Sunday, October 25: The A.D.D. Detective
A FILM AMERICANS WON’T BE SEEING (maybe)
by Leigh Lundin
It disappoints me when I read about movies that won’t be shown in America, films like Adam Curtis’ The Power of Nightmares that a nation isolated like ours could learn from, but ‘deciders’ think otherwise. Normally, these films sell in virtually every territory around the world, but fail to find an outlet here in lil ol’ parochial USofA, where distributors describe the environment as ‘hostile’ to even the least controversial documentaries.
2009 marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday. Last year, the Church of England– the church that originated the stance against Darwin and his treatise on evolution– reversed themselves, saying his theory was "misinterpreted and misunderstood." This year, they went a step further and issued an apology to Darwin, albeit a little late for him to notice. Many mainstream Protestant churches and much of the Catholic Church has come to accept evolution as fact, but not fundamentalists. Thanks to Andrew Schafly‘s Conservapedia and the jaw-droppingly deceitful movie Expelled, the majority of Americans– 61% according to one poll– do not accept evolution.
Whether or not one believes in ‘ID’– intelligent design– I imagine God deployed evolution as the most obvious tool in his toolbox. I further suspect those believers who claim "It ain’t so" bemuses Him and He’s saddened by those who insist "Thou shalt not believe in evolution" as a matter of faith. Darwin, a religious man married to a very religious wife, once said it was "absurd to doubt that a man might be an ardent theist and an evolutionist."
From the London Telegraph, I learned the US will be deprived of the biographical film that opened the Toronto International Film Festival last month, Jon Amiel’s Creation. For that, we can partially thank MovieGuide.org, which claims to be the "Family Guide to Christian Movie Reviews," and is often quoted in news stories about Creation. As far as I can tell, they’ve not actually seen the film, but that hasn’t stopped passionate speculation. MovieGuide.org, like their much-praised favorite Expelled, seems not above wrongful defamation and deceit to enforce their world view, a political animal in Shepard’s clothing. (A Wikipedian commented the only true statement in Expelled was "Hi, I’m Ben Stein.")
MovieGuide.org occasionally offers selective book reviews, such as Darwin’s Racists – Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow. Ted Baehr’s review opines the book "exposes the real Charles Darwin: a racist, a bigot and 1800’s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder. [It] shows that Adolf Hitler, along with other genocidal mass murderers, was influenced by Darwin’s half-baked Theory of Evolution. This book exposes Darwin’s Theory of Evolution for what it is: an elitist and racist dogma that has infiltrated our every area of culture thereby undermining sense and sensibility."
It must be easy to write reviews when one has so little knowledge of a subject. As far as I can tell, the paragraph’s only accurate descriptor is "1800’s naturalist," but otherwise not another word is true. For reasons like these, they don’t want us to see Creation, which has otherwise been described as bland and unassuming.
Director Amiel expressed surprise and disappointment at the reaction by US distributors. In Britain, the film was welcomed and religious groups had special showings. Not so in the US, although hope hovers on the horizon. Independent distributor Newmarket, the start-up behind The Passion of Christ, inked a deal for the US, but whether that means an art house theatrical release or Christmas DVDs remains to be seen.
Either way, shouldn’t Americans have the freedom to decide what we’ll watch?
You can guess that in Wichita Creation won’t be playing at a theater near me, but the controversy is only part of the explanation. We only get the “biggies” here. We have the luck that a few outlets run non-commercial films and we even have a local radio reviewer on Thursday mornings telling us what’s out there.
Netflix will rent Creation when it’s released on DVD. Date unknown.
One Netflix customer writes:
It’s a sign of the state of this country that this movie will not show here. The Guardian n the UK says: “…the American right has taken a giant leap backwards, down to the knuckle-dragging, bulging-forehead stage of the evolutionary table. Just don’t try telling these folks that their grandaddy was a chimp: they may have the smallest brains in America, but they also have the biggest guns.”
I just reviewed these two new audiobooks on the subject. I take my slim chances to champion the fight against ignorance:
WHY EVOLUTION IS TRUE, by Jerry Coyne and narrated by Victor Bevine.
