Actually, not fairly at all, at least according to Sigemund at The Design Paradigm. Although Olson’s documentary on the intelligent design evolution debate has not been released nationwide, Olson did come through this area to show the film in an advance screening for Cornell’s Darwin Day last February.

Sigemund describes his initial disappointment and some of the techniques Olson uses to bias viewers against ID:

In Flock of Dodos, filmmaker and marine ecologist Randy Olson asks the question, who are the real dodos in the evolution/intelligent design debate: 1) the intelligent design (ID) advocates who disbelieve a purely mechanistic Darwinian explanation for the origin and development of life, or 2) the legions of Darwinist academics who seem unable to connect with and convincingly explain their position to the majority of Americans who stubbornly cling to beliefs in origins that are not solely Darwinian. Flock of Dodos (FOD) is intentionally light-hearted, reflecting Olson’s desire to avoid yet another dreary documentary of droning talking heads, a format which quickly triggers the “Where’s the remote?” reflex in most viewers. Olson is a trained filmmaker, and his stated intent is to connect with his audience on an emotive level. In FOD he succeeds in this, using a combination of often self-deprecating humor, animation and a Charles Kurault-like “on the road” motif.

However, the film is not the impartial assessment of the ID debate as it is sometimes billed. Whether by simply reflecting the filmmaker’s own leanings (he was a tenured professor of evolutionary marine ecology at the University of New Hampshire before turning to filmmaking) or through an intentional desire to do so, the film conveys both explicit and subtle messages that seek to steer viewers at an emotive level against the ID position. I am no expert in ID, having only recently begun to read on the subject. But I have seen enough to conclude that, for whatever reason, FOD mischaracterizes or omits pertinent issues in the ID debate. Some were evident during the film and subsequent audience interaction with Olson; others become more apparent on reflection. In no particular order, I will list some of my concerns:. . . .

Guilt by association Early in FOD there is a “growth segment”, showing us that the filmmaker is open to new ideas and experiences: en route to an ID conference the narrators wonder what kind of ignorant rednecks they are likely to encounter, but are surprised to find well-dressed attendees that speak in complete sentences. They later admit to actually liking ID advocates as great people to sit and chat with. Yet throughout FOD there are subtle guilt-by-association messages, linking ID advocates to “red state” (i.e. Republican/conservative) politics. In fact, the red state/blue state map is shown at one point (although to be honest, a red county/blue county map would have been more accurate, albeit even more daunting to those who regard red as a threat to science and civilization in general). Each time a red state association is made in FOD it is invariably negative, and one can almost hear the Orwellian sheep chanting, “Red state baaaad, Blue state goooood.”

You can read the rest here.

The Design Paradigm has just posted another press release from Cornell’s IDEA club over a very interesting development on campus. Cornell University will offer it’s first class on Intelligent Design this summer.

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, April 9 The Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club at Cornell would like to applaud Allen MacNeil, the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) Department, and Cornell University on this summer’s new course, BioEE 467: Evolution and Design: Is There Purpose in Nature?

Five and a half months after President Rawlings� State of the University address condemning intelligent design, this course is Cornell�s first to focus on the theory from a historical and scientific perspective. Based on books such as Dembski and Ruse’s Debating Design and Behe’s peer-reviewed Darwin�s Black Box, the course purports to sort out the various issues at play, and to come to clarity on how those issues can be integrated into the perspective of the natural sciences as a whole.�

This four credit seminar course, taught by the EEB Senior Lecturer Allen MacNeil, will also take a broader look at the historical disputes surrounding evolution.

Although we have been on opposite sides of many debates, we have always appreciated MacNeil�s commitment to the ideal of the university as a ‘free market-place of ideas.’ We have found him always ready to go out of his way to encourage diversity of thought, and his former students speak highly of his fairness. We look forward to a course where careful examination of the issues and critical thinking is encouraged.

More on this can be found at Allen MacNeil’s own blog, EvolutionList.

