WorldNetDaily: Intelligent design movie loses Smithsonian aegis

And yet, the movie makers--the Discovery Institute--come out ahead and show their film anyway.

The Discovery Institute is an Intelligent Design think tank. Remember: all that Intelligent Design Theory says is that certain variables about the universe, and irreducible complexities about life itself, all are evidence of design. ID theorists sometimes describe the situation in terms of the Universal Probability Bound that gives the absolute longest odds that anything can have against it before we have to admit that something--or rather Someone--made it happen. ID theory says nothing about Who that Someone is.

And to be more specific, the Discovery Institute produced a film, called The Privileged Planet, which says outright that our earth has a uniquely privileged position in the universe. That position derives from earth's placement in its orbit around the sun, the sun's position in the galaxy, and the values of certain key constants that govern gravity, electromagnetism, and the "strong" and "weak" nuclear forces that affect subatomic particles--in short, the four fundamental forces of nature. Here's the point: if any of those constants differed by more than a minute fraction from its present value, life would be impossible. Such is the privilege of earth--that it is well-enough situated even to host life, much less have life begin on it. I would imagine that the odds against the granting of this privilege are easily longer than the Universal Probability Bound allows them to be.

The Discovery Institute made a sixty-minute documentary to make this point. They sought to have it shown at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, and specifically at the Baird Auditorium at that edifice. So, according to the Smithsonian's rules, they ponied up $16,000 and announced that the Smithsonian would co-sponsor the event.

Enter James Randi, illusionist and professional debunker of psychics and paranormal claimants. Now I have no brief for psychics--the Bible says that any legitimate psychics are, by their very nature, extremely dangerous. But Mr. Randi doesn't believe that any of them are legit at all. Fine--the overwhelming bulk of them are humbugs and frauds. But Mr. Randi also says that about any clergyman, or any adherent of any religion. He knows no god but reason--and "reason" can be a god that man can easily stand up in preference to the One True God.

Mr. Randi offered the Smithsonian $20,000 if they would renege on their promises to the Discovery Institute and refund them their donation. Well, the Smithsonian knew that if they kicked them out of the auditorium, the Institute would have grounds to sue. So they ended up refunding their donation, asking the Discovery Institute not to list them as co-sponsors--and letting them show their film in its facility anyway.

Folks, it doesn't get any better than this.

I do have one other comment to make, concerning Mr. Randi's defense of reason:

This situation reflects a very critical situation in the present status of the ongoing war between reason and superstition...It has become increasingly obvious that the creationists are flailing about trying to borrow or steal validation from science for a distinctly unscientific notion, by any means they can invent. And they have been successful in that goal when their tricks have worked. They borrow scientific terms, superficially apply legitimate scientific findings to their ideas in inappropriate ways, and try to appear to be using reason while actually abusing it.

Wrong, Mr. Randi. What you have made obvious is that the science doesn't support pure evolution anymore--the Universal Probability Bound says that it couldn't have happened in all the time that anyone is willing to allow for the age of the universe, and frankly Dr. William Dembski's estimates for that bound are too generous, anyway. So the evidence is stacking up against you, and you know it. But of course you're not really defining the word reason as "an objective inquiry into facts and events." What you call "reason" is actually materialism. You can no more dismiss the preternatural--that's right, preter-natural, or That Which existed before nature--than we can dismiss nature itself. Nor have any of us tried to dismiss nature. But the numbers incontrovertibly tell us that Something More must surely exist and be at work.

Congratulations, Mr. Randi. You've just shelled out $20,000 for the privilege of making a jackass of yourself, $16,000 of which will now help the Discovery Institute in ways that would not have been possible absent your ill-considered intervention. Aesop did say, did he not, that sometimes one ought to leave well enough alone.