Remembering The Privileged Planet

My "wintery knight" blogger friend has blogged on The Privileged Planet (the book) - and the film whose showing at the Smithsonian launched my career as a blogger.

The universe shows evidence of design. Like it, hate it, learn it, ignore it. That's all up to you. Don't try telling me it isn't true. It's the big scandal of materialist science today.

Get Planet, watch it, and buy one for your local library.

What do you have to lose?

How about losing a bunch of drug addicts, some of whom commit crimes to buy their dope. (= "I have a right to be an addict because everything is meaningless." Oh yeah?

Friend, you need some courses in basic science ... let us help ... )

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

(Remember, I want you to buy my book so my publisher can be persuaded in these awful times to let me update it a bit. It's a fine book; you'll be glad you read the first edition when I come out with the second, for the same reasons as you want to see the first seg of any long film series. )

Dissing St. Stephen Jay in his own church?

The trouble with being a secular evolution saint is that, a couple years down the road, you don't get no respect at all. Have a look at "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism," a site (herafter called the J site) that uses Gould's name to market an anti-Darwinian self-organization theory of the development of life that I don't know if Gould ever endorsed. Gould died in 2002.

(The basic idea behind self-organization is the claim that order can take hold at the boundaries of chaos. Some argue that this accounts for the origin and development of life. The best-known exponent of the idea is Stuart Kaufmann , associated with the Santa Fe Institute but lately in Banff, Western Canada, according to his CV.)

The message at the J site is addressed to the 400 scientists who signed Discovery Institute's dissent from Darwinism. To them, J prophesies in a loud voice,

You are in accord with most evolutionary biologists who have long since relegated natural selection to micro-evolution at best. Leading among these was Stephen Jay Gould, although he was careful not to pronounce publicly for fear of its misuse by the Intelligent Design movement which is based on the claim that the only alternative to natural selection, or Darwinism, is God.

If anyone out there knows for sure why this is/is not an accurate summary of Gould's thinking, I hope they'll blog on it, so I can link to them. I have not read Gould's doorstop, Structure of Evolutionary Theory , in which he would have made such a point, if he ever did anywhere. It's no secret that Gould fell out with Darwinian fundamentalists (he may well have coined the term himself) like Richard Dawkins. But I've just never heard that he embraced self-organization theory as a consequence.

An urgent note is struck at the J site, regarding the crisis of Darwinism:

This may be the most important issue ever to face science. On its outcome depends nothing less than academic freedom in America. Some overzealous Darwinians have been using extreme means to suppress dissent. Some individuals who have published opposing views have been hounded and their careers threatened or smashed. This issue is soon to be tested in a number of legal cases which may rival the Scopes trial in impact. Most notably I call your attention to the case of Richard Sternberg vs. the Smithsonian Institute.

Okay, you got my attention, J. But then, following the prophecy is a warning:

While the list of 400 is impressive, its possible usefulness to scientific debate is compromised because it is published by the neo-creationist Discovery Institute, and includes individuals who believe that the vacuum caused by the failure of Darwinism should be filled by God, with no third possibility. It is impossible to determine who’s who. Your name on this list may compromise your scientific credibility. If, in fact you believe in creationism, this letter does not pertain to you. Otherwise, you suffer guilt by association.

Funny, isn't it, that J claims to be concerned about intellectual freedom but then, in the very next paragraph markets the infamous notion of guilt by association, but let's move on.

We are told that intelligent design is winning the culture wars, with a theocracy shortly to follow.

You know, J, that theme's been, like, done, eh? Canadian literata Margaret Atwood beat the whole idea to death in The Handmaid's Tale thirty years ago, and she can write you into a corner any time. They even made her novel into a movie and I saw the Handmaid's neat red costume at a sci-fi exhibit in Ottawa a few years ago. And that's all that ever came of the theocracy.

We are then told that neo-Darwinism is a bust, because "Evolutionary biologists no longer believe that natural selection is the prime mechanism of evolution." They don't? That's not what most of them have been saying, but I better check my inbox.

