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.

 

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

If it is not random, then there are rules. If there are rules, then ID is implied.

[Axolotl]

The ID people are simply using an updated version of Paley's watch...a watch is to sophisticated to NOT be the result of design. Then they argued the eyeball is too complex, now Behe says biochemical pathways are too complex...

It's been the same basic argument for the past 150 years, but every time stemming from a fairly fundamental misunderstanding of the process.

[jlogajan]

Don't forget, they do a good bit of handwaving to "prove" that things are too complicated to be designed. What I have not seen, however, is a basis of comparison. I have not seen a single test for 'design' in the universe. The problem is that because they claim that the universe is designed, there's nothing 'not designed' to which they can point as a frame of reference.

I like to ask them "Who designed the designer?" Suddenly something extraordinarily complex doesn't need to be designed. It's the old turtle standing on a turtle theory -- a child-like conceptual ability. And they're so cute when they're asleep.

[Dimensio]

I imagine evolution is a funny funny joke that the world has played for some time.

good for you. Just try to remember that what you imagine -- that is, "make-believe" -- does not necessarily have any bearing on reality whatsoever.

God is not a pseudo religion.

God is a word with multiple definitions. It can refer to the nature of a generic deity of a religion that may be polytheistic or that may be monotheistic, or it could be a proper name-type reference to a single monotheistic entity that controls the universe.

He is real. He is apparent to some, others not so apparent

I take it then that you are applying the proper name type usage. I also take it that you don't have any evidence that "He is real", or you would have presented it.

But we will all know soon enough, won't we?

Logical fallacy: begging the question.

[Axolotl]

Never met them...

If they do succeed, it doesn't really say anything about evolution, it's just neat.

[Not Insane]

"The problem is that because they claim that the universe is designed, there's nothing 'not designed' to which they can point as a frame of reference. "

Trying to explain the concept of "light and dark" to creatures without eyes does not mean light and dark do not exist.

Try to explain "wet" to a creature that lives in water. It cannot comprehend, yet it is always "wet."

[Dimensio]

You base your "science" on the fact that life must have existed to evolve. Where did the life come from?

I don't claim to know, since I'm not a biologist. From the standpoint of evolution, it doesn't matter. The first life forms may have resulted from an electrical charge hitting a puddle of amino acids, they may have been brought to earth by some alien life forms from another planet or another dimension, it might have been humans who created them in a lab two hundred years from now and then travelled back in time to plant them or it could have been some divine entity zap-poofing them into existence. Any of those could be how the first life forms got here, or it could have been something that I didn't consider, but it doesn't matter since evolution doesn't start happening until those life forms exist. How they got there is irrelevant to evolution.

[jlogajan]

You base your "science" on the fact that life must have existed to evolve. Where did the life come from?

False assumption. There are non-"life" based chemical cycles going on all the time in the universe and on the face of the earth. There are all sorts of feedback, feedforward and other complex chemical circuits.

[Dimensio]

What do any of those people have to do with the theory of evolution?

[Not Insane]

"The ID people are simply using an updated version of Paley's watch...a watch is to sophisticated to NOT be the result of design. Then they argued the eyeball is too complex, now Behe says biochemical pathways are too complex...
It's been the same basic argument for the past 150 years, but every time stemming from a fairly fundamental misunderstanding of the process."

The new examples are not replacing the old ones. They are ADDED to a growing MOUNTAIN of evidence.

The more we know, the more we know we don't know.

50 years ago, Creationists were catastrophists and evolutionists were uniformitarian. Everyone is now catastrophist.

Which group had to change?

[Dimensio]

If there are rules, then IDis implied.

Why?

[balrog666]

They will produce/broadcst anything that has information/education value & even sometimes things that are entertaining. I don't think you would ever see this type of program on a commercial station/network (FOX, CBS,...), because it would not (probably) generate enough interest to make it profitable.

Uh ... sure. Without PBS, we'd never see any shows on cosmology, biology, archeology, paleontology, geology, anthropology, evolution, philosophy, or even those YEC favorite subjects like alchemy, shamanism, mysticism, witchcraft, crop circles, false gods and religions (to quote the Highlander, "There can be only one!"), and, of course, those money-grubbing, televangelist con-men.

On the other hand, if you have cable or satellite TV, you can have all of the above 24/7 without viewing PBS at all.

[Aric2000]

Only because you do not understand it and it is a threat to your worldview.

You claim that god exists, Prove it, scientifically.

You can't, and that is why god cannot be used as a causation in science, and that is why ID is NOT science.

Just because it shakes your worldview, does not prove therefore that evolution is wrong.

Why can you not believe in your god, and believe in the scientific validity of evolution as well.

If god is ALL powerful and science is proving that evolution is indeed what happened, then why can you not say to yourself, OK, evolution is what happened, and god is the one that put it into motion?

Why is that so hard? oh, that's right, if evolution is correct, then creationism is wrong, which means genisis is a myth, not fact, and therefore the bible becomes questionable.

Never mind, I think I answered my own question.

If the bible is not perfect, then houston, we have a problem.

[Not Insane]

"What do any of those people have to do with the theory of evolution?"

They used it to support their various versions of genocide.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Read their writings, listen to their ravings. They were very much social darwinists.

[familyofman]

If you read anything by the ID'ers, you'll find that they don't address HOW (or WHEN or WHO). They only address the concept of "this is so complex that it must have been designed."

Don't forget, they do a good bit of handwaving to "prove" that things are too complicated to be designed. What I have not seen, however, is a basis of comparison. I have not seen a single test for 'design' in the universe. The problem is that because they claim that the universe is designed, there's nothing 'not designed' to which they can point as a frame of reference.

For me at least it has always come down to the fact that we don't know how matter/energy/life came to be. For some, saying that it came about by ID is sufficient. Then I ask the awkward question of - where the designer of ID come from. If the answer to both questions is something like - always been there, we have reached the same end by different routes.
I guess you have a choice between the St Thomas Aquinas crowd & the Renee DesCarte group - you pays your money & take your chances.

[Axolotl]

Everyone is now catastrophist.

huh?

[Dimensio]

Trying to explain the concept of "light and dark" to creatures without yes does not mean light and dark do not exist.

True, but to have the concept requires that someone has a frame of reference. Are you saying that ID proponents have a frame of refernece, perhaps through some extra sensory perception, to have discerned between 'designed universe' and 'not designed universe' and that any lack of comprehension is simply the result of physiological limitations amongst a certain percentage of the population?

[Not Insane]

"If there are rules, then IDis implied.

Why? "

When I see anything complex, I assume somebody made it, until I can prove otherwise.

We see an old car rusting in a field and assume it was manufactured. Why? Because we know the manufacturer (it's a Chevy)

We see a weed growing out of the engine block of that car, a weed that is FAR more complex in one of it's cells than the entire car and we assume it came about accidentally (no designer). Why? Because we don't know the designer.

Well, some of us DO know the Designer and actually have a PERSONAL relationship with Him. He is as real as my wife and you will not convince me that either doesn't exist.