Update: Over at Telic Thoughts there has been some very interesting discussion about this course with Allen MacNeil himself. Head over there to check it out.

In a surprising development, Richard Harrison, chair of Cornell’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department seemed to disagree that evolution was a fact in a panel discussion at Cornell yesterday evening. Professor of Neurobiology & Behavior Kern Reeve concured, explaining that he did not like to say evolution is a fact, just an extemely well-supported theory.

Richard Harrison took part in a panel discussion with intelligent design proponent and biophysics professor Cornelius Hunter in a panel discussion on intelligent design and evolution. The discussion was attended by around 250 people in the Engineering school’s largest auditorium.

Responding to questioning from Professor Hunter, Professors Harrison and Reeve admitted that evolution was not a fact. Hunter was trying to make the point that evolutionists and evolutionary textbooks routinely say evolution is a fact.

If this really is Harrison’s and Reeve’s opinion, and not just an equivocation in the middle of a debate the two professors disagree with the majority of evolutionists, including evolutionists such as Stephen J. Gould and the astronomer Carl Sagan who repeatedly argued that evolution is a fact. Professor Harrison also puts himself at odds with the textbooks used in the major evolution classes here at Cornell, including Futuyma’s textbook Evolutionary Biology, which says that, “. . . evolution is a scientific fact. But the fact of evolution is explained by evolutionary theory” (pg. 13). Futuyma continues later in the chapter: “The explanation of how modification occurs and how ancestors give rise to diverse descendants constitutes the theory.”

During the question and answer period, members of the audience also had trouble with Hunter’s allegation that evolutionists said evolution is a fact. One evolutionist in the audience made the point even stronger, by saying that no self-respecting scientist or biologist would call the theory of evolution a fact.

The IDEA Club here at Cornell issued a press release on the upcoming events this week. In it they have more information on Cornelius Hunter and the other participants:

Ithaca, New York, April 2, 2006 — The Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club at Cornell University is hosting a panel discussion on evolution and intelligent design, with professors Richard Harrison, chair of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at Cornell, Kern Reeve, of the Cornell Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, and Cornelius Hunter, professor of Biophysics at Biola University. Don Bilderback, associate director of the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) and a professor in Cornell’s Applied Physics Department, will moderate the discussion. This event is co-sponsored by the Bioethics Society of Cornell, and is free and open to the public.

The panel discussion will be held from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday April 5th at Olin Hall 155. The audience will be given the opportunity to ask questions.

At 5:00 p.m. of the same day in Olin Hall 165 Hunter will also give a lecture entitled Evolution and Intelligent Design: Where we are and how we got here. He will detail the history of evolutionary thought and how modern advances in the biological sciences seriously undermine the neo-Darwinian synthesis.

Cornelius Hunter is an adjunct professor of biophysics at Biola University in Southern California. His research involves optimal estimation and control of nonlinear systems and molecular biophysics. Hunter is the author of several books critiquing evolutionary theory, including the award-winning Darwin’s God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil. He is also a fellow of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, one of the nation’s foremost think tanks researching intelligent design.

The Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club at Cornell University is a student organization dedicated to promoting open and thoughtful discussion on issues related to evolution, intelligent design, and origins. The IDEA Club sponsors public science lectures and forums on the intelligent design evolution debate and holds weekly discussion meetings.

Hat tip: The Design Paradigm

There are a couple neat events coming up next week:

On Wednesday, April 5…

5:00 PM, OH 165
Lecture by Cornelius Hunter, biophysics professor at Biola University and author of Darwin’s God: Evolution and the problem of evil and Darwin’s Proof: The triumph of religion over science.

7:00PM, OH 155
Panel Discussion
Come hear both sides of the story!