Now J may be right, of course. They could know it's a bust and fail to admit it, the way directors of a failing company do. J goes on to mention something I had been meaning to draw attention to myself, and he almost beat me to it. But he says it in a kind of confused way, so I am going to say it in a clear way:

If you look at Michael Shermer's and Ricki Lewis's accounts of the "Woodstock of Evolution," the World Evolution Summit on the Galapágos last June, it is evident that Darwinian theory is indeed falling apart.

Now don't bother telling me that it is normal for scientists to have disagreements. Sure it is. But the reported disagreements were about such fundamental matters as the level at which natural selection occurs (yes, see Lewis's report), whether sexual selection even occurs, whether there really is a universal common ancestor, et cetera. Well, if after a century and a half, they are not even sure at what level natural selection occurs or whether sexual selection occurs or whether universal comon ancestry is true, I am not sure that what we are looking at is even a discipline, as opposed to a series of naturalistic speculations about the origin and development of life.

Apparently, at the gathering, evo-devo earth mother Lynn Margulis proclaimed the neo-Darwinian synthesis (= standard evolutionary theory, currently being rammed into kids' heads in schools, by law) to be dead — nonetheless proclaiming triumphantly, "I am a Darwinist". In the context, I guess she meant "I am a philosophical naturalist."

Which is precisely my point. If that's all that holds them together, it is not a science discipline; it is a band of believers.

Anyway, back to the J site: We are offered "The origin of species without Darwin or God." and a booklet called "Biological Self-Organization" which you can read online. There is also a book available, called Lifecode by art collector Stuart Pivar, who seems to have been a friend of Andy Warhol and is no slouch in biology. Lifecode is listed among self-organization books.

One problem with knowing what to make of all this is that an official Stephen Jay Gould site doesn't currently seem to be online, so I don't know that there is any public record of what the keepers of his official legacy would say in response. If I learn anything more of interest, I will post it.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

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Blog service: If you came here to find out about ...

- the Privileged Planet film shown at the Smithsonian, go here for an extended review. Please do not raise cain about an "anti-evolution" film without seeing it. If your doctor forbids that, at least read my detailed log of the actual subjects of the film. If you were one of the people who raised cain, ask yourself why you should continue to believe the people who so misled you about the film's actual content ...

- the actual showing of Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian, go here and here to start, and then this one and this one will bring you up to date.

(The only big news is that, just before the event, the Smithsonian announced that it intended on keeping $5000 of the $16 000 that it claimed in public that it would return to Discovery Institute. So if you are a journalist like me, be among the first to get the numbers right, m'kay?)

- the California Academy of Sciences agreeing to correct potentially libellous statements about attorney Larry Caldwell, who thinks that students should know about weaknesses as well as strengths of Darwinian evolution theory, click on the posted link and check the current daily post for any updates.

- Bill Dembski threatening to sue the Thomas More Law Center in the Dover, Pennsylvania ID case, click on the posted link and check the current daily post for updates. (Note: In breaking news, this has apparently been settled. See the story for details. )

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

For Privileged Planet, Smithsonian withholds $5000 for “expenses”

Well, I went to the Smithsonian, saw the Privileged Planet film (again), had a great time in the Hall of Gems and Minerals (which is absolutely fabulous), greeted the New York Times reporter — and learned an interesting tidbit.

According to a Discovery employee, the Smithsonian - having magisterially announced that it was returning Discovery Institute’s US$16 000 donation - has further very recently announced that it is actually keeping US$5 000 for “expenses.” That is, of course, the $5000 that DI put down as a deposit. So, by my math, the Smithsonian really only returned $11 000. I hope the future record on this money point reflects that.

Privileged Planet 1: Dissing St. Carl in his own church? So was that the crime?

