I watched this movie a couple of years ago with an large audience of mixed partisans from both sides. There was also a discussion panel afterward that included a number of scholars and critics and politicians.
I think Olson showed everyone as they really were: The scientists were a bit supercilious but the fundamentalists were absolutely idiotic. The documentary had no obligation to make the latter seem anything other than the scientific illiterates and theocrats that they truly are. I wish the film had also shown the venality and pervasive corruption of the bible thumpers revealed in their mismanagement of and campaigns for the Kansas State Board of Education, but that complexity would have been harder to explain and would have taken much longer.
On the panel above, held in Kansas City, a local reactionary radio host participated on the "Intelligent (sic) Design" side. After a number of outrageous, preposterous statements, he got progressively more contentious and finally loudly contended that all the scientific advances since the birth of Christ were a product of "western Christian civilization." I'm sure that, for instance, dozens of Jewish Nobelists in the hard sciences would have been stunned by this calumny, but I think it revealed the true colors of these fundamentalists. Taken to task, the ideologue even claimed that Gallileo had not actually been persecuted by religious zealots and the Vatican.
It should be mentioned that this was a truly amusing documentary in many ways. It captured some leading scientists in their most casual, unguarded and perhaps slightly inebriated moments. It showed the "I.D.ers" for the bumpkins they are, with ludicrous statements against interest right from their own mouths. Audiences even got to identify with Olson's mom, "Muffy Moose," who was an endearingly hilarious example of a fence sitter, and were educated about the peculiar digestive processes of rabbits (I'll avoid a spoiler here, but just that part makes the movie worth attending).
I have to give it two opposed thumbs up!
I think Olson showed everyone as they really were: The scientists were a bit supercilious but the fundamentalists were absolutely idiotic. The documentary had no obligation to make the latter seem anything other than the scientific illiterates and theocrats that they truly are. I wish the film had also shown the venality and pervasive corruption of the bible thumpers revealed in their mismanagement of and campaigns for the Kansas State Board of Education, but that complexity would have been harder to explain and would have taken much longer.
On the panel above, held in Kansas City, a local reactionary radio host participated on the "Intelligent (sic) Design" side. After a number of outrageous, preposterous statements, he got progressively more contentious and finally loudly contended that all the scientific advances since the birth of Christ were a product of "western Christian civilization." I'm sure that, for instance, dozens of Jewish Nobelists in the hard sciences would have been stunned by this calumny, but I think it revealed the true colors of these fundamentalists. Taken to task, the ideologue even claimed that Gallileo had not actually been persecuted by religious zealots and the Vatican.
It should be mentioned that this was a truly amusing documentary in many ways. It captured some leading scientists in their most casual, unguarded and perhaps slightly inebriated moments. It showed the "I.D.ers" for the bumpkins they are, with ludicrous statements against interest right from their own mouths. Audiences even got to identify with Olson's mom, "Muffy Moose," who was an endearingly hilarious example of a fence sitter, and were educated about the peculiar digestive processes of rabbits (I'll avoid a spoiler here, but just that part makes the movie worth attending).
I have to give it two opposed thumbs up!
