What a waste of my time!!!

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

"Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus" is a film which debunks the claims and myths promoted by those who are proponents of the Intelligent Design movement- a movement that is essentially revealed to be a modern "re-packaging" and politicization of the Creationism movement that is central for the religious right. This time being brought to the forefront by marketing the evolution vs intelligent design "controversy" (and I use this term lightly) as a theoretical debate- one half based on science and understanding nature...the other based on well...nothing, except some extremely flawed (laughable even) logic. It's an all around intelligent, humorous and entertaining film that has been made in vain of the ever growing do-it-yourself documentary regime.It was made by Kansas-born evolutionary biologist turned filmmaker Ralph Olson , whom I personally like a lot- looking forward to seeing more from him. He is extremely intelligent, witty, and always succinct in a way even the layman can understand. He's also confrontational with a bit of charm, making him more palatable to the less tolerant, when compared to someone like Michael Moore. And most of all....he knows what he is talking about.Being born and raised in Kansas, he's familiar with the culture which is acting as the home front for both the Creationist and Intelligent Design movements' attack on Evolution. Graduating from Harvard with a concentration in cellular biology, has also put him in a privileged position to analyze and criticize such a subject.The concept of the film is to root out who the "Flock of Dodo's" really are- those using the US Constitution to politicize and force upon the masses the teaching of Intelligent Design alongside Evolution as a possible alternative to the theory or the counter-revolutionary Evolutionists attempting to quell them? Olson goes through the history of the Creationist/Intelligent Design movement from it's birth, showing how the anti-darwinist, anti-scientific, anti-intellectual ideas of a man named Thomas Henry Huxley have grown into something societally destructive. The film reveals how "God" has been relegated to the ever-narrowing gaps that modern science has yet to explain.Some of the commenters on IMDb were making this film out to be a "fair and balanced" look at the Evolution-Intelligent Desgin debate.....but it's not...the film is clearly pro-evolution, as it should be. What it is, is a subjective look at the debate- one man's memories weaved cinematically into a film that enlightens and entertains those who are lucky enough to view it.Olson narrates the film himself and is often on camera (as you may have picked up)- both alone and when questioning others. He even uses his mother, not only for opinion, but as a source to some of the top people in the Intelligent Design movement (as the one man was now her neighbor). He interviews numerous professors from top universities versed in the theoretical and practical study of Evolution, some of the major people forcing elements of Intelligent Design through the political process (not Bush, though he is discussed- but mostly the major players in the highly publicized Kansas controversy where the schoolboard tried to force teachers into teaching Intelligent Design), the lawyers fighting these battles in the courts, and some high-profile scientists and authors from both sides of the argument. Olson thus does, though, while always remaining pro-evolution, provide detailed information concerning the arguments and criticisms made by both parties. So I suppose it is fair in that sense.Worth a watch. 6 out of 10

Filmmaker and evolutionary biologist Randy Olson tries to figure out if it is the Darwinists or Intelligent Design supporters who will become a flock of dodos.Of course, this documentary is very one-sided. It is coming from the point of view of an evolutionary biologist. He points out flaws in animal (and human) design. He also makes a comment early on that he was expecting a city full of yokels where the intelligent design movement was the strongest.But, even one-sided, he certainly lets the other side speak plenty. So that is good, and about as balanced as you can expect from someone who obviously has a dog in the fight.

I think the problem with this film is that it goes into the Darwinism/Intelligent Design debate with its mind already made up.It does recognize that the ID side is a lot better at connecting with people. It attributes this to the fact that they've gotten slick public relations firms, not that they actually make legitimate points that the Darwinist side is unable to answer.It does engage in some chicanery. For instance, it attacks Dr. Wells "Icons of Evolution" on the dispute over Haeckel's embryos. THe problem is that Haeckel's embryos are frequently included in a lot of textbooks. They engage in misdirection by pointing out they aren't in advanced embryology textbooks. Well, most people aren't going to take advanced embryology, they are going to maybe take High School biology.It criticizes the ID side for using catchphrases, while repeating catchphrases of the Darwinist side- such as 'God of the gaps". It's a clever phrase, but it doesn't really address the problem - that there are some huge gaping holes in Evolutionary theory- how did life evolve from chemicals, why are there so few transitional fossils in the records, how would a complex structure like an eye evolve.It also engages in "guilt by association". The Discovery institute uses the same public relation firm as the Swift Vets who attacked Kerry, that makes them evil. Sorry, the Swift Vets had a legitimate point, Kerry was presenting himself as something he wasn't.It also presents it as a "blue state/red state" issue. Again, wrong. I know a LOT of liberal democrats who believe that God had something to do with the origin of life in the world.In all, it tries to be fair, but really isn't.

