It’s difficult to empathize/identify with your audience without perpetuating misconceptions or reinforcing stereotypes. Perhaps I didn’t strike the proper balance the first go-around. But let revisit this at the end.

Tom, I think Gordon’s audience is already in an “us vs. them” mentality. He’s not introducing fuel for the fire, he’s addressing a concern.

Just saw this for the first time today. Running Firefox and Flash under Linux and it looks good.

Upon hearing the “atheistic bias” quote, I cringed, and then was pleased to see that it was addressed in the comments. However, I don’t think the rewording is remarkably better. I think you are promoting an “us vs. them” scenario. Yes, I think evangelicals already see science and public institutions somewhat that way, but it seems like you are promoting fear tactics — Don’t let your kids grow up naive, don’t let them get pummeled when they go to college, etc. That message, I suppose, is fine, but the main thrust should be the beauty of EC.

To give you a revelation of my liberal bias, I was really frustrated in the 2004 election. It was obvious that Bush lead us into an unwarranted war that had no plan to end and the economy was smoldering, yadda, yadda. Six months after the election, Bush had a satisfaction level of 20-some percent. So why didn’t the Democrats win? Because they didn’t have a platform. It was not enough to say “Bush lied” or present any other truth of his administration. The platform was “Anybody but Bush” and that was not enough.

You have to go beyond telling the truth about evolution and show that EC is a platform.

More grist for the mill…

On a related note, I’m not a big fan of the use of the word “liberal” to describe a student’s professors and roommates, at about 12 seconds from the end. The main point here, that they won’t get theologically sophistication, or even theology, from their professors and possibly their roommates, is true, at least in their science classes, precisely b/c they are science classes (I know people who got quite a bit of theological sophistication in philosophy and religion classes taught by atheists who had respect for people of faith). But I don’t think we need to flash the word “liberal” to yet again scare people into thinking the worst about universities.

Speaking of accommodating, would it be useful to, instead of inserting dogwhistles like “liberal” and “atheistic bias,” to emphasize your belief in some of the evangelical basics (e.g., Christ is fully God and fully man, he died and was resurrected, authority of the Bible). It may be tricky to get this in, especially if you want to avoid debates alive in evangelical circles (like inerrancy (whether to believe it, or even how to define it if you do believe it) and atonement theories (substitutionary vs. Christus Victor, etc.)). I say this especially because my father wouldn’t even open a book that had anything to do with evolution until I could prove the author’s evangelical status (so out goes the wonderfully written Finding Darwin’s God, b/c of course he wouldn’t trust a Catholic).

“Is there an atheistic bias in the natural sciences? Certainly there are practicing scientists who oppose theism in general, and Christianity in particular, but what better way to address this than to faithfully equip our children for successful scientific careers? Unfortunately, very few of our private Christian High-School graduates are ready to enter this challenging mission field, despite averaging better than their public school counterparts on college entrance exams…”

I’ll wait until all 12 lessons are posted before setting up to re-shoot #1. Thoughts?

Steve, that will be in the “special features” section of the DVD.

I too have a problem with your conceding (affirming) the statement, “Is there an institutional atheistic bias in the natural sciences? Sure.”

First, it seems to me to be a basic an integrity problem, an issue with respect to either a science or faith perspective. Institutions don’t take any such position. Some people in the sciences teaching community surely do, and some of them may even make it known. But in my experience, the majority educators don’t even have interest or time to posture on this subject.

Secondly, the affirmation of an institutional bias unfortunately actually adds fuel to the fire by lending your credibility to the proposition.

I would concur that much (most?) of the evangelical community might share the perspective as you voiced it, but that does not make it so.

The rephrasing suggested by Cliff Martin avoids these problems gracefully.

The video played just fine on my more software-cluttered machine, which stumbles constantly over YouTube videos.

I wish you well with this needed project. JimA