Panelists:
Representing Evolution:
Richard Harrison, EEB, Cornell University
Kern Reeve, NBB, Cornell University

Representing Intelligent Design:
Cornelius Hunter, Biophysics, Biola University
______________________________

Sponsored by the Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club and the Bioethics Society of Cornell

I recently came across this useful source of creation, intelligent design and evolution news, the Creation-Evolution Headlines . Besides offering summeries of the latest news, they also have fun feature — Scientist of the Month. This month it is William Harvey.

I also stumbled across a bunch of great audio and videos on ID. They can be found here at the Teleological Blog. The Teleological blog also linked to this video project which has some fascinating videos online, including Icons of Evolution, Mystery of Life’s Origin, Privileged Planet and many different debates.

To read up on the Evolutionist’s take on this debate, there is of course The Panda’s Thumb and Talk.Origins

A local evolutionist has recently started his own blog with articles and commentary and it already looks interesting. The blogger, Allen McNeil, writes in a recent post:

. . .The real danger is that, in attempting to show a “unified front,” [Darwinian] scientists will be tempted to suppress their own disagreements with current orthodoxy. Any inhibition on the free expression of doubts and disagreements in the scientific community would be harmful to science, in a way that “intelligent design theory” generally is not.

Evangelical Outpost has an interesting post about Richard Sternberg, the editor of a peer-reviewed biology journal who was undiscerning enough to permit an article –”The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories.”–which laid out some of the evidence for intelligent design– to be published. Never mind that it did pass the peer-review process– how could he allow such a thing?

I guess there are some things that can’t be questioned in scientific circles.

The best article I’ve read so far on the evolution sticker proceedings (no affront to Racoon) is here.

(2005-01-14) — Scientists credit the Darwinian mechanism of “descent with modification” for the mysterious appearance today of new labels in science textbooks in Cobb County, Georgia.

School officials discovered the new stickers as they prepared to comply with a federal judge’s order to remove primitive stickers which called evolution a “theory” rather than a “fact” and encouraged students to study it with an “open mind.”

U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper ruled that the old labels could “confuse” public school students, who are not accustomed to thinking critically.

Head over to ScrappleFace to read the rest.

“This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with a open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.”

can constitute establishment of religion. The current confusion over whether it is a fact or theory certainly warrants such an injunction; while well-informed scientists will admit readily it is no more than theory, a very significant portion of the general population believes it to be proven fact. In actuality it is no more than an untested — untestable, indeed– hypothesis.

Scott’s description of the ‘evolved’ sticker brings me vividly back to my days of freshman biology, so reminiscent it is of the way we were taught to think. Perhaps that’s why I’m now doing chemistry and math, not biology:

“This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a fact, not a theory, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with childlike trust, accepted obediently and defended vigorously against the attacks of ignorant monotheists.”

U. S. District Judge Clarence Cooper has just (13:02 ET) ordered that the Cobb County School District must remove the stickers from their biology textbooks that say:

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with a open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

Approved by
Cobb County Board of Education
Thursday, March 28, 2002

The judge ordered that they be removed, because he thought that they were promoting religion. In the 44 page court document he states that even if this is not what the board of education intended (although he thinks it is):

…an informed, reasonable observer would understand the School Board to be endorsing the viewpoint of Christian fundamentalists and creationism that evolution is a problematic theory lacking an adequate foundation…

Well, I guess I learn something new everyday, if Cooper is telling the truth, I am not a reasonable observer! First of all, lot’s of secular people (one example is Anthony Flew) believe that evolution is a problematic theory, lacking an adequate foundation. Besides secular people, other religious people besides “Christian fundamentalists”– for example all Muslims & Jews who truly believe their scriptures– also believe that evolution is untrue. (see The Cattle 6.1, and Genesis 1.1 respectively). Since secular people, Christians, Muslims and Jews all unite in believing that the theory of evolution is flawed, the suggestion that the material be approached with a open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered. can not be a religious suggestion.

We could also say that “You shall not murder” is a religious viewpoint, (Also held by fundamentalist Christians) but that does not stop even our federal government from endorsing it, at least not so far.