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.

 

 

[carl in alaska]

I haven't even begun to read this entire thread, because it's so long. I jumped in near the end, so I haven't read your possible scenarios for how life might have come into existence on earth. I can't comment yet on your previous posts.

[milan]

Didn't expect you to answer...sometimes screen names are secrets.

Thanks.

[f.Christian]

PH (( atheism )) on the FR means lenin -- stalin (( bolshevism )) ... state science --- evolution !

[f.Christian]

f is for fletcher !

[Doctor Stochastic]

All descendants will have to have her mitochondrial DNA too.

[milan]

Yes. I got it from your first post.

You're writing is sometimes cryptic...but it certainly makes it interesting to read.

[milan]

Didn't expect you to answer...sometimes screen names are secrets.

What I meant was that I didn't expect you to answer, but was pleasantly surprised, as screen names are sometimes secret.

I am slow, but not too slow. :)

[milan]

I will have to get back to you, but google and Mathew Henry will shed some light on those verses. I only had time to look up the first one and I got:

Let the heavens be glad and rejoice, because the Lord reigns, and by his providence establishes the world, so that, though it be moved, it cannot be removed, nor the measures broken which Infinite Wisdom has taken in the government of it, 1 Chronicles 16:30,31.

I took this to mean that no one can move the earth that God has put in place. Don't think we are talking about orbit. Matthew Henry seemed to understand that the earth did, in fact move.

Not sure of the dates of Matthew Henry (1700s?) but he is pretty indepth.

Will have to address your others later. Nice meeting? you.

[plusone]

Thanks for the link. I will look it over.

[capitan_refugio]

I used the term "practicing Christian" to denote a person, regardless of their particular Christian denomination, who actively supports and lives the tenets of his/her faith.

I have known in my nearly 30 years of professional science many people of faith. Some, like you, were Biblical literalists. Others, both Jew and Christian, recognized and understood the parable nature of some of the Old Testament books.

You recognized that difference when you commented earlier in your reply to "Carl in Alaska." that you have a fundamentally different reference point. I would re-interpret that to say that you view the world through a different prism than most people.

I do not intend to get into a discussion with you about Biblical history, interpretation, or infallability. It is off topic, and it has been my experience (with Medved and his ilk) that biblical literalists aren't interested in real discussion. Creation science is neither good science nor good creationism.

[Dimensio]

I presented the list in a reply that I had made to you.

[Dimensio]

Medved, the man who believes that the Earth once orbited Saturn, is a Biblical literalist?

[Dimensio]

I was under the impression that it was just a conservative news forum.

There is a small percentage of the FR membership who insist that conservatism requires Biblical literalism.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Medved, the man who believes that the Earth once orbited Saturn, is a Biblical literalist?

Medved, if I remember correctly, is an atheist who rejects evolution and believes that modern humans were genetically engineered by space aliens from Neanderthals.

[PatrickHenry]

Not sure of the dates of Matthew Henry (1700s?) but he is pretty indepth.

By that time, the solar system had been accepted, notwithstanding the scriptural passages to the contrary. Galileo was convicted of heresy in 1632. After that, the church was so embarrassed that there was a lot of tap-dancing around those passages, and eventually (1960s) Galileo was pardoned. But those passages won't go away, notwithstanding all the spinning and tap-dancing. If you're a scriptural literalist, give me *your* opinion. Never mind what you can see through a telescope.

[Aric2000]

You need to find his posts, they are excellent, and thought provoking, and most important of all, they are factual.

Not something that you will find in a creationist post.

[longshadow]

telescope-free placemarker

[Aric2000]

and a placemarker for me, and has this thread died a horrible death, or will it resurrect itself in the morning?

[Right Wing Professor]

People who cannot see the difference between predictable physico-chemical tendencies toward equilibrium and the claims of darwinites [molecules to Man] exasperate me

No doubt. But what has your emotional state got to do with the discussion?

I see no sense in continuing to point out the obvious: snowflakes are not living cells and comparisons are ridiculous.

Snowflakes obey the same physical laws as living cells, and you can't bluster your way out of that.

[carl in alaska]

Oh come on now son, my posts are very factual. I'll put my scientific knowledge up against any of the evo people on this site. I encourage you to take a long look at both sides of this debate.