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["Icons of Evolution"] Premiere Evolves into Protest
The Falcon (Seattle Pacific U. student paper) ^ | 5/15/2002 | Haley Clark

Posted on 05/20/2002 10:45:00 AM PDT by jennyp

Premiere evolves into protest
Film argues for expanded scope of science education


Premiere evolves into protest
Saul Renderfrance

The "Icons of Evolution" documentary, which highlights what some scholars regard as problems with a number of pieces of evidence commonly used to support Darwinian evolution, premiered in Third Gwinn Friday night.

Friday evening’s premiere of the film "Icons of Evolution" met with dissension from people within and without the bounds of SPU.

These dissenters include members of the SPU biology department and a group called Burlington-Edison Committee for Science Education (BECSE).

Prior to the event, in the stairwell inside Gwinn, members of BECSE handed out packets of information about Jonathan Wells, a biologist featured in the film.

The event, which was sponsored by the Political Union Club, the SPU political science department and the Discovery Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan education group based in Seattle, was attended by approximately 500 people, according to John West, Discovery Institute senior fellow and SPU political science chair.

After the film presentation, panelists answered questions posed by 15 to 20 people. The panelists included Wells, Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman and Roger DeHart, former biology teacher at Burlington-Edison High School, who got reassigned by his school district for teaching biological evidence against evolution and telling students about scientists who were skeptical of Darwin’s theory.

According to an email from Carl Johnson, a member of BECSE, he handed out literature between 6:30 and 7:15 p.m. prior to the 7:30 p.m. event.

Premiere evolves into protest
Saul Renderfrance

Jonathan Wells, microbiologist and author of "Icons of Evolution," participates in a panel that commented on and responded to questions regarding the documentary inspired partly by his book.
"At 7:15 p.m. Mr. Chapman...arrived and was livid at us for handing these out. Five minutes later Campus Security arrived and told us they received a call from those putting on the program that they wanted us removed from the property," Johnson said.

Chapman said that this is incorrect and that he was happy to have the protestors at the event. He talked to them when he walked into Gwinn and was given some of their materials. According to Chapman, he did not call security.

"I was happy to have them there. Unwittingly they served a useful purpose," Chapman said. He also said that the packets of information consisted of personal attacks aimed at Wells, rather than the discussion of issues.

The two packets were entitled; "The Talented Mr. Wells" and "Jonathan Wells: Who is He, What Is He Doing Here, and Why?".

West pointed out the irony in that this same group whose protesting helped get DeHart into trouble with his school district were allowed free speech at Friday’s event. West emphasized the importance of the group members being permitted to have free speech.

"SPU is a university and we should prize discussion of different points of veiw."

According to Director of SPU Safety and Security Mark Reid, security responded to the scene after someone who was concerned that the protestors would disrupt the event alerted security. West said that security responded because he had asked that they be called in case the group decided to disrupt the event by shouting or yelling. He said however, that handing out information was fine with him.

Premiere evolves into protest
Saul Renderfrance

Sophomore Mackensie Rogers asks the panel about possible ways for future biology teachers to avoid the problems that the controversy caused Roger Dehart.
Reid said that they (the group members) were relatively peaceful and just wanted to get their point across.

"We were fine with that," Reid said. "They were not asked to leave campus."

"There were no real difficulties with these guys," Reid said.

Members of BECSE, including Johnson, attended the event.

The film shown at the event presented scientific evidence that questioned the accuracy of evidence that has been used to support Darwinian evolution. One piece of evidence discussed was Darwin’s Galapagos finches. The finches have been used as an example of how changes in the environment can bring about alterations in species’ physical attributes.

According to information presented in the film, the evidence collected to date only shows fluctuations in the finches’ beak size. These fluctuations are dependent on climate and have not produced long-term changes.

SPU senior biology major Nathan Brouwer attended the event.

"I thought it was a really well-made movie," Brouwer said.

However, Brouwer thought that the event used science as a guise for a political agenda of reintroducing God into public school science curriculum.

West commented on this.

"The point of Friday’s event was not about having God in the classroom but about good science education," West said. "[Students] should be exposed to the diversity of scientific opinion about the key evidences for Darwin’s theory."

West said that schools should not teach Darwinian evolution as "unquestioned fact, when it’s not."

Biology Department Chair Rick Ridgway identifies himself as a theistic evolutionist, which means that God as a creator could use evolution to bring about the diversity of organisms.

About a month prior to the event, West sent Ridgway and other faculty members invitations to participate in the panel at the event.

