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.

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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.

 

 

[whattajoke]

Damn, that was a nice one.

"micro-plate-tectonics" begets "macro-plate-tectonics" is accepted but not so-called "macro-evolution."

...boxed into corner, what now?

[Right Wing Professor]

In fact the genetic evidence does show such trees.

The fossil evidence, since it's dependent on random and fortuitous events, is more episodic, but there's still plenty of evidence for gradual change.

[general_re]

How would you account for sea life fossils, etc in the mid US?

God put them there?

[whattajoke]

Apparrently it is not entirely convincing to PBS either, which, in spite of its overwhelming evolutionary bias, has produced the non-religious program you evos must classify as religious in order to discredit it.

Was it you who carped that someone hadn't read the original article? Because from your post, it appears to me you didn't get past the first sentence... This is not a "PBS produced video" as you claim.

Isn't it also you, Dataman, lord of spelling and grammar, who likes to always add "(sic)" everytime someone you don't agree with has a typo or misspelling? Well, "Apparrently" (sic), even you are not immune.

Also, to claim ID isn't religious is quite simply breaking a Commandment: "thou shall not bear false witness." It's an outright boldfaced lie... but you can pray for forgiveness at church tomorrow, it'll be ok.

[atlaw]

Heck, that's what I thought the answer would be. Funny how these fossils can both provide evidence and be no evidence whatsoever at the same time.

[atlaw]

Ok, explain to me how inland seashells are evidence that continents actually move?

[Dataman]

No, evolution has nothing to do with abiogenesis because evolution deals with EXISTING life forms.

Psst! Dimensio! You've had this explained to you before. Do you not get it or are you just refusing to admit defeat?

Here's how it works: Your brand of evo assumes entirely natural processes in its explanation of today's life forms. That assumption is called naturalism, also known as philosophical materialism. It just so happens that no matter what you call the philosophy, it holds to only the existence of matter and its motion. Therefore denied is the existence of a Creator. If there is no Creator, there are no miracles and life self-created.

Since self-creation violates the law of noncontradiction AND the law of biogenesis, it constitutes a miracle by definition.

Therefore abiogenesis and evolution are inextricably linked.

BTW, you've been asked this before and I don't recall you ever answering: Why do biology texts deal with the "primeval soup" and the spontaneous generation of life if it has nothing to do with evolution?

[general_re]

You know, it just occurred to me that there's really no evidence of transitional positions for the continents - all we have is extrapolation from their current movements. The fact that the continental plates nowadays bear some resemblance to the plates that made up supercontinents like Pangaea and Gondwanaland is really only evidence of a common designer. Clearly, there was no transition, and the positions of all the continental plates are and were products of special creation.

[Dataman]

Nothing Pseudo religious about it. Just documented fact.

What about your brand-x religion is documented fact?

[atlaw]

First you said: "And how can you go from a change within a species (micro) to a fish becoming a dog(macro)...or whatever the initial lifeform was, as there is no fossil proof of intermediary forms."

Now you ask: "Okay, how many different examples in the fossil record show change within a species? Since there are billions of life forms, you have to produce several. I will wait."

I must be missing something here. Are you now arguing that there is no evidence of what you term "micro-evolution", i.e, that there is no evidence of change within a species?

[atlaw]

Seriously. How are inland seashells evidence that continents actually move. Aren't they evidence of, say, rising and lowering sealevels? Or perhaps even evidence of a global flood?

[general_re]

I like it. I think I'll call my theory "Intelligent Drift", and demand equal time in earth science classrooms around the country. Maybe I can even get geology textbooks stickered with a disclaimer that plain old continental drift is "a controversial theory" and that "instructional material associated with controversy should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

Should go like gangbusters in Alabama, I figure.