Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus (2006)

I watched this movie a couple of years ago with an large audience of mixed partisans from both sides. There was also a discussion panel afterward that included a number of scholars and critics and politicians.I think Olson showed everyone as they really were: The scientists were a bit supercilious but the fundamentalists were absolutely idiotic. The documentary had no obligation to make the latter seem anything other than the scientific illiterates and theocrats that they truly are. I wish the film had also shown the venality and pervasive corruption of the bible thumpers revealed in their mismanagement of and campaigns for the Kansas State Board of Education, but that complexity would have been harder to explain and would have taken much longer.On the panel above, held in Kansas City, a local reactionary radio host participated on the "Intelligent (sic) Design" side. After a number of outrageous, preposterous statements, he got progressively more contentious and finally loudly contended that all the scientific advances since the birth of Christ were a product of "western Christian civilization." I'm sure that, for instance, dozens of Jewish Nobelists in the hard sciences would have been stunned by this calumny, but I think it revealed the true colors of these fundamentalists. Taken to task, the ideologue even claimed that Gallileo had not actually been persecuted by religious zealots and the Vatican.It should be mentioned that this was a truly amusing documentary in many ways. It captured some leading scientists in their most casual, unguarded and perhaps slightly inebriated moments. It showed the "I.D.ers" for the bumpkins they are, with ludicrous statements against interest right from their own mouths. Audiences even got to identify with Olson's mom, "Muffy Moose," who was an endearingly hilarious example of a fence sitter, and were educated about the peculiar digestive processes of rabbits (I'll avoid a spoiler here, but just that part makes the movie worth attending).I have to give it two opposed thumbs up!

I think the problem with this film is that it goes into the Darwinism/Intelligent Design debate with its mind already made up.It does recognize that the ID side is a lot better at connecting with people. It attributes this to the fact that they've gotten slick public relations firms, not that they actually make legitimate points that the Darwinist side is unable to answer.It does engage in some chicanery. For instance, it attacks Dr. Wells "Icons of Evolution" on the dispute over Haeckel's embryos. THe problem is that Haeckel's embryos are frequently included in a lot of textbooks. They engage in misdirection by pointing out they aren't in advanced embryology textbooks. Well, most people aren't going to take advanced embryology, they are going to maybe take High School biology.It criticizes the ID side for using catchphrases, while repeating catchphrases of the Darwinist side- such as 'God of the gaps". It's a clever phrase, but it doesn't really address the problem - that there are some huge gaping holes in Evolutionary theory- how did life evolve from chemicals, why are there so few transitional fossils in the records, how would a complex structure like an eye evolve.It also engages in "guilt by association". The Discovery institute uses the same public relation firm as the Swift Vets who attacked Kerry, that makes them evil. Sorry, the Swift Vets had a legitimate point, Kerry was presenting himself as something he wasn't.It also presents it as a "blue state/red state" issue. Again, wrong. I know a LOT of liberal democrats who believe that God had something to do with the origin of life in the world.In all, it tries to be fair, but really isn't.

