New Geocentrist Propaganda Film

The past week or so, there's been a little noise around the scientific community about how some prominent names in the physics community such as Lawrence Krauss & Michio Kaku have appeared in the trailer of a 'documentary' film promoting Biblical Geocentrism.  It's been written about on several science blogs:

• Bad Astronomy: The Principle: A Documentary About Geocentrism. Yeah, I Know.
• NPR: Why Physicists Are In A Film Promoting An Earth-Centered Universe

Laurence Krauss responded at Future Tense: I Have No Idea How I Ended Up in That Stupid Geocentrism Documentary.  Actress Kate Mulgrew who was the narrator,  reports that she felt the agreement misrepresented the motives of the producers (GeekOSystem: OH THANK GOD: Kate Mulgrew Is Mad About the Geocentric Documentary, Too).

I don't regard the scientists statements of not remembering being interviewed as a surprise.  Some of these people spend a large fraction of their time doing narrations and interviews like this and after awhile they start to look alike.  In addition, I strongly suspect that after agreeing to narrate a production, even if they realized later that the party had misrepresented their motives, changing their mind at that point might be a breach of contract inviting all kinds of legal grief.  Even a script in advance does not always tell the complete story, and can be subjected to revisions after the original agreement.

There is a response from the production company at The Raw Story: ‘I can tell you how Lawrence Krauss ended up in our film. He signed a release form and cashed a check’

The funniest part about this for me is that the two Geocentists mentioned, Robert Sungenis & Rick DeLano, had mentioned in this blog in November of 2010 that Krauss had made statements 'supportive' of their claims (link).  I had actually spoken to Krauss after a talk he gave in December 2010 and mentioned this (link). 

I mentioned it again when Krauss spoke at NCAS promoting "A Universe from Nothing" in January 2012, I pointed out to him that the Geocentrists were planning to invite him to one of their conferences (Reading: A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence Krauss).

Dr. Krauss' response suggests he might have granted an interview even if the Geocentrists had explicitly stated their agenda.  Dr. Krauss has willingly presented to groups that were somewhat pre-disposed to opposing what he had to say.  I was in attendance at Krauss' presentation at the American Enterprise Institute (February 11, 2008) which was a somewhat hostile audience (C-SPAN: Scientific Literacy and Public Policy).  Krauss was also interviewed on Bob Enyart's "Real Science Friday" (a blatantly Young-Earth Creationist radio show) in an episode broadcast September 21 & 29, 2012.

The quotes from Krauss and Kaku in the trailer are so incredibly general that they can be used in support of ANYTHING an editor of the video wanted to claim.  Quote-mining (Wikipedia) is the easy and popular tactic of pseudo-scientists.

Now it's not like these types of things have never happened before.  Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer were duped into interviews for Ben Stein's ID propaganda film "Expelled"(Wikipedia).

I'm no longer surprised about reports of the deceitful tactics used by groups that are also claiming their religious faith makes them morally superior to others!  This type of bearing false witness is just more evidence that these types of groups are the 'wolves' that Jesus warned his followers about (Creationist Junk Debunked) and so their so-called 'faith' is false.  These groups are not about religion, but about political power.

I've still found no response from Sungenis, DeLano et al on my Lagrange point challenge, to demonstrate that their claimed 'favored' motionless position for the Earth can generate these locations which have actually been used for spaceflight.  I've already presented an example using an N-body code.  Perhaps the report that 'The Principle' focuses on the cosmological-scale 'copernican principle' is a convenient way to evade these practical implications of their claims?  After all, the Geocentrists' alternative is to claim all spaceflight (or at least anything beyond low-Earth orbit) is a hoax. 

I've also demonstrated how the apparent 'geocentric' view of catalogs like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and others is an artifact of our measurement limitations (see Quantized Redshifts. IX. Testing the Null Hypothesis, Quantized Redshifts. X. Testing Our "Designer Universe", Quantized Redshifts XI. My Designer Universe Meets Some Data and What's Next... ).  After all, if you stand atop the tallest mountain and look as far as you can see, then YOU appear to be the 'Center of the Universe'!  I suspect such thinking really appeals to delusional egomanics!

More Related Posts:
NCSE: The Sun Revolves Around You? Narcissism on a Cosmic Scale

Update April 19, 2014: Fixed broken link.  Added another article of interest