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Visiting a concentration camp

Stein, in his inimitable way, tries to corner Dawkins into acknowledging the possible existence of God—or at least some sort of intelligent designer behind it all. At first, Dawkins doesn't budge, and is incredulous at Stein's line of questions. But Stein, deadpan yet persistent, latches on to Dawkins' comment that he's 99 percent certain there's no God—and runs with it. "Why not 97 percent?" Stein asks. "Why not 49 percent?"

Stein continues to press until a clearly irritated Dawkins says something quite astonishing. "Okay," he says in essence (I'm paraphrasing, because I don't have the precise quote), "maybe there is an intelligent designer. But if there is, I can guarantee that that intelligent designer is a life form that evolved elsewhere and came to earth and seeded life here."

Huh? So that's his concession to the ID camp? That if they're at all right, that we were designed by aliens who evolved somewhere else in the universe? Yowza.

The filmmakers clearly opted to put that segment at the end for dramatic purposes; they couldn't have scripted a better conclusion themselves—by making one of the world's most brilliant men say something so silly.

Dawkins discusses his ideas on evolution

But there are plenty of interesting interviews along the way, with scholars and scientists coming from all perspectives on the issue. And even though the filmmakers are ID believers, they didn't merely throw softball questions to the experts on their side. They—mainly Stein, a decent interviewer—challenged many of the ID proponents' claims, pushing them to further explanation and clarification.

And filmmakers can't be accused of denying Darwin proponents equal opportunity—Dawkins, PZ Myers, Will Provine, and Eugenie Scott, among others, get plenty of screen time. While they certainly edited these interviews for their own purposes, it's clear the filmmaker didn't pull a cut-and-paste way-out-of-context fast one either—this is no Michael Moore hack job, slicing and splicing every which way so you have no clue what footage to trust, or not.

The film's biggest flaw is a too-long segment where Stein explores Darwinism's alleged connection to Hitler, Nazism, and the Holocaust, essentially implying that such horrific events are almost a necessary result of belief in evolution. In an interview with CT Movies, Stein said he was especially taken by the book From Darwin to Hitler, saying that "It's about how Darwin's theory . . . led to the murder of millions of innocent people." Well, maybe, or maybe not. That may be a theme to be more fully explored in another documentary, but for the purposes of this film, it seemed too tangential.

But another result of wartime Germany did not seem tangential—recurrent images of the Berlin Wall as a metaphor for the supposed "wall" in academia and scientific circles, the wall that represents the two "sides" of the debate. The filmmakers—and Stein—would say that the wall is very real, that it was constructed by the "thought police" of the scientific community (read: evolutionists) who have no intent of allowing ID proponents any access to the other side.

I.e., no intelligence allowed. It's not even up for discussion. And the film leaves us wondering, "Why not?"

Talk About It

1. Is believing in Intelligent Design the same thing as believing in creationism, or vice versa? Discuss.
2. Can a Christian believe in evolution? Why or why not? Can an atheist believe in Intelligent Design? Why or why not?
3. Can a person believe in both creationism and evolution? Are the two terms mutually exclusive? Discuss.
4. If you're a student, does your science teacher allow discussion of Intelligent Design or creationism in the classroom? How do you feel about that? If you're a parent, what do your kids' science teachers allow? How do you advise your children to handle such discussions?

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