Privileged Planet is, as the Washington Post noted, a “sophisticated” film. It features good music, glorious graphics, and narration by John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli in The Lord of the Rings. Rhys-Davies is an excellent narrator, principally in my view because he knows when to just not say anything and — better still — the writers know when to let someone else say it instead. Although the film obviously offers a message, I did not feel, not so far at least, that I was whacked upside the head with it.

It starts with a quote from T.S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

I guess some might see Eliot’s comment as “religious” (remember that one of my goals is to figure out why the Washington Post thinks the film is “religious”), but the fact is, Eliot’s quote turns up all over the place.

I, for one, having heard it way too often, wish the writers had chosen something else for their intro. But let’s move on.

The film begins with Voyager 1 and 2, the 1977 spacecraft mission to the outer planets and then addresses Earth’s position in the solar system, as understood by Ptolemy and then later Copernicus. One key difference between PP and more standard fare quickly emerges at this point:

PP avoids using Copernicus’s discovery that the Earth revolves around the sun as an excuse to preach on the insignificance of Earth and of human life. It goes so far as to assume that we may be significant and that it may be possible to discover our significance, in part, through science.

Well! I can certainly see where educated people raised on 20th century naturalism, nihilism, existentialism et cetera— whether they are secularists who embrace it or Christians who accommodate it—would find PP’s approach shocking.

But their shock has nothing to do with science as such. Science provides reasonable evidence for a variety of viewpoints, including lots of evidence for the Privileged Planet ideas.

The shock comes from unfamiliarity with an approach to science in which science does not function as the Canadarm of naturalism (the philosophy that nature is all there is).

For example, Denis Daniels, editor of Book of the Cosmos, is quoted talking about the way in which Copernicus enabled a correct understanding of the solar system. “Once you started to imagine the earth moving instead of the sun, the mathematics of that cosmic machine started to make sense.”

Then the narrator notes that Copernicus’s discovery of the Earth’s orbit morphed into the “Copernican Principle” - the idea that the Earth occupies no preferred place. Philosopher Jay Richards, a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute then recounts how this “no preferred place” interpretation “became prominent in the twentieth century.” He calls it “The Principle of Mediocrity.”

Richards may be leaning on the “Principle of Mediocrity” phrase a bit hard to drive the point home. Today I picked up 6630 Google hits for the Copernican Principle and only 701 hits for the Principle of Mediocrity (some of these hits may address unrelated issues as well).

But astronomer Carl Sagan (d. 1996), who would be much more popular with the Washington elite than Jay Richards, leaned a lot harder ... in the opposite direction. Sagan popularized the concept of mediocrity in the 1970s to such an extent that I never suspected until I read Rare Earth three years ago that there was significant evidence that his view might not be science at all, just a popular astronomer’s opinion.

Indeed, the film quotes Sagan saying, in Cosmos,

Because of the reflection of sunlight the Earth seems to be sitting in a beam of light, as if there were some special significance to this small world ... but it’s just an accident of geometry and optics. Look again at that dot. That’s here. Home. That’s us. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.

It is hard to miss the sneer in Sagan’s voice as he speaks these lines. Obviously, it was important to him to drive that point home.

Well, is Earth’s position “just an accident of geometry and optics”? Or is it not?

Now, here is the question I asked in By Design or by Chance?:

If there is evidence that Earth’s position is not just an accident of geometry and optics, is science permitted to know that? Or does science have to pretend it is an accident even in the face of considerable evidence that it is not?

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the intelligent design controversy.

We’re starting to see now what all the shouting is about.

(To be continued)

The Smithsonian, the Washington Post, and Carl Sagan's Cosmos

The latest official news about the screening of The Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian in Washington on June 23, 2005, can be found in the Washington Post or New York Times, but if you want to know how crazy things have gotten, go to the Discovery Institute’s “Wonders of the Smithsonian”, where you can read the documents from the Smithsonian for yourself. Yes!

