As a resident of the city where the “Trial of the Century” (hyperbole intended) played out in Judge Jones’ courtroom in the Federal Courthouse here, I urge everyone to set their TIVO’s up to record Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, which will be shown on most PBS stations this coming Tuesday, November 13, 2007 at 8:00 PM (at least locally – check your local listings).
I can’t say whether it will be any good, but it will be interesting, no doubt, if it simply sticks to the actual case. It’s a real life drama, not some trumped up Lifetime for Women psuedo-drama created for entertainment value. The stakes were high, international attention was focused on it, and the results were singularly devastating to the creationist Intelligent Design movement.
If you want to pursue the matter further, after watching the program, there are two books that I know have already been published, one reviewed here, and the other fittingly written by a great great grandson of Charles Darwin. In addition, the opinion of Judge Jones in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case is must reading for anyone investigating the “controversy”. The ACLU also has a page devoted to the issue on their website.
I just regret that I do not own a TIVO.
SPANISH INQUISITOR 
Don’t forget to mention all the gloating that was going in the ID movement before the ruling came out. The judge was a conservative, religious Bush appointee. Surely he was going to issue a smackdown to those crazy Darwnistias!
And then the verdict came down. And Jones, despite being the perfect bias as far as they were concerned, simply wasn’t convinced in the least by the arguments of the ID side.
Suddenly, Jones was declared an activist judge, a disgrace, incompetent, etc. etc.
I know. I still get shivers up my spine when I read his prediction, in the opinion, that he would be labeled an activist Judge.
SI, you said: The opinion of Judge Jones in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case is must reading for anyone investigating the “controversy”.
Yes. It’s a clearly written decision rendered by a serious jurist who actually listened to the evidence without revealing any predispositions. And it’s completely non-activist, unless you think that standing up for the First Amendment makes one an activist.
Spanqy, what is the obsession with TIVO? You haven’t got a VCR? Or you’ve got one and haven’t figured out how to program it? You sure you’re not making TIVO into a god? Careful, or you’ll end up wandering around in the streets in sackcloth and ashes babbling to strangers “I haven’t been TIVOed yet.” Or asking people “You do know how to praise TIVO, don’t you?”
Ummm, I do think I’m having a silly day. Too much political gas fuming my brain.
I’m with Ric on this. Who needs Tivo when every cable company and satellite service offers DVR at a reasonable price. I imagine there might be some feature on Tivo that isn’t on DVR but mine does everything I NEED. And, if you have neither, can’t your set up your old VCR to record it?
This is one of those TV events that PBS will show several times anyway. Just check pbs.org and I’m sure they’ll have listings for other times that it’s on. I’m looking forward to it. I haven’t read any of the books out on it, but reading the transcripts of Judge Jones decision and Rothschild’s cross exam of Behe is all I need to want to see this.
hehe. Ric, can I send you one of my TIVO Chick tracts?
Actually I have no desire to ever get a TIVO, as I watch very little TV. Just a little Bill O’Reilly on occasion when my blood pressure gets weak, and needs a boost. I do have a VCR around here somewhere, but I think I’d have to go find the manual, because I only ever used it to watch pre-recorded tapes, not record. And I’ve switched to DVD’s a long time ago, so it’s a dinosaur. It might even be a Betamax.
But for this one, I think I’ll go look for the manual.
“Actually I have no desire to ever get a TIVO, as I watch very little TV. ”
Good for you. No wonder you’re such a thoughtful guy. While I watch more than you do (apparently) I really do make a conscious effort to limit it and if you threw sports out completely I probably only watch about 5 or 6 hours of TV a week. That’s WAY down from my youth, and I do feel like I’ve gotten smarter as my TV viewing has gone down. TV is a killer. Gore wrote some excellent things about the effects of television on us in his great book “The Assault On Reason”.
TIVO, DVR……duuuuuuuh. I know just enough about this thing I’m on to make it work, and use it for my arrangements. I’m lucky I have young friends who take my hand and continually surprise me. They howl with laughter when I get that bemused look and say, “Sunuvabitch! I didn’t know this thing could do that! How ’bout THAT!”
On the other hand, I take some of these same kids to work on a car club member’s hot rod or antique car and, sure as a hope to shit in your mess kit, they look at a drwell tach or feeler guage like the apes in 2001 look at a stick.
