Morgan Freeman's Through the Wormhole is an insidiously dishonest video that purports to dispassionately discuss the fascinating question "Is there a creator".
It LOOKS like a typical professionally made science video for the general public. It avoids the usual creationist wackiness and biblical quotations in turgid tones and heavenly choirs.
But instead, it lies subtly. In its opening lines it gives the impression that science is evenly divided on the question of a creator god.
Then they credit a surfer with inventing String theory single-handedly, and that his speculative math is tantamount to proving the existence of God and revealing the mathematics God used in his creation. This is blithering nonsense if you check any other source.
The video explains the fine-tuning argument for intelligent design, in quite a bit of detail. This is by far the best creationist argument. However, though they don't even mention Stephen Hawking's opposing interpretations of it. Fair and balanced? Only in the FOX News sense.
The video pulls the usual creationist stunt of claiming that adaptation necessarily implies intelligent design with planning and forethought, completely forgetting to mention evolutionary theory's explanation.
It fails to point out that adaptation never shows any sign of planning or forethought. The video never talks about the ineptitude of adaptation. These are both key arguments against intelligent design.
The video talks about the "God Spot" -- a spot in the brain, that when stimulated generates a "sense presence" a strange experience of being in the presence of something you cannot see that Christians typically interpret as being in the presence of Jehovah (the first thing that comes to their minds when you say "invisible presence"). The inventor of the device to stimulate these experiences calls his yellow helmet the "God Helmet" which likely helps trigger this delusion of grandeur by suggestion. Freeman lies outrageously that the inventor of this helmet believes his device shows that god lives in the brain. I read more scholarly accounts of his work elsewhere.
The video never shows you the spelling of any of the experts' names. It thus makes it harder to Google them to find out what they really had to say. That is a very odd thing to do in a science video.
Most of the "experts" were unknown to me. I suspect the director scoured the world for cranks and people desperate for attention willing to let Freeman put words in their mouth that they would never dream of saying themselves.
Freeman has such a pleasant hypnotic voice, if you don't stay alert to the inconsistencies, you naturally trust his summary assertions of what the various "eminent scientists" told him off camera.
Some big money was behind this carefully-crafted set of subtle lies. You cannot ascribe this to simple error or naivety. This is cunning malice.
It LOOKS like a typical professionally made science video for the general public. It avoids the usual creationist wackiness and biblical quotations in turgid tones and heavenly choirs.
But instead, it lies subtly. In its opening lines it gives the impression that science is evenly divided on the question of a creator god.
Then they credit a surfer with inventing String theory single-handedly, and that his speculative math is tantamount to proving the existence of God and revealing the mathematics God used in his creation. This is blithering nonsense if you check any other source.
The video explains the fine-tuning argument for intelligent design, in quite a bit of detail. This is by far the best creationist argument. However, though they don't even mention Stephen Hawking's opposing interpretations of it. Fair and balanced? Only in the FOX News sense.
The video pulls the usual creationist stunt of claiming that adaptation necessarily implies intelligent design with planning and forethought, completely forgetting to mention evolutionary theory's explanation.
It fails to point out that adaptation never shows any sign of planning or forethought. The video never talks about the ineptitude of adaptation. These are both key arguments against intelligent design.
The video talks about the "God Spot" -- a spot in the brain, that when stimulated generates a "sense presence" a strange experience of being in the presence of something you cannot see that Christians typically interpret as being in the presence of Jehovah (the first thing that comes to their minds when you say "invisible presence"). The inventor of the device to stimulate these experiences calls his yellow helmet the "God Helmet" which likely helps trigger this delusion of grandeur by suggestion. Freeman lies outrageously that the inventor of this helmet believes his device shows that god lives in the brain. I read more scholarly accounts of his work elsewhere.
The video never shows you the spelling of any of the experts' names. It thus makes it harder to Google them to find out what they really had to say. That is a very odd thing to do in a science video.
Most of the "experts" were unknown to me. I suspect the director scoured the world for cranks and people desperate for attention willing to let Freeman put words in their mouth that they would never dream of saying themselves.
Freeman has such a pleasant hypnotic voice, if you don't stay alert to the inconsistencies, you naturally trust his summary assertions of what the various "eminent scientists" told him off camera.
Some big money was behind this carefully-crafted set of subtle lies. You cannot ascribe this to simple error or naivety. This is cunning malice.