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His film, "Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus," is the latest on the debate over intelligent design and evolution. Interviewing Harvard scientists, intelligent design advocates and even his 82-year-old mother (a voice of reason who thinks evolution should be taught in science classes and intelligent design taught in philosophy classes), Olson lets both sides speak, and pokes holes in the arguments of both.
But the on-screen debate pales in comparison to the one that has so far taken place in the handful of audiences for the movie. More than 50 universities have asked for screenings, but so far, "Dodos" has had only five public viewings.
In Stony Brook, N.Y., a 500-seat auditorium was swamped for a Feb. 10 screening, and guards had to lock the doors and turn away an overflow crowd. In Kansas, where the first screening of Olson's film took place, the documentary was greeted with laughter and applause, but the following panel discussion between evolutionists and intelligent design proponents degenerated into chaos.
"It was very sad and ugly when it broke down to a shouting match and turned into a whole big uproar. You could see people in the audience turning their heads away saying 'Oh God, here we go again,'" Olson said in an interview with CNET News.com.
The filmmaker was born and raised in Kansas, where the State Board of Education last year decided to support the teaching of intelligent design in schools. Intelligent design holds that life is too complex to have developed through random mutations, as proponents of evolution believe.
Olson, an evolutionary ecologist with a Ph.D. from Harvard University, has watched the controversy between religion and science brew for several years. Having left science teaching for filming, he decided to go back to Kansas and do a documentary that makes sense of the debate.
The film's title might suggest that it's an attack on intelligent design, but it is actually quite the opposite. With a large dose of humor, Olson explores the shortcomings of both sides.
"Flock of Dodos" audiences laugh at the expense of Olson's own evolutionist friends. While the evolutionists are playing poker and calling intelligent design proponents "yahoos" and "idiots," he turns the evolutionists into animated dodos, the extinct, flightless birds that were known for their lack of grace. He also shows examples of extraordinarily unintelligent design, like the fact that rabbits have to eat their own feces to absorb enough nutrients from food.
"The ID movement suffers from being based on the advocates' own intuition. It tells them that all things are designed, but they don't have a scientific way to demonstrate it," Olson said. Still, he said intelligent design advocates are far better communicators than evolutionists.
"Natural selection teaches us that when an environment changes, the species that don't change with it run the risk of extinction. The media environment in the United States has changed drastically," Olson said. Intelligent design advocates understand the rules of new media, but evolutionary scientists are "a huge flock of dodos when it comes to communications," he said.
And evolutionists agree with him. Pro-evolutionist Kansas writer Pat Hayes wrote after seeing the movie: "If scientists and supporters of reason do not begin to engage the public and learn to more effectively communicate their message, Olson makes a strong case that (the dodos) could be us."
Even though Olson himself is clearly pro-evolution, he said his heart is still in Kansas, which kept him from taking shots at intelligent design supporters. "I respect people of character who are willing to stand up and speak their mind for what they believe in, on either side of the fence," he said. "This is a fairly embarrassing film for scientists; the guys at the poker table are very arrogant and obnoxious."
Olson hopes his film will be a wake-up call for scientists to start communicating with the public in an engaging and understandable way. He's also sending out copies to film festivals, and hopes a distributor will pick it up for national distribution.
There's no question who he thinks is winning this long-running debate at the moment. "The intelligent design movement is having its way," he said, "and no one in the science world is there to stand up to it."
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Intelligent Design, evolution, Kansas, filmmaker, advocate
of itself. Idiotic explanations are irrelevant, stupid claims are
unnecessary. But, stand by. The foaming at the mouth adherents
are about to deluge this thread with their versions of reality.
It will be interesting. It may even be funny. And in some cases, it
will be pathetic that supposedly intelligent people are so
severely mind locked.
But such is life.
You fan the flames my friend, and it is obvious from your posting that you enjoy what will undoubtedly follow. A series of arguments based on second hand knowledge by non-experts, which will eventually degrade into what could be easily observed on a preschool playground.
I propose that people stick to the real issue and talk about the story, not the debate on creation VS evolution. That is after all what this thread SHOULD be about, the impact this film might have on the community.
I think it's unneccessary that you insult the scientific community like that. Give them a break!
The only real difference between the Evolution/ID debate, and something like the String Theory/Super Gravity debate is that people without scientific backrounds routinely wiegh in on the Evo/ID debate.
