10/10/2008

As you know, the movie purports that supporters of the theory of ‘intelligent design’ are being persecuted by the scientific community for their beliefs. 

Intelligent design, as you and I know, is the conjecture that life on Earth could only have arisen through an unspecified intelligent creator.

You and I both completely support a person's right to believe in a philosophical or religious notion that life on Earth and the universe itself were created by God.  Where you and I disagree is on the validity of intelligent design as a scientific theory, which millions believe is as equally valid as the theory of evolution.  I agree with the Dover district court case that ruled that intelligent design is religion cloaked as science.  I also believe that the widespread support for it is dangerous.  I will argue that your support for an intelligent design movie directly goes against some of the greatest challenges we face today.

You and I began our debate over the documentary before it was released.  One thing I think we should establish between ourselves now is that the movie has been out for several months: Expelled is one of the most critically panned movies in the history of filmmaking. 

Critics were shocked that the movie made no effort to actually argue against the theory of evolution from a scientific perspective, and made no effort to establish the scientific credibility of intelligent design.  Rather, it almost immediately sought to portray people who believed in science as evil.

TV Guide wrote, “But surely the film's greatest offense is the utter shamelessness with which it exploits the Holocaust, veering far off topic for a side trip to Nazi killing centers at Hadamar and Dachau in an attempt to tar Darwin…The camera's slow tracking shots through the death camps are followed by a similar creepy crawl through Down House, where Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. None of this has anything to do with the validity of evolutionary theory or intelligent design…”

The Globe and Mail called the documentary, “an appallingly unscrupulous example of hack propaganda.”   Critic Eric Snider said, “It teems with contradictions, false dichotomies, and specious reasoning.”

Among Rotten Tomatoes’ top critics, the documentary received a zero percent rating; a monumental failure the likes I have never before seen.  The New York Times called it, “One of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time…a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.”

One scene was filmed at my alma mater, Pepperdine University. In the scene, Ben Stein opens the doors to a packed auditorium filled with students critical of evolution, and open to Ben Stein’s inquiry into intelligent design.  Having attended the University, I know very well that a majority of the students believe in evolution, and Scientific American, reporting on the same issue, writes, "The biology professors at Pepperdine assure me that their mostly Christian students fully accept the theory of evolution."  The packed auditorium was filled, shockingly, not with my alma mater's notoriously conservative students, but with paid extras, acting.

In 1999, when I first starting writing Notes from the Road, I was openly critical of our country’s evangelical movement, and the atmosphere of antiscience their pastors pushed on their congregations.  Ten years later, I am pleased to see that across our country, and even here in Central America, evangelical congregations are finding compatibility between scripture and science.  As a consequence, we are seeing evangelicals signing on to the science-based positions of the environmental movement in droves.  Even the evangelical publication, Christianity Today, now famously accepts the climate change consensus.

I am writing you because I believe I can convince your congregation that evolution and faith go hand in hand.  I believe I can even convince your congregation that the stories of biological evolution, as seen here in the primordial canopies of Panama, tell a story so enriching, so beautiful, and so complex, that this example of evolution should move any religious man to a stronger belief in his God.  Furthermore, I believe I can pull apart your support for the content of Expelled, and leave its arguments in the garbage can where they belong.  I hope I can convince your congregation about the vital importance of science, right now.

As the fog fades and sunlight beams down on the canopy, a troop of mantled howlers emerge from the jungle.  They chew on cecropia leaves only six or seven feet away.  I lean over the edge of the tower and watch them for hours.  As a child, I believed that so much of humanity’s characteristics were unique.  Through observation over time, some of that belief has crumbled; our level of consciousness and intelligent is unique, but it was built upon a foundation of evolution; you can physically see a glimpse of humanity in our closely-related mammals.  To see these monkeys up close, so close you can smell them, is to see an animal that is conscious, aware and capable.

Shortly after my child was born, he would interlock the toes on each foot, and grip his mothers arms and legs.  It was something I had never seen before, and I had forgotten about it until now, when a young mother mantled howler reveals her own child. He is dangling carelessly under her, with his toes locked together to grip her body.

Maps and Journals Panama Map

Isthmus Letters from the Canopy Atop the Soberanía jungle and near the banks of the Panama canal, I write a series of letters to a mysterious pastor,offering a conclusion to a long debate between us about monkeys, birds, beetles and more. The Kuna Islands Exploring the Kuna Indians island existence and their Caribbean settlement of Panama. The Kuna Coast Continuing from the Kuna Islands, follow us as we dish up the modern history of the Kuna people. Monkey River Town Follow us on a journey up the Monkey River Old Highways of Peten From Belize into the jungles of Northern Guatemala, we travel with redheaded triplets who insist our theories about the Mayan past are all wrong. From San Jose to Ocotal By car to the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. The Howling Coast From the isolated Pacific Coast of Nicaragua to its bustling center, we find a country ready for something it doesn't quite understand, and we find monkeys. Granada Libre Nicaragua from its tourism mecca, and the choices it faces as it enters a brave new world. Jungle in the Sky A walk in the Nicaraguan volcanic cloud forest of Mombacho with an odd cast of characters and a quick look at the past 65 million years.