Wesley R. Elsberry censors when he is proved wrong
April 3, 2008 – 4:23 pm by William WallaceWesley R. Elsberry apparently couldn’t stand being proved wrong about the propaganda film Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, so he just deleted a comment of mine that illustrated exactly how wrong he was. He claimed to have moved them “to the bathroom wall” but I suspect he lied.
We had been debating whether or not the producers of Judgment Day were resorting to propaganda techniques in using footage from the motion picture Inherit the Wind to illustrate the Scopes trial. Wesley was defending the footage’s use, and I was arguing against it.
What follows is my post, deleted at Panda’s Thumb, as best I can reconstruct it:
Wesley R. Elsberry wrote:
The Scopes trial was not mischaracterized in “Judgment Day”.
Yes it was. Judgment Day re-enacted many scenes from the Dover trial.
The producers of Judgment Day could have also re-enacted the arrest of the gym teacher and volunteer defendant John Scopes, who, incidentally, could not recall ever teaching evolution.
They could have reenacted the recruitment of Scopes at the “we need to put our name on the map” town-meeting.
They could have re-enacted John Scopes encouraging his own students to testify against himself.
I’ve already shown that the factual claims made concerning the Scopes trial in “Judgment Day” stand up to scrutiny.
In a yellow way, approaching the National Enquirer reporting that a member of Congress “wrote a book about sex in the United States Capitol building” when what really happened is she wrote a book while in the Capitol building about gender. Both sentences are correct if you already know the facts.
The Scopes trial was a collusive lawsuit.
My comment above, based largely on Edward J. Larson’s Pulitzer prize winning Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial And America’s Continuing Debate over Science And Religion was deleted by Wesley R. Elsberry. Wesley is the former “Information Project Director” at the euphemistically named “National Center for Science Education” (NCSE).[1],[2]
Collusive lawsuits such as the Scopes Trial are often dismissed in the United States. The Scopes Trial probably should not have gone to trial.
In comment 149634, Wesley R. Elsberry announced that he removed my comments to the “bathroom wall”:
We seem to have come to the end of any meaningful discussion on Scopes in “Judgment Day”. Comments that should have been written on the Bathroom Wall are routed there. Additional BW-worthy stuff entered here may result in moderation holds applied to commenters. —Wesley R. Elsberrycomment 149634
Footnotes:
[1]Joseph Goebbels would be proud.
[2]The post of NCSE propagandist is currently held by Joshua Rosenau, who censors at his own blog Thoughts from Kansas.
UPDATE
The routing of my comment was completed, as Zoltan points out. The claim that my relevant comment was “BW-worthy” seems especially specious since Torbjörn Larsson’s off topic comment has not been moved.
19 Responses to “Wesley R. Elsberry censors when he is proved wrong”
A user commented about the location of the bathroom wall in this post, but a quick search doesn’t show my deleted comment. I guess we should have expected that when he used the term “routed”.
UPDATE: On the other hand, they are honoring a trackback.
By William Wallace on Apr 3, 2008
Calling Elsberry a snake would insult snakes, since snakes have spines.
By Snake Hunter on Apr 3, 2008
Suppression of dissent by Darwinits? Say it isn’t so.
By Bushet on Apr 3, 2008
WRE is a loooooooozer.
By DanM on Apr 3, 2008
Your post is over at the bathroom wall. It’s accompanied by the whole tangent of other posts related too, and there are at least 3 or 4 PT posters there too. I don’t think this guy was censoring you, he just moved the entire conversation you and some other people were having because it was inappropriate.
By zoltan on Apr 4, 2008
Thanks for the update, zoltan. It looks like I did a fairly good job recreating the post. Now that it is actually at the BR wall, here is the original comment:
While you are correct that some of the discussion was inappropriate and off topic, the above post was on topic, pertainant, and in response to Elsberry. A Peabody is a serious award, and Judgement Day used propaganda techniques. (Also, the Scopes trial was a collusive lawsuit that should not have been allowed to proceed, but it does have significance in evolander mythology).
By William Wallace on Apr 4, 2008
Kristine,
I agree that accurate re-enactments help documentaries. The problem with Judgment Day is they used sensational Hollywood footage of the arrest, instead.
By William Wallace on Apr 4, 2008
So I guess you’ll be apologizing to Mr. Elsberry for calling him a liar now?