All of the faculty members declined to be panelists.

Ridgway said that he felt it was odd that SPU faculty were invited to be on the panel, but scientists such as Eugenie Scott and Ken Miller, who represented evolutionary support in the film, were not asked to attend.

According to Ridgway, if they had been given around six months’ notice, the science department may have been able to generate funds for bringing one or both of the scientists to the event.

West said that planning for the event only began about six to eight weeks ago, so he could not have given Ridgway six months’ notice. Also, because Darwinian biologists have the majority view, he did not think it would be difficult to get some of them to attend the event.

When Ridgway asked about having Scott or Miller attend the event, West told him that he did not have the money to pay for either of the scientists to attend the event and be part of the panel. However, he said he would have liked for them to attend.

According to West, the Discovery Institute did not have to pay for Wells and DeHart to attend the event because they live in the area. But Scott and Miller live in San Francisco and Rhode Island, respectively, according to West.

West said that he did not feel that the presence of Scott and Miller was necessary for having a meaningful discussion at the event.

According to Ridgway, the goal of the Discovery Institute is to remove evolutionary theory from high schools and substitute intelligent design theory, or at least make the theories equal.

West said that this is an incorrect assertion. "The goal of the Discovery Institute is far from wanting evolution removed from the classroom," West said. "Discovery Institute adopts the approach that we ought to teach more about evolution and not less, and that includes problems with [evolutionary] theory."

Ridgway said that as a field, science is designed to look at the natural world and not to take a stand on whether or not God exists. He said that so far there is no empirical evidence to support intelligent design theory.

According to West, the theory of intelligent design is that "the specified complexity that we see [in the universe] is best explained as a product of an intellectual cause rather than being caused by chance and necessity," West said.

According to Ridgway, prior to the event, he sent an email to West and copied it to President Phil Eaton and other members of the administration.

According to Ridgway, his email said, "My concern here is simply that SPU and the Discovery Institute be seen as separate entities, and more specifically that the underlying political objectives of the Discovery Institute Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture not be assumed to be the official stance of the university."

"The university does not take an official stance on evolution," Ridgway said.

According to Ridgway, after he sent out the email, West contacted him and said that he would be happy to make an announcement at the event saying that the views of the Discovery Institute are not necessarily the views of SPU. "I was happy to do that," West said.

However, West said that he did not recall any other event at SPU in which that kind of announcement has been made. He pointed out that at a university there are many events that espouse differing points of view.

SPU sophomore Mackensie Rogers attended the film premiere. Rogers is a biology major who plans to teach high school biology.

Rogers agreed with West that evolution is only a theory.

"A lot of the high school text books have it (evolution) as being the total truth and it’s not, it’s just a theory," Rogers said. "It isn’t science if you’re only seeing one side."

"I’m just really glad I was able to go to [the event]."



TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Extended News; US: Washington
KEYWORDS: creationism; crevolist; discoveryinstitute; evolution; intelligentdesign; msbogusvirus
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Ken Atkins, a member of the Burlington Education Committee, posted this comment to a local skeptics maillist:

Fireworks?, there were no fireworks other than Chapman getting mad.

It was obvious that Chapman had security called. He was livid, came down the stairs after receiving the handouts and yelled at us. Meanwhile we were smiling, handing out the material. The people receiving it were smiling, waiting for us to hand it to them and saying thank you. We said you're welcome.

Protest?, we just handed it out and smiled.

Ken

Gee, I wish I had known about it earlier. It sounds like it would've been a load of fun!

1 posted on 05/20/2002 10:45:00 AM PDT by jennyp
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To: jennyp
The Seattle Weekly said this:

Not the whole truth

BY ROGER DOWNEY

LAST FALL, FOUR consecutive nights of PBS prime time were taken up with copulating animals, subdividing bacteria, animated DNA molecules, and pontificating sages of science. This month the Paul Allen- financed series Evolution is back (in more digestible weekly two-hour doses). But this time it's got a little competition.

Some might say, "very little." But to heretics who refuse allegiance to the sociocultural scientific juggernaut called "the neo-Darwinian synthesis," any competition is welcome, any opportunity for their case to be heard. And, apparently, to judge by the film Icons of Evolution, any tactic, however slippery, capable of furthering their cause.

The 51-minute documentary film, which made its official debut last Friday evening in the modest setting of Seattle Pacific University's Gwinn Commons, is credited to a video production company called Coldwater Media LCC, but to anyone even slightly familiar with neo-anti-Darwinian synthesis in America today, the tone, text, and cast of characters are all intimately known. Whatever Coldwater Media LCC may be, the fingerprints of Seattle's neoconservative Discovery Institute (DI) are all over the film.

