2 excellent videos on evolution vs. intelligent design are here for your enjoyment and education. The second one has been much discussed in the Atheosphere, and is the PBS Nova documentary “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial”. I thought I’d post it for those who might have missed it at the time of broadcast. I don’t think PBS has repeated it since then.
The first one may be less well known to those of us on “this side of the pond”. It is a documentary from the BBC, “A War on Science”. I took the title of this post from something Richard Dawkins said in the video.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Intelligent Design - Yapping terriers of ignorance
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I watched the PBS show when it aired in November, but the BBC piece was new. It was nice to see my town mentioned, with a courthouse I've spent a good bit of time in (including during the Dover trial), and newscasters I watch on local TV.
But it still pisses me off that it had to happen in the first place. Only because people with a little power and a lot of ignorance want to use that power to spread their ignorance, do we have to put up with such patent nonsense. And it cost the Dover School Board at least a million dollars, even with the free lawyers they had.
I loved the Miller quote, which was so spot on: "The theory that explains everything, explains nothing. That is the central flaw of ID"
I loved the bit (around 28:20) in the first one where Dawkins said that ID was "gettin a hold" in America "only among those parts of the population who don't know anything." What did they cut to, right in the next shot?
The Presidential motorcade.
LOL! I didn't notice that one, Brendan. I just loved it when he was talking about biology seeming to be the only place in science where you have the "yapping terriers of ignorance".
@ SI - I enjoyed the BBC presentation, but it wasn't nearly as thorough as the PBS special. As far as it pissing you off that it ever had to happen in the first place; get ready for parts 2, 3, 4, etc. The good news is, this was a great legal precedent for all future legal battles. The combination of the 1987 Supreme Court ruling that creationism can not be taught, along with Dover, will make all future battles exceedingly difficult for the enemies of science.
P.S. Thanks also for posting the PBS/Nova show. I hadn't had a chance to see it when it was on TV, and it never occurred to me to look around for it. It was better than I expected it to be.
P.P.S. I completely agree with Spanish Inquisitor: as convincing as the legal victory was, and as delicious as it was to see all of the slime that was exposed when the IDiot rocks were lifted, it's a real annoyance that we have to waste so much time and money fighting these things in the first place. And it's not like the IDiots are going to admit that they've been running a scam, and fold their tents and go away.
Oops. Should have refreshed the page before posting my last comment. Sorry for saying the same thing about the ongoing battle.
Oh, well. Just another example of great minds thinking alike.
One last thing and then I'll shut up: I laughed out loud when one of the IDiots accused the Bush-appointed Republican judge of "judicial activism."
Just goes to show you the danger of teaching talking points to parrots: you never know when one might pop out at an inopportune time.
Well, it's good to know that EBS (the Evo Broadcasting System) is still working at the peak of efficiency this year.
By the way, though, I'm now officially bored with the "controversy" between evolution and Genesis. Judge Jones's opinion in the Dover case came down loudly and clearly on the side of science, and, although not a national precedent, is likely to be the prevailing legal citation in all such cases.
I think that the people who choose to believe Genesis in preference to science should not be allowed to (1) purchase any products not mentioned specifically in the bible, (2) do any jobs not mentioned specifically in the bible, (3) participate in any activities not mentioned specifically in the bible, (4) use any health care products or avail themselves of any medical services not mentioned specifically in the bible, and (5) vote in any elections (since democracy is not mentioned specifically in the bible, and, in fact, is implicitly disfavored.)
If those simple rules were put into effect, it wouldn't matter what nonsense they believed, would it?
Thank goodness for EBS! I believe godtube is the Bizarro World version of EBS.
EBS - Rational, intelligent, scientific, godless
godtube - irrational, moronic, ignorant, chock-full-a-god
Thank you Philly and Ex. You guys make me feel so special.
My goal this year is to start posting my own videos. Basically just my usual written comments, but with me delivering them "in person". Also, what would be very cool, is to have some of the typical videos that I post, but included with them would be my own video comments on them.
Also, I have a 93 year old aunt (sorry, Philly, I know where your thoughts just drifted off to) who is a very funny old gal. I was thinking of doing some interview style videos with her.
If enough of us were doing things like this, we could actually have an Atheosphere version of something like Bloggingheads.com, in which some of our hot topics could get debated. I could imagine Philly and Ex going at it pretty good!
I don't think I'm very close to doing it yet though. It's worth thinking about and I'd like to hear the feedback of others...
It's a good idea. Actually the RRS has been encouraging such a thing for over a year now, but they (I think) are just concentrating on YouTube. What I don't like about sites like Youtube is there's no guarantee that what you watch now will be there 10 minutes from now. If there's a way to actually download the videos, I don't know how, so that sucks. I have a decent amount of space on my site and I could host clips that people make I suppose. Aside from having more of us make videos, I think there needs to be some security that they'll stay put online. There's an effort by some overzealous christians to object to ALL atheist videos on Youtube in order to get them banned.
I've considered doing videos and audio podcasts many times. I think what stops me is laziness. It's much faster and easier to just make a blog post with a simple graphic. :)
I think I will have some time to watch these videos, and Jesus Camp, this weekend.
chappy, I think you'll really enjoy both of them. If you only watch one, watch the PBS special.
Thanks for posting the videos, John. I really like the idea you have for posting video podcasts too. I don't know if I'm ready for video, but I thought it'd be fun to do some audio.
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