OKLAHOMA EDITS THE COSMOS
Mar. 18th, 2014 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogJust as I haven’t watched True Detective, I also am not watching the rebooted Cosmos (mainly because it’s not available here yet, and I don’t want to see it badly enough to resort to piracy – they’ll stick it on in-flight entertainment systems soon enough).
Much has been made about the fact that Creationists are displeased over the evolution bits – specifically, that evolution is presented as fact and not theory (which for Creationists means, “If it’s theoretical, that’s the same thing as saying you don't really know if it’s true, yr just choosing to pretend it’s true to further yr liberal atheist agenda, unlike us”).
No real surprise there – I remember when the original Cosmos aired (and Carl Sagan published the book of the same name), conservative Christians complained about the exact same thing.
So yeah, nothing new there.
But I did come across this story in which Fox affiliate KOKH (Fox 25) in Oklahoma City interrupted part of Cosmos to show a news promo – and it just happened to broadcast right before Neil deGrasse Tyson mentioned evolution.
Oops!
Fox 25 claims it was a total accident. And the promoted comment at the bottom of that Ars Technica story suggests that it’s entirely possible that it was a legitimate goof.
On the other hand, as Ars Technica also points out, it’s a hell of a big coincidence to swallow when remembering that this happened in a state where Creationists have enough political sway that the state House of Representatives had just passed a bill that very week that would prevent school authorities from punishing a teacher who tries to “teach the controversy” – a bill that is based on a template from The Discovery Institute, the conservative Christian think tank that researches and promotes intelligent design.
So I’m not convinced it was all that “accidental” – although of course it’s perfectly conceivable that it was the act of a station employee and not a directive from upper management, if only because Fox 25 re-aired the episode the following Saturday.
Anyway, the only real reason I’m posting it is because it reminds me of how, when I used to have an apartment in mainland China just across the birder from Hong Kong, we could get TV signals from the two main broadcasters there: TVB and ATV. And whenever the news came on, and they started reporting a story on, say, Tibet, or the Dalai Lama, or Taiwan (which at the time was under the leadership of Chen Shui-bian, whose party advocates stronger independence from China), or anything negative about China, they would cut to local commercials until the story was over.
Because that’s what they do in China.
Not that there’s any comparison whatsoever between Oklahoma Creationists and mainland China. There isn’t.
I’m just saying, this reminded me of that.
Do the evolution,
This is dF
Much has been made about the fact that Creationists are displeased over the evolution bits – specifically, that evolution is presented as fact and not theory (which for Creationists means, “If it’s theoretical, that’s the same thing as saying you don't really know if it’s true, yr just choosing to pretend it’s true to further yr liberal atheist agenda, unlike us”).
No real surprise there – I remember when the original Cosmos aired (and Carl Sagan published the book of the same name), conservative Christians complained about the exact same thing.
So yeah, nothing new there.
But I did come across this story in which Fox affiliate KOKH (Fox 25) in Oklahoma City interrupted part of Cosmos to show a news promo – and it just happened to broadcast right before Neil deGrasse Tyson mentioned evolution.
Oops!
Fox 25 claims it was a total accident. And the promoted comment at the bottom of that Ars Technica story suggests that it’s entirely possible that it was a legitimate goof.
On the other hand, as Ars Technica also points out, it’s a hell of a big coincidence to swallow when remembering that this happened in a state where Creationists have enough political sway that the state House of Representatives had just passed a bill that very week that would prevent school authorities from punishing a teacher who tries to “teach the controversy” – a bill that is based on a template from The Discovery Institute, the conservative Christian think tank that researches and promotes intelligent design.
So I’m not convinced it was all that “accidental” – although of course it’s perfectly conceivable that it was the act of a station employee and not a directive from upper management, if only because Fox 25 re-aired the episode the following Saturday.
Anyway, the only real reason I’m posting it is because it reminds me of how, when I used to have an apartment in mainland China just across the birder from Hong Kong, we could get TV signals from the two main broadcasters there: TVB and ATV. And whenever the news came on, and they started reporting a story on, say, Tibet, or the Dalai Lama, or Taiwan (which at the time was under the leadership of Chen Shui-bian, whose party advocates stronger independence from China), or anything negative about China, they would cut to local commercials until the story was over.
Because that’s what they do in China.
Not that there’s any comparison whatsoever between Oklahoma Creationists and mainland China. There isn’t.
I’m just saying, this reminded me of that.
Do the evolution,
This is dF
