Breaking news: Discovery Institute and censorship

In an ironic twist, the Discovery Institute's Center of Science and Culture blogging website has been involved in censoring user comments. Adding to the irony is the fact that the comments were to a posting accusing KNME of censoring the airing of "Unlocking the Mystery of Life".


The posting in question was by Robert Crowther, Director of Public and Media Relations Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture.:

KNME waging misinformation campaign
Posted By: Robert Crowther, Discovery Institute @ 01:01:22 pm, Categories:

PBS station KNME is lying today in an effort to shrug off claims of censorship because of their banning of Unlocking the Mystery of Life.

Three comments had been added to this posting but after a few hours, the comments were quickly removed by staff without any explanations. The author has contacted the blog owners but has so far not received any response.

Of course the owners of the website have the right to delete any of the comments submitted but it somehow seems to make their complaints about KNME 'censoring' a bit hypocritical. After all KNME should be granted the right to make programming decisions as much as the DI should be allowed to deleted comments which expose the flaws in Intelligent Design. Of course KNME is not arguing to 'Teach the controversy' and it seems that the concept of controversy is somewhat one-sided.

The comments however were saved from their ultimate censoring fate and are reproduced below:

Comments, Trackbacks, Pingbacks:

Comment from: Wedgie World [Visitor] · http://wedgieworld.blogspot.com
The original PDF file showing the religious foundation of this video has since long been removed from the Illustra Media Website but has been archived.

Unlocking the Mystery of Life The cut-off date to order this incredible video is Friday, November 22, 2002. Until then you can pay the retail price for 8 copies and get 50 (which comes out to $3.69 each postpaid). This is the most impressive evangelistic tool ever made. Using the latest computer graphics it displays the wisdom of God in the creation of the inner workings of the human cell.

Read more at http://wedgieworld.blogspot.com/2005/01/who-promotes-unlocking-mystery-of-life.html
Permalink 01/07/05 @ 19:49

Comment from: PvM [Visitor] · http://www.pandasthumb.org
A good website which discusses the argument from ignorance used by Intelligent Design can be found at www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000602.html (Icons of ID: Argument from Ignorance)

Enjoy to read more about why Ryan Nichols wrote

R. Nichols wrote:

Proponents of Intelligent Design theory seek to ground a scientific research program that appeals to teleology within the context of biological explanation. As such, Intelligent Design theory must contain principles to guide researchers. I argue for a disjunction: either Dembski’s ID theory lacks content, or it succumbs to the methodological problems associated with creation science-problems that Dembski explicitly attempts to avoid. The only concept of a designer permitted by Dembski’s Explanatory Filter is too weak to give the sorts of explanations which we are entitled to expect from those sciences, such as archeology, that use effect-to-cause reasoning. The new spin put upon ID theory-that it is best construed as a ‘metascientific hypothesis’-fails for roughly the same reason.

R. Nichols, Scientific content, testability, and the vacuity of Intelligent Design theory The American Catholic philosophical quarterly , 2003 , vol. 77 , no 4 , pp. 591 - 611

or why Richard Colling observes

In his new book, “Random Designer,” he writes: “It pains me to suggest that my religious brothers are telling falsehoods” when they say evolutionary theory is “in crisis” and claim that there is widespread skepticism about it among scientists. “Such statements are blatantly untrue,” he argues; “evolution has stood the test of time and considerable scrutiny. [1]”

Sharon Begley in Tough Assignment: Teaching Evolution To Fundamentalists, Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2004; Page A15

Or

Patrick Frank author of “On the Assumption of Design”, Theology and Science, Volume 2, Number 1 / April 2004, pp. 109 - 130.

Abstract: The assumption of design of the universe is examined from a scientific perspective. The claims of William Dembski and of Michael Behe are unscientific because they are a-theoretic. The argument from order or from utility are shown to be indeterminate, circular, to rest on psychological as opposed to factual certainty, or to be insupportable as regards humans but possibly not bacteria, respectively. The argument from the special intelligibility of the universe specifically to human science does not survive comparison with the capacities of other organisms. Finally, the argument from the unlikelihood of physical constants is vitiated by modern cosmogonic theory and recrudesces the God-of-the-gaps.

The cost of ID to science is self evident, some may have underestimated the cost of ID to religious faith
Permalink 01/07/05 @ 20:03

Comment from: PvM [Visitor] · http://www.pandasthumb.org
It is also worth realizing that there is no censorship involved. Censorship applies to government not to public entities such as PBS who are free to determine what to air and what not to air.
It is sad to hear that the DI is using such poorly thought out arguments to support their case for intelligent design. Doing a disfavor both to science and religion.

I am glad to hear that PBS has decided to drop the video as it surely fails to be a scientifically relevant video and much better fits in with the DI's much publicized Wedge strateggy

Governing Goals

* To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
* To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.

Five Year Goals

* To see intelligent design theory as an accepted alternative in the sciences and scientific research being done from the perspective of design theory.
* To see the beginning of the influence of design theory in spheres other than natural science.
* To see major new debates in education, life issues, legal and personal responsibility pushed to the front of the national agenda.

Twenty Year Goals

* To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science.
* To see design theory application in specific fields, including molecular biology, biochemistry, paleontology, physics and cosmology in the natural sciences, psychology, ethics, politics, theology and philosophy in the humanities; to see its innuence in the fine arts.
* To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life.

Source: http://www.kcfs.org/Fliers_articles/Wedge.html
Permalink 01/07/05 @ 20:14

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