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

[TomCADem]

Source: LA Times

L.A.'s California Science Center will start the new year defending itself in court for canceling a documentary film attacking Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

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.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-science-center29-2009dec29,0,6400745.story

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Could it be that intelligent design is not science? Heck, why don't they start showing movies about the existence of unicorns at the science museum while they are at it.

[baldguy]

1. Public schools sued for teaching that 2+2=4

[dnbn]

28. Public schools sued for refusing to teach that 2+2=5. n/t.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. "nonpartisan " - uh bullshit. nt.

[skepticscott]

3. Sounds like the Science Center

wasn't thinking too clearly about the whole thing from the start. If they are allowed to refuse to host events that are in conflict with their mission, then they should never have agreed to allow the movie to be shown in the first place. But if the law prevents them from picking and choosing what groups can use their facilities, then they should have just made that known in response to the pressure they got to cancel it.

[PSzymeczek]

4. It's called

a SCIENCE center for a REASON!

[BlueJazz]

5. I LOVE the comment by the people suing >>

"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."

I take it by "Western" they mean the 1800's as in Gunsmoke and Bonanza.

[Ken Burch]

6. Is Kirk Cameron in this one?

That seems to be his steady gig these days.

[tomhayes]

7. Where's your Messiah NOW???

See.

http://www.amazon.com/Wheres-Your-Messiah-Now/dp/B001P7PUN4

[laconicsax]

8. Let's call this what it is:

Science Center refuses to show anti-science creationist film, creationists sue.

[KansDem]

25. I don't know--it sounds more like a "breech of contract"

L.A.'s California Science Center will start the new year defending itself in court for canceling a documentary film attacking Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

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."

Sounds like a breech of contract. The California Science Center shouldn't have programmed this documentary in the first place. When it did and then canceled, it sounds more like a breech of contract than anything else.

But then, I'm not a lawyer...

[laconicsax]

29. They alledge a conspiracy to silence them.

It's all smoke and mirrors. The goal of the Intelligent Design movement is to replace evolution with creationism by attacking evolution as untenable. I doubt that the CSC would have drawn up a contract that permitted an outside group to show any film without being reviewed. The article indicates that after the outcry of them programming a creationist propaganda piece (read: anti-scientific bullshit), they reviewed the movie and decided that it wouldn't be shown. I can't imagine that a venue wouldn't reserve the right to do just that.

Intelligent Design is creationism in a tuxedo and its proponents epitomize dishonesty. This is more than a simple breech of contract issue.

[KansDem]

30. Oh, I agree with you 100%!

If it were simply a "breech of contract" matter, we wouldn't hear about it at all. However, by turning it into a "We're being silenced/we're being censored" controversy, creationists will rally its followers with yet another attempt to subject the populace with their myth and superstition.

Believe me--I know!

Kansas Education Board First to Back 'Intelligent Design'
Schools to Teach Doubts About Evolutionary Theory

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 9, 2005; Page A01

TOPEKA, Kan., Nov. 8 -- The Kansas Board of Education voted Tuesday that students will be expected to study doubts about modern Darwinian theory, a move that defied the nation's scientific establishment even as it gave voice to religious conservatives and others who question the theory of evolution.

By a 6 to 4 vote that supporters cheered as a victory for free speech and opponents denounced as shabby politics and worse science, the board said high school students should be told that aspects of widely accepted evolutionary theory are controversial. Among other points, the standards allege a "lack of adequate natural explanations for the genetic code." The bitterly fought effort pushes Kansas to the forefront of a war over evolution being waged in courts in Pennsylvania and Georgia and statehouses nationwide. President Bush stated his own position last summer, buoying social conservatives when he said "both sides" should be taught.

"This is a great day for education. This is one of the best things that we can do. This absolutely teaches more about science," said Steve E. Abrams, the Kansas board chairman who shepherded the conservative Republican majority that overruled a 26-member science committee and turned aside the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association.

Opposing board members accused Abrams and his colleagues of hiding behind a fiction of scientific inquiry to inject religion into science classrooms. They said the decision would be bad for education, bad for business and bad for the state's wounded reputation.

"This is a sad day, not only for Kansas kids, but for Kansas," said Janet Waugh, who voted against the new standards. "We're becoming a laughingstock, not only of the nation, but of the world."

The Board of Education does not mandate what will be taught to public school students, a decision left to local school boards. But by determining what students are expected to know for state assessment tests, the board standards typically influence what students learn.
(more in the article).

I'm in the midst of all this! Can you imagine Kansas high-school graduates applying to prestigious universities (Stanford, MIT, etc.) with courses in "intelligent design" on their transcripts? :crazy:

I thought, though, the article read that "breech of contract" was a very real matter. Just not as headline-grabbing...

[msongs]

9. "...promoting western values...." - eastern religions are now "western" values? nt

[DesertDiamond]

10. If they showed that film they would have to change their name to California Pseudoscience Center.

[daleo]

11. Was the Cambrian on the sixth day or the fifth (of creation)?

And when did the Bible mention trilobytes or stromatolites? Did Adam chow down on the Burgess Shales? Did he have crinoids for lunch?

