NOVA and Dover
Tomorrow evening's (Tuesday's) NOVA documentary "Judgment Day" seems to be the talk of the net and (from the looks of NOVA website) promises to be a hoot. Robert Crowther at Evolution News and Views believes the "docudrama," which will reenact the events of the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial, will be anything but fair and balanced. At NOVA's PBS website there are interviews with all the public opponents of ID, and only one proponent. (In the link above Crowther explains why.) The NOVA website also has several "interactives" expounding the usual, angel food cake arguments: Darwin made many wonderful predictions; fossils prove themselves to be transitional forms; different colored salamanders prove evolution is acting today, etc.
I should point out that NOVA is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives $400 million a year in federal funds.
The New York Times has a predictable story about the docudrama. Meanwhile there is a new ID website at intelligentdesign.org.
William Dembski has a post about Antony Flew's conversion from atheism and upcoming book.
Daniel James Devine
Forgot to also mention Mark Bergin wrote about the NOVA program in WORLD last week. (subscription required)
[The documentary's education packet] contends, "Intelligent design advocates have never attempted to test their own work through basic research or submitted papers to peer-reviewed journals." That charge suggests NOVA has shifted genres from documentary to fiction—with hired actors, to boot.
Daniel James Devine
Although I unfortunately missed the first half of tonight's anti-ID program about the Dover trial ("Judgment Day"), I just finished watching the latter parts of it. It was even more biased against intelligent design than I expected it to be. That made me quite glad the members of the Discovery Institute didn't participate; now people will be compelled to search them out for their side of the story. I have a pretty good feeling that they would have indeed been "sliced and diced," as Crowther predicted. From what I saw, NOVA was not interested in accurately portraying the arguments of ID theorists--only in exploiting the weakest links of the cases' defense. So never mind if ID is true; they lost the case and that's the end of it.
NOVA didn't even get scientific revolution right. They said something about Newton and Galileo banishing God from science. That's not just an exaggeration, it's inaccurate, since Newton pawned off some of the details of his galaxy model on supernatural intervention. If the man were alive today he'd be an ID theorist, and a biblical one at that.
The program will be available to watch online on November 16.
Daniel James Devine
in Philosophies & Beliefs
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