An alert reader called my attention to “WhyEvolutionIsTrue’s channel” on YouTube. I have no responsibility for this, but it has a wonderful collection of documentaries on evolution (scroll around; clicking on each letter reveals a whole host of videos). One of them is the two-hour “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” show from PBS. It’s a documentary on Darwin’s life and ideas, interspersed with talking heads like Dan Dennett, Steve Gould, and Darwin biographer James Moore, as well as with explications of modern work on evolution. It’s very well done. . .
. . . BUT, at 1:23:00, the producers are compelled to rudely interrupt the narrative to show that, after all, evolution and religion are compatible. It starts with the death of Darwin’s beloved daughter Annie, thought by many to have destroyed his last vestiges of faith. Steve Gould then chimes in to underscore this point, and, suddenly, at 1:24:00, we see Ken Miller in a Catholic church, bowing, praying, and assuring the viewer that his “orthodox” Catholicism is perfectly compatible with Darwinism. He then appears on a talk show in Tennessee, arguing that God does indeed act in the real world, answering prayers and “working in concert with natural laws.” Miller is a theist. We then see him back in church, taking the sacrament and crossing himself.
Dan Dennett then appears, but not to argue the opposite—that faith and science are incompatible. No, all he says is that Darwin dispelled the idea of divinity and divine purpose behind the design of organisms. In toto, the atmosphere is pro-religion and accommodationist.
My question is this: why is any of this in a documentary on Darwin? Why not stick to his life and to the explication of evolution? Or, if they’re going to drag in the issue of compatibility, where is the person to argue, contra Miller, that faith and evolution are incompatible? It’s a disturbing few minutes in an otherwise fine film. But it’s telling, for it testifies to the stifling religiosity in America that forces producers of such a show to genuflect towards faith.
Wasn’t this a BBC production? Is it the same one, or have they ‘adapted’ it for the american market?
You must be thinking of the 2009 series narrated by Andrew Marr. This one is an earlier production.
“Evolution is a 2001 documentary series by the American broadcaster PBS and WGBH on evolutionary biology.
The spokespeople for the series were Jane Goodall (overall spokesperson), Kenneth R. Miller and Stephen Jay Gould (science spokespeople), Eugenie C. Scott (education spokesperson), Arthur Peacocke and Arnold Thomas (religious spokespeople)”
You’ll note that the last episode in the series is “What About God?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(TV_series)
Ahh. You are right, thanks! (The Andrew Marr one was good).
Thanks for this. I was going to point out that if the digression in the “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” program irked Dr. Coyne, then wait until he sees the last episode in the series (“What About God?”).
I saw it; they sent me the whole series so I’d provide. The last episode threw me into a deep funk from which I’ve still not recovered.
“But it’s telling, for it testifies to the stifling religiosity in America that forces produces of such a show to genuflect towards faith.” EXACTLY!
That’s the lamentable truth behind many presentations on science. I hope they are the vestigial remains of pre-scientific thinking, such as they appear in regrettable digressions that prominent scientists (Einstein, Hawking, among others) have taken when they indulge in their mentions of supernatural whatevers. I wish scientists strengthened the scientific mindset by not entertaining ANY dialectical contrasts between nature and well … non-nature, together with abstaining from dualistic slip-ups about humans.
Documentaries are fiction anyway. If they stuck to the facts, they would be so boring that nobody would watch them.
I’m sorry, but I can’t at all agree with you.
Consider Sagan’s Cosmos or Attenborough’s Life on Earth. You’d be hard-pressed to find examples of television more entertaining than those two, and they both most assuredly stuck to the facts.
Cheers,
b&
I am with Ben – by that count all ‘factual’ books are ‘fiction’ – it makes no sense, at any rate if you want to make sense of the world.
By clicking on “Credits,” then going to “Source credits,” one will find a thank you to the Templeton Prize for its assistance.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/index.html
Indeed—I didn’t know that. But the Templeton Prize is given to individuals, not to foundations or production companies. I wonder if a winner donated some of his prize to this production.
Hmmm…the second person (after some organizations) on the list is Francisco Ayala.
Of course, he hadn’t won the prize yet when this was produced, so I guess it wasn’t him.
…or just perhaps that is why he was awarded the prize? Thar’s GOLD in them thar hills, I tell ya!
People continue to fail to realize the role religion plays in maintaining and perpetuating old value that bind us to traditions, customs, beliefs, and attitudes.
My culture taught, preached, and lived lives based on six basic fallacies. The fallacies are:
1. God created man in gods image. – Anthropocentrism
2. God created man, male, in his male, god image. – Sexism
3. God created the white race superior to other races. – Racism
4. God created man to have dominion over all that swims, crawls, flies. – Dominionism
5. God created man to worship the one true god. – Exceptionalism
6. God is sovereign – Theocentricism
7. Male and female created he them – sexual binarism (theists continue to give transgender and intersex people a hard time, demanding that they conform to one sex or the other, contrary to their nature)
8. God created man to mate with woman – heterosexism
9. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing – abledism
Just to say, Daniel Dennet is not accommodationist and is absolutely a materialist. In the following video, he very definitely comes down on the side of the monoist view of consciousness and the soul and the programme is definitely quote mining.
http://bit.ly/lOVlrm
Also, the programme was definitely changed for the American market. I am sure a lot of these quotes were not in the BBC version.
At least they balanced that point by having Dan Dennett on there as well as Ken Miller.
I think that it was actually somewhat evenhanded on the question of compatibility. It did after all show Dennet arguing that Darwinism wasn’t really compatible with religion. It might have given a little more time to that point of view and a little less to Kenneth Miller. I have seen much worse.