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.

 

 

[balrog666]

Pure gibberish placemarker.

[tortoise]

To say that we can know nothing about God is to say that we can know something about Him. Your statement is, therefore, self-refuting.

There are many classes of things that are "unknowable" in a strong sense. You are not reading this correctly at all. The special thing about this class of thing is that you can't know anything, as you can't even premise an assertion of existence. This is essentially a restatement of so-called "Strong Agnosticism", which asserts that the concept of God falls into this class of information and that we can therefore never know anything about God, including God's existence. It is an interesting argument from a mathematical perspective, as the only effective contrary argument is to assert a finite/causal God (though with such power that it appears infinite to us mere humans and not necessarily existing within our universe). I'm actually perfectly happy with the finite/causal God theory, because there is no evidence to the contrary and it doesn't restrict God's behavior in this universe yet it allows us to assert that we can know things about God without being totally irrational. Your word juggling (and not just in the above selection) reveals a very shallow understanding of the semantics.

By the way, your reading comprehension is really, really bad, so I am not even going to bother to respond to the rest of what you wrote. You set up all sorts of strawmen and read all manner of assertion in my statements that were never even stated. If you can't deal with what I wrote, I'm not interested in your response to things you imagine I asserted or implied.

[BMCDA]

Ichy is so prolific it gets hard to keep up. Nevertheless, I agree that both posts are keepers.

Aye, indeed. He's really enthusiastic and I hope it doesn't wear off since I really enjoy reading his posts ;)

[Dimensio]

The 'argument' is a strawman. The scenario allegedly presented by your grandfather is not remotely like the process of evolution, and as such it is nothing more than argument by ridicule of a strawman. Insulting people who point this out does not make you right.

[Dimensio]

1) We are not discussing an imaginary god. We are discussing the Creator.

Please present your evidence for the existence of this Creator, including any evidence that supports this Creator having attributes to which you ascribe (that is, if you ascribe any apart from 'ability to create universes wherein life can occur in a very, very small segment).

2) Please offer your theory of how an impersonal god, who cares nothing for man or the universe, would create a universe in the first place. Then explain how an impersonal creation with impersonal natural laws could give rise to personal beings.

Perhaps it was all a big science experiment and we are the results. Are you saying that you can not only infer the existence of a Creator from the universe but that you can also discern its very motives? I would really like to see whatever tests exist for that. Also, could you explain how a divine creation by a divine being could give rise to nondivine entities?

[f.Christian]

Comment #271 Removed by Moderator

The fr pat henry ...

self appointed mind and lives guardian // czar of other people's children ...

via govt money -- schools --- very strange -- weird !

To: don-o

dp ...

What dissenting opinion gets the hammer?

owk ...

I myself was suspended just a week ago for ... questioning (( ATTACKING )) * * --- the existence of God...

And the posts were wiped from existence.

For example.

499 posted on 05/03/2003 10:45 AM PDT by OWK

... * * ... my addition --- FR atheist nazis !

[f.Christian]

The buzz is, a cable network plans to re-run the series “Evolution” backward so that all the zombies will end up back in frog pond convergence ... to give it a happy ending --- or a happy beginning – whichever it turns out to be."

Link ... 'article' --- is there !

[Dimensio]

I just checked this quote:

Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely together all the species of the same group, must assuredly have existed. But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?”

Looks like part of it is real, but part of it is bogus. What I found:

Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all the species of the same group together, must assuredly have existed; but the very process of natural selection constantly tends, as has been so often remarked, to exterminate the parent forms and the intermediate links. Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains, which are preserved, as we shall in a future chapter attempt to show, in an extremely imperfect and intermittent record.

Looks like some enterprising creationist decided to lie about Darwin's words because nothing damning enough could be found. Both blurbs of text occur in Chapter 6, but as anyone can see, the second half actually appears before the first half! Whomever initially presented the quote didn't just cut out a huge portion of text between the two segments, they actually reversed the order! I wonder why they never note such when presenting the quote, instead presenting it as though it is the complete and original statement from the book. (also note that Darwin does address the question that he posed within that chapter, though he explains more thorougly in another).

[Dimensio]

Sir Fred Hoyle, a British astronomer famous for research on origins of the universe, "claims that believing the first cell originated by chance is like believing a tornado could sweep through a junkyard filled with airplane parts and form a Boeing 747.

This is another funny one. Not only is this once again an attack on something other than evolution by idiots who think that evolution must also address the ultimate origins of life, but I assume that you don't agree with Hoyle's position that the first life forms were brought to earth by aliens.

I couldn't find anything on the alleged quote from Einstein. A search turned up exactly one apologetics webpage that was using it as support, so I cannot even confirm a source for the quote. I found some interesting information on Michael Denton, however, and even an old discussion here on FreeRepublic about it (turns out that Denton does accept evolution now but he used to believe it impossible).

Finally, no source for the Stephen Jay Gould quote. If you have one, let me know.

[Dimensio]

From nothing nothing comes.

From where did the designer come?

Irreducible complexity of systems and organisms that absolutely rule out random chance as an explanation for their existence.

I've seen quite a few criticisms of the irreducable complexity argument, but I've never seen those criticisms addressed.

Common characteristics in design.

Which means what, exactly?

The existence of not just information but complex and huge amounts of information in the simplest of organisms.

Again, this infers design, how? What would an undesigned organism look like? The existence of intelligence. The existence of the personal.

So you've made two starting points that supposedly lead to a conclusion. How do these starting points get to that conclusion.

We must not forget the great supporting role played by the impossible materialistic alternative: darwinism.

Strawman. Evolution does not imply strict materialism within the universe, and only an idiot would claim as much.

[js1138]

public bs placemarker. I quit watching PBS science shows after a three strike season that included the "Pinks and the Blues", and gaping "documentaries" on UFOs and ESP. That was about 20 years ago, and I believe every year without PBS has been a plus in the column of general knowledge.

[Dimensio]

Darwin's own words are meaningless because the sentences are quoted in reverse order.

They aren't just quoted in the wrong order. They are two parts of two different paragraphs with entirely different context. Your argument would imply that because you might be able to put together enough segments of statements that I've made to form "I am a murderer", I should be tried for murder.

Context is important, and that is why any honest source will present quotes within full context without abridgement or alteration. What has been done with Darwin's words is worse than just taking them out of context, and it amounts to blatant dishonesty. Each statement does not 'stand on its own', it stands within the context of which it was written, which is not presented in the bogus dishonest "quote" that creationists lie and claim came from Darwin.

The honest thing to do in this situation is to admit that you were taken by a false quote and apologize for it. Instead, you're trying to defend the fact that creationists have taken Darwin's words out of context and out of order in an attempt to lie about what he has said. Somehow, I'm not surprised.

[Dimensio]

So, you believe that all life came from a single organism (we'll just forget where the organism came from)...to me the alien story sounds better

I don't know where all life on earth ultimately originated. I lack the knowledge and the biological expertise to formulate a personal hypothesis.

there haven't been any sightings of transitional forms though.

This said by someone who has been given multiple links to evidence of transitional forms. Like I said, you ignore the evidence because if you pretend that it isn't there you can imagine that you're not really lying when you deny its existence.

[CyberAnt]

Well ... I don't see anyone standing behind you twisting your arm and forcing you to believe it!

As for the person "who thought that up", it Rev. E.V. Hill, a Baptist preacher.