Source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ApcYt27Thr5n0bYa7FU5.DDwDH1G;_ylv=3?qid=20091201161834AAmxAqz

Creation

A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer.

Creation, starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin's "struggle between faith and reason" as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It depicts him as a man who loses faith in God following the death of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie.

The film was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival and has its British premiere on Sunday. It has been sold in almost every territory around the world, from Australia to Scandinavia.

However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying".

Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published.

"That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing," he said.

"The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.

"It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It's quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules.

"Charles Darwin is, I suppose, the hero of the film. But we tried to make the film in a very even-handed way. Darwin wasn't saying 'kill all religion', he never said such a thing, but he is a totem for people."

Creation was developed by BBC Films and the UK Film Council, and stars Bettany's real-life wife Jennifer Connelly as Darwin's deeply religious wife, Emma. It is based on the book, Annie's Box, by Darwin's great-great-grandson, Randal Keynes, and portrays the naturalist as a family man tormented by the death in 1851 of Annie, his favourite child. She is played in the film by 10-year-old newcomer Martha West, the daughter of The Wire star Dominic West.

Early reviews have raved about the film. The Hollywood Reporter said: "It would be a great shame if those with religious convictions spurned the film out of hand as they will find it even-handed and wise."

Mr Thomas, whose previous films include The Last Emperor and Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, said he hoped the reviews would help to secure a distributor. In the UK, special screenings have been set up for Christian groups.

Click here to watch the trailer.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6173399/Charles-Darwin-film-too-controversial-for-religious-America.html

Quarterly I get the HHMI (Howard Hughes Medical Institute) Bulletin. They always have great articles on the ever evolving science fields. Here is an article from their August addition about evolution in the classroom.

The E Word

by Nancy Volkers

Teaching evolution in high school often means a soft sell.

Twenty-six weeks into Suzanne Black's 10th-grade biology class in a Seattle suburb, she drops the bomb.

Evolution.

Black didn't purposely avoid the word before then, but in 25 years of teaching she's learned to minimize conflict by presenting information about evolution gradually.

Though the principles of evolution underlie biology from genetics to ecology, the religious beliefs of some students can make teaching the topic difficult. Experienced high school educators have learned to get past the controversy by working up to the important concepts and keeping lessons relevant to the students' lives.

Black also trains teachers as part of the HHMI-supported Science Education Partnership, a professional development program for high school teachers based at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She and others like her build their case with each day's lesson until the bigger picture forms. Then they let on that they've been teaching evolution. It's like adding shredded zucchini to a homemade chocolate cake. No one knows it's there, and once it's pointed out, people realize it's not at all what they thought.

“We start with evidence that's based in molecular biology and genetics and slide in the ‘evolution’ word later on,” agrees Ann Findley, professor of biology at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. She teaches college students as well as high school seniors and high school biology teachers in an HHMI-supported summer course. “[Some students] have been misled to think it's something else, and they don't see what all the fuss is about.”

The same day Black formally introduced the “E” word, a student asked a question about intelligent design.

“I explained that intelligent design is a religious viewpoint that says that some things are so complex that you can't explain them, and that it's not scientifically supported,” she says. “The kids wanted to know what I meant, and I asked how we could design experiments to test the ideas behind intelligent design. And that was it.”

She adds, “It was great that he asked, because you know 10 other kids were thinking the same thing and just not asking.”

Years ago, Black remembers taking a different tack, with dreadful results. She inaugurated a student teacher with a unit on evolution. “That was a mistake,” she says. “The kids ganged up on her and were literally firing questions at her like, ‘Were you married in a church? How could you do that and believe in evolution?’”

Black's own early attempts were “too textbook,” she adds. “I came across as too confrontational. With high-school students, it has been more successful to present learning experiences that let them construct their knowledge from evidence they can see, hear, touch, and analyze.”

Taking that approach, teachers say, can be the tipping point between keeping high school students interested in science and turning them off for good.

