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.

 

 

[PatrickHenry]

601 placemarker.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

"It's a big project. Lots of species, lots of fossils. They're working on it." Actually, it's already complete: The Bible

I wasn't aware that the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy had "evolved" to the point that scripture is science.

I guess 200 hundred years is long enough to to wait before jumping into new realms.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Quantum Mechanics does have material causes as opposed to efficient causes. One may ask why a particle decays and get the answer that the particle was in an excited state. "State causes event" type of causation. If state A decays to state B with 75% probability and to state C with 25% probability, the "cause" of being in state B is being state A; the "cause" of being in state C is also being in state A. The question, "Why B instead of C?" isn't allowed by the theory. The questions allowed in QM are different from classical mechanics.

[metacognative]

I'm not going to quote you mathematical definitions. Clausius discovered the Second Law of Thermodynamics and said it is a tendency toward disorder or sameness. [noise]
Any structure breaks down [to the Heat Death]..entropy.
Evolution is upward effort by living things from algae to ecosystem. [music?] This defies the Second Law and must have some other explanation besides random chance. Hence Intelligent Design.

[whattajoke]

Good God, have you not been made aware of the simple refutation to your 2nd Law assertion? I think it's on this thread alone about 10 times.

For your assertion to be true, the earth would have to have no energy input. Your assertion denies the existence of the sun, volcanoes, thermal vents, radiation, plate tectonics, tidal action, etc.

Heck, even Answers in Genesis (a leading creationist group) tells fellow creationists to stop using this (non) argument:

"This law says that the entropy (‘disorder’) of the Universe increases over time, and some have thought that this was the result of the Curse. However, disorder isn’t always harmful. An obvious example is digestion, breaking down large complex food molecules into their simple building blocks. Another is friction, which turns ordered mechanical energy into disordered heat—otherwise Adam and Eve would have slipped as they walked with God in Eden! A less obvious example to laymen might be the sun heating the Earth—to a physical chemist, heat transfer from a hot object to a cold one is the classic case of the Second Law in action. Also, breathing is based on another classic Second Law process, gas moving from a high pressure to low pressure. Finally, all beneficial processes in the world, including the development from embryo to adult, increase the overall disorder of the universe, showing that the Second Law is not inherently a curse."

Yes, they deny it in a strange way, I'll agree, but nonetheless, they tell you to stop using it. Among many others we see here from time to time. Check it out and save everyone some time:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/faq/dont_use.asp

[PatrickHenry]

Check it out and save everyone some time:

It's like the democrats and their talking points. I saw Mario Cuomo on TV last night, saying that the slow economy is because of Bush's earlier tax cut. No sane economist would make such a linkage, but it's a convenient mantra, so the democrats use it whenever possible. Refuting it makes no difference. Some of them are inherently dishonest, but I suspect that most of them just don't understand economics. It's an unfortunate fact of human nature that we just have to accept that some bogus claims will never die. But I guess you gotta keep posting the rebuttal (for all the good it will do).

[Not Insane]

"Care to try again?"

Nope. I stand by what I say. It is, after all, a generalization.

And I don't want to even get into the "Lyellian" debate.

[metacognative]

What makes you think I blindly follow "creationists"..just because I'm not a darwinite. Nothing in nature creates difference the way evolutionists claim species evolve.
Observation and common sense show me that...not some prejudicial category of your belief system.

[circles]

Is there a way to start combining these "long thread" arguments?

Perhaps someone could come up with a good start by initiating a thread titled, "Why evolution was the cause of the civil war."

[Remedy]

You hear about the child that made a paper airplane and sailed it out the window somewhere on the east coast last March…landed in Diego Garcia as a B-2 SPIRIT STEALTH BOMBER.

The EVO trinity, nobody,nothing,chaos, made it happen, just like your cubic signal generator.

[whattajoke]

Having said that, the Bible will help you with anger management and other personal issues.

Maybe it helps some, but surely not all who read it. Two words: Fred Phelps.

He's so full of hate and vitriol that my at-work firewall doesn't allow me to access his psychotic rantings.

Be that as it may, I'm not sure how "the bible as a health book" has anything to do with the diversity of species we see on the earth.

[f.Christian]

Evolution -- entropy generates a lot of ego gas !

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I have not tried to discredit or disrespect anyone on a personal level. If I have unknowingly, I am sorry.

Why is it that you are the only one to complain about my wording? You are looking into everything I write to try and pick it apart to find something to trigger a response. You would love to see me blow my lid, I am sure.

Ah, life on the crevo threads. I'm actually not upset. This was my first post to you.

One of my observations is that the anti-science crowd seems to contain a lot of Biblical literalists. They also seem to be unaware of their own not-very-long history. However, you were the first to suggest that the Bible be considered a scientific document. This is something new and strange and I couldn't resist the impulse to tweak you. Given the kinds of things that get posted, I didn't catch that you were joking. I apologize if I upset you.

Having said that, the Bible will help you with anger management and other personal issues. In alot of ways it is a health book, among many other things...and wheteher you believe it or not it is the beginning of science that we study. So, in that respect, maybe it is a form of science book, being as it was inspired by the greatest Scientist.

I couldn't disagree with you more. The Bible is a book of wisdom. I wouldn't degrade it to the level of mere science.

So, I did not mean what you thought I had said. But thanks for pointing out what should have been obvious. Ichneumon

Are you two people?

[whattajoke]

If someone or a group of someones continued to post the same erroneous posts over and over and over, addressing issues that have been addressed and redressed countless times, or who refuse to click/read links simply because they don't like the source, how would you respond?

yes, we all like to try to be civil here on FR, but we all have our limits. Certain posters (not you, as you appear to be new to all this, and do have some credibility in that you are not afraid to click on our links for the time being, anyway) come into these threads and post the same stuff that has been refuted with facts and figures a million times before. Trust me, it's frustrating.

Ichneuman's posts are to be admired, whichever side of the fence you reside. He is thorough, resourceful, and to my mind, actually rather patient.

I think I speak for many of us when I say, if I ever bump into Ichneuman, I'm most definitely treating.

Now that that's out of the way, and your daughter has watched her cartoons, let's get back to discussing the real science clearly presented in just one of Ichneuman's posts, shall we?