Cosmos edited to remove evolution by one Fox station

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The story:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/12/oklahoma-fox-station-removes-evolution-from-cosmos-by-cutting-only-15-seconds/

That is barking crazy. Editing the facts just to keep the nutjobs happy.

What I find most amusing is that a mere 15 seconds of the show had to be removed. If they are that threatened by 15 seconds in the first show, I wonder how they are going to handle the rest of the series.

I also find it quite amusing that they claim it was an editing error. So the 15 seconds they cut just happened to be the 15 seconds alluding to evolution?

Are there more episodes that deal almost exclusively with evolution? Would be interesting to see if those episodes are simply not aired.
Only in America! (And fundamentalist Islamic countries).
America had its war on terrorism, then a war on drugs now it appears to want a war on knowledge.

"Only in America! Laughing (And fundamentalist Islamic countries)"

You might want to include the "King" of countries, in this vein: North Korea

And there are some lesser that might be included.

But (horrible alienated skeptic that I am) I believe just about every country practices some form of
falsification (I call reality distortion) of the public. It may be gross and rude or it may be subtle but
it's always there. Even a beneficent monarch believes the whole truth isn't for everyone (like Barak).

denny

I don't think that there will be episodes focused on evolution, but when Sagan did the show evolution did come up in multiple episodes.

I loved Cosmos with Sagan, and still watch it on YouTube from time to time. I would have to say that one tiny excerpt (The Pale Blue Dot) had more of an impact on my life and my way of thinking than a childhood full of religious indoctrination, 6 years in the military, 5 years of civilian federal government service, and several years studying Bhuddism combined. It is one of the very few times that words have been able to emotionally move me. The first time I heard it, I actually let a tear escape (which is not something that I have much experience with).

I remember the original series with Carl Sagan. I even bought the book. He helped to fill me with fascination and enthusiasm for science and is one of the important figures that helped to shape my life. He had a real passion for science and for sharing knowledge and the wonders of the universe. One of my all time heroes.

He'd be rolling in his grave if he could see today's knuckle-heads censoring scientific knowledge.

I knew something like this would come up when I found out this was made by Fox. Any one who takes art, the truth, or education seriously should never have anything to do with this company.

The only reason they are the dominant global media company is because they've been unscrupulous about wiretapping and blackmail since the 70s. This companies lies have done more to add to human misery in the 21st century than, I suspect, any other entity.

Sex, Lies, and the Murdoch Succession

Coulda been a screw up, and not intentional.

And they let Degrasse admit that the Cosmos is 17 billion years old (gasp! ya mean its older than the Old Testament says?).

Honestly, it's very likely that this was just a mistake. Local TV stations work under ridiculous time crunches, and those editors are working nearly all day to get everything cut together. Mistakes happen often.

Besides, anyone who takes issue with evolution is going to take issue with just about everything else in the program.

As much as I would like to trash the Fox network, this is a reasonable interpretation. When I read the first post in this thread i went to youtube, saw the video and made an outraged comment. But now that I've seen the entire episode, he talks so much about evolution, the age of the universe, and so on, that it is not that difficult to believe that this was just incompetence and greed at work.

Much of (the Christian parts of) Africa, and maybe some South American countries.

Why, this should be considered progress! At one time in that part of the country, they wouldn't have allowed a black man on TV at all!

Remember, it's Oklahoma.

This also happened in... the Netherlands! Our public broadcaster is similar to the BBC, except is divided into smaller broadcasters that are based on membership numbers. The Evangelical part aired a BBC documentary on nature and they also edited out the bits about evolution. So this censorship was even funded by the government.
Ah, I found an article on it here: http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2007/sep/07/censoringsirdavid

Don't ask how I know this, but this post is absolutely right. It's fairly likely that the master control person screwed up and had a break roll when it wasn't supposed to. This program looks like it was coming from Fox's network hub, and the way local commercials/promos work is they're run over whatever the network is broadcasting during the period that's designated for local spots. Usually during the times commercials are SUPPOSED to roll, the network is just sending a graphic or black video. I don't know why the operator let the whole promo play out instead of immediately switching back to network, but whatever. In any event, absolutely nobody at a local affiliate has any clue what the content of a network show is going to be until it airs. It's impossible to "censor" a program when you have no opportunity to watch it beforehand.

Normally something like this would result in a slap on the wrist for the operator, but since this got national attention I'm willing to bet that the poor guy went from dirt-poor to dirt-poor and unemployed.