Kate Mulgrew Was Snookered

Io9 is running a story that Kate Mulgrew does not, in fact, believe that the sun orbits the earth and that she was duped into appearing in the film The Principles. From her Facebook page:

“I understand there has been some controversy about my participation in a documentary called THE PRINCIPLE. Let me assure everyone that I completely agree with the eminent physicist Lawrence Krauss, who was himself misrepresented in the film, and who has written a succinct rebuttal in SLATE. I am not a geocentrist, nor am I in any way a proponent of geocentrism. More importantly, I do not subscribe to anything Robert Sungenis has written regarding science and history and, had I known of his involvement, would most certainly have avoided this documentary. I was a voice for hire, and a misinformed one, at that. I apologize for any confusion that my voice on this trailer may have caused. Kate Mulgrew”

As I mentioned to a reader, Charleton Heston also regretted doing a “documentary” called The Mysterious Origins of Man, but I cannot find his press statement on it. As Ms. Mulgrew mentioned, Lawrence Krauss was also misrepresented. Here is part of his statement on Slate:

I have no recollection of being interviewed for such a film, and of course had I known of its premise I would have refused. So, either the producers used clips of me that were in the public domain, or they bought them from other production companies that I may have given some rights to distribute my interviews to, or they may have interviewed me under false pretenses, in which case I probably signed some release. I simply don’t know.

Many people have suggested I litigate. But this approach seems to me to be completely wrong because it would elevate the profile of something that shouldn’t even rise to the level of popular discussion. The best thing we can all do when faced by nonsense like that, or equivalent silliness promoted by biblical fundamentalists who claim that science supports a literal interpretation of the Bible, is to ignore it in public forums, and not shine any light on the authors of this trash.

And everyone breathes a sigh of relief.  It is unfortunate/tragic/sad that people like Sungenis have to resort to subterfuge to get people to agree with their crackpot ideas.  We should have known better.

Hat tip to Jason Broyles

Slightly Off-Topic: Kate Mulgrew To Narrate Geocentrism Movie

The former Kathryn Janeway, of the starship Voyager, Kate Mulgrew (otherwise known as Mrs. Columbo) has gone down the rabbit hole.  She will be narrating a film by Robert Sungenis, titled The Principle.  The Daily Mail reports:

The film, set for release this spring, was partially backed by a well known anti-Semitic and far-right conservative, Robert Sungenis, who runs a blog called 'Galileo Was Wrong.'

Scientists such as Michio Kaku, Lawrence Krauss, and Max Tegmart all appear in the trailer, discussing the Earth's unique characteristics that allow it to sustain life.

Sungenis himself appears in the trailer to offer some of his conspiracy theory.

'You can go on some websites of NASA to see that they've started to take down stuff that might hint to a geocentric universe,' he tells the audience.

I wrote a post on Sungenis a bit back, when the geocentrism issue appeared on the radar and the post generated some chatter.  According to the story in the Daily Mail, Sungenis has also been tied to anti-holocaust rhetoric and they provide a link to this article, which relates this bit of unpleasantness:

Sungenis, who was born into a Catholic family but became a Protestant before returning to the Catholic Church in 1992, was taken seriously in mainstream Catholic circles for many years, even producing two religious series for EWTN, a Catholic television station. That ended in 2002, when Sungenis published a 33,000-word, anti-Semitic attack on a joint statement by the National Council of Synagogues and the Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs that criticized the Catholic Church's history of attempting to convert Jews. The article repeated a series of ancient anti-Semitic canards, relied on anti-Semites like Father Denis Fahey as authorities, and even praised Fahey and Father Charles Coughlin (the viciously anti-Semitic "radio priest" of the 1930s) as "dedicated Catholic priests who lived impeccable lives and defended Holy Mother Church from every sort of Satanic deception." As a result, EWTN pulled Sungenis' TV series and removed all mention of him from its Web site; in a similar way, Envoy magazine also removed Sungenis from its website. Since then, Sungenis has gone even further into anti-Semitic conspiracy-mongering, frequently reminding people that the 1911 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia "predicts the anti-Christ will come from Jewry."

As career moves go, this is not a good one for Ms. Mulgrew, who should know better than to get mixed up with these people.


P.S. Ordinarily I would not touch things that come from the Southern Poverty Law Center, since they are rabidly partisan, sensationalistic, and lean far to the left of MSNBC.  Insomuch as I can tell, they have gotten their fact right here but I have not dug deep.