Hello and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is June 7th, 2005. This is your host,

Stephen Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. With me this week are

Perry DeAngelis, and Bob Novella. Good evening. We have a special guest this week,

Massimo Kyluchi, who I will introduce in a moment, but first some follow up from our discussion

last week. Last week we talked about what is now being known as the Smithsonian Institution

ID Fiasco. For those of you who listened, the Smithsonian Institution agreed to

co-sponsor a film which was being promoted by the Discovery Institute, which is an intelligent

design, creationism, proponent. The film is called...

Notting laps of judgment. Shocking laps of judgment and we agreed was extremely naive.

And Steve, they're more than just proponents. I mean they are the major arm.

Yes, the movement. That's correct. They exist to promote intelligent design creationism.

The film was the privileged planet, the search for design and the universe, or purpose in the

universe. As in response to the Smithsonian Institution's plan, there was a backlash of criticism

from the scientific and skeptical communities. From shock. Which has happened, in many cases,

as we have discussed in the past, when school boards or institutions fall prey to either

creationism or intelligent design or are being used in this purpose. The blogosphere jumps

on it. The cyberspace, skeptical and scientific community can react almost instantaneously.

Mr. Randall Kramer, who is the public affairs agent for the Smithsonian Institute, was flooded

with emails. They were essentially embarrassed out of co-sponsoring the film, which is a

minor victory for skeptical activism. They should have been embarrassed.

I'm going to read to you the email that I personally sent to Mr. Kramer.

Which I think just put it over the edge. Yes, the straw that made them cave.

...