Center sued for canceling anti-Darwin film

[The Straight Story]

Center sued for canceling anti-Darwin film

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- The California Science Center has been sued for canceling a film that attacked the science of evolution and promoted intelligent design, court records say.

The lawsuit, filed by the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges the state-owned center improperly bowed to pressure from the Smithsonian Institution and University of Southern California professors in canceling "Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record" at the museum's Imax Theater.

Science Center President Jeffrey Rudolph declined to comment, but told the Los Angeles Times in a statement the screening "was canceled because of issues related to the contract" with the alliance.

The alliance -- a Los Angeles group that says it "promotes, defends and upholds Western values and ideals" and envisions "a national alliance of people of faith" -- contends the center, not the alliance, violated the contract.

It also alleges the center violated the alliance's rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/12/31/Center-sued-for-canceling-anti-Darwin-film/UPI-55461262299672/

[stopbush]

1. PZ Myers had a good response to this tripe:

The California Science Center is being sued for turning away the showing of an intelligent design creationism movie. It's a tough case, because public institutions should be interested in presenting arguments for issues in science — even if it is a controversial story, the answer to abuses of free speech is more free speech.

However, there are other parts of this story that mean I can't just jerk the ol' free speech knee. One key point is that what the movie was presenting was not a scientific controversy at all—seriously, any movie that tries to present the Cambrian as a serious problem that makes evolution impossible is celluloid trash. Because the venue can be leased should not imply that the CSC is open to anyone showing home movies, or to the latest porn impresario from the San Fernando Valley using it for the premiere of his latest flick. I would think a science center would have a vested interest in protecting its reputation for showing science.

And of course, the creationists know about that reputation. That's why they try to book prestigious places of science, like the Smithsonian, your local museum, or as we see all the time at the University of Minnesota, the physics auditorium, to show off their bogosity in the reflected luster of science. The reverse is also true: scientists don't rush to unveil their latest discovery at the nearby church.

The science center also had clear grounds for canceling the showing: the creationists tried to imply in promotions that the movie showing was a Smithsonian-endorsed event, which it was not — they were merely a gang of bozos who had the cash to lease the room. The center also had a clause in their agreement to prevent that kind of credibility-theft, requiring promotional materials to be screened before release.

It's all part of a growing problem: creationists know that their institutions have no scientific credibility at all, and they desperately want to borrow some authority for their lies from real science.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/