Calif. Science Museum Settles Lawsuit Over Anti-Evolution Film

The California Science Center will pay an advocacy group $110,000 to settle a lawsuit the organization filed after the museum canceled a planned screening of a documentary attacking Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, according to the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times.

The American Freedom Alliance’s lawsuit charged that the science center backed out of the 2009 showing of the film Darwin’s Dilemma under pressure from scientists and the Smithsonian Institution.

The alliance had rented the center’s IMAX theater to show the film, which promotes “intelligent design,” the theory that a single being rather than impersonal natural forces shaped the universe.

The museum contended the alliance had breached its contract by bringing in a third party, a pro-intelligent design group called Discovery Center, to promote the screening and drum up controversy.

Under an unusual provision of the settlement, the science center asked the alliance back to show the film, and the alliance rejected the invitation.