Klinghoffer clangs

David Klinghoffer, Disco ‘Tute apologist, has responded to the recent kerfuffle involving Ann Gauger’s mangling of population genetics and phylogenetics (see Joe Felsenstein’s comment on Sandwalk) whilst green-screened over a stock laboratory photograph. Klinghoffer doesn’t bother to address the scientific nonsense Gauger promoted, of course–how could he?–but claims that the green-screened lab was convenient because

Typically, filming in a genuine location like this would be troublesome for us and bothersome for others who work there – a distraction for all involved, including viewers, when the intent is to focus on the argument. Many other times, in other contexts, we have similarly used backdrops where, to get to an actual locale, it would require travel not to mention complicated, time-consuming setup and many other headaches. Going with a green screen makes sense for an organization that operates under a constrained budget.

So in Klinghoffer’s head there are just two alternatives: use a stock photo and green-screen Gauger into it, or tape Gauger speaking in her own lab. Here’s a third alternative for Klinghoffer and the DI’s film producers: Take a still photo of Gauger’s lab, which might be 10 minutes or so of interruption of the horde of minions working in it, and then green-screen her into that photo. That would have saved $19.00 (the reported cost of the stock photo) for the constrained budget of the DI. But it would also mean escaping from a false dichotomy, and ID proponents seem to be cognitively unable to entertain more than two alternatives at once; witness their decades-long efforts to equate (mostly specious) critiques of evolution with evidence for ID.