Deb Whittington, a teacher in Lake City, South Carolina, encourages science teachers in her district and state to pair evolutionary evidence and interesting, relevant examples embedded throughout instruction and not just during a “unit” on evolution. Teachers might, for example, discuss antibiotic resistance, sickle cell anemia, bird evolution, or family trees. “It helps them see where evolution affects life every day,” she says.

In 2005, she helped organize South Carolinians for Science Education after realizing that some fellow teachers were apprehensive about presenting evolution in the classroom. Whittington has also participated in, and helped run, HHMI-supported summer courses on the topic for biology teachers at Clemson University.

“We take the teachers into the labs, show them evolution in action, try to present it as something that's happening every day, not some abstract concept,” says Barbara J. Speziale, associate dean of summer programs and undergraduate studies at Clemson.

Providing information and dispelling myths can open doors to students and to their families and friends, as well.

“A few years ago in our precollege program, we had a young woman whose father and grandfather were Baptist ministers,” Findley says. “At the end of the program, she said she was excited to go home and talk to her father about evolution. I thought that was great—she can at least start a dialogue in her community. That's what I'd like to achieve.”

Black agrees. “For a student to see the power and beauty of evolutionary theory...that's worth any of the barbs you might get along the way.” 

For more click here.

Source: http://www.hhmi.org/bulletin/aug2009/upfront/word.html

Source: http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/5017/creationismqk7.gif 

"I can sum it all up in three words: Evolution is a lie."

(...Sigh, no comment...)

Stumbled across a very good article on Greta Christina's Blog.

Excerpt:

"I want to talk about atheists and anger. This has been a hard piece to write, and it may be a hard one to read. I'm not going to be as polite and good-tempered as I usually am in this blog; this piece is about anger, and for once I'm going to fucking well let myself be angry.  But I think it's important. One of the most common criticisms lobbed at the newly-vocal atheist community is, "Why do you have to be so angry?" So I want to talk about:

1. Why atheists are angry;

2. Why our anger is valid, valuable, and necessary;

And 3. Why it's completely fucked-up to try to take our anger away from us."

....

"I'm angry that atheist soldiers -- in the U.S. armed forces -- have had prayer ceremonies pressured on them and atheist meetings broken up by Christian superior officers, in direct violation of the First Amendment."

....

"I'm angry that women are dying of AIDS in Africa and South America because the Catholic Church has convinced them that using condoms makes baby Jesus cry."

....

"I'm angry about what happened to Galileo. Still. And I'm angry that it took the Catholic Church until 1992 to apologize for it."

....

"I'm angry -- enraged -- at the priests who molest children and tell them it's God's will. I'm enraged at the Catholic Church that consciously, deliberately, repeatedly, for years, acted to protect priests who molested children, and consciously and deliberately acted to keep it a secret, placing the Church's reputation as a higher priority than, for fuck's sake, children not being molested. And I'm enraged that the Church is now trying to argue, in court, that protecting child-molesting priests from prosecution, and shuffling those priests from diocese to diocese so they can molest kids in a whole new community that doesn't yet suspect them, is a Constitutionally protected form of free religious expression."

Rad the full article here.  

Source: http://gretachristina.typepad.com

Camp Quest

http://camp-quest.org/

"The emphasis on critical thinking is epitomised by a test called the Invisible Unicorn Challenge. Children will be told by camp leaders that the area around their tents is inhabited by two unicorns. The activities of these creatures, of which there will be no physical evidence, will be regularly discussed by organisers, yet the children will be asked to prove that the unicorns do not exist. Anyone who manages to prove this will win a £10 note - which features an image of Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory - signed by Dawkins, a former professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University.

“The unicorns are not necessarily a metaphor for God, they are to show kids that you can’t prove a negative,” said Saman-tha Stein, who is leading next month’s camp at the Mill on the Brue outdoor activity centre close to Bruton, Somerset."

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6591231.ece

http://camp-quest.org/

So sad..

(Face Palm)

See the responses here.

Source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AiaZ8xGKod_F_K0JlIgRzurd7BR.;_ylv=3?qid=20090531152349AAXy7Zi