paid it.

Proposals for events at the National Museum of Natural History are reviewed by members of the staff, and it shares sponsorship of all events. After the news of the showing caused controversy, however, officials of the museum screened "Privileged Planet" for themselves.

"The major problem with the film is the wrap-up," said Randall Kremer, a museum spokesman.

"It takes a philosophical bent rather than a clear statement of the science, and that's where we part ways with them."

[SampleMan]

Good point concerning carbon dating, however my assertion remains the same. Accepted theories get treated as irrefutable dogma. So for example, if pottery were to be discovered at the same layer as a Neanderthal site, it would be explained away as a fluke. Scientific theory, especially outside of the hard sciences, is more often about protecting prestige and hierarchy than it is a search for knowledge.

[AndrewC]

When Randi heard the story, he says he called the Smithsonian offering the institution $20,000 not to show the film.

Let freedom reign.

[Right Wing Professor]

"My facts are all wrong, but I'm right anyway".You aren't a CBS producer, are you?

[AndrewC]

What other "theories" are there to consider?

$20,000 payoff by Randi says there are.

[narby]

"The major problem with the film is the wrap-up," said Randall Kremer, a museum spokesman. "It takes a philosophical bent rather than a clear statement of the science, and that's where we part ways with them."

Same technique as the environmentalists. Present a factual film, then end it with 60 seconds of completely unwarranted propaganda.

This kind of technique smells like the environmentalists realize their big money making religion has peaked, and they're looking for a new target audience.

[narby]

Yeah, it is a bit wierd. Essentially their position is, we don't like this film, so we're going to let the use our facilities for free to screen it. Makes no sense.

It makes sense if someone at the Smithsonian is a creationist like "W".

The conservatives better wake up to the fact that pushing this creationist issue with their rigid interpretation of Genesis, will damage them like the gay marriage issue has damaged the Dems.

[SampleMan]

"My facts are all wrong, but I'm right anyway".You aren't a CBS producer, are you?

Where did the quote come from? Those are quotation marks aren't they? Commonly accepted usage of quotations is to indicate that someone actually said the statement. Let me assume you were asserting this was my idea and answer you accordingly. I neither asserted nor implied facts. I used a hypothetical example, which you found error with, and to which I readily made acknowledgment. An error which wasn't substantial to the argument in any event.

You haven't offered to refute my point. So for the record, is it your position that the scientific community is open to embracing the discussion of new ideas, which are counter to accepted theories? It is my assertion that personal prestige generally overrides scientific method. (again a hypothetical example) That a professor with 12 books, a good lecture circuit, and a prestigious reputation, is scared of a new theory, which if true, would nullify his life's work. Further, it is my assertion that this leads to a herd mentality.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"So for the record, is it your position that the scientific community is open to embracing the discussion of new ideas, which are counter to accepted theories?"

ID is as old as dirt, and was discarded long ago because it has no predictive power. It is unnecessary to continually have to waste time discussing the merits of an intellectually dead theory like ID.

[curiosity]

Is "W" really a creationist? I thought he just thinks "the jury is still out" on evolution.

[SampleMan]

Thank you for confirming my assertion, while simultaneously ignoring the direct question.

I never made any argument for ID or against Darwinian evolution, none, yet you have circled the wagons around your sacred cow. That is indicative of fear and/or hostility, not scientific thought.

My point was and remains that scientists are not avoid of clouded judgments. Thank you for you input.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"I never made any argument for ID or against Darwinian evolution, none, yet you have circled the wagons around your sacred cow. That is indicative of fear and/or hostility, not scientific thought. "

Let's cut to the chase. Your point is that evolutionists are hostile to any competing ideas, that ID is not getting a fair hearing because Darwinists are closed minded because they feel *threatened* by ID. This is nonsense. ID is no threat to evolution because, as I said, ID has been dealt with and discarded. It is, scientifically speaking, a non-issue.

[SampleMan]

Read all of my posts on this thread again. I haven't entered the ID / evolution argument at all. I started by making a side observation that the scientific community has a problem with its methodology. My one and only point was that vice handling differing opinions in a scientific manner, scientists are far more likely to respond with personal attacks on the presenter's credibility, from an emotional desire to protect their own status and work.

Interestingly, multiple people have been posting attacks on my intelligence, but no one has commented directly on my observation.

There have been many theories that have morphed into accepted fact, only to be shattered at some later point. Pre-subatomic chemistry would be an example. Darwinian evolution theory may be correct, but here is the clincher, it hasn't been proven. When the scientific community believed atoms to be unitary solid objects, the vast majority of evidence supported their theory. Almost everything about the theory held up to experiment. That is why it is problematic to ignore the exceptions.

