Darwin's Deadly Legacy

Darwin's Deadly Legacy is a creationist film staring D. James Kennedy, asserting that Adolf Hitler grounded his genocidal actions on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The film was produced by Coral Ridge Ministries. The film aired August 26-27, 2006 during Coral Ridge Ministries' the "Coral Ridge Hour," accompanied by a book titled Evolution's Fatal Fruit: How Darwin's Tree of Life Brought Death to Millions. A prebroadcast CRM boasted that "the program features 14 scholars, scientists and authors who outline the grim consequences of Darwin's theory of evolution and show how his theory fueled Hitler's ovens." CRM spokesman John Aman contended that "Darwinism is a philosophy, it's a worldview, and one of the key things in it is that evolution advances by death, so death is a good thing. Hitler thought he was doing civilization a favor by eliminating lives that were not worth living. We, of course, think that is an egregious moral tragedy and a consequence of the worldview that was initiated by Darwin and popularized by his followers."

The film stars James Kennedy, Ann Coulter, Lee Strobel, Richard Weikart, Jonathan Wells, Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, Ken Ham Ian Taylor, Earl Tilford, and (very briefly) Francis Collins. Yes, Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. However, after viewing the film, he was "absolutely appalled" at how his comments were used in the film. "I had no knowledge that Coral Ridge Ministries was planning a TV special on Darwin and Hitler, and I find the thesis of Dr. Kennedy's program utterly misguided and inflammatory."

An ad funded by the CRM states that millions of Americans are being lied to, a lie hiding as scientific fact. The film then presents a short book titled "Evidence for Creation: Intelligent Answers for Open Minds" by Tom DeRosa, foreward by James Kennedy.

Film Overview

The film is piled with typical creationist propaganda. The first half was all Nazis and Columbine. There is no mention of Hitler's Christianity. Rather, the film focuses on the belief that everything was driven by "Darwinism." The second half was all about the "crumbling theory of evolution." All the old chestnuts were tossed out. "It's just a theory", 747s being spontaneously assembled while monkeys write Shakespeare, Behe babbling about "molecular machines," Strobel saying there were no transitional fossils, Nebraska Man, teach both theories, and that famous paleontologist, Ann Coulter, telling us that all forms of life suddenly appeared in the Cambrian explosion and did you know you'll get sued if you mention the Cambrian in a classroom?

Film Walk through

Darwin's Deadly Legacy

RationalWiki Responses

The film begins with Kennedy walking into a science lab, filled with flasks containing strange colorful liquids, while giving a brief introduction to Charles Darwin and his theory. Kennedy states that Darwin's theory, the claim that all animals including men, evolved from a random process. Since Darwin's theory, according to Kennedy, the world has never been the same since.

Appearing in a science lab does not make you scientific anymore than walking through a court room makes you a court judge. Just to get this out of the way, evolution is not random. Natural selection is the complete opposite of random. Also, the world has never been the same since Newton or Galileo. The world is in constant state of change, but Darwin did not have a negative contribution towards the world (as we will explain throughout this review).

Kennedy states that teaching evolution is now mandated throughout all the schools and public education institutions. In this film, Kennedy wants to view the social impacts of Darwin's theory, which Kennedy says evolution affects all of it. Kennedy says when you read a newspaper, magazine, or watch a program on the television, "you will see the assumption of evolution." To prove his point, Kennedy shows a few second clip of Bill Maher addressing evolution and intelligent design. The film then states that it is difficult from avoiding being indoctrinated about evolution through television or the radio.

The film is correct that evolution is widely accepted amongst the scientific community, but it states that everywhere evolution is shown (magazines, textbooks, news, etc.) it is just "assumed."

First interview with creationist Ian Taylor, author of In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order. Taylor blames the wide spread of acceptance in North America is because evolution is taught in public schools. The narrator also points out that evolution is also promoted in Hollywood (showing a clip from a 2002 film, Adaptation).

Next, Ann Coulter says the reason why she thinks that atheists accept evolution is to avoid answering the question how did we get here. The narrator then briefly speaks over Coulter, but after the intro, she says "There is no such thing as morality, there is no such thing as our consciousness of our mortality, we are about one step above a porpoise, although many seem to believe we are below them because we have nukes and we pollute, (laugh) and we have hate crimes and don't recycle. So we are below a porpoise, but it is just a matter of random mutation, a bloody battle of survival - which exists nowhere in the fossil record."

Talk about muddying the waters; this assertion by Coulter completely ignores several important points: Evolution and life origin are two separate concepts in science; creationists love to argue that they are the same thing. Morality has nothing to do with evolution or life origin. Atheists accept evolution because it better explains how humans came to be humans than a supposed magic trick does. And in the most ignorant of false comparisons, humans and porpoises are very different species.

The narrator quotes biologist Stephen J. Gould "Man...or even women...as the crowning achievement of some grand cosmic plan? What moral conceit. We are but an afterthought. We are a little accidental twig." Switch to Kennedy, who says the dangerous idea of evolution says that we are the products of time, chance, and random mutations. Kennedy says, "If we just evolved from the primeval slime, then humanity sinks in significance. Darwin's second major book, rightly titled, The Descent of Man when man was no longer viewed as a little lower than the angels, but rather a little higher than the apes."

Only in Kennedy's worldview does man have such significance. Only in Kennedy's worldview do angels exist to compare us to, a worldview that has only been around for a fraction of human history in certain regions of the globe. However, since angels have never been proven to exist, Kennedy's claims and views are simply irrelevant.

