Flock of Dodos

Tonight I watched the documentary Flock of Dodos (Which is available on Netflix).  The film set out to explain what intelligent design is and its shortcomings. The first impressive part of the film was how calm the film maker, Randy Olson, remained as he talked with leading voices in ID such as Michael Behe and others.  I know from a hand full of intelligence curdling encounters, in which I have had varying degrees of success in keeping my cool, that this feat is not easily accomplished. For this, Olson should be commended.  He also did well to allow people to speak for themselves and showed the humanity and good in everyone he interviewed.

I was less attracted to the original premise that generated the title of the film.  In the documentary Olson characterized a few of the opponents of evolutionary theory as dodos.  I was put off because of the damage name calling could cause and how a likely result would be that opposing viewpoints will close their ears and put up the defensive.

As the film progressed I got a better sense for Olson’s humor and appreciated the fun he had with the foibles of scientists and IDers alike.  As mentioned above the film really humanizes everyone no matter what side they come down on.  Olson showed that the camps are made up of real characters, not just caricatures, and that was a refreshing take on the matter.

In his final analysis Olson put the ownness on scientists to be better communicators, adapting to the communication needs of today’s culture and not going the way of the dodo.