Jerry Coyne, currently a professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, presents his commentary on the intelligent design debate. Citing all the irrefutable scientific evidence gathered since Darwin, he convincingly demonstrates that creationism is a scientific humbug. Acting as the professor’s surrogate to present this college-level lecture, narrator Victor Bevine speaks like a golden-throated academician, fluent in the complex vocabulary of his discipline. One could swear Bevine must be the professor himself, delivering ideas he has researched and taught for years in terms that would flummox most professional readers. The information comes in a logical and well-organized format, made more apparent using the figures included in a 31-page .pdf download available with an Audible.com purchase. J.A.H.
and
THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, by Richard Dawkins, Read by the Author and Lalla Ward
“All except the woefully informed accept that evolution is a fact,” maintains author Richard Dawkins. In scientific language peppered with trivial asides and occasional British slang, he mounts a credible attack on “the creationists.” Dawkins generates a modern argument for evolution by citing genetic experiments and evidence from the fossil record. His side discussions of supporting subjects such as natural clocks, embryology and molecular structure may dismay the scientifically faint-hearted. The author and Lalla Ward narrate in relay, taking turns with phrases and paragraphs. No precedent exists for relay-narration in non-fiction audio, and the distracting effect of dueling voices strains the continuity. In their praise, the pair’s perfect enunciation and appropriate pace allow listeners to readily absorb the abundant facts and figures. J.A.H.
Of course the parents would be angry. It’s Tiger Pride. Those are monkeys. For shame, the evolution of the band would be through Tigers.
Right?
For shame, the evolution of the band would be through Tigers.
As a cat lover, I can only say, “Hear! Hear!”
“Thanks to Andrew Schafly’s ‘Conservapedia’ and the jaw-droppingly deceitful movie ‘Expelled,’ the majority of Americans – 61% according to one poll – do not believe evolution.”
Credit where credit’s due, of course, but I seriously doubt that those two entities ALONE (as you seem to imply here) account for America’s widespread apostasy from the religion of evolution.
Mike, you are right in asserting that the widespread disbelief in the theory of evolution among Americans is not the consequence of Andrew Schlafly and “Expelled”, but you err in identifying a belief in evolution as a religion.
It is not a system of faith and worship, and in spite of attempts to make it appear so, implies no moral or spiritual content. Systems of faith and worship do not require evidence to be considered valid, relying instead on metaphysics (i.e., explanations beyond the crudely physical), and also provide moral guidance, usually expressed as the will of a deity. Evolution, on the other hand, eschews metaphysics and ethics in their entirety in favor of strictly material explanations of events.
It is a scientific theory, derived from observation and supported by facts, as are all scientific theories, even the bad ones like the Ptolemaic model of the solar system, since all scientific theories exist as models to explain observed facts.
While it is true that many adherents of the theory of evolution are atheists, and militant atheists attempt to use the theory as “proof” that there is no God—logically impossible, since you can’t prove a negative—the theory itself isn’t any more or less atheistic than the Big Bang theory, which models the origin of the universe, or meteorological models of lightning, which explain levins from heaven—both of which, in former times, were the exclusive province of theology, but neither of which have derailed faith as a human institution.
Thanks, James, for your reply. Nevertheless, in my hopeless ignorance, I still maintain that evolution is a religious belief system that consciously counterposes against the creationist belief system. Neither system is susceptible of objective proof, and therefore both are religions. (What is the evolutionist’s object of worship? The universe itself, which according to evolution created itself out of nothing, is constantly improving itself and becoming self-aware despite the laws of thermodynamics, and will ultimately apotheosize itself in the indeterminate future.)
Democritus is supposed to have said, “The universe is composed of atoms and void; all else is opinion” (or words to that effect). Observation and facts incontrovertibly inform us that the earth’s crust is laden with trillions of fossilized plants and animals; how, when, and why they got there are subjective appraisals offered by both creationists and evolutionists in story form. To paraphrase Democritus, then, “The earth’s crust is permeated with the dead; all else is narrative.”
