A closer look at some films, headlines that merit discussion

Malcolm Cutchins
Columnist
Published: April 24, 2008

Last Friday, ABC News revealed during its program “20/20” that a shot of 700-foot tall Antarctic ice shelves calving into the ocean in Al Gore’s 2006 film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” was entirely computer generated. The image was from the opening credits in the 2004 science fiction blockbuster, “The Day After Tomorrow.”

Ironically, the revelation was made by ABC’s foremost global warming advocate, Sam Champion. It was affirmed by the visual effects supervisor of the 2004 film, Karen Goulekas. “There’s nothing real in there,” she exclaimed.

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The film, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” opened in Auburn and thousands of theaters nationwide Friday. The convincing documentary makes a strong case for academic freedom while revealing the unscrupulous actions of Darwinists who get scientists “expelled” from their jobs (or from tenure) because they even hint that “Intelligent Design” might be true, or even that it should be discussed. Staunch believers in Darwinism often talk of “fact.”

Well, the facts using actual cases, not speculations, documented in this film show how opposing voices are silenced at Baylor, Iowa State, the Smithsonian and several other places. The one at Iowa State is particular appalling because the scientist has over 60 peer-reviewed publications in his field. What was his “sin?” Authoring the excellent 2004 book, “The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery.” The 444-page book includes 69 pages of detailed notes documenting his research. But we just can’t have anything in publication that might question the absolute dogma of evolution, can we?

The Smithsonian case involved the dismissal of a publication editor just because he let a peer-reviewed paper be published that mentioned the two forbidden words. There are extensive interviews with him in the film. Other side effects of an extreme Darwinist worldview are documented.

Staunch evolutionists are also interviewed. The producer, Ben Stein observes, “… I think a lot of people are going to see it and be amazed by the stories of the suppression of free speech, the flaws of Darwinism, and the unfortunate purposes to which Darwinism has been put within our lifetime.”

Stein, who narrates the film, is a Yale-trained trial lawyer, has been a professor at Pepperdine and an economist, writes regular business columns for The New York Times and has authored numerous books and articles.

To some of the evolutionists’ charges that they were misrepresented, Stein counters, “I don’t think we took anything out of context.”

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“Nine people were killed in 36 shootings over the weekend … During the same weekend last year, (there were) 19 shootings, including four killings, and 21 shootings were reported during the same weekend in 2006. (There were) 87 homicides during the first three months of this year, compared with 88 during the same period in 2007.

Police said more recent figures are not yet available. The weekend shootings come after a six-month period during which more than 20 … public school students were shot to death.”
Is this a script from a new horror film? Could this be typical of happenings in Iraq? No, this is an actual description that just appeared Tuesday on Charter News of events in Chicago.

Dr. Malcolm Cutchins is an emeritus professor of engineering of Auburn University and writes a column for The Opelika-Auburn News.