But, as a fellow Pencil Yuckian, SI, I see a lot of the fundie viewpoint displayed in our local gov”t, and unfortunatley, it seems that a lot of people like it just fine. I’m a member of Civil Air Patrol and some cadets’ parents really don’t want you to tell the kids about plate tektonics and the formation of the Bald Eagle Ridge. There’s never been any such a thing as Pangea which formed the ‘hook’ we have here.
Some years back we were on a mission and camped next to a limestone outcrop and one of the kids found some fossils. Another, (went to a ‘christian academy)’, took a hammer and started obliterating them. He’s been told that god put them there as a joke and test or that the devil had made them to lead men into temptation. Either way, he wanted to spare those among us with weak faith. And this was not a stupid kid.
“And this was not a stupid kid.”
Sarge, depends on what EXACTLY we mean by “stupid”.
John, the kid is very intelligent but he WAS a teenager, had a lifetime (for him) of indoctrination in avery muscular, in your face form of christianity.
If you met the kid’s parents you would see this young man as liberal, open, \tolerant, and comparisonate. He has had a lifetime of indoctrination. The acceptance of this doctrine by him was very much a factor in the acceptance OF him by the people he dealt with and depended on for most of the things in life. His circle of associates (except me) were then and are now pretty much like this. So, there are roped off areas in his thought process which he can’t rearrange, if he does he will have to pay a social and mental price which will be quite high. Things which are right, proper, and good are very much spelled out. Deviation means a lot of trouble for him and young folks like him.
Me? I articlated my lack of belief when I was eight, paid a pretty heavy price for it through the years, too. Luckily for me I was always an outsider and I didn’t give a hoot since I was always in trouble for other things as well. Sometimes, though, it got pretty lonely and the cost was higher than I could really afford…but I still paid it.
I have seen adults turn from being very logical, reasonable people to actually go into this sort of thing, and they go into it in the name of certainty and even safety. It is, of course, a false haven and some see it for what it really is and leave, but sometimes a complete refusal to face facts or reality appears to be a good and workable option. Even seems to work for them on some levels.
This should be available on Google Videos soon after it airs.
“Ric, can I send you one of my TIVO Chick tracts?”
Spanqy, you TIVOed baby chickens? How cute! I used to keep a few chickens, just for eggs, not for chicks. Used to keep bees too. Say, you don’t have any bee tracks, do you? I miss the humming of the hive on warm summer nights…
Ric, you crack me up….
I just finished watching it. It was very good to say the least. It’s amazing how the bad the IDer’s look. The former head of the school board is a plain idiot.
My favorite part is the cdesign proponentists, and if you watch it you will know what the term means.
Buckingham clearly is an idiot. He was a former police officer, (which is scary in itself) but I thought he was the most reprehensible at the end when he claims the Judge didn’t know the law. He lied under oath, and has the temerity to claim that?
Best Quote: From Judge Jones, referring to teaching ID as science in public schools and the effect it will have on the science education of our children and the country:
“Garbage In, Garbage Out”
SI, Buckingham and guys like him lie all the time. First, they lie to themselves, and they have some biblical (or early church father) thing about lies in the service of their deity not being a bad thing.
My father-in-law had a saying which applies to the situation: you put kids under half-assed adults, you get a crop of quarter-assed kids.Some of the ones I deal with are clearly1/64th assed.
I really enjoyed the program. My son who was in the next room kept asking me who I was talking to because I couldn’t control my involuntary name calling. SI, I totally agree with you. Buckingham had one hell of a nerve slandering the judge. I thought Bonsell was a real douche too. Both seemed to me to have self-serving agendas. I had to chuckle when Bonsell said he was only trying to make Dover “the best school” by introducing ID as an alternative to Darwin’s theory. And, that “theory isn’t fact.” No shit Sherlock! That’s why it’s called a theory, Einstein!
Spanqy, et al –
Why, since the ID and CS bozos have such a neat phrase like ‘irreducible complexity’, don’t we have a nice comeback phrase like ‘incremental simplicity’?
(I like it when my pre-coffee insights prove that I’ve come a long way from the simple inorganic compound I used to be. Anyone know where I can get a poster of Miller and Urey to put on my bedroom wall? Or maybe donate to the fundogelical church down the road?)