Social Darwinism

The narrator then goes on to say that Darwin's theory then went on to inspire economics, government and the social culture. Evolution gave man a new perspective on his place amongst the animals and in the cosmos. It was then that Herbert Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the fittest," which was praised as the essence of "Darwinism." This would lead to "social Darwinism." Next to an interview with Earl Tilford, who explains social Darwinism as the evolution of social systems where the weaker ones will die out (a process Tilford says "flies in the face of Judeo-Christian values). Tilford says that it was okay to exploit the weak (mentally deficient, intellectually deficient, morally deficient, etc.) for the good will of the human race.

What this narration, Spencer's quote, which Tilford leaves out, is that humans are a social species. It is also known as the naturalistic fallacy - the argument that how things are implies how they ought to be. But "is" does not imply "ought." Keep this important fact in mind: the source of social Darwinism was not Darwin but Herbert Spencer and the tradition of Protestant nonconformism going back to Hobbes via Malthus. Spencer's ideas of evolution were Lamarckian. The only real connection between Darwinism and social Darwinism is the name.

The narrator quotes Ian Taylor's book, In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order, that mentions the Robber Barons - a handful of industrialists who became wealthy by unethical means. The film labels them "enthusiastic Darwinists." Taylor says the unethical labor was all justified by Darwin's argument of survival of the fittest. Andrew Carnegie, among others, encouraged unemployment to keep wages down and hours long, all for the benefit of the country.

Again, Darwin never argued for or even mentioned "survival of the fittest." It was not Darwin's idea, but Herbert Spencer (who got his ideas from Lamarck, not Darwin).

Racism

Then the narrator says that Darwinism justified racism, whereas the biblical view is that racism is wrong. Although not all Christians lived up to its message, the book of Acts 17:26 says we all came from one man and thus there is no bases for racism, and thus the biblical message is at odds with Darwinism.

There is a lot left out of this argument. For instance, the Genesis account has been used to justify racism. While it says we are from one man, there is the account that the descendants of Ham were "cursed" with dark skin. People used typological thinking for living things, considering different plants and animals to be their distinct "kinds." This gave rise to a misleading conception of human races, in which different races are thought of as separate and distinct. Evolution on the other hand, does not justify racism, in fact it refutes racism. Genetic studies show that humans are remarkably homogeneous genetically, so all humans are only one biological race. Evolution does not teach racism; it teaches the very opposite.

Creationist Ken Ham finally gets his moment. He says many people may not be able to perceive the link between evolution and racism, but he then quotes biologist Stephen J. Gould that racist attitudes were common before Darwin, but after Darwin racism was "fueled" because the theory was a popular "philosophy that man is just an animal, and we evolved from ape-like ancestors, there are different races that evolved at different levels and some are more advanced than others, you can see then how people developed racist attitudes towards those they thought were more primitive than themselves or inferior to themselves, and there is no doubt that Darwinian evolution has influenced cultures around the world." Ken Ham, an Australian, testifies that Darwin's theory inflamed racism in Australia because Darwin labeled the Aborigines as the closest to our ape-like ancestors, thus dooming the Aborigines to be labeled as "missing links" and animals (such as in the very early 1900's they were listed as 'animals" in the Sydney Museum booklet, leading the Germans and English to send men with instructions to hunt and collect samples of these people for their museums). Taylor says the reason for this was because White Europeans saw Aboriginals as not yet fully evolved.

None of the material and arguments presented in this film about racism matters to the science of evolution. The evidence confirming and supporting evolution is still very strong. Darwin was a product of his time, when many English men (including many clergy) looked down on non-European people. Certain clergymen, like George McCredy Price, thought blacks and Mongolians were entirely non-human. Darwin himself was far less racist than most of his contemporaries, he was an abolitionist and strongly against the slave trade; he even encouraged missionaries to improve the lives of the native groups in Tierra del Feugo. Ken Ham's testimony is very misleading in regards to the reality of what happened. With or without the theory of evolution, Europeans for ages have had racist attitudes. Although creationism is not inherently racist, it is based upon and inseparable from religious bigotry, and religious bigotry is no less hateful and harmful than racism.

Karl Marx

The narrator says another individual who was influenced by evolution (about its implications about God and man) was Karl Marx, the "father of communism." Ann Coulter says that Marx accepted Darwinian evolution as the scientific version of his political philosophy; "he saw it as a struggle amongst classes." Tilford then comments that when God is removed from the equation, whether if it is social Darwinism or Marxism, all attempts to do noble things go out the window. It also led to the social manipulation in Soviet Russia, which failed at the cost of millions of lives. Kennedy proclaims that since proponents of evolution do not believe that man was made in the image of God, they felt fine with getting rid of those who got in the way of their social engineering. Karl Marx wrote to his collaborator Friedrich Engels in reference to Darwin's Origin of Species, "This is the book that contains the foundation in natural history for our view." That view was, according to Kennedy, Communism. Kennedy then says "No one can deny that communism was based upon atheism. The communist leaders said so, while Karl Marx did not like the Darwinian concept of 'every man for himself.' He found Darwin's theory useful for removing God from the equation and substituting the Almighty State as he envisioned it. In Communism, the State was God and literally tens of millions of people have died because of this false belief."

