There’s a nice profile of Randy Olson, the biologist-turned filmmaker behind A Flock of Dodos, which takes a hard look at both sides of the creationism wars:
The biologist, Randy Olson, accepts that there is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the diversity and complexity of life on earth. He agrees that intelligent design’s embrace of a supernatural “agent” puts it outside the realm of science.
But when he watches the advocates of intelligent design at work, he sees pleasant people who speak plainly, convincingly and with humor. When scientists he knows talk about evolution, they can be dour, pompous and disagreeable, even with one another. His film challenges them to get off their collective high horse and make their case to ordinary people with — if they can muster it — a smile.
Olson has an interesting story– he was trained as a biologist, did highly-regarded research in his field, got a tenured academic position, and then chucked it all to go to film school, because he wanted to tell stories. It’s impressive to see someone with enough dedication to the idea of science popularization to take such a serious financial risk:
“I get hundreds of inquiries from students and graduate students wanting to do what I am doing, to get into this interface between science and the media,” Dr. Olson said. “There just isn’t any financial support for it. The science world does not understand media, does not support it. They don’t see the need for innovation.”
Here’s hoping his film does well on the festival circuit, and some of that funding starts to materialize. We could use more people like him.
Yes, why can’t scientists wrap their theories in more entertaining narratives? It’s the same reason that effective democratic (small d) governance, as epitomoized recently by John Kerry, is a cerebral affair. The problem is that humans are not guided in their decision-making by reason but by emotion.
Of course, most would deny this, especially for themselves. Only their detractors suffer from emotional motives. But the truth is that our minds, like all mammals, are basically emotional computers. We are all incapable of making a decision that violates our prediction of maximum emotional satisfaction.
Miracle-making creators wielding unlimited power over the design of life and who unleash devastating floods to correct our path are far more fun to contemplate. Reality, especially for the scientifically challenged, is just improbable gobbledy-gook, just like John Kerry’s exceptional vocabulary. Nothing like the emotion-packed stories from the bible.
People will always believe what feels good – and will only use their brains to justify it – even some highly educated scientists. That’s how powerfully we crave hot emotional truth over cold reason.
Good scientists are not unemotional thinkers. They have learned to reserve their strongest emotional respect for the process of reasonable argument itself.
That’s the dilemma. As science has shown for centuries now, human progress and greater human happiness lies in the respect for and embrace of cold reason. But, success in elections, and even in scientific argument these days (Intelligent Design) lies in hot ideology where reason has no fighting chance.
Reason may prevail for now in Dover – but such temporary victories only enrage the true-believers who, unless they suffer some huge political defeat and become contrite over the damage they have done to society (very unlikely), will replace most non-ideological judges within a few years.
Is the answer to make science discovery more emotional (ideological) – to wrap science in fanciful narratives that would be more palatable to children and dumb adults – as I believe this movie suggests? It wouldn’t be science then. IMO the only answer lies in a society where children grow up with a respect (an emotional attachment) for the results that good science can provide – a shifting of emotional attachment to the process level once removed from the results. And from the hot ideology which satisfies just from the conflict it offers.
Things seemed to be headed in a much more promising direction in the early sixties when JFK called for the pursuit of excellence in scientific education and the whole nation embraced his leadership. But for now, the Reformation rules.
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