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California Science Center is sued for canceling a film promoting intelligent design

Think Christianly: California Science Center is sued for canceling a film promoting intelligent design

Sunday, January 3, 2010

California Science Center is sued for canceling a film promoting intelligent design

Here is some of the LA Times article (and more about Intelligent Design "ID" below):

"A lawsuit alleges that the state-owned center improperly bowed to pressure from the Smithsonian Institution, as well as e-mailed complaints from USC professors and others. It contends that the center violated both the 1st Amendment and a contract to rent the museum's Imax Theater when it canceled the screening of "Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record."

The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by the American Freedom Alliance, an L.A.-based group described by senior fellow Avi Davis as a nonprofit, nonpartisan "think tank and activist network promoting Western values and ideals."

The AFA seeks punitive damages and compensation for financial losses, as well as a declaration from the court that the center violated the Constitution and cannot refuse the group the right to rent its facilities for future events.

The AFA had planned an Oct. 25 screening of two films at the Exposition Park museum -- one a short Imax movie called "We are Born of Stars," which favors Darwin's theory; the other, "Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record," a feature-length documentary that criticizes Darwin and promotes intelligent design.

Intelligent design is the theory that an intelligent being, rather than impersonal forces such as Darwinian natural selection, is responsible for shaping life on Earth. An overwhelming majority of scientists and science and natural history museums consider the theory of evolution to have been proved beyond a doubt by genetic and fossil evidence. Critics of intelligent design have dismissed it as a superficially scientific cloak for the straightforwardly religious belief known as Creationism that's anchored in a literal reading of the biblical Book of Genesis...." (More)

For more on this story click here.

Just for the record and the 1 millionth time. Intelligent Design is not Creationsim derived from a literal reading of Genesis...well, I now feel better. (they are separate issues)

If you would like to understand Intelligent Design in plain language, see this book by Sean McDowell and William Dembski:



For understanding how to navigate issues of Science and Faith (as well as interpreting Genesis 1-3 and how all that fits with the age of the earth and Darwinian evolution) look no further than Science and Faith: Friends or Foes by C. John "Jack" Collins. (Hebrew scholar and MIT graduate)



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5 Comments:

Blogger Human Ape said...

Just for the record and the 1 millionth time. Intelligent Design is not Creationsim derived from a literal reading of Genesis

Just for the record and for the millionth time you and other creationists are being dishonest. Intelligent design might not invoke your worthless Bible, but virtually all intelligent design creationists are Bible Thumpers, and of course intelligent design is nothing more than magical creationism dishonestly and unsuccessfully disguised as a scientific idea.

So continue being a compulsive liar for Jeebus if you want, but you're not fooling anyone, including the brain-dead Christian hicks who want any excuse to pretend their childish beliefs are scientific.

But you need to know this ridiculous lie (ID is not magical creation) is getting boring. The same lie repeated for years by the retards of the Discovery Institute and their idiot customers is getting extremely boring.

Biologists hope you idiots grow up some day, but I doubt that will ever happen. Once a moron, always a moron.

January 3, 2010 at 1:54 PM  
Blogger Human Ape said...

If you would like to understand Intelligent Design in plain language, see this book by Sean McDowell and William Dembski

Right. Invoke your favorite Discovery Institute liars. Dembski is well known for his breathtaking stupidity and dishonesty. Biologists laugh at this retard. And you recommend his worthless book. You're never going to learn anything listening to morons, but perhaps that's exactly what you want. To continue sticking your empty head into the sand so you don't have to grow up and face facts.

January 3, 2010 at 1:58 PM  
Blogger Brian H. said...

Human Ape - Interesting, and a little amusing, how a freedom of speech issue (lawsuit) evokes such name calling and slander. It makes one curious as to the source of your anger as you seem quite convinced of your opinion. When free speech is cultivated in an unfettered public forum, the best ideas almost always win. Why not just let the films play and allow people to make up their own minds. If the ideas aren't compelling then people will walk away unconvinced. On the larger issue of ID, if you are right then you have nothing to fear. Those opposed to ID have little to gain from the suppression of ideas and debate - assuming the opposition's viewpoint is correct. A read of the LA Times article will show the argument is around a broken legal contract and the attempt at censorship. Your hateful verbal assault really isn't a productive way to invite dialogue with those whom you challenge - or perhaps dialogue was not the intent.

January 3, 2010 at 8:10 PM  
Blogger Shawn White said...

@Human Ape -
Seems like you know a lot about ID and the Discovery Institute. Seems like you also know a lot about ID. I wonder if you could help me answer a question. David Berlinski, a fellow of the Discovery Institute, goes to bat for ID whenever he has the opportunity to do so. Can you tell me what version or brand of creationism he is selling given that he is a secular Jew and doesn't buy into religion at all?

Thanks - looking forward to your answer.

January 4, 2010 at 11:48 PM  
Blogger Hrafn said...

"Just for the record..." many forms of creationism (OEC, DA, Gap, Progressive, etc) are not "derived from a literal reading of Genesis". You are conflating Creationism with Young Earth Creationism.

"Just for the record..." ID is a form of creationism known as 'Neocreationism', whose rationale is approximately: "if we say 'intelligent designer' rather than 'God', maybe the courts won't realise that we're talking about God (oops, we said that out loud and on the record a few times -- hope the courts don't notice, even if Ron Numbers did)."

For the court filings on this deceased masochistic equine of a case see http://ncse.com/creationism/legal/american-freedom-alliance-v-california-science-center-et-al

Oh and Berlinski does not 'go to bat for ID' -- he goes out to bash evolution -- one of a number of areas of science that he knows sweet FA about, but chooses to criticise.

January 7, 2010 at 1:39 AM  

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