First of all, many theistic evolutionists would sincerely disagree with Kennedy who states that evolution teaches that man was made in the image of God. No one can actually define what the "image" of God really means, so to speculate and link it's absence in science is ridiculous. Also, communism is not based on atheism. Kennedy says that communist leaders said so, but does not name a single one. Marx was not the "father of communism." As much as this film wishes to portray atheism as more wicked than Christianity due to dead-body count, the main cause for all the deaths in Soviet Russian and Communist China was due to communism, not atheism. Communism, in the sense of a system of collectivized property, is a biblical notion already found in Acts 4:27-32. That Christian communist system also resulted in the killing of a married couple (Acts 5:1-11) that reneged on their promise to surrender their property. Thus, the principle of killing those who did not conform to collectivization of property is already a biblical one, an ideal that predates Karl Marx and is within the pages of God's perfect Word. The defense that it was simply lying about turning over their property that was the motive for the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira overlooks the brute fact that the value of life was put below handing over all their property. For instead of just being expelled, they were killed. Stalin or Mao probably would have done the same thing. Since communism is advocated by some biblical authors, then Maoist and Stalinist deaths cannot simply be attributed to atheism, as enforcing collectivization can be deadly in both atheist or Christian forms.

Hitler

The film quotes from Hitler's Mein Kampf, "...the purity of the racial blood should be guarded, so that the best types of human beings may be preserved and that thus we should render possible a more noble evolution of humanity itself." Kennedy says that Hitler relied on "evolutionary concepts" and then the film tries to conjure several links between Darwin and Nazism. The film announces that perhaps Hitler was the most evil man ever. The film's main source is Richard Weikart, author of the book From Darwin to Hitler. Weikart claims that Darwinism did more than connect humans as animals, it also changed the way people thought of death. Weikart said, "In the Judeo-Christian conception of death is that death is an enemy that is to be overcome and will be overcome through Christ, but the Darwinian vision is that death is a positive force that brings progress. And in fact, the more death the more progress. The more people who are born, the more variations you have for good variations."

This film is doing an excellent job so far at spewing propaganda. Hitler did not rely on Darwin's theory of evolution at all. The only time he ever mentioned Darwin was to bash Darwin. he made many claims that fly in the face of Darwin's theory of evolution, such as: "The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger. The only difference that can exist within the species must be in the various degrees of structural strength and active power, in the intelligence, efficiency, endurance, etc., with which the individual specimens are endowed." Take note of Weikart's personal religious bias to distinguish his narrow version of Judeo-Christian beliefs with Social Darwinism. If the Christian religion promoted life over death, then history would not be tainted by the blood spilled by Christian efforts to eliminate certain groups.

Eugenics

See the main article on this topic: Eugenics

The narrator says that Charles Darwin's theory was not widely accepted at first, but Darwin noticed it began as a footnote of support growing in Germany 50 years before Hitler. Darwin wrote, "The support I receive from Germany is my chief ground for hoping that our views will ultimately prevail." Introducing George Grant, author of the Grand Illusions: the Legacy of Planned Parenthood, who says that Darwin had a cousin named Francis Galton, who took the ideas of Darwin and applied them to the realm of genetics. According to Grant, Galton believed there was a way to steer evolution to make a superior race through manipulating "good" genes, a method that came to be known as eugenics. The eugenics movement affect millions of American, there were many forced abortions as well as many people who were sterilized due for being deemed unfit by the State, which was ruled constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927 in Buck vs. Bill. Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes said "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." The film labels Planned Parenthood as a direct result of the eugenics movement. The film quotes the founder Margaret Sanger, who believe in getting rid of what she called "the dead weight of human waste." No citation is given. Grant says Sanger talked about raising a new race of thoroughbreds, eliminating human weeds. Ann Coulter says that eugenics portrays humans as "useless eaters" who deprive the earth of its resources. Wiekart says that Hitler was "clearly trying to speed evolution along, but he was not the only one. He was drawing on Scholars, biologists, geneticists in Germany were also preaching and teaching. Natural selection was the guiding idea for Hitler and the Nazis, Mein Kampf talks a great deal about how races are struggling for existence...which brings about natural selection. They use the word selection quite freely, in fact if you read just about any books on the Holocaust you come across the word 'selection' because in the camps that is exactly what they did, and they use the term and the term was related to Darwinian terminology that when you went to the camps you went through a selective process. They were selecting this person to survive and this person to go to the gas chamber." Ann Coulter admits she never learned the link between Darwin's theory and Nazism through all her academic years until she read Richard Weikart's book From Darwin to Hitler. The narrator says Hitler's book Mein Kampf uses the word "evolution" quite often, but the English translation uses the phrase "development." The film then admits that Darwin or his associates were anti-Sematic (per se), but their ideas made the whole think possible. While anti-Semitism existed long before Darwin and Hitler, Hitler was the first to view Judaism as a race and "no one every tried to exterminate the Jews" but for Hitler is was necessary to remove the Jewish blood from the "gene pool." Tilford states that "Hitler was always referring to Darwin and to the science of Darwinism as a reason and support for his racist theories. And in that you bring science, and the Nazi's loved science, then it sort of gave it the blessing of modern liberal thinking, of scientific thinking. So Darwinism, the idea that you had superior races, you had the fittest surviving certainly underleg the Nazis and their thinking." Richard Weikart then goes on about the Nazis putting down physical and genetically ill people and practicing euthanasia. Regarding the Final Solution, Tilford says "they did referred to Darwin at the Wannsee conference. Hartridge commented at the end that 'Darwin would be astounded if the progress we are going to make in one year as we will move the human race forward."