Harry Voyager
(an exact ripoff, IMO) of the poster for "Monty Python's The
Meaning of Life"?
That is too bad, because you could do something similar, without
outright copying!
Which, when you think about, is more fitting for the subject matter. A noble race, the Jayhawkers..
..sorry the Romans.
All evolution does is rules out the existence of God, with absolutely nothing but theory to back it up.
The result is that you have two camps, one discussing apples and the other discussing oranges. It's a false argument because Darwinism makes no statement about the validity of God, while the ID camp is attempting to make Darwinism into a religion.
Great, first Bush with "They have WMDs!" and "We need to go to war!" Now this: "I believe [ID], so science has to prove it [the unprovable] to be wrong...and be nice about it so we [the masses] can understand."
Gee, maybe if our education system had been a higher priority in this nation, we wouldn't have to educate the general public about the difference between scientific method/facts and philosophy/religion.
Still, it's awfully tough to get something across accurately when
your audience is poorly educated.
TV news is often absolutely terrible at accurately conveying the
meaning of experimental results. Sharing basic findings about
health can, of course, do more good than harm, even if done
poorly.
But if people want more communication at that level, we
certainly don't need more of it. In the end, it just pollutes our
knowledge base.
Bridging scientists and "lay people" woul be fantastic. But let's
make sure that lay people are educated first.
Poll results showing that 51% of Americans reject evolution
points to a stupid populace (not to pull any punches).
-Albert Einstein
I doubt anyone would categorize Mr. Einstein as having "little educational background in science, little understanding of logical analysis," or "very little desire to learn," yet he obviously had a belief that something larger than chance played a part in his existence.
As far as the debate goes, my opinion is meaningless; however, I find it difficult to understand why people feel compelled to attack those that disagree with them. Instead of having rational discourse, one has to belittle the intelligence of their opponent. It's sad really.
Let me provide a purely fictional analogy:
We start receiving a transmission from alpha centauri. Let's say it's on a radio frequency in the low Ghz range using frequency modulation. It consists of a sequence of pulses with a pause to separate each sequence. The sequence goes 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97 and then repeats.
Now, using the same basic argument that "ID" rests on, scientists everywhere would be saying this signal could be a sign of extraterrestrial intelligence. I would certainly be wondering about it myself. Now, assuming this signal did come from an intelligence outside of our solar system, who cares if they were created, evolved, magically conjured, etc. The question is whether or not it's more likely that the message was the result of random natural processes or the result of intelligent will. The origin/ development/ purpose/ etc of that intelligent will is not in question. The fact that the basis of the "ID" arguments can't be applied in all situations is not at issue. The only question if whehter or not it's "easier" to explain the message in terms of natural occurences or as the result of intelligent design.
Who says the "intelligence" involved has to to come from a being who's infinitely complex. Perhaps the intelligence is from a different universe where the fundamental laws of nature favor increasing complexity. Regardless, it's not really the question at hand.
I could form another analogy using Godel's first incompleteness theorem but I think I've communicated my point.
BTW, I really enjoyed your post. It made me think.
Your assumption that God is too complex to exist on His own betrays your ignorance of theology and spirituality. It?s like trying to explain affection with calculus.
Evolution is not a hard concept to embrace. Trial and error allow for organisms to adapt to their environment over time. The weaker adaptations die out and the stronger survive. Look beyond just the animal kingdom and physical characteristics. Think of how Christians have evolved from burning people at the stake for stating that the world was round or the sun was the center of the universe to a more civil people.
An issue still needing to be ironed out with intelligent design is which theory to use? Many people believe in a supreme being, have a different belief system than Christianity, and a different story of creation. Is everyone else wrong then even though their cultures have existed hundreds of more years than our own? So what’s next? Revised history lessons? Elimination of philosophy and anthropology as we currently see it?
between ID and evolution.
ID or Evolution
Not Evolution
Therefore, ID
That's the only argument structure that works for ID. Of course,
the main flaw with the first premise is that the two are the only
possibilities and are mutually exclusive.
The rules of logic also let you complicate things a bit...
ID or Evolution
ID or Evolution or Alien Colonization or Flying Spaghetti
Monsterism
Not Evolution
Therefore, ID or Alien Colonization or Flying Spaghetti
Monsterism
No support is ever offered for the idea of ID, and yet even the
logic of the movement is flawed.
Scientists know evolution does not speak for or against God.
which he bases on evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics?
