Tag Archives: DVD

News

New Illustra Media DVD on the Cambrian Explosion available to pre-order

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ARN reports on “Darwin’s Dilemma”, the final DVD in the magnificent intelligent design trilogy.

Excerpt:

The final film in Illustra Media’s long-planned Intelligent Design trilogy, Darwin’s Dilemma, is scheduled for release September 15, 2009 and is currently available for pre-order at ARN at a special introductory price.

This documentary will examine what many consider to be the most powerful refutation of Darwinian evolution-the Cambrian fossil evidence. Charles Darwin realized that the fossil evidence did not support his theory of gradual, step-by-step evolutionary development. He hoped that future generations of scientists would make the discoveries necessary to validate his ideas. Today, after more than 150 years of exploration fossil evidence of slow, incremental biological change has yet to be excavated. Instead, we find a picture of the rapid appearance of fully developed, complex organisms during the outset of the Cambrian geological era. Organisms that embody almost all of the major animal body plans that exist today. This remarkable explosion of life is best explained by the existence of a transcendent intelligence.

Filmed on four continents, this fascinating documentary examines some of the most important fossil discoveries ever made… and, with them, a mystery deeper than Darwin ever imagined. The Cambrian explosion was actually an explosion of biological information: assembly instructions in DNA and embryonic blueprints that directed the development of the first complex animals…information that points unmistakably to foresight, purpose and intelligent design.

Darwin’s Dilemma is a high-quality documentary that includes interviews with world-class paleontologists Simon Conway Morris and James Valentine, as well as leading intelligent design theorists and scientists Paul Nelson, Jonathan Wells, Stephen C. Meyer, Paul Chien, Doug Axe, and Richard Sternberg.

I would click through to ARN’s description if you’re interested, they have a feature list! They also link to the trailer, which you can view online.

Paul Chien and Simon Conway Morris are the top two paleontologists on Cambrian era fossils in the world, in my opinion. (One is an expert on the Burgess Shale in Canada, the other on the Chengjiang Valley in China – the two best locations in the world for Cambrian era fossils). James Valentine is also an expert on the Cambrian era fossils. This will be a HOOT!

Related DVDs

The first two DVDs “Unlocking the Mystery of Life” and “The Privileged Planet” are must-buys, but you can watch them on youtube if you want, for free.

Here are the 2 playlists:

I also recommend Coldwater Media’s “Icons of Evolution”. All three of these are on sale from Amazon.com.

Previous posts

I have to tell you a joke. I just bought an Expelled DVD for one of the guys in my office. But a different guy in my office watched it all by himself on the weekend, the same weekend I went to his church, which he has always been trying to get me to do. Well I offered to take the second guy out to lunch so we could talk about it, but he wants me to rake his lawn for him! He has a HUGE lawn in the country!

The things I do to make people learn things so God will have a stronger bench!

Videos

What is intelligent design? What is capitalism?

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Two new books have just come out by two of my favorite people in the whole world:

  • Stephen C. Meyer (Ph.D from Cambridge University)
  • Jay W. Richards (Ph.D from Princeton University).

Meyer’s book is about intelligent design, and Richards’ book is about capitalism. Let’s take a look.

What is intelligent design?

To understand what intelligent design is, you can watch two DVDs that are now online at Youtube. Both videos are by Illustra Media.

Here are the 2 playlists:

I give these videos my highest recommendation. If you have not seen them, you must see them.

Stephen C. Meyer’s new book

The new book by Stephen C. Meyer is called “Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design”. It is being published by Harper-Collins.

Signature in the Cell
Signature in the Cell

Here is the blurb:

Meyer tells the story of the successive attempts to solve this mystery of DNA and argues that fundamental objections now exist to the adequacy of all purely naturalistic or materialistic theories. The book then proposes a radical alternative based upon developments in molecular biology and the information sciences: it proposes the design hypothesis as the best explanation for the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life.