Eugenics is based on genetic principles that are independent of evolution. It is just as compatible with creationism, and in fact at least one young-earth creationist (William J. Tinkle) advocated eugenics and selective human breeding. Many eugenics arguments, such as the expected effect of selective sterilization and the results of interracial mating, are based on bad biology. Better biology education, including the teaching of evolution, can only counter the assumptions on which eugenics is based. As for Tilford's comments, he is absolutely incorrect. For instance, the Nazis did not love science and often practiced pseudoscience to promote their racist views. The Nazi Party in general rejected Darwinism and supported Christianity. In 1935, Die Bücherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published a list of guidelines of works to reject, including: "Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel)." On the other hand, an undated "Blacklist for Public Libraries and Commercial Lending Libraries" includes the following on a list of literature which "absolutely must be removed": "All writings that ridicule, belittle or besmirch the Christian religion and its institution, faith in God, or other things that are holy to the healthy sentiments of the Volk," while churchgoing was an essential element of the Nazis' Kinder, Küche, Kirche social policy.

Eric Harris and Columbine High School

The film then presents the deadly school shooting conducted by Eric Harris and Dylan Kiebold, who favored natural selection. The incident took place on April 20th, the birthday of Adolf Hitler (who the boys looked up to as a hero). Ken Ham blames teaching of evolution in public schools that teaches that individuals can make morality however they wish. The film bring in an aunt of one of the school victims, Debbie Phillips. Philips says that Harris and Kiebold badgered the kids "do you believe in God? Why do you believe in God? There" and they would shoot. Philips says "it was as if they had more power than God. They had control over people's lives and they wanted that power, they wanted to play God in that whole scene." The autopsy revealed that Harris wore a shirt that read "Natural selection." Introducing Denver High School teacher Ken Poppe, author of the book Reclaiming Science from Darwinism who claims that after the incident he came to believe natural selection gave people the mindset that they were the strongest and had the right to deprive the lives of their fellow classmates. Since the Columbine incident, there have been 12 more similar school incidents. Many blame the removal of God from schools (the belief, according to the film, that gives hope and significance to human beings) being replaced with Darwinism. Kennedy does not find these incidents surprising, since according to him, evolution teaches that we are just "trouser apes, that there is no meaning to life, then why are we shocked when they act like this?"

Evolution, a Fact?

The narrator quotes Richard Dawkins, "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet someone who claims to not believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that). Whereas all the previous material may be irrelevant if evolution is indeed a scientific fact, so Kennedy gears up to challenge that. Introducing Lee Strobel, author of The Case for a Creator, and Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of Evolution. Strobel says the pillars of Darwinism rot when you examine the theory. Wells says evolution is not a fact at all, it is a hypothesis still looking for evidence. Ken Poppe mentions that for him the missing links for him are still missing everywhere. Coulter proclaims "no evidence will ever be accepted to disprove Darwinism, because they must believe in Darwinism." The narrator says that Darwinism is pushed in schools and in museums in "dogmatic ways."

Before we move further, let's introduce some of the new people. Jonathan Wells claimed that he became a scientist for the sole purpose of destroying Darwinism as a mission from God. Since then, his religious bias has done nothing but bash real science and promote the "intelligent design" pseudoscience. As for the dogmatic comments by the film and Coulter, that is just a huge lie. So, is Evolution a fact? It is a fact that evolution happens; that biodiversity and complexity does increase, that both occur naturally only by evolutionary means. It is a fact that alleles vary with increasing distinction in reproductive populations and that these are accelerated in genetically isolated groups. It is a fact that natural selection, sexual selection, and genetic drift have all been proven to have predictable effect in guiding this variance. It is a fact that significant beneficial mutations do occur and are inherited by descendant groups, and that multiple independent sets of biological markers exist to trace these lineages backwards over many generations. It is a fact that birds are a subset of dinosaurs the same way humans are a subset of apes, primates, eutherian mammals, and vertebrate deuterostome animals. It is a fact that the collective genome of all animals has been traced to its most basal form, and that those forms are also indicated by comparative morphology, physiology, and embryological development. It is a fact that everything on earth has definite relatives either living nearby or evident in the fossil record. It is a fact that the fossil record holds hundreds of definitely transitional species even according to it’s strictest definition, and that both microevolution and macroevolution have been directly-observed. Evolution is a fact! Despite all this evidence and the clear fact of evolution, this film chooses to ignore the evidence and present creationist propaganda. The film then delves into several "problems' with the theory, but in reality they are not problems at all.

The Fossil Record

Lee Strobel compares the fossilized skeleton remains of an ancient ape and a human, while looking at them side by side, then Strobel asks "where is the evidence that this one became the other? There is no evidence. What we have is two separate, somewhat similar looking fossils that represent two different kinds of animals."

Strobel does not explain what he means by "kinds" but is there really any evidence that links the two human and ape fossils? Creationists have demanded that we find a fossil of a half-man half-ape. Demanding an “ape-man” is actually just as silly as asking to see a mammal-man, or a half-human, half-vertebrate. How about a half dachshund, half dog? It’s the same thing. One may as well insist on seeing a town half way between Los Angeles and California. Because the problem with bridging the gap between humans and apes is that there is no gap because humans ARE apes –definitely and definitively. The word, “ape” doesn’t refer to a species, but to a parent category of collective species, and we’re included. This is no arbitrary classification like the creationists use. It was first determined via meticulous physical analysis by Christian scientists a century before Darwin, and has been confirmed in recent years with new revelations in genetics. Furthermore, it is impossible to define all the characters exclusively indicative of every known member of the family of apes without describing our own genera as one among them. Consequently, we can and have proven that humans are apes in exactly the same way that lions are cats, and iguanas are lizards, and whales are mammals. So where is the proof that humans descend from apes? How about the fact that we’re still apes right now!