I do detect hostility, and that is my point. Hostility (whether the opinion is correct or not) to competing ideas isn't scientific, its emotional.

[American Vet Repairman]

"evolutionists are hostile to any competing ideas"

I have read all the threads in regards to this post and the conclusion I come up with is that many evolutionists are no different than any other liberal ideologue they get personal and vicious when they are shown to be wrong. Yes evolutionists are hostile because their precious religion is being dismantled.

[PatrickHenry]

Here's an editorial on the Smithsonian affair, from the Berkshire Eagle (in Mass., I believe). Source: The march of pseudoscience.

The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History went off its scientific rocker last month by agreeing to co-sponsor the showing of a film that rejects Darwinian evolution and supports "intelligent design." That's the pseudoscientific term for creationism, the biblical idea that the earth was created by God in six days and is 6,000 years old. Smithsonian officials said even though they were co-sponsoring a presentation of "The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe," they weren't endorsing its content. Co-sponsorship, they said, just meant the museum was renting out its auditorium to somebody for $16,000. The Smithsonian sounded confused, and it sounded only a little less so last Thursday when officials announced that, having thought it over, they were withdrawing co-sponsorship and returning the money — but still showing the film.

As a quasi-independent but federally funded organization, the Smithsonian has to watch its step politically. But its own rules state that the Natural History Museum cannot be rented out for "events of a religious or partisan political nature." What is intelligent design if not religious and — in the Bush era of bulldozed walls separating church and state — politically partisan?

At least the Smithsonian isn't Kansas — yet. Kansas is the state whose elected board of education heard testimony last month on whether or not it will require schools to teach intelligent design alongside evolution, as if each had scientific validity. After the Kansas board demoted evolution in 1999, the state's electorate came to its senses and threw out most of the troglodytes. But now they are back in the majority, so Darwin is on the run, as if it's 1925 — or 1325 — all over again.

Kansas isn't alone, either. At least 19 states are considering whether or not to teach intelligent design, a religious invention, alongside Darwinian theory, which is supported by over a century of research findings in all aspects of the biological sciences and explains the interaction of DNA and RNA. A few renegade local school boards have already replaced science with religion; in Dover, Pa., ninth graders were rounded up and made to sit through a presentation on intelligent design and told that Darwinism was "unproven." As these kids emerge from Dover public schools into the real world, they're going to be in trouble.

As will any state that substitutes pseudoscience for real science — which relies on observation, evidence and testing — and then tries to lure reality-oriented business into the state. Kansas is spending $500 million in taxpayer funds trying to lure biotechnology companies to the state. No science-based company in its right mind will settle in a state that doesn't even know what science is. And they can't count on Washington to spread enlightenment, with George W. Bush stating publicly that the jury is still out on evolution, and the Smithsonian dazed and confused.

[Dimensio]

What is the theory?

What does it predict?

How can it be tested?

What hypothetical observation(s) would falsify it?

Is there an actual theory, or are you just BSing here to look haughty when you're really just lying about there being one?

[Dimensio]

Or does evolution trump the laws of the universe? How does it not pertain to cells, if it pertains to everything else that cells make up?

Evolution does not "trump the laws of the universe".

Cells require energy. They get it from their environment. Evolution does not, in any way, violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

You didn't have to enter directly into whether ID or Evolution was correct. It is not a secret what position is.

"Darwinian evolution theory may be correct, but here is the clincher, it hasn't been proved"

No scientific theory ever is. What are we to do, go around pretending that the evidence isn't overwhelmingly on the side of evolution as opposed to ID or creationism? That because evolution has not been *proved* (only certain mathematical theorems are proved) we need to take seriously any and every crackpot theory that comes along?. Until ID explains something better than evolution, and does so without referring to an unknowable entity (the intelligent designer), it should be ignored by scientists.

[Dimensio]

I have read all the threads in regards to this post and the conclusion I come up with is that many evolutionists are no different than any other liberal ideologue they get personal and vicious when they are shown to be wrong.

So where have they been shown to be wrong? Or are you counting the times when creationists claimed that they were wrong but it turned out that the creationist was either lying or ignorant?

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"I have read all the threads in regards to this post and the conclusion I come up with is that many evolutionists are no different than any other liberal ideologue they get personal and vicious when they are shown to be wrong"

You mean like when ignorant creationists call evolutionists Nazis? :)

"Yes evolutionists are hostile because their precious religion is being dismantled"

Stop projecting the roots of your own hostility.

[Hacksaw]

What is the theory? What does it predict? How can it be tested? What hypothetical observation(s) would falsify it? Is there an actual theory, or are you just BSing here to look haughty when you're really just lying about there being one?

You still haven't read the subject?