A Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus
by: Rev. DanI don’t know about you, but almost every time I read “A Flock of Dodos” I think of the best band from the 80’s and/or a big collection of marital aids. A Flock of Dodos, however, is neither.
A Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus is a documentary directed by former Evolutionary Geologist Randy Olson which examines and chronicles the “debate” between evolutionists and proponents of the fairly recently minted notion of “Intelligent Design” or “ID.”
The movie’s trailer has convinced me that this movie is a “must see.”
Based on information from some of the reviews I’ve read, the trailer, and this awesome interview of Olson on ABC’s “The Mix,” the movie isn’t just about the wrongness of the Intelligent Design movement (it’s pseudo-science, at best) it also points out the scientific community’s general inability to communicate in terms that the non-scientifically-inclined can understand. This ineffective communication is likely part of what has allowed proponents of ID to cast doubt upon the very nature of science and has allowed effective Dominionist communicators to get their foot in the door and create a false “debate” and controversy in the realm of public opinion, much as they’ve done with the Global Warming Crisis.
In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore presents the fact that the scientific community is in overwhelming consensus that Global Warming is occurring, and that it’s a serious issue which needs to be addressed. The mainstream media is the propagator of the false notion that there’s no consensus among scientists. This phenomenon is also very apparent in the Evolution-Intelligent Design “controversy.” The scientific community is in consensus that evolution is a natural, occurring, observable process, yet a handful of people are able to manipulate the media to create the perception that scientists disagree.
A prime example of this is in the A Flock of Dodos trailer:
Student A: I don’t believe that we actually descended from apes.
Student B: I do not believe, in any way, shape, or form, we descended from apes.
Student C: I didn’t believe that until I met my uncle who had more back hair than I have facial hair.
Not a single evolutionary scientist would say “I believe that we descended from apes.” They would correctly say “we, like apes, descended from a common ape-like ancestor.” How did our collective understanding of the Theory of Evolution get so twisted that the average person cannot accurately explain what it is, and instead will offer an obviously nonsensical soundbyte?
Why are a handful of people so effective in smearing a huge community of intelligent, rational folks? I’d like to credit Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort but that’d be giving them far too much credit.
Perhaps it’s time to start buying our scientist friends copies of George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of An Elephant“ and hope they’ll read it and the light will come on over their heads. They’re generally intelligent folks, you’d think they’d “get it.”
Scientists need to recognize that they’re first on the block (right alongside us heathens and artists) when the ignorant faith-based masses take over… and that neglecting to address these serious problems now by educating the public at large will ultimately lead to our destruction. Rational, intelligent people need to step up to the plate and help save us from ourselves.
Is that an overstated and melodramatic thought? Sadly, I think not.
The introduction to the Wikipedia article on Intelligent Design:
Intelligent design (ID) is the concept that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.” Its leading proponents, all of whom are affiliated with the Discovery Institute, assert that intelligent design is a scientific theory that stands on equal footing with, or is superior to, current scientific theories regarding the evolution and origin of life.
The scientific community views intelligent design as unscientific, as pseudoscience or as junk science. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that intelligent design “and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life” are not science because they cannot be tested by experiment, do not generate any predictions, and propose no new hypotheses of their own.
In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005), a United States federal court ruled that a public school district requirement for science classes to teach that intelligent design is an alternative to evolution was a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. United States District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science and is essentially religious in nature. In the United Kingdom, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has asserted that “… neither Intelligent Design nor Creationism are recognised scientific theories and they are not included in the National Curriculum.”
I think that the American church likes to make up ‘demons’ to fight, such as evolution and the ACLU, because they are not willing to deal with their own demons. Intelligent design is something for them to fight and occupy their time.