Note: Much of this post is simply repeated from yesterday (because the links are still the ones you need, to understand the Smithsonian story) BUT note the following quotation and link to Privileged Planet screenwriter Jonathan Witt's defense of his work below, plus the material on Carl Sagan's Cosmos, which make perfectly clear that the Smithsonian is indeed the Church of Carl Sagan.

I had never realized that the US government had established a religion, but hey, the last time I (a Canadian) studied US history was in 1964, and that country has clearly changed a lot since then. But why this? Why now?

Jonathan Witt, a screenwriter for The Privileged Planet, points out,

Of course, finding one example of the Smithsonian boosting Carl Sagan's Cosmos, with its opening and patently atheistic creedal statement, is a little like finding an Italian restaurant in Rome to verify that the city is run by Italians. The Smithsonian has been given over, lock, stock, and barrel, to Sagan's metaphysical vision for decades. The one difference now is that they're explicitly stating that not only do they privilege Sagan's materialist metaphysic, they will block any scientific argument that suggests a contrary conclusion.

Also, note that The Privileged Planet's suggestion of purpose and design at the cosmic level is not directly equivalent to Sagan's creedal statement at the beginning of Cosmos. Sagan's statement of faith did not grow out of the scientific evidence. Rather it was a metaphysical premise. What scientific evidence could assure him that the universe is all there is, was, or ever will be? How would one test such a claim? Richards' and Gonzalez's argument, in contrast, does proceed from scientific evidence.

But Jonathan, baby, the Smithsonian doesn’t need evidence! It has the approval of the Washington Post!

Someone has also kindly supplied me with an actual text from Sagan’s Cosmos:

He writes,

Imagine a northern California rugged coastline with waves crashing on the rocks. The scene initially opens with a huge wave curling just off shore and the camera fades to show a lone figure walking out onto peninsula (100 yards long) surrounded by the waves. Sagan's ... opening line emerges as the camera focuses directly on the lone figure, Carl Sagan as he continues his soliloquy. As he continues speaking another wave curls in full screen and then the camera comes back to Sagan and eventually closing on the final words with a seagull floating down to the sea.

Then this is the text from the Cosmos broadcasts:

"The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be. Our contemplations of the cosmos stir us. There's a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the grandest of mysteries.

"The size and age of the cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity, is our tiny planetary home, the earth. For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves. This is a time of great danger. But our species is young and curious and brave, it shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the cosmos and our place within it. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky."

(Cosmos, Episode One: The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean, Turner Home Entertainment, 1989 (but I believe the initial date was 1979 the book copyright is 1980) - his notes.)

(Note from Denyse: If anyone has a good reason for believing that this text is not correct, or wants to hassle about copyright or buy advertising, please contact me at my e-mail address in my profile. I can't sell advertising because I have never tried it, but I can commiserate with you on other issues and try to do something about them.)

I wish that the makers of Privileged Planet would screen their film side by side with Sagan's, and invite the taxpaying American public to judge, just HOW is Privileged Planet more religious than this? Isn’t this just a different religion from what most Americans believe?

More to the point, I will put up relevant stuff from PP as soon as I can screen it at home and write it all down and let YOU judge. But if someone else gets to it before I do, I will gladly link to what they are doing instead.

According to the New York Times story on the subject,

"The major problem with the film is the wrap-up," said Randall Kremer, a museum spokesman.

"It takes a philosophical bent rather than a clear statement of the science, and that's where we part ways with them."

What I want the Discovery Institute - which is showing the controversial Privileged Planet film at the Smithsonian - to do is screen philosophical-type excerpts from Carl Sagan's Cosmos interleaved with excerpts from Discovery's fave Privileged Planet.

Would it be okay to show Cosmos at the Smithsonian but not Privileged Planet? Now why might that be?

