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Creationists Violating Copyright
The_Rook writes "The Discovery Institute, more a lawyer mill than a scientific institution, copied Harvard University's BioVisions video 'The Inner Life of the Cell,' stripped out Harvard's copyright notice, credits, and narration, inserted their own creationist-friendly narration, and renamed the video 'The Cell As an Automated City.' The new title subtly suggests that a cell is designed rather than evolved."
It's a good thing they're a lawyer mill. Because Harvard's going to sue the shit out of them.
Now, I'm not going to say all Creationists are dumb. I've met a few who aren't. But what in the hell were these guys thinking? "Oooo... let's use their video. They'll never catch on, and even if they do, what are they going to do about it?"
Dumbasses.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
They ignore common sense, who could have guessed they would ignore other peoples copyright?...
What's worse than peddling religion in the name of science? Doing it badly! Come on, at least believe strongly enough in your own message to articulate it clearly.
We know that, we just find it amusing that the same institute preaching that Evolution causes immorality is the one that is blatently stealing another's work [er infringing that is] it would be ironic if it were not preceded by earlier nonsense on their account.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
To call the Discovery Institute's use of the Harvard video merely "copyright violation" overlooks the more fundamental problem, because the DI did not just copy and redistribute the content without permission, but in fact (a) distorted and misrepresented the meaning of the content via overdubbed narration, and (b) knowingly misrepresented the authorship of the content. The former is fraud (though perhaps not in a legal context), and the second is plagiarism (which does satisfy the legal definition).
Violation of copyright is really only the superficial issue, and only addresses the ownership of the original work.
The creationist/intelligent design cabal is successful because since the time of Darwin, they have understood that their views cannot be defended through legitimate scientific inquiry, and can never be by definition. Therefore, they attack evolution by natural selection by appealing to and exploiting public passions, fears, and ignorance, and cloaking themselves in psuedoscientific legitimacy. They hope to insinuate themselves into rational discourse by invoking a false sense of objectivity and open-mindedness, appealing to the public to "hear both sides," which is merely a sophistic tactic to put their position on equal footing with decades of confirmed and verified scientific theory.
In the end, what I truly don't understand is why the creationists are so hell-bent on disproving evolution. History has shown us time and time again that when religion fights science, religion ends up with egg on its face. (Galileo and his support of Copernican heliocentrism comes to mind.) If I were devoutly religious, the last thing I would want is to try to prove God's existence, because then such a proof would obviate the need for faith in the first place. Such a desire to enshrine one's belief in the language of science seems horribly misplaced at best, and ultimately, is a far greater detriment and threat to religion than science. Meanwhile, the scientists can only follow the path that nature reveals.
Actually, no. You won't find ANY supporter of the "information wants to be free" idea arguing that taking somebody's work, striping the copyright, modifying parts of it and selling it as your own product should be somehow acceptable. Quite the opposite is the case: information DOES want to be free, but the COPYRIGHTS have nothing to do with it. Check tha recent law suits of BusyBox authors, or the numerous suits on behalf of the author of the netfilter software for example.
But I suppose you already know that and you were only trolling, correct?
I am sure that most anti-evolution parents would want their child to grow up to marry a good looking person of the opposite sex with lots of money and no history of disease in the family.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Your post isn't going to be modded down because the rest of us are bigoted (or even merely biased) against your viewpoint, but because it fails to address the reality of the situation. (1) The Discovery Institute did not secure permission to use the video. (2) The video was shown with the copyright removed. (3) The substance of the video was changed by overdubbed narration that implied that the video depicted evidence of intelligent design in biochemical mechanisms. (4) Through the removal of copyright information and failure to refer to the actual source, the DI plagiarized the video by presenting it as its own original work rather than a derivative work. This action is not covered under fair use.
I would also like to point out that complaining that your post will be modded down is not somehow a sort of magical incantation to prevent it from actually being modded down. That sort of reverse psychology does not work, especially when you fail to have any legitimate points.
That depends on whether you tried to pass the video off as your own creation. That, in essence, is the core of the issue with the Discovery Institute's usage. Despite the title of the summary, the copyright violation is not what lies at the heart of this matter--it is the plagiarism. Surely your students cannot reasonably assume you were the sole author of the video. The same could not be said of a large, well-funded organization such as the DI.
You keep using the word 'parody'. It's not a parody. And it's one thing to borrow someone else's data... quite another thing to borrow their artistic representation of it.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
That's why I said good scientists. A PhD doing those things is actually just being a good politician. If you consider that their job is really to keep the money flowing into their department, then they ARE doing a good job. The problem is really that we've allowed a system to form where those types of people have a place.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
If you're a creationist, everyone in here is a troll. What, with the science-voodoo and all.
My UID is prime. Hah!