I want to begin by saying that I believe in evolution, and that I do not worship supernatural beings.This is not a non-entertaining film, and I don't know of a better one about the teaching-intelligent-design-in-schools issue. However, ultimately, it's a disappointing, sometimes mildly amusing, hypocritical, smug documentary that is nevertheless not totally devoid of value about an important subject.This film comes off as arrogantly insulting those who believe in intelligent design ("ID") itself, and it fails to get across the most important point that, even if you are pro-ID, while your views are arguably worthy of respect as a philosophical matter, you can't reasonably believe that your ID philosophy ought to be taught in science class.Whether you believe in ID or don't, when it comes to whether ID should be taught in science class, it is clearly unreasonable to think that it ought to be, because science is a completely different way of looking at the world than that implied by ID. Teaching ID in science class would be a lot like teaching Kant's ethics or Russian literature in science class--it obviously doesn't belong there. The film really doesn't develop this idea enough, or, hardly at all actually, and devotes much too much time to trying to debate the truth or falsity of ID itself, which, in my view, is either (a) something that reasonable minds can and do differ upon or (b) completely incoherent babble, ultimately, on both sides of the debate. I find it incredibly arrogant to presume to know that the universe was designed by a deity, just as I find it incredibly arrogant to presume to know that it wasn't. How would YOU know, unless you were a deity yourself? It might seem implausible to you that there's a deity behind all this, and it does in fact seem implausible to me that there's a deity behind all this, but I can assure you that it seems at least as implausible to many people that there isn't. There are many reasonable people in the world who believe in ID but do not want it to be taught in science class. And this film is more about criticizing and insulting those who believe in ID itself than it is about criticizing those who not only believe in ID but also believe that it should be taught in science classes.There are some positives though. This film does do a couple of interesting things. It briefly talks about an organization called the Discovery Institute which is a well-funded group which promotes the teaching of intelligent design in science classes, and it contrasts it with the relative lack of organization on the opposition-to-ID-in-schools. It criticizes the anti-ID camp for not doing what the pro-ID-in-schools camp is doing, i.e. for not really getting organized, not engaging in politicking, not being charming when in the public eye, insulting the other side and acting as though the subject is not worthy of debate rather than respecting its dignity and engaging in reasonable debate, and for not really explaining to the public its position and exactly why it's a bad idea to "teach" ID in science class.It also explains a little about the legal and political history of the recent ID-in-schools phenomenon, and that's interesting stuff.But the film lacks depth. I would have enjoyed hearing more about the subjects that I just discussed in the "positives" part of my review. But the most glaring problem is its hypocrisy. It is guilty of exactly what it criticizes the anti-ID camp for, specifically: (1) not really explaining exactly why it's ridiculous for ID to be taught in science class, and (2) arrogantly insulting the pro-ID side rather than respecting its dignity and engaging in reasonable debate. At the very least, it should have reserved its insults and criticisms for those who not only believe in ID but who are also of the crazy view that ID ought to be taught in our science classes. There's nothing especially crazy about merely believing in ID. I don't, but most people actually do, and most of those people are not crazy. For example, as far as (2) goes, the film basically calls the pro-ID camp a bunch of "dodos" in the first 5 minutes. The film's entire tone is one that basically kind of treats the pro-ID camp like it's just stupid and that you are stupid if you think it's anything other than obvious that the pro-ID camp is stupid. It is unlikely to turn on any pro-IDers for this reason alone. And that is really unfortunate. It would have been much more effective to grant that there is possibly some value to the ID viewpoint, but nevertheless that there is absolutely no value to the view that ID ought to be part of science classes. As far as (1) goes, even though it seems pretty obvious to me why ID shouldn't be taught in science class, the film doesn't do much to explain why it's so obvious. It just spends almost all of its time childishly attacking people for merely believing that the universe was created by an intelligent designer. It seems to be of the viewpoint that somehow the standard position for a pro-ID person to take is that ID ought to be taught in science class, when in reality this is just an incredibly radical and idiotic position that most pro-IDers cannot possibly subscribe to.There is some value to seeing this, but it is ultimately a pretty childish documentary that will insult the very people it claims to most want to influence--the pro-ID camp.