NewsWatch

PTC: These Are Not Your Parents’ Fairy Tales

OneNewsNow.com, 10/9/17, “PTC: These are not your parents’ fairy tales” [Excerpts]: The new report from the Parents Television Council—entitled “We’re Not in Kansas Anymore”—examines content over the last several years (2011-present) from several programs with ties to child-friendly fantasy franchises: Once Upon a Time (ABC), Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (ABC), The Muppets (ABC), Grimm (NBC), Emerald City (NBC), and Sleepy Hollow (Fox).

PTC president Tim Winter says his group’s research found that Hollywood has taken these fairy tale-themed properties and turned them “dark.”

“It is difficult to imagine television programming more likely to attract an audience of parents and children than shows based around Alice in Wonderland, The Muppets, and The Wizard of Oz,” he states. “It is built-in brand recognition.”

“Yet the networks chose to reinterpret these iconic children’s properties with sexual references, drug, alcohol use, explicit profanity, [and] graphic violence to an extent that these programs are really toxic for children.”

For example, says the report, the networks are using the airwaves to show children “Snow White surrounded by corpses ...Muppets swilling martinis while talking about sex, and Dorothy turning the Land of Oz into a forum for lewd sex acts....”

And to make matters worse, says Winter, “the TV networks rated every episode of each program as appropriate for viewing by a child age 14 or even younger.”

The PTC survey only encompassed the fantasy-based programming during the “sweeps” periods (November, February, and May) in the years examined—but that programming subjected viewers to 625 profanities, 300 deaths, and more than 1,000 incidents of violence, reports the group.

(https://goo.gl/LcLTUw)

We Were Wrong—Change Avoidable

TheTimes.co.uk, 9/19/17, “We were wrong—worst effects of climate change can be avoided, say experts” [Excerpts]: The worst impacts of climate change can still be avoided, senior scientists have said after revising their previous predictions.

The world has warmed more slowly than had been forecast by computer models, which were “on the hot side” and overstated the impact of emissions, a new study has found. Its projections suggest that the world has a better chance than previously claimed of meeting the goal set by the Paris agreement on climate change to limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, makes clear that rapid reductions in emissions will still be required but suggests that the world has more time to make the changes.

(https://goo.gl/DE5sRr)

Footprints Deal Blow To Evolution

World.wng.org, 9/28/17, “Unexpected Footprints Deal Blow to Evolution” [Excerpts]: Researchers just discovered ancient human footprints on the Greek island of Crete that undermine the Darwinian theory of the descent of humans.

Per Ahlberg, one of the study authors, admitted in a statement, “This discovery challenges the established narrative of early human evolution head-on and is likely to generate a lot of debate.”

The new discovery presents difficulties for evolutionary theory in two ways.

First, evolutionary scientists believe human beings originated in Africa and remained isolated there for a long time before they migrated to Europe and Asia. But the footprints could indicate humans trekked on the Greek island long before evolutionists thought they migrated out of Africa.

Second, the appearance of the footprints doesn’t make sense within an evolutionary framework. The unique structure of the human foot—with a long sole, five short, forward-pointing toes, no claws, and a big toe larger than the other toes—does not appear in any other animal, including apes.

Evolutionary theory would expect human feet to appear later in the fossil record than other fossils without human feet. But the footprints on Crete are older than many fossils of animals that evolutionists consider the ancestors of modern humans.

Günter Bechly of the Discovery Institute noted this finding shows “that the well-established scenarios of human evolution must be false, not only concerning their geographical location and timing, but also concerning the pattern of character origins and the alleged lineage.”

(https://goo.gl/qjqv3v)