Your post is misleading, because the controversy over intelligent design, and the problem that scientists have with it, is not that it is true or false. The creationists/ID proponents would like people to frame it in such a context, because it pits scientists against dogmatic faith in a supernatural creator. I will only say this once, because it is so obvious that it is a wonder that it needs to be said at all:
The problem is that the theory of Intelligent Design* is not science.
Note that this statement does not say anything about the truth of ID. It merely states that ID as a proposed explanation of the origin of life does not satisfy fundamental criteria necessary to be called science. I cannot tell you whether ID is true or false, because I DO NOT KNOW. But I can tell you that it isn't a scientific theory. Why its proponents seem so desperate to enshrine it as science and somehow believe that shrouding it in the mantle of science would increase its legitimacy, I cannot understand. I am perfectly willing to entertain the notion that the universe had a divine creator, as I am also willing to entertain the notion of a supernatural origin of life, as are many scientists. But as scientists, none of us can rationally place those notions in a scientific framework.
*Note that I use the phrase "Intelligent Design" here in its broadest context--that the origin of life is supernatural, rather than in its specific statements that strive to demonstrate this claim (e.g., the argument of irreducible complexity).
Perhaps some kind of DRM on harvard's videos is in order ?
Are slashdot writers truly this hypocritical ? If nobody gets to enforce copyright (especially not riaa) then why does slashdot get to ?
I doubt it was meant in mockery. Unfortunately, I think those guys are dead serious with this.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Speak for yourself. I, personally, am delighted that Christians have attacked The Golden Compass. For the first time I can remember, they've actually a picked a film that's anti-religion to attack as anti-religious.
The difference between a cult and a religion is just the number of people who follow it and whether it's tax exempt.
Mostly the latter.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you have any discussion about the legal rights of any religion, then using one of the established religions as an example, you risk starting a flame-war. So you need to create a hypothetical religion based on a particular character. All religions have one or more gods who helped create the world, and stories about interactions with humans in the past, thus in the case of Pastafarianism, The Flying Spaghetti Monster fills the role of being a God, and allows the discussion to take place without insulting anyone.
An exampled discussion: Should religion artwork be allowed in government buildings?
If all religions are to be treated fairly, then if you are to permit marble sculptures of religions figures, then you must allow be willing to accept sculptures of His Holy Noodlyness. If you are to permit paintings of a guy in white robes, white curly hair, and a long beard, then you must also be willing to permit paintings of a plate of spaghetti reaching out.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I would actually go as far as to say that Science is largely built by people using the representations of others.
If one scientist reads about a scientific experiment of another scientist. The scientist decides to try the experiment. The scientist sits down and repeats the experiment and carefully writes down each step he takes in the experiment. When he is done, he has a notebook full of information and test results that are surprisingly similar to the first scientist.
So, we now have the case where scientist A has a notebook that says I did this and got these results. Scientist B has a notebook says I did this and got these results. The two notebooks are surprisingly similar.
Is Scientist B a copyright violating plagiarist?
There is one very subtle point to be made. Yes, there is an argument that Scientist B should cite Scientist A. However, this is countered by the idea that nature is the source of the information. Scientists may intentionally distance themselves the original experiment to make sure that information from the first experiment does not affect the second experiment; in which case it is easy to accidentally lose the citation.
Science was built by people repeating the same experiments over, over and over again. When they repeat the same experiments, they come up with the same results. If we had a lawsuit every time one scientist repeated an experiment of another simply because the notes on the experiment came out similar, then science would halt dead in its tracks.
Lets say Scientist A and Scientist B had different theories about what caused a result set. In that case the two scientists would have different narratives for the existing data. They then would put together a third experiment to test different predictions.
It sounds likely that this Discovery group is engaged in crap science. There really is no experiment which can ever prove of disprove the disagreement between evolutionists and creationists. The fact that creationists can stick their narrative on the works of other scientists proves this point.
We may hate creationists with every fiber of our being. They may be a thorn in our sides. But do we really want courts controlling the natural give and take that exists in the scientific community because we hate creationists? Do we really want science to be driven by our hatred of a group that is on the fringe?
Painful childbirth was eve's punishment for eating the apple, I love pointing this out to pregnant Christians when they discuss epidurals. I once pointed it out to a Christian obstetrician, that was priceless.
Try it sometime, you'll see a perfect example of the cognitive dissonance Christians undergo when faced with some of the less savory aspects of The Bible. They've got prepared excuses for things like creation, but not childbirth pain.
"It's SUPPOSED to hurt, and you're SUPPOSED to suffer. Epidurals are in direct defiance of god's wishes and you'll burn in hell."
In fact...most of my arguing with Christians works this way these days. I've long given up trying to educate them - it's futile. Now I just point out flaws in their "Christian" behavior. A good one is to point out the bit where they're not supposed to own cars or TV sets, that they have to give everything they own to the poor and let god provide for their basic needs (Matthew 19:21).
