"Darwin's Doubt" apéritif

"Darwin's Dilemma" is a documentary promoted by the Intelligent Design movement in the United States. The ID movement, led by the Discovery Institute in Seattle, regroups a broad range of critics of Darwinian evolution, but is dominated by "old earth creationists". Philip Johnson (author of "Darwin on Trial") could be considered the direct inspirator of this movement. Other well-known representatives are Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells and David Berlinski.

And, of course, Stephen Meyer... ;-)

Those who haven't yet read Meyer's recent book "Darwin's Doubt" (such as I and pretty much everyone reviewing it on Amazon) might begin by watching "Darwin's Dilemma". The documentary features Meyer, Wells and some other ID proponents. It seems to cover pretty much the same ground as the book, and could therefore be considered a kind of "teaser trailer" to it. Unexpectedly, "Darwin's Dilemma" also features two regular evolutionists, Simon Conway Morris (who is a theistic evolutionist, but not a supporter of ID) and James Valentine (who doesn't support ID either). It's unclear why they chose to participate, since the evolution-creation controversy in the United States is extremely tense.

"Darwin's Dilemma" focuses on the so-called Cambrian explosion, the radiation of many animal phyla that took place during the Cambrian period (about 540 million years ago). The documentary argues that the radiation was (geologically speaking) relatively fast, that no transitional forms to the complex Cambrian organisms have been found, and that the fossil record isn't as imperfect as Darwin believed. Thus, the Cambrian explosion was a real event, during which new, complex body plans emerged almost "out of nothing". "Darwin's Dilemma" further argues that the Cambrian explosion espouses a top-down pattern: new phyla emerge first, while lower taxonomical categories (classes, orders, etc) aren't visible until later, while classical Darwinism would expect the pattern to be the reverse.

The producers have interviewed Douglas Axe, who claims to have proven that complex proteins can't form by mutation. Axe heads the Biologic Institute, which is associated with the Discovery Institute. On the basis of Axe's controversial research, Meyer clinches the argument by stating that the only thing that can possibly explain the emergence of complexity is intelligence, and that life on Earth is directed towards a preset goal. "Darwin's Dilemma" never says whether their favoured alternative is theistic evolution or old earth creationism, nor do they explicitly mention the Christian God. Indeed, some of Meyer's statements strike me as compatible with Rupert Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields. The identity of the designer is never revealed, but the dramatic music at the end of the show rather obviously suggests that it's God. (On a funnier note, why show such a creepy bird as the cormorant when suggesting God's existence?!)

Those interested in the counter-arguments can probably find them in all the usual places. I have to admit that "Darwin's Dilemma" isn't *that* exciting as documentaries go, despite all the animated trilobites. But as a build-up to the pandemonium over at the Amazon product page for "Darwin's Doubt", I suppose it works rather well.

"And yet she moves". Ha ha ha.