[Ichingcarpenter]

12. The intelligent design of my ever growing nose, ear and rectal hairs

Nose hair growth blockage, as you get older and shorter of breath..... intelligent design

Ear hair growth as you get older and can't hear as well.....
intelligent design

Don't even get me started on the last one.

[dysfunctional press]

14. when we went to the tower of london while in england, our 'beefeater' guide had the hairiest ears...

and nose that i had ever seen in my life. they were thick, and long, and i doubt if he had ever trimmed them even once in his life.
i can only assume that his rectum was probably in a similar fashion. :shrug:

[Ichingcarpenter]

16. The Verb“bara” in ancient Hebrew means to separate not create.

So you thought Genesis 1:1 claims that God created the universe? That’s because you don’t understand Hebrew:

Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis “in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth” is not a true translation of the Hebrew.

She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world—and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals.

<. . . >

She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb “bara”, which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean “to create” but to “spatially separate”.

The first sentence should now read “in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth”

<. . .>

She said technically “bara” does mean “create” but added: “Something was wrong with the verb.

“God was the subject (God created), followed by two or more objects. Why did God not create just one thing or animal, but always more?”
She concluded that God did not create, he separated: the Earth from the Heaven, the land from the sea, the sea monsters from the birds and the swarming at the ground

I’m glad she was able to correct this misperception. Now if she could explain how scholars for thousands of years seem to have missed this point.

A spokesman for the Radboud University said: “The new interpretation is a complete shake up of the story of the Creation as we know it.”
Prof Van Wolde added: “The traditional view of God the Creator is untenable now.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6274502/God-is-not-the-Creator-claims-academic.html

[and-justice-for-all]

13. Well if I.D/creationism was real science...

there would not be much of a problem.

I also sent the SI and CSC a thank you for standing up for real science.

[fascisthunter]

15. Time to Shove the Constitution Down their Throats

since they wish to shove their bible down everyone else's. These fucking whack jobs have no argument nor any position at all. They are babbling religious fanatics with shit for brains.

You don't like the separation of CHurch and State? Go move to the middle east.

[sendero]

17. There go those..

... "tort reform"-happy moronic wingnuts filing another lawsuit. Hypocrites.

[jmowreader]

18. Fundies don't realize ID is real science, but not the science they want it to be

Intelligent Design falls under DSM-IV paragraphs 297.1 (delusional disorder, grandiose subtype, and delusional disorder, persecutory subtype), 297.3 (shared psychotic disorder), possibly 301.0 (paranoid personality disorder), and 301.81 (narcissistic personality disorder). Add in V62.89 (borderline intellectual functioning) and 300.3 (obsessive-compulsive disorder) for good measure. I was going to say 301.7 (antisocial personality disorder), but that's psychopathy/sociopathy, and most of them aren't that way. Some are, though; we'll reserve 301.7 for the ones who really need it.

The care and management of the clinically insane is a science, and these people most definitely ARE.

But I'll tell ya what: so long as they're willing to let Richard Dawkins give the Easter sermon at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels or the Crystal Cathedral, I'd be more than happy to let them show their Intelligent Design film at the California Science Center. (Make it a double feature--play Darwin's Dilemma, followed by a montage of promotional ads for Thorazine and Librium.)

[Tempest]

19. A court found ID to be Creationism, which is religion, which is illegal to promote

The CA Science Center is GOVERNMENT owned and it would be illegal for them to promote Creationism by showing the movie.

[sakabatou]

20. ... to promote in class rooms

Doesn't anywhere else.

[Zhade]

23. If the museum takes federal funds, it's ILLEGAL to promote religion.

And then there's the obvious criticism, which is that ID IS NOT SCIENCE IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM!

(Sorry to shout, it's not directed at you.)

[AlphaCentauri]

21. I love unicorns and pegasus but not in science classes n/t

[TrogL]

22. The museum is trying to avoid MIT's mistake

I've got a book at home called something like "The UFO Conference at M.I.T."

Buried deep in the fine print is a disclaimer that the wacko UFO group had rented a classroom at M.I.T. to hold their little conference and that no way no hell was M.I.T. sanctioning...blah blah blah.

Nevertheless every once in awhile some UFO idiot will claim MIT held a UFO conference.

#####

Disclaimer - I have, in fact, seen a UFO and have yet to hear a coherent explanation for what I've seen.

[CreekDog]

24. The plaintiffs filed suit right before an appearance on Fox advocating "Tort Reform"

:eyes:

[seeinfweggos]

26. they ought to be sued for false advertising if they DO show it

calling themselves a science center and all

[KamaAina]

27. Wouldn't that be more like a "mockumentary"?

You know, like "This Is Spinal Tap"?

a documentary film attacking Charles Darwin's theory of evolution