SIGNATURE IN THE CELL will not merely provide a critique of evolutionary theories. It also shows that, based on our uniform and repeated experience-the basis of all scientific reasoning about the past-there is a strong positive case for intelligent design. From our experience we know that intelligence alone produces large amounts of information. Thus, the book shows that the argument for intelligent design from DNA is not based on ignorance or a desire to “give up on science,” but instead upon just the opposite: our growing scientific knowledge of the inner workings of the cell and our experience-based knowledge of the cause-and-effect structure of the world. For just this reason the argument for design can be formulated as a rigorous and positive scientific argument-specifically one called “an inference to the best explanation.” The book shows, ironically, that the argument for intelligent design from DNA is based on the same method of scientific reasoning that Darwin himself used.

I pre-ordered mine! You can see Stephen Meyer debating against Skeptic magazine’s editor Michael Shermer here.

Now let’s turn to Jay W. Richards’ book.

What is capitalism?

To understand what capitalism is, you can watch this lecture entitled “Money, Greed and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem” by Jay W. Richards, delivered at the Heritage Foundation think tank, and televised by C-SPAN2. The book has the same title, and is published by Harper-Collins.

Money, Greed and God
Money, Greed and God

Here is the blurb:

Does capitalism promote greed? Can a person follow Jesus’s call to love others and also support capitalism? Was our recent economic crisis caused by flaws inherent to our free market system? Jay Richards presents a new approach to capitalism, revealing how it’s fully consistent with Jesus’s teachings and the Christian tradition, while also showing why this system is our best bet for renewed economic vigor.

The church is bombarded with two competing messages about money and capitalism:

  • wealth is bad and causes much of the world’s suffering
  • wealth is good and God wants you to prosper and be rich

Richards exposes these myths, and other common misconceptions about capitalism, and reveals the surprising ways that capitalism is, in fact, the best system to respond to the biblical mandates of alleviating poverty and protecting the environment. Money, Greed, and God equips readers to take practical steps in their own lives to conduct business, worship God, and serve others without falling into the “prosperity gospel” trap.

I can hardly wait to get my copy!

If you can’t see the Richards video, here is an audio lecture by Jay Richards on the “Myths Christians Believe about Wealth and Poverty“. Also, why not check out this series of 4 sermons by Wayne Grudem on the relationship between Christianity and economics? (a PDF outline is here)

News

Denyse O’Leary tells about Uncommon Descent’s contest to win FREE STUFF

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Denyse has started up a contest over at Uncommon Descent where you can win the following stuff:

10 DVDs of Expelled,courtesy the producers.

10 DVDs of Privileged Planet, courtesy the producers.

5 subscriptions, including back issues, to the excellent Christian/theistic science and culture mag, Salvo, complete with recent back issues, courtesy the editor-in-chief.

I already have those DVDs but I want the subscription to Salvo.

Now, what must I do to win? Denyse says:

I will pose a question based on a recent news story, and ask for responses within two weeks. I will publish the winning response in a subsequent post.

You must go to Uncommon Descent and register to comment. (You will not receive any solicitations – at least none that originate from us.)

Rules:
1. No more than 400 words in response. I will select the response I find most interesting and print it as a post. Be succinct.
2. New ideas impress me, even if I disagree. Rants and myths don’t. Re abuse: Uncommon Descent is not competing for Troll Hole of the Year, so …
3. I will not correspond with anyone about the award. My In Tray is already a natural disaster. If you don’t win, try again. And who knows, if this contest takes off, I may be offered more prizes.

The first question will come shortly.

Well, according to Denyse’s latest post on Colliding Universes, the first question is here!

This is Contest Question 1 for Earn Free Stuff: Does the multiverse help science make sense – or simply destroy science?

Question: For a free copy of Expelled, is this a way to do science? Note, you must register at Uncommon Descent to comment.

She has a link to an article that will help you answer, plus you can read my posts on the multiverse:

OK, now get right to work on your answer, and I’ll work on my answer. Denyse says that each contest will last about two weeks!

By the way, Denyse is a professional writer and editor. So watch your spelling and grammar!