PBS Offers Intelligent Design Documentary

CREATION - Evolution Headlines ^ | 04/28/2003 | Illustra Media/CREATION - Evolution Headlines

[Remedy]

According to Illustra Media, the Public Broadcasting System uploaded the film Unlocking the Mystery of Life to its satellite this past Sunday. For the next three years, it will be available for member stations to download and broadcast. In addition, PBS is offering the film on their Shop PBS website under Science/Biology videos (page 4).

The film, released a little over a year ago, has been called a definitive presentation of the Intelligent Design movement. With interviews and evidences from eight PhD scientists, it presents strictly scientific (not religious) arguments that challenge Darwinian evolution, and show instead that intelligent design is a superior explanation for the complexity of life, particularly of DNA and molecular machines. The film has been well received not only across America but in Russia and other countries. Many public school teachers are using the material in science classrooms without fear of controversies over creationism or religion in the science classroom, because the material is scientific, not religious, in all its arguments and evidences, and presents reputable scientists who are well qualified in their fields: Dean Kenyon, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, Steven Meyer, William Dembski, Scott Minnich, Jed Macosko, and Paul Nelson, with a couple of brief appearances by Phillip E. Johnson, the "founder" of the Intelligent Design movement.

Check with your local PBS Station to find out when they plan to air it. If it is not on their schedule, call or write and encourage them to show the film. Why should television partly supported by public tax funds present only a one-sided view on this subject, so foundational to all people believe and think? We applaud PBS's move, but it is only partial penance for the Evolution series and decades of biased reporting on evolution.

This is a wonderful film, beautifully edited and shot on many locations, including the Galápagos Islands, and scored to original music by Mark Lewis. People are not only buying it for themselves, but buying extra copies to show to friends and co-workers. Unlocking the Mystery of Life available here on our Products page in VHS and DVD formats. The film is about an hour long and includes vivid computer graphics of DNA in action. The DVD version includes an extra half-hour of bonus features, including answers to 14 frequently-asked questions about intelligent design, answered by the scientists who appear in the film.

This is a must-see video. Get it, and get it around.

---

Intelligent Design Gets a Powerful New Media Boost 03/09/2002
Exclusive Over 600 guests gave a standing ovation Saturday March 9 at the premiere of a new film by Illustra Media, Unlocking the Mystery of Life. This 67-minute documentary is in many ways a definitive portrayal of the Intelligent Design movement that is sweeping the country. Intelligent Design is a non-religious, non-sectarian, strictly scientific view of origins with both negative and positive arguments: negative, that Darwinism is insufficient to explain the complexity of life, and positive, that intelligent design, or information, is a fundamental entity that must be taken into consideration in explanations of the origin of complex, specified structures like DNA. The film features interviews with a Who's Who of the Intelligent Design movement: Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, Paul Nelson, Stephen Meyer, Dean Kenyon, William Dembski, and others, who explain the issues and arguments for intelligent design as the key to unlocking the mystery of life. The film also features nearly 20 minutes of award-quality computer animation of molecular machines, manufacturing plants, and storage libraries of elaborate information - DNA and proteins at work in the cell, climaxing with a dazzling view of DNA transcription and translation.
In his keynote address, Dr. Paul Nelson (who appears in the film), gave reasons for optimism. He said that Time Magazine, usually solidly Darwinian, admitted just last week that these Intelligent Design scientists may be onto something. U.S. News and World Report is also coming out with a piece on I.D. And Stephen Meyer, who also appears in the film, could not be at the premiere because he was on his way to Ohio (see next headline), armed with copies of the film to give to the school board members. Nelson said that scientists should not arbitrarily rule design off the table. "Keeping science from discovering something that might be true is like having a pair of spectacles that distorts your vision," he said. "It does profound harm to science." He described how Ronald Numbers, evolutionist, once told him that design might be true, but science is a game, with the rule that scientists cannot even consider the possibility of design; "that's just the way it is," he said. (See this quote by Richard Lewontin for comparison.) Yet design is already commonly considered in archaeology, cryptography, forensics, and SETI, so why not in biology? Apparently this arbitrary rule has become a national controversy. Intelligent Design, says Nelson, is finally removing a "rule of the game" that is hindering science. If the reaction of the crowd at the premiere luncheon was any indication, Unlocking the Mystery of Life has launched a well-aimed smart weapon at the citadels of Darwinism.

We highly recommend this film. Copies are just now becoming available for $20. Visit IllustraMedia.com and order it. View it, and pass it around. Share it with your teachers, your co-workers, your church. You will have no embarrassment showing this high-quality, beautiful, amazing film to anyone, even the most ardent evolutionist.

 

 

[longshadow]

Idiots on parade. Again. And again. And Again.