I want to begin by saying that I believe in evolution, and that I do not worship supernatural beings.This is not a non-entertaining film, and I don't know of a better one about the teaching-intelligent-design-in-schools issue. However, ultimately, it's a disappointing, sometimes mildly amusing, hypocritical, smug documentary that is nevertheless not totally devoid of value about an important subject.This film comes off as arrogantly insulting those who believe in intelligent design ("ID") itself, and it fails to get across the most important point that, even if you are pro-ID, while your views are arguably worthy of respect as a philosophical matter, you can't reasonably believe that your ID philosophy ought to be taught in science class.Whether you believe in ID or don't, when it comes to whether ID should be taught in science class, it is clearly unreasonable to think that it ought to be, because science is a completely different way of looking at the world than that implied by ID. Teaching ID in science class would be a lot like teaching Kant's ethics or Russian literature in science class--it obviously doesn't belong there. The film really doesn't develop this idea enough, or, hardly at all actually, and devotes much too much time to trying to debate the truth or falsity of ID itself, which, in my view, is either (a) something that reasonable minds can and do differ upon or (b) completely incoherent babble, ultimately, on both sides of the debate. I find it incredibly arrogant to presume to know that the universe was designed by a deity, just as I find it incredibly arrogant to presume to know that it wasn't. How would YOU know, unless you were a deity yourself? It might seem implausible to you that there's a deity behind all this, and it does in fact seem implausible to me that there's a deity behind all this, but I can assure you that it seems at least as implausible to many people that there isn't. There are many reasonable people in the world who believe in ID but do not want it to be taught in science class. And this film is more about criticizing and insulting those who believe in ID itself than it is about criticizing those who not only believe in ID but also believe that it should be taught in science classes.There are some positives though. This film does do a couple of interesting things. It briefly talks about an organization called the Discovery Institute which is a well-funded group which promotes the teaching of intelligent design in science classes, and it contrasts it with the relative lack of organization on the opposition-to-ID-in-schools. It criticizes the anti-ID camp for not doing what the pro-ID-in-schools camp is doing, i.e. for not really getting organized, not engaging in politicking, not being charming when in the public eye, insulting the other side and acting as though the subject is not worthy of debate rather than respecting its dignity and engaging in reasonable debate, and for not really explaining to the public its position and exactly why it's a bad idea to "teach" ID in science class.It also explains a little about the legal and political history of the recent ID-in-schools phenomenon, and that's interesting stuff.But the film lacks depth. I would have enjoyed hearing more about the subjects that I just discussed in the "positives" part of my review. But the most glaring problem is its hypocrisy. It is guilty of exactly what it criticizes the anti-ID camp for, specifically: (1) not really explaining exactly why it's ridiculous for ID to be taught in science class, and (2) arrogantly insulting the pro-ID side rather than respecting its dignity and engaging in reasonable debate. At the very least, it should have reserved its insults and criticisms for those who not only believe in ID but who are also of the crazy view that ID ought to be taught in our science classes. There's nothing especially crazy about merely believing in ID. I don't, but most people actually do, and most of those people are not crazy. For example, as far as (2) goes, the film basically calls the pro-ID camp a bunch of "dodos" in the first 5 minutes. The film's entire tone is one that basically kind of treats the pro-ID camp like it's just stupid and that you are stupid if you think it's anything other than obvious that the pro-ID camp is stupid. It is unlikely to turn on any pro-IDers for this reason alone. And that is really unfortunate. It would have been much more effective to grant that there is possibly some value to the ID viewpoint, but nevertheless that there is absolutely no value to the view that ID ought to be part of science classes. As far as (1) goes, even though it seems pretty obvious to me why ID shouldn't be taught in science class, the film doesn't do much to explain why it's so obvious. It just spends almost all of its time childishly attacking people for merely believing that the universe was created by an intelligent designer. It seems to be of the viewpoint that somehow the standard position for a pro-ID person to take is that ID ought to be taught in science class, when in reality this is just an incredibly radical and idiotic position that most pro-IDers cannot possibly subscribe to.There is some value to seeing this, but it is ultimately a pretty childish documentary that will insult the very people it claims to most want to influence--the pro-ID camp.

I was lucky enough to go to a small screening of FOD at my college. Randy Olson was present at the end to discuss opinions and answer questions.What struck me about this movie was how unashamedly it looks at pretension and ego in the scientific community today. Though ostensibly about the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design debate, this movie delves quite deeply into the levels of effective communication between scientist and layman. Anyone out there who's ever studied under a particularly brilliant professor will know exactly what I mean- they usually have quite earth-shatteringly amazing ideas and thoughts that they are woefully unequipped to communicate to the rest of us mortals.The movie covers the Evolution/ID debate (and its theological implications) from a variety of perspectives, ranging from Conservative right-wingers to Athiest Liberals. To be entirely honest, I went in to see this movie with a preexisting bias- I am a student of Evolution and an Athiest. However, what I like about this movie is that it does not hide or suppress the opinions of either side, but lets them be heard. While my opinion on Evolution remains unchanged, this movie did uproot some prejudices in my mind relating to certain very common social stereotypes. Fundamentalist Christians are not necessarily scary bible-spouting messengers of doom, nor are scientists with an arsenal of PhDs necessarily the calm voice of reason.Ultimately, Flock of Dodos is precise, to the point, and in a way- manages to do exactly what it asks the scientific community to do. It communicates a complex idea to the everyman without resorting to falsification or 'dumbing-down.' (9*/10*)