Here is an excerpt from a previous blog in which I make quite clear that Sagan had an agenda to promote:

So the reason that many people may assail Smithsonian publicist Randall Kremer this week about the Smithsonian co-hosting the film is simply this: Screening a film at the Smithsonian that contradicts Carl Sagan’s creed that the “The Cosmos
is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” suggests that American science is not, after all, the Church of Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins. That will be news to some people, who have always assumed that it was. Well, we will soon see whether it is or is not. Certainly, Sagan’s phrase echoes—and mocks—the traditional Gloria , for whatever that is worth. The key question is, can an American science institution tolerate a film that suggests that there is evidence for intelligent design of the universe or is evidence of intelligent design impossible in principle because American science is indeed the Church of Carl Sagan?] (blog 5 28 2005, archives below)

Why is Sagan's agenda supposed to be "science" and Privileged Planet screenwriter Witt's agenda supposed to be "a major problem"? Is science at the Smithsonian really the Church of Carl Sagan?

Huh? Has Christmas come early? This Washington Post editorial is a gift to me because it illustrates precisely what I am trying to say. The editorialist notes,

While "The Privileged Planet" is an extremely sophisticated religious film, it is a religious film nevertheless. It uses scientific information -- the apparently "perfect" position of Earth in its orbit and in its galaxy, the uniqueness of its atmosphere -- to answer, affirmatively, the philosophical question of whether life on Earth was part of a grand design, and not just the result of chance and chemistry. Neither God nor evolution is mentioned. Nevertheless, the film is consistent with the Discovery Institute's general aim, which is to drive a wedge into the scientific consensus about the origins of life and the universe and to give a patina of scientific credibility to the idea of an intelligent creator.

Okay, so let me get this straight: Even though “scientific information” suggests that “life on Earth was part of a grand design, and not just the result of chance and chemistry,” there is a “scientific consensus” otherwise? And why is that?

Because science has become the church of Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins, and evidence actually doesn't matter. The point of science, as understood by the Washington Post is to uphold a consensus for which there is less and less actual evidence. My compliments to the editorialist for making this clear. There may still be time for him to get himself a ticket for the showing of Privileged Planet, but I bet they are going fast. At least it will be a chance to see a bunch of journalists in suits and ties. Get photos.

(Note: If you don’t know what I am talking about and are looking for an introduction to the uproar over the Smithsonian screening of The Privileged Planet, go here and here to start. I will update the story as I hear new items of interest. - Denyse)

Apparently, the Smithsonian is not going to accept the US$16 000 that Discovery paid them (yo, American taxpayers) but it will still screen the film, presumably for free.

Special thanks to Tommy Nguyen of the Washington Post, above, for getting right that—while I am “sympathetic” to the ID guys, who get horsed around daily, no kidding—I am not, strictly speaking, an ID advocate.

Did anyone besides young Tommy notice that this blog is called “The Post-Darwinist,” not “The ID Advocate”? In my view, ID may or may not be right, but Darwinism is certainly wrong.

(Note to anyone who cares/wonders: I WILL BE at the screening of Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian on June 23. A slow child was wondering out loud in the comments box below whether Discovery Institute was charging people to attend. "So is the DI charging anything for its screening party?" No, sweetie-hoo, one does not charge one's guests to attend a party. And if some of the comments do not get any smarter, I will soon start borfing them the way Bill Dembski does at Uncommon Descent. - cheers, Denyse)

[Note from Denyse to posters of comments: To the person who wrote, "Denyse, thanks for showing some integrity by not deleting comments that aren't kissing your [hearse]. Your credibility is thus higher than Dembski's." Well, you are surely not surprised that I have borfed your post. Handy rule: I am a Canadian grandmother and a loyal subject of Queen Elizabeth II. Language that you would not use if you were given an opportunity to state your case at Windsor Palace is not welcome here either. Also, I do not have time to run a Hall of Justice for unfairly borfed posts. If you disagree with my judgements, get your own blog. With all its defects, the Internet is the last free country in the world. - cheers, Denyse ]

If you like this blog, buy my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?, and help keep me in business. If you don’t think you’ll have time to read it, buy it for your kid or your kid’s teacher.