Z/Web

This is Ben Stein’s anti-Evolution documentary and I purposely have avoided hearing much about it or any controversy. I wanted to judge it for myself. My first surprise is how much screen time the opposition is given. Most documentaries give minimal screen time for the opponent, but this movie has plenty of scenes of evolutionists explaining their ideas. Granted, sometimes it’s just unflattering bathering, but he does give them a voice.

The film’s premise is that evolutionists control science in this country and are systematically blacklisting scientists who write anything even remotely positive about Intelligenet Design. While the film shows a handful of examples of this, there’s not a lot of evidence that shows how widespread this is or isn’t, so I can’t really judge on that. However, the movie does a great job of pointing out the dangers of evolutionary thinking: evolution is inherently mindless and if we as a society adopt that mindset, we run the risk of eliminating everything that makes us human, such as morality and compassion. The film demonstrates this dramatically with a comparison to Nazi Germany, interviewing people who point out that Darwinism was the source of Hitler’s eugenics program and other beliefs. That might be over-the-top for some people, and it is difficult to watch, but I would argue that it doesn’t go far enough: society without God or purpose is doomed.

Yawn. The “88 minute” deadline is supposed to create dramatic tension, but instead it just complicates an already complicated muddle into gibberish. There are some good cast members and a handful of good scenes, but the whole isn’t there. Weak. Don’t waste your time.