A documentary film about discrepancies between Darwinian evolution and Intelligent Design, focusing on the Kansas school board controversy of a few years ago.<br /><br />It's a pretty good movie too. We get to know both sides of the issue, nobody is demonized, nobody exalted. The graphics are entertaining and the editing about as good as you can expect. Randy Olson, who made the film and narrates it, makes some low-key witty remarks along the way. Some documentaries, whether good or bad in their own right, consist of so many talking heads that you can listen to it from the next room and still follow the presentation. Not this one. Talking heads abound but so do cartoons and travelogue-like on-location shooting.<br /><br />Olson himself is an evolutionary biologist who's studied at Harvard and done research on changes in coral communities. He's a sharp guy, and he's pleasant and polite, and when he's negative about something it's in a gently ironic way.<br /><br />But don't expect a movie about evolution. It's about the nature of two pretty much antagonistic groups and the conflict between their belief systems. The debate is important because it is evidently not going to go away by itself. These are existential propositions being examined, not hortative. What I mean is that this is a debate over what IS, not over what ought to be. It's not a symbolic issue like having the ten commandments in a courthouse or having a state flag that resembles the Confederate stars and bars or whether or not films that show a lot of smoking should get an R rating. The argument is about whether something exists or not, and that's a different order of argument.<br /><br />Olson is clearly on the side of the evolutionists but he's not a zealot. He criticizes them (or allows them to criticize themselves) for being too snooty to present their case to common people in common-sense terms, whereas the ID side hires The Discovery Institute to invent appealing bumper-sticker slogans like "teach the controversy." The same public-relations outfit developed the SwiftBoat ads that torpedoed Kerry's run for the presidency. The anti-evolutionists also seem to be cohesive, highly organized, and well funded. They're good at what they do, and the evolutionists are mostly aloof, indignant, arrogant, abrasive, disputatious, and sometimes kind of snotty with one another. In other words -- dare I say this? -- the ID people look like Republicans and the evolutionists look like Democrats.<br /><br />Actually, "Teach the Controversy" isn't a bad idea per se. Why not? Only I would stipulate, as an ex-prof, that it belongs in a senior seminar organized around philosophical/scientific controversies -- Copernicus and all that. I can't see both views being given equal weight in biology classes because, if Darwinian evolution is "only a theory," as the ID people argue, then Intelligent Design hasn't yet cleared even that bar.<br /><br />The film was at times a little irritating. It's okay when the film maker inserts himself into his work as narrator. Michael Moore does it entertainingly and numerous others, such as Milton Friedman, have walked us through scientific arguments in TV series. But Olson's movie is a little self congratulatory. I had to wince once in a while as the auteur explained that his father was a graduate of West Point in "the year of heroes" and his mother ("Muffy Moose") was a relative of General George C. Marshall or somebody and they both knew General Douglas MacArthur on Corregidor and -- well, and so forth. Not to say anything against Olson's mother. She's savvy, keenly intelligent, and engaging. I just don't think we needed to know that she was a model. And the film is informed with a subtle elitism. Eight evolutionists are gathered together by Olson to play poker and talk about biology and we get the title card -- not only are they all PhDs but we get a list of the schools they attended. (Mostly Harvard.) PhDs are introduced to each other as "doctor," which doesn't happen except on film.<br /><br />That's carping, though. The film's virtues as an exploration of a controversy that simply will not go away far outweighs any weaknesses it might have. Well, maybe I should add that not only does the theological interpretation of evolution refuse to disappear, but lots of public figures are obviously afraid to challenge it. One third of the American public does not "believe in" evolution. President Bush has argued publicly that both sides should be taught in school. And at the recent debate between Republican presidential candidates, one of the questions was, "Who does not believe in evolution," and three out of ten hands went up.