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.

 

 

[general_re]

Okay, how many different examples in the fossil record show change within a species?

I don't understand. You want him to persuade you of something you already believe to be true? You did say "there is obvious change within a species", right?

[general_re]

Crossposted with your disclaimer - ignore previous post.

[VadeRetro]

But beneficial changes do not happen...and small changes do not add up over time.

What mechanism prevents changes from ever being beneficial? What mechanism prevents changes from adding up? What evidence do you have for these assertions?

[Dataman]

Special pleading. You did not offer an answer at all. How did something outside the universe come into being?

On what scientific basis or evidence can you assume an ultimate being would be subject to the physical laws of the universe that He created?

[atlaw]

I still don't understand your point. I take it you are looking for evidence of smooth change in the fossil record. If so, this is a pretty interesting start:
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/fossil_series.html

[balrog666]

What mechanism prevents changes from ever being beneficial? What mechanism prevents changes from adding up? What evidence do you have for these assertions?

Goddidit! Although I am not sure which particular god.

[Dataman]

This is not a "PBS produced video" as you claim.

I stand corrected by whattajoke! (humiliating experience).

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?

You found my other weakness. Corrected again! My problem isn't with people who can't spell. I just like to jab those who pretend to by hyper cephalic cold objective scientists and then procede tu mispel a grate numbr of simpl werds.

[atlaw]

A little too cryptic. I don't see how inland seashells are anything but evidence of a global flood. To even suggest that their presence is evidence of continental drift is preposterous.

[balrog666]

On what scientific basis or evidence can you assume an ultimate being would be subject to the physical laws of the universe that He created?

Assume? Assume? Do you even understand the stupidity of your own question?

[Dimensio]

I want to see intermediaries of fish to elephant...come on.

Ah, demanding a 100% complete chart of every 'transitional' species in existence, the last desperate refuge of a defeated creationist.

Here's a hint: EVERY species is transitional. Evolution does not theorize a set of 'complete' life forms and a series of 'transitionals' in between them.

[Dataman]

Do you even understand the stupidity of your own question?

While it is and always has been obviously difficult for you both to answer simple questions and to exhibit a modicum of self-control, your high level of determination provides frequent reminders to us all.

[general_re]

On what scientific basis or evidence can you assume an ultimate being would be subject to the physical laws of the universe that He created?

On what logical or rhetorical basis do you get to shift the burden of proof away from the person making the original argument?

[general_re]

Aside from the fact that it's obviously rather convenient for that person, of course...

[atlaw]

When I posted, I was still under the impression that you were asking for evidence in the fossil record of "change within species," a rather peculiar request that you later modified to "change in species." Perhaps these sites will help:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/punk_eek.html
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/orbulina_pic.html
http://holysmoke.org/tran-icr.htm

The last link is quite good at explaining the fallacy in the "no transitionals" argument.

[Dimensio]

Here's how it works: Your brand of evo assumes entirely natural processes in its explanation of today's life forms.

What is "my brand of evo", or are you just making this up because you realise that you don't have any facts to support the lie that evolution depends on abiogenesis? Evolution deals with existing life forms. Yes, its explanations are purely naturalistic, but that only applies within the scope of the theory. The ultimate origins of life are NOT within the scope of evolutionary theory. Repeating this lie will not make it true, it only makes you a liar.

It just so happens that no matter what you call the philosophy, it holds to only the existence of matter and its motion.

When I speak of evolution, I speak of scientific theories, not of philosophies. Science can address nothing outside of natural phenomenon. That does not mean that it says that supernatural elements don't exist, but science cannot study them because they are outside of the realm of science. You are just making up my position, but you're getting it completely wrong. Tell me, do you realise that you're telling a lie when you claim that evolution is a philosophy or have you been repeating that canard so often that you've come to believe it?

Why do biology texts deal with the "primeval soup" and the spontaneous generation of life if it has nothing to do with evolution?

It might have something to do with the fact that evolution is not all that there is to biology.