1.God took a rib from Adam to create Eve. YIKES

2. One day (no more than 6000 years ago)God got so mad at the world he flooded it, drowning everyone living on it except a lone family. This lone family is what every race in the world is now a descendant of.

Pope John Paul 2 announced evolution “as an effectively proven fact.” (ROA, 82)

In fact, theologically, creation is not that big a deal. The first 2 books of Genesis deal with creation the next 10 are about adam, eve and lineage; the remaining 38 are about Abraham. Genesis is about God’s covenant with Abraham.

Intelligent design is a long winded argument using scientific terms to say “god did it”. This is the realm of theology and Genesis pretty much summed it up on a page. If you think you can do a better job than the author of Genesis – be my guest.

If anything these intelligent designers run the risk of blasphemy by trying to force their viewpoints and assumptions upon the Genesis narrative. So not only are they shunned by the scientific community, many in theological circles see them as a peculiar animal that are bastardizing theology in order to deflate the theory of evolution. This is like blowing up a mountain because you need a rock to throw.

I believe the theory of evolution is as true as the theory of gravity but that is not the reason I disagree with the ID camp. I disagree with them because I am a theologian and their tactics are insulting to millennia of theological discourse. I am now most certainly a godless hedonist, but I owe it to my professors and education to stand against such nonsense.

If this is to be a balanced documentary, the inclusion of theologians that oppose Intelligent design is a must.

by all means teach it as part of a religious studies program alongside the studies of islam, budhism, christianity but leave it out of the science room as it has zero place in there.

to try and pass this bogus idea off as science is just another way to try and sneak forced religion into the class room plain and simple.

it is amazing to me that scientologists are dismisse das wackos when you think about all the things other religions believe….scientology is no weirder..its just newer.

keep ID where it belongs and thats not in the science room…..

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/08/im_gonna_be_a_movie_star.php

That’s the kind of people we’re talking about, and that’s yet another reason I don’t need to see the entire movie to know it’s made by lying bottom feeders and is probably not worth my time.

1) That this film might present anything new and eye-opening. I’ve been following news about it since its making was announced a long time ago, I’ve read stories about it and interviews with Stein about it, I’ve seen clips from it. So far all I’ve seen are years-old and in some cases decades-old evolution-denialist talking points, stale as last week’s donuts, plus a heavy dose of melodramatic martyr posing. Those of us who’ve followed this “controversy” for years have heard it all before 468 gajillion times.

2) That the people behind this film, and IDists more generally, are basically honest and straightforward (even if maybe mistaken) and interested in doing science or honestly discussing it. ID is a political and religious movement that uses public relations tactics and a pseudoscientific veneer to target the scientifically untrained public with disinformation. This is the one thing you must always remember with regard to IDists – it explains everything they do and say. Its leaders and spokespeople don’t do any science – most of them aren’t even trained scientists, and they have no research program and have published not a single original research paper despite about 20 years on the scene and millions of dollars in funding per year. They constantly tell whoppers about the state of scientific knowledge and research, distort and quote out of context the work of real scientists, and dissemble their own motivations. Catch them with their guard down a little – for example, in front of one of the religious groups they often speak to – and their motivations are pretty clear: to beat back the rising tide of secularism and promote their conservative conception of God, in education particularly. Google “Discovery Institute” and “wedge document” to read it in their own words.

Nobody in science is hurting ID proponents or blocking their careers. They’ve abandoned real scientific careers by refusing to follow the rules all the other scientists do (devise testable hypotheses and test them in the lab and the field, submit original research to peer-reviewed science journals and conferences, etc.). Instead they put out lots of press releases complaining about their mistreatment and attacking evolutionary scientists. Their big shots write popular press books aimed at laypeople who don’t have the knowledge to see through their distortions; edit “textbooks” aimed at high school students even less prepared to do so; and charge thousands of dollars a pop for speaking engagements with religious and political organizations. They have comfortable careers, voluntarily chosen, as professional martyrs for ID.

Open mindedness, tolerance, etc., are of course vital values central to a healthy culture. These values do not require us to avoid calling people with a record of obvious dishonesty “liars,” or calling ideas unsupported by any evidence “wrong.” That’s not open-mindedness, that’s lazy thinking and lack of discernment. These filmmakers and the people they champion are not honest or honorable and don’t deserve your credit.

Actually, he’s not being taken out of context. As for the validity of those in the trailer, I absolutely 100% agree with you! That’s my whole point… the film, and the arguments made therein need to be observed and considered before passing praise or judgment on it. Seems like everyone (pro and against) seem to have made up their minds already about it.

@John, based on just the trailer, it does look like scientists who raise legitimate questions are being told to “shut up”. But, without more information than just the trailer, it’s impossible to judge how accurate that impression really is.

Any scientist will readily admit that there are many legitimate questions left to be answered. In fact, if there were no questions left to be answered, there would be no point to being a scientist. However, the ID crowd are not raising legitimate questions. They are attacking a caricature of evolution, and repacking questions that have been asked and answered long ago. Your out-of-context quote from Dr. Pilbeam illustrates the dishonesty employed by the ID camp. Pilbeam was commenting on certain hypotheses about the hominid family tree, not casting doubt on the theory of evolution as a whole. Btw, Pilbeam is the Curator of Paleoanthropology at the Peabody Museum, not the Boston Museum of Natural History.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but to me the trailer looks like people in the scientific community who raise these questions and are being told to “shut up” (to quote the one guy in the trailer).

I think we need to just see the thing, hear the arguments and then decide if it should be dismissed out of hand. it strikes me that a lot of people are wanting to have this sort of project dismissed without a hearing. This, is the danger I’m always worried about.

I personally believe in God, and believe that he helped form the universe. Believing that the Bible is absolutely true and infallible isn’t going to fly.

But believing that an intelligent being has nudged or pushed things to go the way they want? Not that farfetched. What would it look like for God to say “Let there be light?” Would it look like the Big Bang? Doesn’t that make sense?

That’s what this documentary is suggesting. If you refute it as nonsense and flat wrong, then you aren’t LISTENING to what people are saying. You’re assuming they’re saying that the world was created exactly as the Bible depicts it, and most Christians I know are very clear on the fact that Genesis is a STORY.

In short: if you’re open minded, God and science are not mutually exclusive. Not in the slightest. But you have to be willing to really listen, and really think. Most people don’t seem willing to do either.