Click here for the official movie site

On Saturday evening, after a most charming dinner, Courtney, myself and a few other dear friends went to see this movie.

Those of you that know me understand that I am a Christian and as such you will undoubtedly through brilliant use of deductive rationale conclude that I probably wouldn’t be a good Christian if I didn’t see this movie/documentary.

Open-mindedness is a double-edged sword.

Growing up I did attend public school through half of fifth grade. I did get elementary representations of our evolution from ape-like to man, and I did learn who Darwin was, and I did learn a basic interpretation of the scientific method and also the definition of “theory” which I’ve included from a quick Dictionary.com/Wikipedia entry below:

1 Define the question
2 Gather information and resources (observe)
3 Form hypothesis
4 Perform experiment and collect data
5 Analyze data
6 Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
7 Publish results
8 Retest (frequently done by other scientists)

Creationism, Intelligent Design, Evolution are the three main components that the film approach with vast majority on the latter. The movie is only anti-evolution on the premise that the theory does not answer every question and that the scientific community will not entertain any other theory in order to provide an alternative explanation of the origin of life and with academic freedom allow the brightest minds of our society pursue the study of intelligent design in lieu of evolution without what the film claims to be the realistic threat of blacklisting, destructive criticism, with the end result being a discredited, falsely labeled scientific community pariah.

I remember that it was in 2nd grade that I first began to learn about evolution. I was told (in very basic 2nd grade terms) that we evolved into what we are today. We started off technologically not very sound, and as we continued to mature as a species over millions of years we started to learn stuff. I also learned what a theory was. I’ve included the scientific/dictionary definition below:

Dictionary definition:
1. a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena: Einstein’s theory of relativity.
2. a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.
3. Mathematics. a body of principles, theorems, or the like, belonging to one subject: number theory.
4. the branch of a science or art that deals with its principles or methods, as distinguished from its practice: music theory.
5. a particular conception or view of something to be done or of the method of doing it; a system of rules or principles.
6. contemplation or speculation.
7. guess or conjecture.

Evolution is a theory. It is however taught as a fact based on a forensic viewpoint that you only need to see the result of a happenstance to know that a happenstance occurred. This is a Richard Dawkins belief, but I think he used a murder scene as the analogy. From a deductive standpoint I can fully respect and accept this line of thinking and be free to pursue the when, where, how, and why. However if I’m presented with the definitive theory that only ONE possibility exists all of a sudden my research is narrowed within the scope of that ONE possibility. Despite the logical value of the possibility considering how the effects of the scene may match the observed behavior of a murderer, would the actual perpetrator truly exhibit the behavior of a murderer?

Evolution fails to go beyond the happenstance and what was responsible. They just know that it happened based on what they observe to be the effects of the alleged circumstance.

I’ve always understood that meaningless endeavors, failed trials, non-sensical ideas being put to the test are a part of science. When did science quit being about the research and the asking of questions to being the elitist-minded entity that demands results before even the simplest/safest consideration? Why does Richard Dawkins (who I have no intellectual distaste for) refuse to openly debate with Creationism scientists, or ID research scientists? A common belief shared by many is the one he employs. He won’t give them an audience because to do so would imply that they have some sort of respectable clout that is enough to earn his attention.

My personal opinion is that they do. Who is Richard Dawkins, or anyone for that matter who is better than everyone else … so much better that they support the freedom to suppress opposing views in another way to circumvent their responsibility to be able to address/defend their own views?

The movie briefly touched on the scientific greats of Isaac Newton (gravity, thermodynamics), Johann Kepler (laws of planetary motion: ellipses), and Albert Einstein (theory of relativity). These men had true academic freedom to study and pursue their discoveries/theories without the approval or condemnation of a scientific society, but with the church who strangely enough allowed anything to be published publicly in so much that it also punished publicly. It also briefly mentioned Galileo and Copernicus, the two men most responsible for popularizing the idea of a heliocentric solar system, but not without Galileo being put under house arrest for the remainder of his life under the religious oppression of the Inquisition.

