Has anyone else seen "The Privleged Planet" on PBS recently? Last wedensday, after watching Frontline, we began watching this show. After the first few minutes, it caught my interest, as it was talking about space and the universe, so we kept watching.
Here's a link to the 'official' website
The first 20 minutes were interesting enough, but they kept making these conclusions that I thought were stretched quite a bit, with circular logic, but we kept watching to see where it was all going. After about 30 minutes, my wife says, this is going to be about intellegent design... I said "no way, that would be so misleading", but with about 10 minutes left in the show, suddenly they had people on from places like "The ministry of god", and it was clear that they had been setting up the whole program to promote Intellegent Design.
So like any good PBS supporter, I've written a letter to my local affiliate. I encourage anyone else who seen this program to do the same.
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Recently, my wife and I were watching KBTC as we do on many evenings. Last Wedensday, after watching the BBC world news and Frontline, we began watching a show called "The Privleged Planet".
The program description said that the show was about "Earth's habitability and its significance in the universe is examined by physicists and astronomers, including Paul Davies and Robert Jastrow." We began watching the program, thinking that this was a show about science and the universe, but it wasn't until the very end of the program, that we realized that this show was promoting the idea of 'intellegent design' as a scientific theory.
I don't have any problem with KBTC airing programs that promote the idea of 'intellegent design', but I have a strong objection to the presentation of this idea as science. Nearly every argument that was framed in the first 45 minutes of the program was flawed with circular logic and 'cherry picking' of facts that supported the theory. Both my wife and I felt that the conclusions being made in each segment, neglected some basic scientific facts, and often failed even simple logic. We both felt that there was an agenda behind the program and conclusions that were being made. We were very surprised that it wasn't until the last 10 minutes that the true agenda of the program was revealed. Even the 'donor' list at the end went to great lengths to hide who the supporters of the program were. Illustra Media, the producing company, is itself directly affiliated with the Discovery Institute, which I found through a WHOIS domain search, yet there was no mention of this at all in the credits. Clearly, Illustra Media is a non-profit organization that was setup to create a disguise for the 'intellegent design' backers, while creating the illusion of independence.
This program relied heavily on creating an illusion of science, which was done very well, by presenting solid scientific facts at the beginning. But as the program wore on, it became less about science, and more about philosophy, misleading the viewer into thinking that the philisophical ideas presented were grounded in science, when in fact, they are not.
Typically, when presenting or defending a scientific idea, the theory is presented first, then it is supported by data and facts. With this program, scientific facts were presented, frames that only loosely related to the facts were developed, then the idea was presented at the end. I feel that programming of this sort is extremely irresponsible and misleading.
I try to donate to PBS, both KBTC and KTCS , whenever I can, and I wholly support the idea of diversified programming. However, I feel that this program is intentionally misleading, goes to great lengths to mask it's true agenda, and sets out from the beginning to blur the lines between science and philosophy. I do not think that programming of this sort should be aired on any PBS station.
Thank you for your consideration,