Advocates of intelligent-design creationism are claiming a major breakthrough in their crusade against modern biology: the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History will, for the first time, show a movie that attacks evolution directly. But before the reality-based community gets too upset, keep in mind that it’s not quite as offensive as it sounds.
The Discovery Institute, a group in Seattle that supports an alternative theory, “intelligent design,” is announcing on its Web site that it and the director of the museum “are happy to announce the national premiere and private evening reception” on June 23 for the movie, “The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe.”
The film is a documentary based on a 2004 book by Guillermo Gonzalez, an assistant professor of astronomy at Iowa State University, and Jay W. Richards, a vice president of the Discovery Institute, that makes the case for the hand of a creator in the design of Earth and the universe.
News of the Discovery Institute’s announcement appeared on a blog maintained by Denyse O’Leary, a proponent of the intelligent design theory, who called it “a stunning development.”
Not quite. The Baird Auditorium in the Smithsonian’s Natural History museum is open to organizations and corporations who pay for it. In this case, the anti-evolution Discovery Institute paid $16,000 for the privilege of showing its film. “It is incorrect for anyone to infer that we are somehow endorsing the video or the content of the video,” said Randall Kremer, a museum spokesman.
There is, however, a little more to this that suggests the Smithsonian should have shown better judgment and steered clear of the anti-biology propaganda.
Administrators at the National Museum of Natural History viewed the film before approving the event and no doubt saw that it was an attack on evolution. The problem is the museum has a policy that prohibits the use of its auditorium for religious and/or partisan political events. Just as importantly, the same policy states that “all events at the National Museum of Natural History are co-sponsored by the museum.”
And therein lies the problem. The Discovery Institute paid $16,000 and, in effect, bought the Smithsonian’s imprimatur for an unscientific film that uses junk science to promote a religious idea. That may not be the museum’s goal, but that is the effect.
It’s a long shot, but the Smithsonian could revisit the issue, take note of the fact that the film violates its policy on co-sponsoring religious messages, and return the $16,000 donation. After all, it is a fairly ridiculous for the National Museum of Natural History to document evolution’s fossil record on one floor and then co-sponsor a film attacking it on another.
Short of that, watch for intelligent-design creationists to reference the “support” they received from the Smithsonian as a talking point for the next several years.