PBS NOVA show on Dover ID trial triggers censorship
12th November 2007
Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial
Check local listings for broadcast information
Memphis PBS station censors NOVA show:
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2007/nov/15/topic-too-hot-for-wkno/
Topic too hot for WKNO
Show on intelligent design didn’t air here
By Michael Lollar
Thursday, November 15, 2007
WKNO-TV, the local PBS affiliate, did not air a “NOVA” production on
intelligent design as part of its Channel 10 broadcast this week because
of the “controversial nature” of the subject.
The show, “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial,” aired nationally
Tuesday, but was confined in Memphis to the station’s digital broadcasts
(channel 910 on Comcast or 810 on Comcast’s high-definition tier). Up to
70 percent of Comcast subscribers have digital service.
On Channel 10, the nondigital or analog version of WKNO, the station
re-aired a locally produced show with Mid-Southerners sharing their
World War II experiences.
WKNO spokesman Teri Sullivan said the station received complaints that
the “NOVA” broadcast was pre-empted, but would not say how many. In
response, WKNO will air the “NOVA” production at 7 p.m. Jan. 22 “with a
local followup to discuss the various views on the show.”
As for Tuesday night’s scheduling shift, Sullivan said, “We had plans to
do our local programs to honor veterans this week during Veterans Day.
We thought Tuesday night was a good spot for local programs of this
nature, and we were concerned about the controversial nature of the
(’NOVA’) program as were 15 percent of the top 50 public television
stations in the country.”
Sullivan said seven other PBS affiliates chose not to run the “NOVA”
production, which recounts the federal trial of a Dover, Pa., case in
which parents sued the school board. They objected when the board
required science teachers to read a statement to biology students
suggesting that some features of life are too complex to be explained by
the theory of evolution and must be the result of intervention by an
intelligent agent.
An exhaustive trial with witnesses for both sides ended in a ruling in
which U.S. Dist. Judge John E. Jones III, a Bush appointee, dismissed
intelligent design as a religious argument for creationism. In forceful
language, he said intelligent design has no place in a science
classroom. The Dover school board members who required the intelligent
design statement were voted out in the next election.
In response to one viewer complaint, WKNO program manager Debi Robertson
said Wednesday that while the “NOVA” episode reported the outcome of the
trial and the arguments during the trial it “might look particularly
one-sided to most of our audience.”
To viewer David O. Hill, 67, a retired FedEx pilot, the WKNO decision
was like refusing to show a Civil War broadcast for fear it would offend
some Southerners or a broadcast about Nazi atrocities in World War II
“for fear it would offend some Germans in the viewing audience.”
“I’m a supporter of and love this station. I really appreciate what
service they do, but when they step out of line like this it violates
the whole premise of what NPR and PBS stand for nationally … This was
an historical review of an important judicial decision in America, and
they chose not to do it.”
Hill’s education and background also factored into his reaction. An
ornithologist, he said he was trained as a biologist.
“Evolution is as important a building block to biology as atomic theory
is to chemistry and gravitation to physics. I can believe in the Easter
Bunny or the Loch Ness monster more easily than that the universe is
only 6,000 years old.”
see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/programs/3416_id.html
Through courtroom scene recreations and interviews, NOVA explored in detail one of the latest battles in the war over evolution, the historic 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case that paralyzed a community and determined what is acceptable to teach in a science classroom.
The program:
- traces how the issue started in the small, rural community of Dover, Pennsylvania, and progressed to become a federal court test case for science education.
- defines intelligent design (ID) and explains how the Dover School Board was the first in the nation to require science teachers to offer ID as an alternative.
- chronicles the history of legal efforts involving the teaching of evolution, beginning with the Scopes Trial in 1925 and culminating in 1987 when the Supreme Court ruled against teaching creationism.
- summarizes Charles Darwin’s original theory of evolution, as presented in his seminal 1859 work, The Origin of Species.
- recreates portions of the trial from court records, noting that parents who initiated the lawsuit set out to show that the board had religious motivations for teaching ID.
- presents evidence for the prosecution, including transitional fossils and genetic confirmation of Darwin’s theory.
- reports testimony about the nature of science, including what a scientific theory is, how science is done, and why ID is not science.
- presents evidence for the defense, including the idea of irreducible complexity in structures like the bacterial flagellum, a system that provides propulsion for some bacteria.
- interviews a scientist who shows how the flagellum can be reduced in complexity and still function in bacteria as a syringe to transmit disease.
- recounts how the prosecution found evidence showing that the text referred to as a resource for ID, Of Pandas and People, had originally been a creationist text.
- presents closing arguments and the judge’s decision finding both that members of the school board had religious motivations for introducing intelligent design into the classroom and that ID was not a scientific theory.
Taping Rights: Can be used up to one year after program is recorded off the air.