I enjoyed watching this documentary.
The filmmaker, Randy Olson, seems like a pretty down to earth kind of guy. His documentary, Flock of Dodos, could pretty much be summed up the same way.
I wouldn't consider myself to be in either the intelligent design or the evolutionists' camp. Honestly, I'm not even sure it really matters which camp a person finds themselves in when it comes to their spirituality. This brings me to my point: Randy, though I found his documentary enjoyable, failed to ask an obvious question that I feel strikes directly at the heart of the current debate. That question being - do the evolutionists that were seated around the poker table feel that the theory/fact that they have devoted their lives to leaves no place for a creator...no place for a designer? Though beyond the empirical realm, this question was never opened for consideration. Yes, the evolution guys attacked the credibility of the ID guys, but they were never directly asked about whether they felt that evolution and the possibility of design were mutually exclusive ideas.
Most of the educated ID guys didn't discount that evolution has occurred. They just seemed to discount the idea that it occurred unassisted. I would have liked to have heard some equally candid thoughts from the evolution camp about whether or not they felt that the theory/fact removes the possibility of a designer.
A side note: Several of the reviewers, who I assume fall into the ID camp, seemed to feel that Randy treated the ID side unfairly. Let me just say that I don't think that he did this on purpose. Randy, like the rest of us, is subject to the knowledge and experience in his possession. He has his own set of biases. When those biases go unchallenged it logically results in the appearance of bias, i.e. the faulty red state/blue state construct as well as other indications of bias that again are probably more the result of a lack of knowledge than a malicious attempt at arrogance. To me, at least, Randy seemed like a pretty open-minded sort of guy.
Just my two cents. Fun doc to watch.
