Judgment Day - Intelligent Design On Trial
PBS special on the Kitzmiller trial
I reckon there’s a discussion to be had over the PBS Nova documentary Judgment Day: Intelligent Design On Trial. I just finished watching the first half of it and will try to get the second hour tomorrow.
Meanwhile, if you have seen it and want to give your impressions, feel free. Don’t worry about spoiling it for me, I followed the trial pretty closely.
Update: the PBS ombudsman gets letters from viewers about the program. Most criticized Judgment Day for being too “one-sided”. To me this is a pretty good illustration of how successful creationists have been in undermining biology education in this country, and as a bonus it illustrates how journalism’s daffy definition of “balance” has permeated the public mind. If you find an expert in any field - someone of world renown who embodies the best current science, a “journalist” will prop up alongside him some whacko who disagrees with him/her because it isn’t biblical, and call it “balance”.
What NOVA did in this program was different - it was real journalism. They reported on what happened. And what happened is the Discovery Institute and the school district had their asses handed to them on a plate by a conservative judge, a Bush appointee, who made an honest ruling. Sometimes reality is “one-sided” and it’s perfectly fair and balanced to report it that way.
I only got to see about 10 total minutes, but my thoughts have always been… If ID wants to have their place in the classroom, their theory needs to go through the same scrutiny as any other scientific theory. Trials, experiments, hypothesis’, peer reviewed articles, etc.
But they’re not doing this. Instead they are trying to bypass the whole process and force their theory to be taught, which is complete ########. Judges and juries should not be deciding what is and is not scientific. Not only that, but it shows the theory is ########. Because if the supporters of ID had even the slightest inclination that their theory would hold up to scientific testing, than that is the route they would obviously go down.
I can’t wait to watch the NOVA program. I will post back if I have anything to add afterwards.
Posted by webs05 on 11/14/07 at 01:00 AMThey played two hours on my PBS station. Is there another hr?
It was OK, if a little self-smug and congratulatory.
Seemed to me that Barbara Forrest’s contribution showing cdesign proponentsists as a smoking gun was enough to put the whole story to bed even without the monthlong molecular biology course. That trail started with Matzke’s library archive, but to me seemed like basic follow the trail of evidence, not really an ideological issue.
I didn’t see it as science vs. creationism, as much as some librarians, lawyers, and philosophy professors got together and smacked the cr*p out of local yokels bent on conspiracy and perjury.
My favorite part: Toward the very end of the second hr where the school board President(?) Buckingham is sitting in a cozy chair, expounding on the judges qualifications and fitness.
Ahh, American culture is a hoot. Very much like Spencer Tracy and Frederick March in Inherit The Wind which also wasn’t about evolution, but about politics.
Posted by Ted on 11/14/07 at 09:27 AMI’m going to have to wait for the video stream on the 16th to watch the program.
Posted by Paul Sunstone on 11/14/07 at 01:53 PMWebs - exactly. If they want their theory (not that it has graduated to that level yet) in classrooms, they can try to beat the explanatory and predictive record of evolution theory.
I got a chance to watch the second hour on tape today.
My favorite part: Toward the very end of the second hr where the school board President(?) Buckingham is sitting in a cozy chair, expounding on the judges qualifications and fitness.
That was pretty rich, especially since if memory serves they were initially so pleased to end up in Jones’ court. But maybe he was just sore at being identified as a perjurer and ruled a hostile witness.
Judge Jones ended up paying a high price for his ruling. Not only living with death threats (how very Christian) but his pastor basically kicked him out of his church (showing once again the savior’s love).
I thought they did a pretty darn good job with the story. Of course, there’s only so much you can do in two hours - I followed the story for months and it was very complex. They could have done a ten-part series on it but few want that much detail.
Predictably, the Discovery institute deemed the show a “PBS propaganda piece” which is funny since it followed court transcripts. And they were sore at not being allowed to sponge off PBS for free footage to quote-mine.
My youngest son had the biology book in school that they said was “laced with Darwinism”. He said it was boring and it sucked. So maybe the school board needn’t have worried about students learning that much biology from it.
The thing that makes biology books so boring and sucky is that the publishers are trying to walk a tightrope between telling the truth and getting booted by a lot of school boards. Publishers balk at not selling any books and boredom doesn’t hurt sales.
Posted by george.w on 11/14/07 at 10:57 PM
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