Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Deep south still not ready for science

Imax theatres reject film over evolution

The New York Times and the BBC also ran articles on this.

Thanks to Americablog for the heads up.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This might seem a little ironic, but this seems more like a case of IMAX's prejudice towards the deep south than lack of enlightenment on the part of their patrons in the deep south who were never given an opportunity to make this decision for themselves. Frankly, anyone willing to make the committment to sit through this long and potentially boring science documentary can probably handle a little talk about evolution.

Hume's Ghost said...

Well, there are a number of vocal critics of evolution, particularly concentrated in the south, who have made it clear that they find the theory "offensive," and have been campaigning against it for years, and are growing increasingly politically savy. It was these individuals that the theatres sought to appease.

Problem is that a number of IMAX theatres are located in science museums, and it would be a very bad thing if acceptable science was dictated by what religious fundamentalists find non-offensive. This would lead to the dumbing down of America, which is already bad enough, as Americans consistenly score poorly in tests of scientific literacy.

One such museum, in Ft. Worth, Tx had decided not to show the film but has since changed its mind due to a swift backlash from scientific minded citizens.