[Hac-announce] Fwd: STARS OF V.P. PUNKED BY CREATIONIST FILMMAKERS

[Thomas Platt]

Hi Humanists,

I have just received this forward from one of the paleontologists at  
the Peabody.  I have deleted much of the "to & from" names and  
corresponding e-mails.  V.P. = vertebrate paleontology.  Since it is  
obviously of a personal nature, please accord it due respect. - Tom

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: STARS OF V.P. PUNKED BY CREATIONIST FILMMAKERS
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2010 22:52:23 -0800
From: Kevin Padian


Got your attention? Good. Here's a recent video called "Evolution,  
the Grand Experiment," that dozens of VPers helped to make, innocent  
of the fact that the smooth-talking and obviously intelligent  
filmmakers were young-earth creationists. As the publicity says, it  
was "filmed over 12 years on three continents and seven countries,"  
and you can get it for twenty bucks on Amazon. It's being widely  
shown on cable TV. And it's being used in testimony for a current  
trial about whether and how to teach evolution in schools.

http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Grand-Experiment-Episode-1/dp/0892216972

The scientists punked by these twerps include Jim Kirkland, Phil  
Gingerich, Angela Milner, John Long, Gary Morgan, Irena Koretsky,  
Tasser Hussain, Gunther Viohl, Peter Wellnhofer, Tim Rowe, Annalise  
Berta, Phil Currie, Bill Clemens, Paul Sereno, Dave Weishampel, Nick  
Czaplewski, Andy Knoll, and Monroe Strickberger ... and yours truly.  
It's not that what all of you say in the video is wrong. It's that  
the filmmakers have taken it completely out of context. They have  
represented the honest uncertainty of science as fraud and hoax.

Oh, except for the supreme a**holery of Storrs Olson, king of the  
knuckleheads. He plays right into their hands, as you would expect.

The lesson would seem to be: unless you know personally and trust who  
filmmakers and media folk are, don't talk to them.

Except, of course, if they are from National Geographic. The best  
thing about this film is that it blows a new protostome into the  
scientific pretensions of some of that magazine's staff, who ignored  
Tim Rowe's evidence that Archaeoraptor was a fake, and instead went  
with the counsel of an (unnamed but widely known) advisor to NG who  
stated that "all these fossils have been altered anyway."

You may want to consider buying this video and showing it to your  
students with your own narration. You could even build a non-majors  
course in scientific inquiry and evolution by showing and stopping  
this film, interspersing your own evidence and perspective, and  
showing how some people are happy to lie for Jesus and any other  
religious icon.

Thanks to the NCSE staff for putting us on to this scam. -- kp

--

Kevin Padian
Department of Integrative Biology & Museum of Paleontology University  
of California,
Berkeley CA 94720-3140