Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus

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06/30/2011 I watched this film thinking I was going to love it, and for the most part, I am disappointed in some of it. For this film detailing how the theory of evolution is tought in schools across the US, I was expecting a detailed description that would actually help me develop an opinion on this. However, that is bogged down by what I see many documentaries being hurt by; it suffers from constant winks to the audience, trying to entertain the audience and educate them at the same time, and on top of that, the film has a very annoying soundtrack that sounds like Mumford and Son at its worst. The fvirst documentary that I started to see this in was Morgan Spurlock's "Where in The World is Osama Bin Laden?". It was a very serious issue that should have been taken seriously, but was made a joke. And in Flock of Dodos, that is the same case. except that it is more annoying than before. I feel safe saying that I was educated quite a bit during this film. However, I would have liked to see it back away from the constant winks at the audience. The only real statement I could have about this issue is this; I f**king hate Kansas. See more 10/10/2008 In the end, there is a right or wrong issue at hand. Either there is evolution happening or there is not. I have to say, I've never seen any evidence that there's anything else. I'll just put that right out on the table. I believe in a divine entity, call it what you will, but all the evidence that we see around us shows evolution happening. The fossil record is part of it, but even things like antibiotic-resistant bacteria are evolution at work. I suspect someone who saw things from a different perspective would be giving this documentary a very different review, though I do like to think that it's as balanced as a documentary on this subject needs to be. He laid out the evidence, and it shows one thing and one thing only. So that's the controversy taught, right? Dr. Randy Olson was Steven Jay Gould's TA. Now, he is an evolutionary biologist and filmmaker who has produced a work about the "intelligent design" debate. (He leaves out my favourite bit, more on which anon.) He talks to as many people as he can from both sides, though no one from the Discovery Institute would talk to him. However, he talked to Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, scientists and what they're now calling "design proponents." He works very hard to show where the arguments come from and why, and he also works pretty hard to show that the argument is badly handled on the science side and the science is badly handled on the ID side. He [i]likes[/i] the ID people he talks to; he really does. However, he generally finds them to be ignorant about most of the issues under discussion. Because, you see, they are. The film is good, but it's rather amateurish. For one thing, as Mrs. Nicholson would have told me had I put it into a speech, you're not going to convince anyone by calling them dodos, even if you're calling them [i]all[/i] dodos. The animation's a bit silly, too. I mean, I think it's trying to be, but I think it--and, sadly, the filmmaker's wacky mother--distracts from the broader story he's trying to tell. It also feels, I don't know, kind of like he's trying to stretch a film of not-quite-enough-material, even though [i]NOVA[/I] managed to make a lengthier film just covering the Dover case. I think he might be working too hard at being accessible. I want to talk, just for a minute, about the supplemental materials, which you know I don't usually do. And, indeed, I haven't gotten all the way through it. However, it does include a good series of possible educational materials, should a biology teacher choose to use it that way. (I do recommend it!) A teacher could make a very good week's worth of lessons here. Admittedly, a lot of people could see it as lazy, but I think watching half the film and then doing a Q&A session and so forth. There's good content here, even if the original movie isn't as good as some of the [i]NOVA[/i] stuff. It may, however, be easier for less-advanced biology and "life science" classes to comprehend. I will say that for the movie; indeed, that may well be my biggest problem with it. It [i]feels[/i] a bit oversimplified. Okay, my favourite ID story. In the infamous Dover, PA, case, the students were advised to look into a book called [i]On Pandas and People[/i]. The thing is, as was presented into evidence at the trial, the book had originally been written as a creationist text, back before teaching creation in the public schools had been declared unconstitutional. So "Intelligent Design" was invented. But that meant that the book was out of date and not legally permitted in the US public schools. So they went in and did a cut/paste. "Creationist" became "design proponent." But the cut/paste went wrong, you see, and "creationist," in many cases, became "cdesign proponentist." This is, obviously, the transitional form between the two. See more Read all reviews

Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus

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