Next, the film brings up the Cambrian explosion, the claim that life appeared suddenly with no earlier transitional forms. For the expert opinion of this subject, they choose Ann Coulter, the author of the book Godless: The Church of Liberalism. Coulter claims that when Darwin proposed his theory, the fossil record did not reveal what he hoped to find. However, he predicted that future generations will discover the fossil remains he hoped for, but Coulter says the opposite has happened. Her proof, the Cambrian explosion where all the phyla of animals appear suddenly "in the blink of an eye."

Coulter has no scientific degrees of any kind, she is a lawyer and columnist, meaning her claims about evolution and geology inadequate.

Now addressing the missing link for humans, the film calls in Ken Poppe, author of the book Reclaiming Science from Darwinism: A Clear Understanding of Creation, Evolution and Intelligent Design. Poppe hints about several hoaxes in evolution, but particularly points out Nebraska man, where a whole man was constructed on the basis of a single tooth that later fooled the scientific community. Coulter says the reason why the fossil evidence is lacking is because the animals "failed to fossilize" so while they claim to have evidence, there is no evidence.

A little insight of Nebraska man. An American paleontologist earned himself a life-time of embarrassment when he found a tooth from an extinct species of pig in Nebraska, and mislabeled it, Hesperopithecus. The cheek teeth of pigs and peccaries are fairly similar to ape molars, and this one was badly worn such that Henry Fairfield Osborne initially believed it to be human. But the real embarrassment came when he publicized his find in a popular magazine rather than submitting it for peer review first. Creationists like to say that scientists were as duped by Nebraska man. But they weren’t. Everyone who saw the fossil agreed that it did look like an ape’s tooth. But with only a couple tentative exceptions, the entire contemporary scientific community either immediately rejected the accuracy of Osborne’s assertions, or they demanded more substantial evidence to back them. He obviously couldn’t provide that evidence despite another five years of searching. Eventually, he came to the sad realization that his fossil probably wasn’t really human after all. His more skeptical associate, W.K. Gregory then published a formal retraction in scientific journals. Creationists often accuse scientists of contriving the illustration of Nebraska man and of conjuring a whole skeleton and facial construct out of a single tooth that was never even human in the first place. But the fact is that the magazine commissioned their own ‘artist’s impression’, and scientists of the day, including Osborn himself, immediately reacted with harsh criticism. As a result, the article was never reprinted. Now even though Nebraska man was simple stupidity, honestly and voluntarily admitted, and even though there were no other such examples in the history of paleoanthropology, -creationists still portray both of these events, and many others, as if they were all part of some ridiculous unified international conspiracy intended to fool the world into believing evolution over creation ex-nihilo. These paranoid propagandists also commonly contend -based only on these exceptions- that each of the thousands of fossil hominids we’ve found and confirmed before and since were all proven to be fakes too –even when the alleged authorities making these claims are already-exposed charlatans currently imprisoned for fraud. As for Coulter's remark, she does not explain why that answer is significant, nor does she give the whole story of the fossil record. When something dies, it is usually disassembled, digested, and decomposed. Only rarely is anything ever fossilized, and even fewer things are very well-preserved. Because the conditions required for that process are so particular, the fossil record can only represent a tiny fraction of everything that has ever lived. Darwin provided many environmental dynamics explaining why no single quarry could ever provide a continuous record of biological events, and why it would be impossible to find all the fossilized ancestors of every lineage. But despite this, he predicted that future generations, -having the benefit of better understanding- would discover a substantial number of fossil species which he called “intermediate” or “transitional” between what we see alive today and their taxonomic ancestors at successive levels in paleontological history. In fact, in the century-and-a-half since then, we’ve found millions of evolutionary intermediaries in the fossil record, much more than Darwin said he could reasonably hope for. There are three different types of transitional forms and we have ample examples of each. But creationists still insist that we’ve never found a single one, because what they usually ask us to present are impossible parodies which evolution would neither produce nor permit.

Microevolution vs. Macroevolution

The film defines microevolution as "small changes within species" and macroevolution as "one kind of creature evolving into another kind of creature." Jonathan Wells admits the evidence for microevolution is abundant, but he does not accept macroevolution. The film then reintroduces Ian Taylor who hosts "Creation Moments" on more than 800 radio stations. Taylor defines macroevolution as a creature, giving enough time and certain conditions, could grow into another creature. Taylor says we have no evidence of this ever happening.