By Pandora on Apr 4, 2008
Seems Wallace is foolishly worng again
By PvM on Apr 4, 2008
Pandora, Elsberry put the comments in the “bathroom wall” *after* this entry. I do agree that some of the other flames (including my responses to those flames) were off topic, but the subject of this entry, that is the use of Inherit the Wind footage, was completely on topic. Whether or not Dr. Elsberry lied is known to him and God, but the facts lead me to believe he did.
PvM, considering Dr. Elsberry allowed Torbjörn Larsson’s off topic comment to persist indicates Dr. Elsberry may not be so concerned about off-topic posts as much as stinging criticisms of blatant propaganda.
By William Wallace on Apr 4, 2008
You are as usual wrong.
[At least PvM spelled "wrong" correctly this time.]
By PvM on Apr 6, 2008
I don’t think Wesley realised the posts had been lost until you complained. There’s a comment by him on the BW that he had to spend some time searching for lost posts following a glitch.
Also, you may have noticed PT is currently experimenting with new BW software so that it can host it’s own BW. Maybe the installation of new sofware and the presense of a glitch are related.
By steve_h on Apr 6, 2008
Clear censorship. Using “Inherit the Wind” footage is most certainly propaganda and prejudicial. You made the case in response to WRE’s claim, and he simply deleted your response.
Yes, “Inherit the Wind” was disclosed after the fact, and yes, “Judgment Day” did disclose that the film was “loosely” based on actual events.
But the footage biases emotionally. Good call William. I don’t know why Steve_h and PvM are in your face.
By DanM on Apr 6, 2008
Thanks DanM and Snake Hunter. I of course agree with DanM
steve_h, why do you think he deleted the comment? It was in response to his post, where he even admitted:
The footage used was so vastly different than the actual facts that its use was prejudicial, and hence propaganda.
Mind you, the footage was used very early in the Judgment Day “documentary”.
By William Wallace on Apr 6, 2008
“steve_h, why do you think he deleted the comment? It was in response to his post, where he even admitted:”
bacause he clearly explained to you that the narrator clearly said that “Inherit the Wind” L O O S L Y P O R T R A Y E D BOLDBOLDBOLD!!! the events of the scopes trial. If I may explain, it was never portrayed as an accurate version of events, it was just an indication that this is not the first time the evo-creo debate has entered the classroom/public imagination. Inherit the Wind was an important cultural event and it was shown with disclaimers.
As I understand it, you ignored that and continued to complain, repeatedly, that this was somehow dishonest, and in doing so, disrailed the thread.
I have no doubt that given the chance, you will continue to do so. If you really believe that ITW was depicted by JD as an accurate version of events which should have been refilmed then I guess it is your right to do so, but I don’t see why Wesley needs to publish it on his site ad-infinum.
By steve_h on Apr 7, 2008
I understand his point of view. However, the footage was from Inherit the Wind, a film about perceived problems with McCarthyism. Use of the sensational footage (and the footage selected was sensational) was a propaganda tactic in the context of creation/evolution disputes. Propaganda tactics are dishonest.
By William Wallace on Apr 7, 2008
They said it was a loose portrayal of events.
That’s a disclaimer. It is more or less the opposite of saying it was an accurate portrayal of events. Maybe they should have said that there was once a trial about teaching evolution in the classroom, which was so famous that it even inspired a film, which everone knows about, starring one of the World’s most famous actors whose initials may have been ST but we are not allowed to say. It may have been the most famous film ever regarding the evolution-creationism debate but you’ll just have to imagine it because somebody is bound to shout unfair if we show even just a few seconds of it with or without disclaimers.
I don’t understand why you haven’t gone back to “Wesley is Guilty already” Call yourself a christian
By steve_h on Apr 7, 2008
Would showing a scene of Mammy in Gone with the Wind in a hypothetical documentary produced by the South African government under apartheid be considered propaganda by you, even if they gave a disclaimer “Gone with the wind was loosely portrayed on events that occurred during the Civil War in the United States.”
By William Wallace on Apr 7, 2008
Considering that the documentary pertains to the movie in question, your analogy is faulty.
To phrase it the way you did: Would showing a scene of William Jennings Bryan in Inherit the Wind in a hypothetical documentary produced by a popular science television series NOVA be considered propaganda by you, even if they gave a disclaimer “Inherit the Wind was loosely portrayed on events that occurred during the years 2004-2005 in the United States.”
By zoltan on Apr 9, 2008