He also has written a logical proof of the existence of God using
just logic.
evolution, or for or against a Creator.
was created by an cause outside the universe. There are no logical
conclusions that the cause is anything more than a cause. It does
not qualify as a proof of a god for any religious group.
As noted, the 2nd law of Thermodynamics does not apply to any
discussion of ID and evolution.
Mutations of any kind are believed to occur once in every 100,000 gene replications (though some estimate they occur far less frequently). Assuming that the first single-celled organism had 10,000 genes, the same number as E. coli, one mutation would exist for every ten cells. Since only one mutation per 1,000 is non-harmful, there would be only one non-harmful mutation in a population of 10,000 such cells. The odds that this one non-harmful mutation would affect a particular gene, however, is 1 in 10,000 (since there are 10,000 genes). Therefore, one would need a population of 100,000,000 cells before one of them would be expected to possess a non-harmful mutation of a specific gene.
The odds of a single cell possessing non-harmful mutations of five specific (functionally related) genes is the product of their separate probabilities. In other words, the probability is 1 in 10 factor of eight X 10factor of eight X 10factor of eight X 10factor of eight X 10factor of eight, or 1 in 10 to the factor of 40. If one hundred trillion (10 to the power of 14) bacteria were produced every second for five billion years (10 to the power of 17 seconds), the resulting population (10 to the power of 31) would be only 1/1,000,000,000 of what was needed!
But even this is not the whole story. These are the odds of getting just any kind of non-harmful mutations of five related genes. In order to create a new structure, however, the mutated genes must integrate or function in concert with one another. The difficulties of obtaining non-harmful mutations of five related genes "fade into insignificance when we recognize that there must be a close integration of functions between the individual genes of the cluster, which must also be integrated into the development of the entire organism."
In addition to this, the structure resulting from the cluster of the five integrated genes must, "give some selective advantage, or else become scattered once more within the population at large, due to interbreeding." It seems impossible to explain [the origin of increased complexity] in terms of random mutations alone."
When one considers that a structure as "simple" as the wing on a fruit fly involves 30-40 genes, it is mathematically absurd to think that random genetic mutations can account for the vast diversity of life on earth. Even Julian Huxley, a staunch evolutionist who made assumptions very favorable to the theory, computed the odds against the evolution of a horse to be 1 in 10 to the power of 300,000."
can't exist.
You can have both.
Also, see how HIV has been mutating!
Firstly, the odds of a specific incident are often astronomical,
but the odds of AN incident are not. For instance, the odds that
my parents would have produced ME are ridiculously high, yet
here I am. That is because the odds of them producing SOME
child, which happened to be me, were quite good.
Secondly, let's not ignore the fact that we have observed
evolution and can produce it in the lab. If I understood Mr. Yang
correctly, it was absurdly improbable that any evolution would
take place at all.
Thirdly, the premise that a mutation is required for an
evolutionary change is not correct, let alone 5 related mutations.
Check out the excellent Nova program on dogs. Dogs are a
puzzle because they have been bred so quickly, from such a
small genetically homogenous group of ancestors. It identifies in
an accessible way several non-mutating mechanisms including
the fact that genes can be turned on and off without mutations
at all.
Fourthly, and related to my first point, mutations accumulate at
random, then circumstances select what is favorable. It's not a
question of a mutation of 5 related genes suddenly arising to
meet a circumstance. That would indeed be unlikely.
"The minimum number of mutations necessary to produce the simplest new structure in an organism is five..."
This is a nonsensical statement. What does Camp (author of book you are quoting) mean by "simplest new structure"? Individual proteins do not require 5 simultaneous mutations in order to change function, and all structures are ultimately built up from proteins (or their actions). There are many accounts in the literature of proteins changing function with only a single mutation, and of individual mutations in regulatory regions having profound effects on morphology. Evolution generally involves one mutation at a time, not five.
"Since only one mutation per 1,000 is non-harmful..."
False. About 75% of mutations in protein coding regions will be non-harmful, and a much higher percentage can exist for non-coding regions (depending on what it does). Notice that 75% is a slight bit larger than 0.1%. Mutations are usually neutral.
"...10,000 genes, the same number as E. coli..."
E. coli only has 5,000 genes. If Camp had been right in his initial assumptions he could have doubled the already astronomical odds he calculated making them even more astronomical. But of course, GI=GO.