The film does not define or clarify what they mean by kind (not surprising actually). Apparently, Taylor must have never heard of speciation, the exact evidence and phenomenon he demanded for. The only reason creationists cling to these “micro” and “macro” distinctions is so they can have some excuse to accept “small scale” evolution, which they begrudgingly admit cannot be denied even with the greatest faith; while still denying “large scale” evolution where their exact parameter of “how large” must remain illusive to prevent it ever being disproved. Of course that means “large scale” evolution can mean whatever they want it to at that moment. Frank Sherwin from the Institute of Creation Research recently defined macroevolution as “the origin of every kind of animal”, and later on in the same discussion, he changed his definition to “the origin of all life”. He knows he’s using the terms incorrectly. He simply doesn’t care! But the fact is he doesn’t get to conveniently redefine what these terms have always meant to the scientists who invented those words in the first place. According to Universities actually teaching this subject, microevolution is variation within species, and macroevolution is variation between species. The different breeds of dogs are an example of microevolution, while the different species of wolves and foxes, panthers and felines, horses and zebras, or llamas and camels –are all examples of macroevolution. Each set is definitely biologically closely-related, but they’re each different species, not different “kinds” of the same one. Macroevolution is properly defined as the emergence of new taxa at or above the species level. The only time creationists will use the proper definition is when they are as-yet unaware of the fact that speciation has already been directly-observed and documented dozens of times –both in the lab and in naturally-controlled conditions in the field. In fact, we’ve seen it so many times we’ve had to categorize recurrent types of macroevolution we’ve seen so often repeated. Once creationists find out about all this, their first reaction is to use the excuse that some newly evolved species of fruit fly or fish somehow still doesn’t count because it’s “still” a fly or it’s “still” a fish. Well of course it is! Evolution couldn’t permit them to be anything else. Creationists demand that the new species be so different from their parents that one can’t even tell they’re related. The irony there is that evolutionary theory never suggests that one “kind” of thing ever turned into another, fundamentally-different “kind” of anything, not unless you ignore all the intermediate stages –which of course creationists do. To comprehend evolutionary theory, one must first understand that it’s only ever a matter of changing proportions –altering or enhancing existing features to build on what is already there. Developmental biology, genetics, and comparative morphology combine to confirm many of these taxonomic stages such that organs do not seem to have appeared abruptly or fully-formed as if out of nowhere, because there is an implied evolutionary origin evident in every case. Even the transition of fish-to-tetrapods, dinosaurs-to-birds, or apes-to-men are each are just a matter of incremental, superficial changes being slowly compiled atop successive tiers of fundamental similarities. These represent monophyletic clades which will forever encompass all the descendants of that clade. This is why birds are still dinosaurs, and humans are still apes, and both are still stegocephalian chordates. No matter how much you or your heirs may change, you obviously can’t outgrow heredity.

Explaining life's Enormous Complexity

The film states "No evolutionist has ever been able to propose a plausible way such structures could have arisen randomly. In other words, random chance alone could not have created life." Another huge lie, massive amounts of scientific literature has proposed hundreds of plausible explanations for such a rise of complexity, but what this film again calls it "random."

Evolution via natural selection is not random, and can perfectly illustrate and explain how such structures could have arisen naturally. Moving on...

Introducing Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black box: A Biochemist's Challenge to Evolution, is a staunch intelligent design proponent (but calls himself an Intelligent Design theorist). Behe claims to be able to detect design within the cell that he claims no one has been able to explain how random chance could have created such structures.

What the film does not share about Behe is his history of being unscientific and weaseling out of holes rather than admit when and where he is wrong. What he detects as design is completely subjective and has no way of testing it, in fact everything he has viewed as "design" or "irreducibly complex" has been shown to have arisen naturally - although he never did the research, but when the correct research was presented to him in court, he dismissed them outright without looking at them rather than admit he was wrong. The court also revealed that not only was Behe's views "fringe science" but his definition of a theory would allow astrology to be considered a scientific theory.

Cut back to Ken Poppe, how repeats the old long-refuted argument, the Boeing 747 argument and the monkeys writing Shakespeare. Jump to Coulter, who says "we hear a lot about 'gaps' in the theory of evolution, the whole theory is a gap. It's got nothing, nothing. We have been looking for about 170 years through the fossil record or in the laboratory mutilating, torturing fruit flies. We have never seen one species come from another in the wild or in the laboratory. Looking for the fossil evidence is not what should be there is not there, but what is there should not be there."

Really Coulter, have you or anyone found a fossilized rabbit in the Pre-Cambrain era? No. Coulter's statement is beyond ridiculous. We have seen and documented hundreds of instances of one species turn into another (a process called speciation).

Kennedy quotes Darwin "if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, then my theory would absolutely break down." Kennedy says after all these years and of all the millions of fossils dug up, Darwin's theory has broken down. Kennedy quotes French scientist "Evolution is a fairy tale for adults. The narrator then quotes Eugene Scott, "It is not fair that to mislead students by pretending that discarded ideas are still viable. We only confuse students by presenting special creation and evolution as if both were equally scientific and as if scientists were still trying to decide between them." Kennedy says "despite the crumbling of it's support in the science lab, evolution is still the only game in town in the public school classroom." The film then briefly discusses the film Inherit the Wind, calling it "highly fictionized" of the Scopes trial. While the people wanted biblical creation taught in schools, the film calls it ironic that Darwin's theory is taught and protect by law "with all other views are excluded."

Creationist have tried hard to find a complex system that had no intermediates, but they have failed every time, and Darwin's theory has stayed strong for over 150 years. The quote from Eugene Scott is actually correct. Evolution is the only scientific theory supported by evidence. Biblical creation and intelligent design has zero evidence and does not belong in the science classes. As for Inherit the Wind it was a Hollywood film, but its message was just as clear as the trial itself.

Science in Classrooms

Tilford claims, "If you look at Darwinism as a theory, it is a theory that should be taught in our schools. But it is just a theory. However, in our society and in our culture in this nation, it has been accepted as fact and it has been forced in schools. We are forced to look at one view point that is Darwin's theory of human development out of lower species and neglect others. And it is illegal to in many places to even propose that there maybe a different viewpoint here, that we may be the creatures of a sovereign God."