You left out the Thorazine Poster Children......

[f.Christian]

Only a madman -- psycho can believe that science (( logic -- law -- reality )) and evolution (( flux // chance // chaos )) are the same thing .

The 2nd law of thermodynamics --- entropy proves it ... w/o divine intervention --- "dust to dust" !

Evolution is just an atheist ploy to overinflate their ego-- wallets ---
live off the public !

[Axolotl]

All current evidence now points to an RNA world, but things may change...

the fact that the Whitehead chaps haven't produced an RNA replicator in a test tube yet does not really chip away at the notion of a pre-biotic RNA world. If they did succeed, that does not mean it happened that way. It'll be interesting to say the least when one of those guys produces a self-replicating form of RNA though...

[Axolotl]

Thanks for the tip...won't bother rising to the bait next time...

Cheers, Ax

[Dimensio]

Why is it then that we believed, without a doubt, for so many years that dinosaurs had scales. What's the new theory now? Feathers, right?

The assumption that dinosaurs were reptiles was based upon the apparent bone structure. Some have hypothesized that dinosaurs may have had feather-like down rather than scales, but I've not heard that it's reached the level of 'theory' yet. In any case, there have always been a few people who have expressed some doubt that dinosaurs were pure reptillian, it's not some recent development.

[Axolotl]

Feathers are simply modified scales...

Birds and dinos are closely related, so the early birds resembled dinosaurs but with modified scales.

[familyofman]

Now we can call PBS the "Creationist Network."
Haven't they always been liberals trying to paint the missing-chromosone crowd as Joe (GOP) Six-Pack?

They will produce/broadcst anything that has information/education value & even sometimes things that are entertaining. I don't think you would ever see this type of program on a commercial station/network (FOX, CBS,...), because it would not (probably) generate enough interest to make it profitable.

[AndrewC]

It'll be interesting to say the least when one of those guys produces a self-replicating form of RNA though...

That depends on what you mean when you describe RNA as self-replicating.

In this study, the Bartel lab scientists took the approach again of making 1000 trillion random RNAs go through test-tube evolution to find those that could catalyze RNA formation. After successive rounds of testing, the lab isolated a ribozyme that didn't depend on a particular template sequence, but could build a complementary strand of RNA using information from any general RNA template. In fact, the ribozyme isn't hindered by longer RNA templates and works nearly as well with longer sequences as with shorter ones.

This suggests that if efficiency is increased, it may be possible to replicate the entire ribozyme. The ribozyme also accurately matches bases -- A to U, and C to G -- to the RNA template more than 95 percent of the time, better than any previously isolated ribozyme.

[Axolotl]

Reptiles have two major groups...snakes, lizards, turtles in one group with birds, dinos and crocodiles in the other. Birds are descendants of dinosaurs with scales modified to form feathers.

[Axolotl]

I think they are closer than people think to creating a strand of RNA that can make a like strand in a self-catalyzing reaction

[AndrewC]

There is as much evidence for evolution having occurred as there is that the earth goes around the sun.

Equating historical inference with "real-time" data is not an acceptable premise.

[f.Christian]

al ...

Reptiles have two major groups...snakes, lizards, turtles in one group with birds, dinos and crocodiles in the other. Birds are descendants of dinosaurs with scales modified to form feathers.


30 posted on 05/02/2003 11:30 AM PDT by Axolotl


The cargo cult -- santa sleigh rides again ...

plastic junk and you believe -- recycle this garbage // vomit ?

[AndrewC]

I think they are closer than people think to creating a strand of RNA that can make a like strand in a self-catalyzing reaction

It would be hard for life to exist if something like that were not possible. The question is how did the first such thing arise.

[Galatians513]

I think they are closer than people think to creating a strand of RNA that can make a like strand in a self-catalyzing reaction

Sounds like some pretty intelligent designers there...

[Axolotl]

Evolution is occuring in microbial poplations my lab 20 feet away, in tubes, as I speak. People study genetic changes in populations all the time...and watch them happen. Evolution is occurring and has occurred; this is an inescapable fact.

On a related point, a particular sequence of events in the past is always inference, but that doesn't mean it isn't a pretty good bet. For example, the earth has gone around the sun, is inference, but it is a pretty good inference based on current observations and the fact that people that lived before us describe the days and years as having the same properties as days and years dor today.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

Not for kids, because it is too technical.

My 14 year old would object. He loves biology, and is currently taking advanced placement courses. He of course owns this video, and is truly amazed at the lengths some will go to NOT see what is right in front of them.

[Protagoras]

How long has the world existed? How long have men existed?

[Axolotl]

The question is how did the first such thing arise.

Yes, and that may never be known for sure, as it occurred only once...

Origins of life is not my thing for this very reason.