Icons of Evolution is in part the story of a crusading high-school science teacher persecuted by the authorities for daring to expose his students to the truth about evolution. No, not John Scopes. This time the martyr is Roger DeHart, hounded out of his job with the Burlington-Edison (Wash.) School District for daring to take a critical attitude toward Darwinian dogma and encouraging his students to do likewise.

DeHart's troubles began in 1998, when evolution-minded parents became aware that for 12 years, DeHart had been omitting certain chapters in the assigned biology text and substituting materials of his own for student consideration. After a series of increasingly fractious public meetings and extensive editorializing in the local media, DeHart resigned his post and took up a position teaching "earth science" in nearby Marysville.

Up to a point, the version of DeHart's story told in Icons of Evolution is factually correct. But one major aspect of the story the film omits: the large and finally dominant role in the fracas by the Discovery Institute, which not only publicized DeHart's plight and played Little David to the ACLU's Goliath but tried to organize a campaign to elect anti-evolutionists to the Burlington-Edison School Board.

The DI doesn't try to obscure its interest in DeHart's situation: Indeed, DI president Bruce Chapman appears in person along with a half dozen "experts" "interviewed" by the filmmakers, all eloquently deploring the damage done in Burlington both to human rights and scientific progress.

Why the sarcastic quotation marks? Because with a couple of exceptions, the "experts" are not precisely who they purport to be. Take Paul Nelson, for example, whose undertitle IDs him as "Ph.D., Philosophy of Biology, University of Chicago." True, as far as it goes: Nelson did attend UC and got a Ph.D. in 1998. But that's not where he works: He works for the Discovery Institute, a fellow of its Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture.

Same with "Jonathan Wells, Ph.D., U. Cal Berkeley," "David Berlinski, Ph.D., Princeton," and "Stephen Meyer, Ph.D., history and philosophy of science, Cambridge University": The degrees are real, but the apparent academic affiliations aren't; all three are fellows of Discovery Institute. John West, for a change, is, as suggested by his on-screen ID, a professor at SPU; but his Discovery Institute "fellowship" also goes unmentioned by the filmmakers, making Icons of Evolution look less a documentary than a covert ideological infomercial.

Well, never mind the "mercial" part for the moment; what about the info? Again: OK as far as it goes, but not far enough to shake the huge structure of Darwinian theory and confirmatory research assembled over nearly 150 years, let alone topple it. The way Ernst Haeckel fudged drawings of embryos to make the early development of distant species look more similar is trotted out; the Galápagos finches that gave Darwin the idea how species might diverge are turned against him (by ignoring 90 percent of the data); some deft misreading of the comparative embryology of wasps and fruit flies "proves" that there's no evidence that both insects ultimately derive from a common ancestor; and so on. As a threat to Darwinism, it's reminiscent of a woodpecker trying to bring down a sequoia.

Since anyone who's actually mastered the material on evolution in a second-year college biology text can refute all this scientific guff without opening the book, what's the point of packaging it to look like an episode of Nova? Because the First Amendment has so far proved impermeable to the religious right's campaign to bring God back into public education. But if you don't mention God and make your guff look like science, you can call any attempt to keep your guff from impressionable minds "censorship." And censorship, as we all know, is un-American.

For more on the Discovery Institute, go to www.discovery.org. For the story of Roger DeHart's battle with the Burlington-Edison School District and material on the Discovery Institute and its affiliations that you won't see on there, go to www.scienceormyth.org/resources.html.

2 posted on 05/20/2002 10:47:51 AM PDT by jennyp
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To: crevo_list; VadeRetro; PatrickHenry; longshadow; JediGirl
creation/evolution BUMP.

I forget, who are the reasonable creationists around here? I guess they should get a bump too. :-)

3 posted on 05/20/2002 10:50:18 AM PDT by jennyp
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To: jennyp
reasonable creationists

You made a funny.

