Unfortunate New Film: "The Story Of Everything" (Pushes Intelligent Design)

Quote from Cassius

The new film referenced below has just come to my attention, and as part of my ongoing campaign to make sure that we engage forcefully with the intelligent design argument, I'll work on addressing it in several ways.

Why do you think we should forcefully engage with the intelligent design argument? We may as well start discussing the shape of our planet with flat earthers. What's the point? You can change intelligent design worldview in people as much as they can change your worldview to intelligent design. You can't. They can't. Forceful engagement on both sides seems to me to be a complete waste of time.

Education and promotion of Epicurean philosophy and forceful engagement are two different things. Education and promotion gives people choice to decide what works for them. Forceful engagement is a lost cause. No-one wants to be forced to deal with someone else arguments.

OH GODS! The "interview" is from PRAGER U?? Please don't bother engaging with Prager U propaganda!

And the "film" is one of those propaganda films that will end up getting shown in megachurches and fawned over by the faithful. The Story of Everything seems to be one of those "Case for Christ" "documentaries" it appears to me.

https://sypher.studio/ evidently also has a "film" entitled "After Death" as in "a captivating and thought-provoking documentary that delves into the enigmatic question that has fascinated humanity for centuries: What happens when we die? Through a combination of personal accounts, scientific research, philosophical discussions, and exploration of best-selling stories of near-death experiences, the film takes viewers on a profound journey of discovery. " Will you want to forcefully engage with that one, too?

The never-ending slop out there that could potentially be countered and engaged with is infinite!

From my perspective, putting out pro-Epicurean quality materials is better than trying to engage with this kind of propaganda.

Engaging in the public debate, unfortunately, nowadays, probably means engaging on social media: posting rebuttal links, etc. The BIG/HUGE/GINORMOUS problem with engaging in that forum is that the majority of commenters and social media posts are from chatbots or worse. One is arguing against a machine trying to get people to become engaged for clicks and eyeballs.

I was literally engaging with the "intelligent design" debate as far back as high school when I wrote a scathing (to my teenage mind) rebuttal to a pro-intelligent design speaker who came to our high school and spoke to an auditorium full of us impressionable youths. I don't think their arguments have gotten any better, only slicker.

I don't have a good answer to all this, but the Prager U tag on that interview video makes my head explode. They are dangerous and trying to inculcate young students and school in conservative areas are using THEIR materials to teach history, economics, science, etc. THAT'S where the real danger lies in my opinion:

‘Masquerading as a university’: inside the brazen rightwing plan to conquer American schools

As teachers eagerly adopt its free lesson plans and the White House boosts its videos, PragerU is intent on one goal: attracting young people to conservatism

www.theguardian.com

Why critics are alarmed about the influence of PragerU's educational videos

The rise of edutainment, the integration of entertainment with educational content, has become a billion-dollar industry. The conservative PragerU has…

www.pbs.org

Inside PragerU’s conservative push into American classrooms

PragerU is a conservative video giant. It’s produced more than 2,000 videos that it says promote American and Judeo-Christian values. Now its content is…

www.wbur.org

...and not some film that will have a short shelf life other than for Christian congregations film night.

PS If this post is too political feel free to delete. You've evidently hit a nerve in me.

Quote

The second part of metaphysics, is the inquiry of final causes, which we note not as wanting, but as ill-placed; these causes being usually sought in physics, not in metaphysics, to the great prejudice of philosophy; for the treating of final causes in physics has driven out the inquiry of physical ones, and made men rest in specious and shadowy causes, without ever searching in earnest after such as are real and truly physical. And this was not only done by Plato, who constantly anchors upon this shore; but by Aristotle, Galen, and others, who frequently introduce such causes as these: “The hairs of the eyelids are for a fence to the sight. The bones for pillars whereon to build the bodies of animals. The leaves of trees are to defend the fruit from the sun and wind. The clouds are designed for watering the earth,” etc. All which are properly alleged in metaphysics; but in physics are impertinent, and as remoras¹ to the ship, that hinder the sciences from holding on their course of improvement, and introducing a neglect of searching after physical causes. And therefore the natural philosophies of Democritus and others, who allow no God or mind in the frame of things, but attribute the structure of the universe to infinite essays and trials of nature, or what they call fate or fortune, and assigned the causes of particular things to the necessity of matter without any intermixture of final causes, seem, so far as we can judge from the remains of their philosophy, much more solid, and to have gone deeper into nature, with regard to physical causes, than the philosophy of Aristotle or Plato; and this only because they never meddled with final causes, which the others were perpetually inculcating. Though in this respect Aristotle is more culpable than Plato, as banishing God, the fountain of final causes, and substituting nature in his stead; and, at the same time, receiving final causes through his affection to logic, not theology.

-Sir Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning

¹A marine suckerfish, which was thought of old to hinder the progress of sailing ships by attaching itself via suction to the hull.