While Tilford is a history professor, it is not surprising he does not understand what "theory" in science means, but being an academic he should have some idea. It is not illegal or discourage to include another view point in the class, so long as it is science. To include a viewpoint that we are created by a certain god is a violation of the Establishment Clause.

The narrator tries to portray evolution as the only viewpoint of origins taught in schools that is protect by law. The narrator notes of the Judge in the Dover trial who ruled that the Pennsylvania school could not inform the students there was scientific challenges to evolution or direct them to critiques of the theory. Frank Manion, American Center for Law and Justice, claims that the school board did not mandate the teaching of intelligent design but rather inform the students there were criticisms of evolution from a scientific stand point, and if the students wanted to learn more there was a special book in the library.

Wrong again, the reason why Judge Jones ruled that was because the proposed alternative viewpoint (intelligent design) was not science at all and did not belong in the science class. The book in question was Of Pandas and People When it was discovered that intelligent design was religiously driven, the Judge had no choice but to uphold the Constitution and rule that it could not be taught in schools. The "critiques" of the theory were actually not actual critiques, they were just a repeat of old long-debunked creationist arguments, similar to the ones above (micro vs. macroevolution, complexity of life, fossil record, etc.).

The film says that the American Center for Law and Justice has defended the rights of Christians and the 1st Amendment. Frank Manion claims that in all his career, whenever a teacher provides scientific criticisms of evolution in a class, they often receive a threat from their superiors within the school district or from the ACLU or Americans United for Separation of Church and State or similar groups. The film then says that the Dover trial verdict has no weight on intelligent design, it is the court of appeals and the Supreme Court that does.

What the film does not share is that the ACLU has also defended the rights of Christians for many years. What Manion does not share is that he had no intention of giving scientific criticisms of evolution, just repeating old long-debunked creationist objections alongside pseudoscience like intelligent design. What these groups Manion mentioned are trying to uphold the law and protect every American citizen from religious brainwashing and misinformation, which this film is proud of promoting.

When asked why Darwin's theory of evolution is so vastly protected, author George Grant answers that "groups like the ACLU have an religious and political agenda rooted in a revolutionary worldview that comes from Darwinism. The whole intent of the ACLU is to change our society. To make it into something new, something that the old Christian foundations of America could never allow." Jump to Ann Coulter, who says, "Einstein would not be allowed to teach in a public school, a government school, today because he referred to God. He said 'I am trying to discover God in the universe.' Can you imagine, he would be driven out of a public school today. All the great scientists saw their work as finding God of the universe, as finding the design and to have these hacks like Eugene Scott come in and say 'oh, that is not real science unless you keep God out otherwise it's not real science' and that is just preposterous."

First of all, lets deal with Grant. The ACLU has no agenda, Grant is simply playing the poor persecuted Christian card, which is not true at all. There are no Christian foundations of America, nowhere in the U.S. Constitution will you find words like: Bible, Jesus, Trinity, Paul, Christ, virgin Mary, Crucifixion; God; Jehova; etc. Even the Treaty of Tripoli, written by the second President John Adams, clearly states "America is not founded on the Christian religion." As for Coulter, once again she is completely wrong. Einstein would never be excluded from schools simply because he mentioned or believed in God, he is taught in schools because his works were science-based and proven to be true. No scientist is excluded or included because of their religious beliefs. Even Darwin (at one point) believed in God, so did Galileo and Newton.

Evolution, a Religion?

The film says that proponents of evolution say that only Darwin's theory should be taught because it is based on science, but then the film makes the claim "but critics know that evolution itself proceeds from religious assumptions." Grant then jumps in and says "Darwinism is essentially a theory of the universe. A theory of origins. Therefore, Darwinism is a study of ultimate things. Darwinism is ultimately an alternate theology." Back to Manion, "if you teach that all life is simply matter, that everything is simply matter, that it has just always existed, that it has no purpose, it has no reason, nothing guiding it or un-guiding it, that is obviously a philosophical statement. And yet in that sort of language has appeared, and probably continues to appear, in standard high school biology textbooks in this country."

Grant is lying, and he knows he is lying. Darwin never proposed anything about the origin of the universe, nor did his theory even deal with the universe. Evolution only explain the diversity of life, to explain and understand how life became all creatures of this planet. It is all biology, it has nothing to do with cosmology or quantum mechanics. Grant is completely wrong, spewing false propaganda an he knows it. the main reason why creationists play this sleight of hand is because they know that if they can show that it is religious, then they can use the power of the Supreme Courts to remove it from science class. This is exactly what happened with intelligent design, once it was shown to be another form of creationism, it was ruled unconstitutional and could not be taught in class. What grant ad his ilk are doing is despicable, because they would rather lie to overthrow scientific fact simply because it disagrees with their narrow theological views. Finally, to Manion, evolution does not teach all life is matte, biology and physics do. It says nothing about purpose or reason, science is only meant to explain and understand how things operate.

The film jumps back to Ken Poppe and mentioned he has taught in public schools for over 30 years (while showing him in a class holding a huge skull in one hand and a tiny skull in the other while saying that all the modifications between the two skulls has to be found) and has encountered the stranglehold from the evolutionists have on the curriculum. He found very little or no opportunity to teach scientific objections to evolution from alternate scientific views. Poppe says he had a forced transfer for simply mentioning intelligent design in an elective class (but Poppe then slips that when the principle heard the complains he heard from two parents, he asked Poppe "alright what is going on in your science class?") Poppe says that there were many Christian parents who were supportive of teaching intelligent design, all it took was the voice of two "Darwinists" to get the system to silence Poppe. Poppe was transferred to another school in the district, the film says that thankfully the principle was more objective on this subject. Poppe then states that several groups, particularly the ACLU, who are afraid of such "movements."

