Many public schools in the U.S. are still showing biology students the 2001 PBS Evolution series. This 8-hour propaganda extravaganza — like most modern biology textbooks — distorts and exaggerates the evidence to convince people that Darwinism is true. When the series was first released, Discovery Institute published a detailed 150-page Viewer’s Guide exposing the distortions and exaggerations. The Guide includes extensive references to the scientific and popular literature, as well as eight activities that teachers and students will find helpful in critically analyzing this work of pro-Darwin propaganda.
Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to Getting the Facts Straight: A Viewer’s Guide to PBS’s Evolution:
The controversy over Darwin’s theory of evolution has never been more intense. The American people — and especially American schoolchildren — deserve to know what the fuss is all about. They deserve to know what the evidence shows, what scientists really think, and why — after all these years — there is still widespread opposition to Darwinian evolution.
American public television can and should be used to educate people about this important controversy. The seven-part Evolution series, produced for public television by Clear Blue Sky Productions and the WGBH/NOVA Science Unit, could have been an important contribution in this regard. But Evolution is a work of advocacy, an advertisement not just for Darwinism, but for some of its more extreme manifestations. It distorts the biological evidence, mischaracterizes historical facts, systematically ignores the views of scientists, and misrepresents Darwin’s critics in order to convince the American people that evolution is absolutely true — and indispensable to our daily lives.This Viewer’s Guide has been prepared to correct this one-sided presentation. Where Evolution distorts or ignores the facts, this Guide supplies them. Where Evolution ignores or misrepresents its critics, this Guide lets them speak for themselves. Although Evolution promotes the stereotype that all opponents of Darwin’s theory are biblical literalists, this Guide was not written to defend biblical literalism, but to defend honest science. It is simply based on the premise that the American people deserve to hear the truth — especially from the television network that they are supporting with their tax money.
Getting the Facts Straight is available for $7.95 (+ S&H) here.