4 posted on 05/20/2002 11:06:21 AM PDT by jlogajan
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To: jennyp
Don't identify "reasonable creationists" lest the others kill them.
5 posted on 05/20/2002 11:11:50 AM PDT by VadeRetro
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To: jennyp;Condorman;Dimensio;Doctor Stochastic;donh;general_re;js1138;Junior;Nebullis...
...yet an other CREVO ping
6 posted on 05/20/2002 11:14:34 AM PDT by BMCDA
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To: jennyp
FOUR consecutive nights of PBS prime time were taken up with copulating animals

I'm telling you it all starts with dancing, which leads to copulating, which leads to evilution. [Fulminating Fundamentalist Mode OFF]

7 posted on 05/20/2002 11:17:23 AM PDT by Stultis
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To: Stultis
Marty Stouffer's Wild America could have been subtitled "Those Bleep-ing Animals." Every show, guaranteed, you got to see how little skunks, rabbits, coyotes, whatever get started.
8 posted on 05/20/2002 11:24:54 AM PDT by VadeRetro
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bump
9 posted on 05/20/2002 11:27:24 AM PDT by nimdoc
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To: Stultis
Ahem, <snicker> cough
10 posted on 05/20/2002 11:32:03 AM PDT by jennyp
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To: Stultis
I'm telling you it all starts with dancing ...

It starts even before that. Just looking at a woman is enough to start the whole satanic progress rolling. Those Aye-rabs have the right idea. Make 'm wear the burka! That'll stop eeee-voe-lou-shin right in its tracks.

The final solution to evolution

11 posted on 05/20/2002 11:49:15 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
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To: Stultis
"...it all starts with dancing..."

LOL!

12 posted on 05/20/2002 12:15:01 PM PDT by headsonpikes
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To: Stultis
I'm telling you it all starts with dancing, which leads to copulating, which leads to evilution. [Fulminating Fundamentalist Mode OFF]

ROTFLMAO

13 posted on 05/20/2002 12:24:10 PM PDT by RadioAstronomer
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To: Stultis
I'm telling you it all starts with dancing

No, it can lead to dancing! Adult Oriented Dancing Joke

14 posted on 05/20/2002 12:38:37 PM PDT by jlogajan
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To: Stultis
Roger DeHart: Welllll, ya got trouble.
Townspeople: Oh, we got trouble!
Roger: Right here in River City,
Townspeople: Right here in River City!
Roger: Trouble with a capital "T" and that rhymes with "E" and that stands for "evolution"...
Townspeople: That stands for evo!

15 posted on 05/20/2002 12:39:10 PM PDT by general_re
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To: jennyp
The event, which was sponsored by the Political Union Club, the SPU political science department and the Discovery Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan education group based in Seattle, was attended by approximately 500 people, according to John West, Discovery Institute senior fellow and SPU political science chair.

One of the few things that European universities do better than American ones is the fact that there is no such thing as "political science" in the European academy - instead, they study "politics". The bastardization that is "political science" is a wholly American invention. It is not an empirical science at all, and anyone who practices it and believes that it is such is simply delusional.

Unfortunately, this obsession with quantitativeness ruins what is otherwise a worthy field of study. If one wishes to study such things, the only intellectually honest way to do it is to regard the field as a specialized sort of history, with liberal doses of philosophy and economics thrown in. Professors of "politics" are valuable and worthy mentors. "Political scientists" should be shot on sight.

16 posted on 05/20/2002 12:48:08 PM PDT by general_re
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To: general_re
"Political scientists" should be shot on sight.

And sociologists. And "education" professionals. Dumping all of them from academia would cut the professorial ranks in half, and the world would be far better off. Oh ... add "journalism" to that list.

17 posted on 05/20/2002 1:02:44 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
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To: PatrickHenry
Sounds good. Where do I get tags for hunting academics? When do we leave?

"Oooh, nice shot, Pat. Look at the markings on this big boy - tweed jacket with the elbow patches, snap-brim hat, Volvo with a 'Save the whales' bumpersticker, and the radio permanently tuned to NPR. I bet this feller was tenured and everything..." ;)

18 posted on 05/20/2002 1:15:31 PM PDT by general_re
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To: general_re
How did I forget "black studies," "feminist studies," and "environmentalism"? I'm probably missing several others.
19 posted on 05/20/2002 1:21:59 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
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To: jennyp
Fiddling around with a newly acquired (if not exactly new) short-wave radio last night, I stumbled across an interview by the one, the only, Kent Hovind. (Turns out his name is pronounced HOE-vent.)

It contained the usual mischaracterizations and misunderstandings of science, but his rant against "theistic evolution" was particularly telling. I'm forced to paraphrase, here, but the sense is exact.

"I wouldn't worship a God that used gradual evolution to make his creation. He couldn't get it right the first time?"

20 posted on 05/20/2002 1:29:04 PM PDT by VadeRetro
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