*Gasp! ID is a trojan horse for Creationism! A far-right religious ideal that denies evolution! The same religion that put Galileo under house arrest… and he was right!*

Open-mindedness is a double-edged sword.

The scientific community, the segment of which is humanistic run the risk of being no better than the Inquisition for the same narrow-minded humanistic reasons that the Church had in their narrow-minded religious reasons. A character in the film said it best when he said that it all boils down to worldview, not science. The character is self-proclaimed humanist as well.

Over the next few days/weeks/months you may hear people condemn Ben Stein’s connection of the theory of evolution to Nazi Germany, or even to Planned Parenthood. The problem with this condemnation is that he isn’t connecting them to the theory of evolution as much as he is connecting them with the worldview that is shared by Nazi Germany and Planned Parenthood which echo Darwin’s natural selection and survival of the fittest. His main point is that if the teaching and worldwide acceptance of the theory of evolution leaves our future generations of scientists and researchers in the narrow minded evolution-only worldview there will be interpretations similar to Nazi Germany and Planned Parenthood.

Both Nazi Germany and Planned Parenthood, although not connected to each other politically shared a common factor in the practice of eugenics:

the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).

Abortion. Although Darwin was not the wicked man many Liberals seem to think Conservatives (ah, see worldviews collide here?) tout him to be let us read the last page of Origin of Species

Click here for an example of how one might connect Planned Parenthood and racism through the ideology of eugenics.

Naturally, everyone on the planet or of any social class in their own way practice a version of eugenics. Example being marrying someone because they are wealthy. Is it a fetch? Probably, but hey let’s be prepared to face every possible angle.

Ever see Gattaca? In theory and practice everything seemed to be just fine with procreation being a medical procedure to ensure the best possible offspring but it seems that the worldview regarding evolution is strictly science and not even so much as being “human”. This is not any better when juxtaposed to the viewpoint that religion facilitated death out of necessity in regards to one’s own religious preference weighed against the other.

The main thrust of the film and a very basic point is that much of the leadership within the scientific community have the clout to undermine the sincere scientific efforts of their colleagues if they so much as oppose the status quo of evolution being the only viable theory to study and with which to teach in our academic system. They encourage free thinking but as soon as something controversial or decidedly based upon bias whether it would be religious (which came up often from the anti-ID scientists/supporters) or personal opinion the tables turn from supportive of new ideas to some sort of heresy hunting character assassinating ordeal in regards to their intelligence simply based on the fact they choose to study an alternative.

Are the more fanatical evolutionists (who the film clearly targets) so hard-pressed to suppress any other alternative thinking truly scared at what an academically free society of scientists may be able to glean or discover when applying the scientific method to our origin? How much more of a waste of time could it be than what American education money already pays for that produces amazing theory after theory but nothing that is concrete beyond what, who, when, where, or why these theories even have the ability to be formed?

Perhaps it is too much to want that science produces answers. Perhaps it is too much to take thought for a moment the economic consequences humanist textbook writers (see Dewey) would face at the thought that ONE evolution-based line of science books would no longer hold the monopoly of available educational resources for higher scientific learning?

So after having seen the movie and considering what I feel or interpret the points to be I wish that someone (I’m too busy and lack resources to do it) would examine our educational system and tally exactly what do our schools make available in providing students the freedom to study anything they want to (and have the open-minded unbiased support of their peers) in regards to the origin of life on earth.

I know the movie only depicts a small number of probably the most extreme scientists, but these are still members of the scientific community that carry a considerable amount of influence over what is deemed important.

I would like to close this entry with an excerpt from the conclusion of Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of Species

…Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. And of the species now living very few will transmit progeny of any kind to a far distant futurity; for the manner in which all organic beings are grouped, shows that the greater number of species of each genus, and all the species of many genera, have left no descendants, but have become utterly extinct. We can so far take a prophetic glance into futurity as to foretel that it will be the common and widely-spread species, belonging to the larger and dominant groups, which will ultimately prevail and procreate new and dominant species. As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence to a secure future of equally inappreciable length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

The End.