"The odds that this one non-harmful mutation would affect a particular gene, however, is 1 in 10,000 (since there are 10,000 genes).... The odds of a single cell possessing non-harmful mutations of five specific (functionally related) genes is the product of their separate probabilities."
But it is not necessary for the mutations to occur simultaneously. Some ancestor could have aquired mutation A, and some other mutation B, etc. Every generation could have cut the odds in half. (2 in 10,000; 4 in 10,000; 8 in 10,000; 16 in 10,000 ...) (A fun statistical game to play is to note what good odds there are that with 12 people in a room, how often 2 will share the same birthday out of the 365 days of the year. Try it sometime.)
"...the probability is 1 in 10^8 X 10^8 X 10^8 X 10^8 X 10^8, or 1 in 10^40. If one hundred trillion (10^14) bacteria were produced every second for five billion years (10^17 seconds), the resulting population (10^31) would be only 1/1,000,000,000 of what was needed!"
All of the assumptions here are again sadly wrong. But as for the number of bacteria, there are about 5 x 10^30 on Earth. If they divide once per hour, then that means 1.39 x 10^27 being made every second. Over 10^17 seconds, that makes 1.39 x 10^45 bacteria, or more than 5 orders of magnitude more than the obviously wrong 10^40 target being presented here.
My grandson points out: It's interesting to note that each human body has on and in it 100 trillion bacterial cells alone.
<http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/b/ba/bacteria_in_the_human_body.html>
And let me add that there are many times that number in your bathroom sink!
"Even Julian Huxley, a staunch evolutionist who made assumptions very favorable to the theory, computed the odds against the evolution of a horse to be 1 in 10^300,000."
Huxley was referring to what we call the "coin-tossing fallacy". For example: with 6 billion people on Earth, there is a 1 in 3 billion chance that your father would be the man that he was (rather than some other man), and the same for your mother. Repeat that process for each gene you inherited from each parent, and figure in your grandparents etc, and you soon reach an astronomical number. This doesn't make you "impossible", however.
I hope this helps:-)
"The minimum number of mutations necessary to produce the simplest new structure in an organism is five..."
A specific example of why this is false would be a HOX-gene. One mutation in a HOX-gene (the ones that regulate body shape) could produce an extra appendage.
Cheers! :-)
think if you start building your knowledge from something other
than a religious source, you might not consider that a serious
problem.
Andromeda Galaxy is our closest neighbor galaxy and anyone realizing that it is 2.5 million light years away can easily dispute the age of the Earth according to "Bible Chronology."
Now, the first THREE DAYS OF BIBLE CREATION did not, according to that text, have a sun or moon. There was no SOLAR calendar until the FOURTH DAY of the CREATION STORY. So, scratch the 24 hour "DAY" of the vast majority of uneducated preachers and people who refuse to correlate science and scriptures.
On the Intelligent Design theory, for lack of a better term, the idea that the universe was not created by chance was posed as a way of getting people to admit that there might be a deity of some sort.
Random chance is the thing disbelieved in the ID school, not necessarily evolution. However, there are several "pre-historic men" that have come under high scrutiny due to "problems" with them. Zinjinthropus erectus, for example, is not thought by many to have been extrapolated from the remains of an extinct pig. One of the Australopithicines is now considered to have probably been an aborial.
There has been, to date, no conclusive evidence to connect one species to another in an evolutionary tree. There are commonalities and high probability, but, no conclusive evidence.
The closest we might have is the Megalodon to the Great White Shark. They appear virtually the same except for size. Both seem to be perfect eating machines, perfection in evolution. Size could be explained in the vast ocean space needed to support a population of fish that size.
The Appalachian Mountains are dated at 280 million years old, the oldest mountains on Earth. We can debate the maturity of a planet, but, none can conclude the age of the "big bang" or even IF it ever happened, it is just another theory. To me, nebula theory makes more sense, even with red shift, another subject of debate.
So, we need to think more, talk less, listen, and keep observing.
Frodo
the oldest mountains on Earth"
>>The age is about right, but there are many mountain ranges
older than the Appalachians. The Caledonian Mountains date
from about 400 Million years, And in the 4 Billion years before
that, it's a safe bet than many other mountain ranges came and
went.
"Zinjinthropus erectus, for example, is not thought by many to
have been extrapolated from the remains of an extinct pig."