No sig today...
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
You can be both quite easily. Darwin, Galileo, Einstein, Copernicus, and Tesla would all disagree with your supposition that observation and faith are mutually exclusive. I'm sure there are plenty of other giants I missed, but you get the idea.
Protector of Capitalist views,
Meorah
Actually he just gave the hungry people a way to eat and share the food they had brought with them, but hidden, and without exposure of what they had with them to those around them.
Right. And he did not really resurrect, he simply went into the deep coma on the cross, and then woke up in the tomb, scared away the guards by covering his head with a white sheet with holes for eyes, and went to hang out with the Apostles. And in the end he did not rise up to heaven, but rather collapsed from excessive blood loss, which is sort of a vertical movement too, so the holy author is not stretching the (scientific) truth by much...
Who cares what "really happened"? From the religious side, is that even remotely important for the statement of Christian faith, which boils down to accepting the message of peace and love from the Jewish god? From the historical side, what sources are you using? Not one of the primary sources gives us an indication that these short parables were fairy tail versions of actual events. Not one. The holy authors themselves considered them to be accurate. From the modern, scientific point of view, we cannot even be sure that these are not mere stories with Jesus cast as the main character. Whenever you come up with a rationalistic explanation of a myth, you just make up history. It is certainly possible that Jesus got off the boat and stood on the shallow place, which was perceived as walking on water. Who cares? We cannot even be sure that he was on a boat that night.
'Separation of Church and State does not equal Sterilization of Church from State.'
Actually it does, you see, after you separate things they are no longer combined. As you have already pointed out, it is not practical to represent everyone's beliefs (numbers are irrelevant, if a single person has a belief they are equally entitled to have that belief respected as another individual who happens to have a belief shared by many others); therefore the only way to respect ALL religions is not to represent any of them in government.
As I am sure you will agree, the best solution is to not include religious representations on city halls at all (particularly since they lack any legitimate function). Just as religious moral values have no place in our laws and should instead be instilled by family and friends and enforced through stigma in those same circles. An excellent example is prostitution, without a moral component defined by religious values there is no justification for laws against prostitution and thus there should be none. Instead, families with those beliefs should teach their children not to be or solicit prostitutes and leave those with other values alone.
Unfortunatly I don't have time to answer all your idéeas but let me ask you this. What where the odds that all happenings in the exodus would happen just when Moses needed them? I got no problem with natural explenations to miracles. It's the timing that I find to be a miracle.
Sadly I don't belive I can get you to see things in the same way.
"This message was brought to you by Sarcasm and Troll Feeders United (or STFU, for you un-hip people)."
Because if ID is correct, it allows for FSM as much as Christianity or any other religion that involves a creator.
And this is precisely where this point starts falling apart.
ID isn't anywhere near "correct."
To make this point clearer - ID is an overarching project that encompasses many religions and materialist scenarios - Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, ancient Egyptian beliefs, FSM, and more.
Except 99.99% of ID enthusiasts are nutty Christians trying to force their beliefs on others. The ID movement is their attempt to get their religion taught in school, and everyone knows it. Since they can't get the Bible taught in American public schools, they do the next best thing- disguise the Bible in some pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo to fool the religious idiots who don't understand science, and then pretend it's science and some kind of alternative to a pretty rock-solid actual scientific theory, and try to fool a bunch of kids who don't know any better.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
Ooh, three squares on my ID bingo card.
Gravity is a theory, bible boy.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
It's only when you start making SPECIFIC claims about how/what was designed, and when, that the debate gets sticky. Go back far enough, we don't have any explanation for how things came about (e.g., far before the Big Bang) -- so Intelligent Design becomes as reasonable a candidate as any other. But what most ID proponents are talking about is the evolution (sorry, creation) of complex biological organisms. In that respect, FSMism differs GREATLY from Christianity. Furthermore, the "major" religions, and all the minor ones too, seem to be unable to agree on all that as well.
So yeah, if you reduce Intelligent Design to a stupid undebatable metaphysical nothing, you're right that it's a class misunderstanding. However, for those of us that live in the real world, the ID debate is clearly linked to particular religious ideologies, and will be embraced with THOSE ideologies in mind if adopted in PRACTICE.
Long story short: nobody buys the stupid argument that ID "isn't about Christianity" -- least of all the people who support it. ID proponents are clearly just using that as an intellectually dishonest shield from rightful criticism. And FSMism exposes such crap for what it is: an affront to the legitimate search for reasonable explanation of observable phenomena.
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We are not amused.
Oh my god, the Sun might not rise tomorrow! It's just a theory! Strike all mention of orbits and our solar system from science textbooks; this is just a theory!
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We are not amused.