Creative cuts to Sir David Attenborough

It is both alarming and amusing to watch this video and see how the Dutch evangelical boadcaster EO has removed all references to evidence of evolution, such as fossil dates, from Sir David Attenborough's 2002 documentary The Life of Mammals. I interviewed Sir David this afternoon and have reported the results.

You can watch two more examples of this here and here. Under what she describes as "Christians cheating," Libby Purves has also blogged this. A petition has been organised against the changes, signed by scientists from across Europe. One of the organisers, Gerdien de Jong, a Dutch evolutionist, has also logged on her website some of the changes. Gert Korthof's evolution blog has also been following the debate. The National Secular Society has covered it today.

Sir David is not opposed to sensible changes. In our interview he admitted: 'In other countries, copulating animals might not be as happy viewing as they are here.' He also thought it fair that people should be able to cut sequences involving gore or violence. But he is concerned that, as far as is possible, his words should be translated as completely and accurately as possible.

As he pointed out, Holland is alone in Europe in allowing a religious organisation to own a television station. He said: 'It is quite an interesting broadcasting situation, where there are a number of different stations which can be bought by organisations which have some other purpose than commercial or public service broadcasting.'

Did he think that religious and other groups should be allowed to own TV stations in this country? No he did not: 'I think we have quite enough going on here.'

Comments

[emanuel appel]

a letter from America

Dear All,

The debate shows how dumb "Christians" can be. Let's say it once again slowly - "The Hebrew Bible is not my book".

The creation story as told in Bereshit ( Genesis ) was a common explanation in Western Asia 3000+ years ago. Versions of it can be found in non Jewish texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Why, oh why, do you want to measure your religiosity by loyalty to a story not in your culture? It's as if I measured a Jew's authenticity by quizzing him on his belief in Beowulf.

[gene]

All young age creationists, and all who doubt evolution, or just want a good discussion of it, should read The Language Of God by Francis Collins (who headed the human genome project for years, and is a committed Christian).
He outlines a case for evolution. All questions are answered, very sensibly, by an excellent scientist. He discusses the Big Bang, evolution, genetics, intelligent design, and faith.
He discusses his progress from agnostic/atheist to Christian.
On the plus side for theists who feel threatened by science, he answers the questions with faith strongly intact.

[Geoffrey Smith]

As both a Christian and an evolution sceptic, I deplore the outrageous censoring of Attenborough's video. Fundamentalism is all very well but it must be restricted to genuine spiritual matters. To give a literal interpretation to Genesis while at the same time suppressing any point of view that contradicts that attitude is not genuine Christianity whatever those Dutch people say.

[The Omniscient Mussel]

Miss Mussel's own thoughts on evolution aside, she still has not, to this day, worked out why learning about something you may not agree with is a bad thing.

Are EO honestly afraid that viewers will lose their faith because of an platypus skull? This attitude is short-sighted and nothing short of mind-boggling. If no one had the courage to explore uncomfortable ideas, the world would still be flat.