Carl Sagan is supposed to have said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof (or words to that effect), which is a praiseworthy desideratum. (He also said stupid things like “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be” — a completely inane statement incapable of being either proved or disproved. He certainly didn’t “eschew metaphysics” with that one.) At any rate, the laws of physical science (and, by extension, biology) render impossible a self-creating universe ex nihilo that is itself continually creating entities with greater information and energy content. (And, if you listen carefully to evolutionists’ cross-talk, they know it too but don’t want the rest of us to know it.) Evolutionist appeals, therefore, to multiverses and occult matter just don’t cut it. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, then, the extraordinary claim that the universe made itself, maintains itself, and constantly improves itself in contradiction to physical laws requires proof. Please adduce the facts and stop making up stories.
(Note: Carl Sagan quote — http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan)
He also said stupid things like “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be” — a completely inane statement incapable of being either proved or disproved.
While I concur the statement is inane, it isn’t “incapable of being either proved or disproved”—it actually doesn’t require proof, because it is only a tautology, a statement of the definition of “cosmos”. I don’t see anything metaphysical about that at all.
At any rate, the laws of physical science (and, by extension, biology) render impossible a self-creating universe ex nihilo that is itself continually creating entities with greater information and energy content.
If you’re thinking of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, that is a very narrow reading of it. In a probabilistic universe, as favored by most physicists, complex systems are inevitable, only less likely to occur than non-complex systems. This is well established, almost axiomatic. It also seems to be the case according to observation, given that so far, Earth seems to be the only living planet.
As far as ex nihilo creation is concerned, in science there is an information horizon, beyond which things are unknowable or unprovable, and that is the province of religion and metaphysics. That horizon is occasionally pushed back, but it never disappears. One thing that is absolutely clear is that all models, including quantum mechanics and relativity theory and evolution, are not as complex as reality, because they are by their very nature abstractions.
In any case, my point that evolution isn’t religious is still on point, because there is no explanation offered, or even possible, of how or why evolution itself became a mechanism. That’s beyond the information horizon.
“Proof” is a much abused term in science, because no scientific model is complete or explains all phenomena. Logically you can prove that there exist truths that cannot be proven anyway. Evolution is generally accepted because of all theories concerning speciation it conforms most closely to the undisputed observed facts—and not just the fossil record. That is not an issue of faith.
My last point was simply that a belief in evolution as a non-mystical process is not incompatible with religion or spirituality.
I am not trying to convert you to my point of view, though. I’m a Mason, and there are people who claim that it’s a religion, too, because it requires a belief in God and in an immortal soul. But it’s not a religion at all, rather a philosophical symbology meant to illustrate moral integrity, a system that requires one to have one’s own religious convictions as a foundation. There is no Masonic dogma whatsoever. One of Freemasonry’s most important tenets is that religious convictions are between an individual and God, and should be respected even if you disagree with them.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh man. I think it’s criminal that evolution and masonic cults(heh heh….thought I’d through that in there, my daddy having been a Shriner guy and I still have his fez and stuff)….I digress….It’s criminal that neither of these subjects is a crime based thought.
Unless of course, we have a fish whose evolved into a serial killer and offed a Mason in route to raise funds for the Children’s Burn Unit.
Not only would that be fishy, but a real crime.
Sorry, the devil is at work again.
alisa, there is an explanation, with less stretching of our whims at Criminal Brief than usual. I’ve researched and tinkered with an idea for a mystery set at the turn-of-the-20th century. While it doesn’t feature Darwin as a character, his ideas permeate the background for the story in and around the British Museum. Learning that an innocuous movie was to be denied us seems like a crime to me. Disinformation– i.e, lying in the name of religion– is abhorrent. We– and even adherents to the Wedge strategy– should be above that.
Mike, thanks for a literate rebuttal. When I think of Carl Sagan, I think of Apple Computer. At one point, Apple code-named internal projects after famous astronomers, Copernicus, Galileo, and of course Sagan. The names found their way into the trade press and eventually Carl heard about it. He sued Apple for defaming his character and using his name without permission.
The judge threw the case out, pointing out the name was used internally and that employees meant to honor Sagan, not defame him.
Carl grew even more irate when he learned the Sagan project had been renamed BHA.
It seems BHA stood for ‘butt-head astronomer.’.