>> OH 5, "Zinjanthropus", "Nutcracker Man", Australopithecus
boisei -- Discovered by Mary Leakey in 1959 at Olduvai Gorge in
Tanzania (Leakey 1959). Estimated age is 1.8 million years. It is
an almost complete cranium, with a brain size is about 530 cc.
This was the first specimen of this species. Louis Leakey briefly
considered this a human ancestor, but the claim was dropped
when **** habilis was found soon afterwards. from http://
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html
>> So, probably not a human ancestor, but definitely not a pig.
"We can debate the maturity of a planet, but, none can conclude
the age of the "big bang" or even IF it ever happened, it is just
another theory."
>> Try Wikipedia, for lack of abetter source at the moment -
"According to the Big Bang theory, the universe as we know it
began 13.7 ± 0.2 billion years ago. This may be seen as the
event from which the universe originated, and indeed time itself
began. It is not necessarily creation per se, as that word may be
seen as implying the existence of a creator, additionally the
theory does not describe the creation of matter itself, but rather
the singular point in space-time, after which the laws of physics
we know describe the history of the universe. Moreover, it has to
be emphasized that early universe history might be somewhat
different than what we intuitively think about when referring to a
"Big Bang" (see ekpyrotic universe, for example). Therefore the
"age" of the Universe refers to the time that elapsed since the
last hot and dense epoch the region of the Universe we live in
has experienced. Roughly speaking, it gives the time that has
elapsed since nucleosynthesis. The age of the Earth is
considered to be 4.55 billion (4.55 × 109) years based upon
dating of mineral crystal deposits and meteorites"
>> Anyhow, the age of the Universe is quite well known and
accepted.
Maybe you should give the ring back to Bilbo.... ;-)
For the most part ID proponents really have no clue or science background, so how can they possibly attempt to debunk science? Most that I have heard, actually think that a scientific theory is just something made up with no proof. Maybe if they weren't so ignorant, they would be taken more seriously.
This whole thing is nothing more then more division to keep everyone under control.
It is a false assumption that only scientists believe in evolution while religious nuts believe in ID. Many many scientists feel that evolution is not only unlikely but impossible. To generically label a movement is pretty weak.
Let me see Darwin beleived in both. So did Albert. A lot of the greatist scientific minds of all times feel they can both occure.
Quit trying to show everyone how smart you are by bashing religion. Charles and Albert are turning over in thier graves.
True Science = True Religion
That _totaly_ depends on what type of God you believe in.
If you take the average creationist or "ID proponent" His/Her God is the literal God of the bible: omnipresent, omnisient, and omnipotent, who; acording to the first book of the bible created everything in 6 days.
If you believe in this God, then evolution is at odds with this belief.
That my friend is how evoluition trys to disprove God. By attacking the genisis account.
[quote=bill]"For the most part ID proponents really have no clue or science background, so how can they possibly attempt to debunk science? Most that I have heard, actually think that a scientific theory is just something made up with no proof."[/quote]
Pfft blanket statement - i love these.
I also love how you have jumped from talking about "most ID proponents" to "most that _you_ have herd" .... to totaly different things.... unless you have heard from them ALL.
[quote=bill]"if they werent so ignorant they would be taken more seriously"[/quote]
Face it, they are ignorant because they dont embrace _your_ point of view.
If you go into any debate with a mind like this you will NEVER be able to weigh up both sides. and this means you are arguing and not debating. this smacks of so born and bread evolutionist... not someone who has made up their own mind.
[quote=bill]"This whole thing is nothing more then more division to keep everyone under control."[/quote]
You talk down the average person trying to debunk science in their own minds, as if science is a scource of infallibility - Its like you have reached a point in your mind where it is impossible to debunk anything scientific - how Orwellian
So I propose that we teach that those people who believe in evolution came from apes, and the people that came from God did not.
What do ya think?
Since I'm Asian and pretty hairless myself, I think the probability I came from an ape is pretty low.
However, I have been found at times to be scratching myself in embarrassing places.
There is evidence that we SHARE a common ancestor. Two totally different things.
- Perfect!
- by James_U February 17, 2006 1:40 PM PST
- Now, this is one of the best suggestions I've read. You teach both theories and let people pick they one that suits them best. Perfect.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- Glad someone agrees!
- by baswwe February 17, 2006 1:49 PM PST
- :-)
- Like this
-
Showing 1 of 3 pages (269 Comments)And for the record, I'm choosing the super intelligent Creator theory too as my personal favorite. :-)
James.