DVD and web-based video: "Science and Belief - The Real Issues"

This project will confront the widely-held belief that science and religion are incompatible. The aim is to promote better-informed consideration of the issues. The main target audiences will be school students and churches. However, the public at large will also have full access to the materials through the internet. The output consists of a 120-minute video series of about a dozen episodes, provisionally entitled Science and Belief: The Real Issues. Each episode will begin with young people expressing their views on some particular topic. These will include creationism, Intelligent Design, the Galileo trial, miracles, the Anthropic Principle, Freud and Jung, memes, extra-terrestrial intelligence, etc. Having heard what the students have to say, the main presenter, Professor Russell Stannard, will comment on the exchanges, and with the help of images, animations, and props will provide the extra information needed to round out the overall discussion. In the final three episodes, Stannard will engage with the young interviewees in round-table discussions in which the interviewees will be able to react to what Stannard has said in his contributions. The series will be distributed to schools and churches in the UK as a DVD. It will also be posted up on YouTube for worldwide viewing. A Teachers? Guide, giving advice on possible classroom follow-up activities will be prepared, and will be downloadable from the internet. This new video series is to be seen as a successor to the popular, but now somewhat out-dated The Question Is... series funded 15 years ago by JTF. It will provide a much-needed contemporary resource. It will be produced by the Two Cats Can audio visual production company which was responsible for the highly acclaimed Boundaries of the Knowable internet video series (also funded by JTF ). As with earlier JTF schools video series, the project will be administered by RE Today Services (a service of the charitable legal entity Christian Education).

Grant Amount:

$169,267

Start Date:

January 2011

End Date:

May 2013

Grant ID:

20438