Here is why Poppe found little room to teach scientific objections to evolution from alternate scientific views. It is because he was not teaching scientific alternatives at all. What he admits he had in mind was intelligent design, which is religious at heart and proven to be fringe science without a single shred of evidence. The reason why the two parents easily made Pope stop was because they had the Constitution and the law on their side. Teaching intelligent design is not science at all,it is purposely giving students misinformation coming from a religious movement that aims to undo all science.

Back to George Grant on the ACLU. Grant claims that the ACLU has "guarded the sanctity of the theology of Darwinism." Jump back to Pope, who thinks that discussing too much anti-Darwinism will get you in trouble with the establishment." Back to Grant, "well, in America we no longer have blasphemy laws guarding God, but Darwinism is one of those things that is now protected against any kind of attack from by a kind of blasphemy law system. And so, in the schools Darwinism simply cannot be questioned."

There is no such thing as "sanctity" of anything in science. Grant is being misleading on purpose. Discussing the problems of evolution will not get you in trouble, but replacing it altogether with pseudoscience, fringe science, or religious myths will (intelligent design fits all categories). Is Grant proposing we return to the days when we had blaspheme laws? Of course Darwin can be questioned, in science questions are welcomed everywhere. questions are what drives science. A theory is made of facts. It’s is an analysis of how reality works, but every theory has holes in it and no theory is complete. That’s why science must remain objective. For example, expanding planet theory addresses some compelling points which plate tectonics doesn’t adequately account for. But it also calls for assumptions that can’t be justified, it’s refuted by definite observations that are only supportive of plate tectonics, and it can’t explain everything that tectonics does. But remember also that the man who first proposed the theory of plate tectonics was ridiculed for it ‘til the day he died, though his theory has since gained universal acceptance. Other theories never had any competition at all. For example, Louis Pasteur, –who disproved the creationist hypothesis of spontaneous generation- also rejected the notion long promoted by religious leaders, that ailments of the body were of supernatural origin. Science can only examine natural explanations, and Pasteur provided that with his proposition that diseases weren’t caused by demons, but by germs. Like evolution, germ theory can never be proven, even though we know and can show that it is definitely correct beyond any doubt, and that’s why there’s no competing theory.

Ending Remarks

Kennedy announces that proponents of evolution want only evolution to be taught in schools, and they want it "dogmatically." He says, "they think that it is terrible for anyone to suggest such a thing as presenting both sides. One man has said, quote 'A fair result can only obtain by fully stating and balancing facts and arguments on both sides of each question.'" Kennedy claims to have gotten that book from Darwin's Origin of Species.

Kennedy is simply incorrect. Scientists would welcome any valid scientific alternative, but the problem is that none exists and evolution is an observable fact. Whether Kennedy and his ilk like it or not, evolution is a fact and no other alternative has ever come to close to becoming a theory. Darwin's theory is actually more supported than Newton's theory of gravity.

Back to Ian Taylor, who asks how much blood has been spilled in the name of Darwinism, which removed the idea man is created in the image of god but rather the image of man, Taylor says the number may be surprising. Tilford then tries to link abortion to social Darwinism. Coulter then says lawsuits are filed against biology teachers for presenting facts like the Cambrian explosion because "children must be baptized in the religion of Darwinism to prepare them for the coming leap into atheism."

Alright, moving in order, to answer Taylor's question the number is indeed surprising, none. The theory of evolution does not remove the "image of God" concept, otherwise there would not be theistic evolutionists. Tilford's argument can be turned on its head by linking abortion to the Bible. Finally, Coulter is lying. Biologists do present facts like the Cambrian, but they provide the facts of why it is compatible with evolution. Evolutionary theory does not "baptize" any student any more than gravity or cell theory, and they (especially evolution) certainly do not lead people to atheism. Some atheists do not accept evolution and many Christians and religious people do accept evolution, so obviously evolution does not lead to atheism (and Coulter may already fully know that, but is being willfully deceptive).

Kennedy asks that while we have had the theory of evolution for 150 years, what has it brought us? He answers, whether Darwin knew it or not, millions of deaths of those deemed "inferior." Kennedy links evolution to a degrading of life and increasing hopelessness. Kennedy claims that while the support for evolution is crumbling, the ACLU and their friends make sure that there is only one view of science is taught in our schools: a godless one. Kennedy proclaims, "The time has come for people to recognize that evolution is a bad idea and should be, frankly, discarded into the dust bin of history. Thank you for joining me here today dear friends for this special broadcast and may God, the creator and sustainer of all life, bless you."

What has the theory of evolution brought us? A lot, more than people might think. Evolution is what helps us understand the spread and adaption of viruses and diseases, so the theory helps us develop better medicines and save millions. The theory also helps us improve agriculture. One man, Norman Borlaug, who understood evolutionary theory, developed a fast growing wheat that saved millions of starving people. Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. As for deaths, which this film desperately seek to attribute to Darwin, the figure is zero. As already explained, Social Darwinism has almost nothing to do with Darwin or evolution. Social Darwinism focused on a flawed or immature theory of genetics, and its tenets are nothing similar to what Darwin believed.