CA Science Center Sued for Info by Intelligent Design Group

[TomCADem]

Source: Dakota Voice

The Discovery Institute, an intelligent design think tank, has filed a petition against the California Science Center for refusing to disclose certain public documents.

The petition comes after the American Freedom Alliance filed a lawsuit against the science center for canceling a contract to screen a pro-intelligent design video at the center’s IMAX Theater.

Following the cancellation, the Discovery Institute requested the center to release public documents under the California Public Records Act. On Nov. 2, the center released 44 pages of documents and claimed no documents were withheld, except some personal information such as telephone numbers and email addresses.

However, the intelligent design think tank contends the claims are false and that some e-mail communications, including ones with the Smithsonian Institution – which allegedly expressed angst over the screening – and ones by decision makers, were not disclosed.


Read more: http://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/12/ca-science-center-sued-for-info-by-intelligent-design-group/

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Wow! First, the climate change e-mails, and now evidence of a cover-up regarding evolution! Maybe we are all drinking the Kool-Aid about evolution, as well as climate change. Maybe we should question other so-called truims such as whether the world is round.

:sarcasm:

[keep_it_real]

1. Check out: Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design

http://www.amazon.com/Signature-Cell-Evidence-Intelligent-Design/dp/0061472786/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260240837&sr=8-1

[ret5hd]

3. pffft. bullshit.

[skepticscott]

4. Donald Prothero's review is pure gold

Creationist garbage by someone with no relevant professional training, November 30, 2009
By Donald Prothero
I concur with the comments by the other 1-star reviewers, and would like to point out that Meyer has NO degree in biology, biochemistry or molecular biology--and it shows. His arguments are full of holes, and his command of facts is not even worthy of a frosh biology student. He does NO research in molecular biology, does not know anything about the actual data or how it was collected, and apparently doesn't even understand the primary literature when he bothers to read it. Likewise, his arguments about the "Cambrian explosion" are pure garbage. He has NO degree in paleontology, has never traveled to the key outcrops or collected the fossils, and wouldn't know one fossil from another if he had. There is no longer any "Cambrian explosion," just a Cambrian "slow fuse," from the earliest fossils of the major invertebrate phyla in Doushantuo, China, 600 m.y. ago, to the soft-bodied but large Ediacarans, to the earliest Cambrian "little shellies" of 550 m.y. ago, which are tiny but show the first sign of skeletonization. The large shelly fossils like trilobites don't appear until the third stage of the Cambrian, 520 m.y. ago, some 80 m.y. after the first members of their phylum. Hardly an "explosion"! This is all well documented in the paleontological literature but creationists like Meyer don't care to read anything up to date or change their lies to reflect what scientists really know--a classic example of lying to their audiences and intellectual dishonesty. The entire premise of the book is "I can't explain how this happened, therefore no one can, therefore the 'intelligent designer'/God did it". That may convince their audiences, but that is not how science works. Scientists don't just give up and say "some god/intelligent designer did it" when a problem is hard--they buckle down and work harder. And if you read any number of good trade books by actual scientists (not frauds like Meyer) on the biochemical research on the origin of life, you'll find they've made HUGE progress on nearly every step of the problem. They haven't created life in a test tube yet--but they are very close. But reading garbage like this by a non-scientist without an inkling of honesty, you would never know it.

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. Spot on! The utter presumption of those on either side of this weird

debate, who, however well-intentionedly, would demean Intelligent Design by designating it as scientific, beggars belief (pun, noted, ex post facto).

It far more fundamental than empirical science will ever be able to penetrate. It's like 4 being the total of 2 + 2. But only the simpletons of Western civilisation cannot see it. It's too primordial to be provable. How can you prove you made a toy aeroplane? Only by replicating it. But you know someone made it. Someone not just in possession of intelligence, but also of a purpose, in the case in point, directed to a certain end. I feel like I'm trying to enlighten Forrest Gump here.

[caveat_imperator]

12. Kinda expensive for toilet paper,...

don't ya think?

[Lorien]

13. Why?

[DavidDvorkin]

2. The March of the Wackadoodles.

[zonkers]

9. These reality/science haters are dangerous to our future.

[DavidDvorkin]

10. True

And I realize that it's dangerous to think they're insignificant or ineffective.

[skepticscott]

5. Maybe if the DI

did some actual fucking research they wouldn't need to subpoena other people's documents to make whatever pseudoscientific arguments they have in store for us next.

[laconicsax]

7. But if they did any actual research, they'd be forced to refute themselves.

[skepticscott]

8. Of course

So the only "research" they do involves quote-mining the literature of evolutionary biology for things they can sell out of context to their fundy patrons.

[laconicsax]

6. Science center doesn't want to show a creationist film, creationists sue.

[drm604]

11. Is this going to be a new tactic against science?

They've started stealing or demanding documents to comb through to find things to twist and misrepresent in order to confuse the general public.

If they don't find something (or even if they do) they'll claim that other information is being withheld.

First the email thefts. Then the break-ins and computer theft at the climate scientist's office at the University of Victoria. Now creationists are demanding documents from, and filing lawsuits against, a science center. What's next?

[caveat_imperator]

14. Next comes the violence

At least it will one day, I think. I'm sure there are many now who want to hurt scientists for not thinking like they do.

[drm604]

19. This has been my fear.

Some nut is liable to take it to the next level. Innocent people who are just trying to advance mankind may end up living in fear of their lives.

[boppers]

15. Great. A few days ago I pointed out how climate change deniers were like creationists...

Only the deniers had moved on to using legal harassment.

Turns out I was more accurate than I had hoped.

[struggle4progress]

16. It's part of a larger tradition of noisy dishonesty that has become popular in recent years.

The movie makers misrepresented themselves to several evolutionary biologists, who agree to cooperate -- and then were misleadingly edited, much as the anti-ACORN attack squad misleadingly edited their ACORN footage. The game, as usual, is to huff-n-puff controversy until people who aren't paying close attention begin to feel nervous, in much the way that the birthers have shrieked that Obama wasn't born in the US

These people have no interesting ideas: they simply have a tactic, which is to stir up pointless controversy and then whine that they are treated unfairly. Fighting back requires some intelligence: a frontal counter-assault usually plays into their hands -- one needs to find accurate one-liners that are not simply knee-jerk reactions

It doesn't help that the corporate media usually plays along with them

[skepticscott]

22. Liars, damned liars

and creationists...

[Edleft]

17. Another fake controversy

I work with a number of very bright people and so am
constantly amazed when I find some of them unsure about either
evolution or climate change, because "there is a lot of
disagreement in the science".

It worries me that the noise machine tactic is working as is
the media's habit of giving opposing views (no matter how
wakadoodle) a level platform.

I have succeeded in one thing though - I have convinced my
daughters to stay away from "true believers".  I
actually like Reagan's quote "Trust, but verify.".

[KakistocracyHater]

18. Christian Creationist Mythology is not science

*

[Joe Chi Minh]

21. Bingo! The truth of ID is too glaringly elementary to qualify for scientific investigation.