Evolution's Achilles' Heels
Not all scientists believe in evolution. The 15 PhDs interviewed in this documentary do their best to explain why. Following on the heels of the publication of a book by the same title, Evolutions Achilles Heels, the film begins with the central mechanism of Darwinian evolutionary theory, natural selection, and explains why (most) creationists have no problem accepting it as a reality. They discuss what natural selection is, and what it can and cannot do, before concluding that it is actually powerless to do what Darwin required. Perhaps surprisingly, they conclude that natural selection is part of the creationist model of origins.From there, they move on to something Darwin knew nothing about, genetics (the study of how discrete traits are passed from one generation to the next), and make the claim that the genetic complexity science has discovered over the last few decades is very difficult for Darwinian theories to explain. They discuss, briefly, human-ape similarities and the a correspondence between what the biblical book of Genesis predicts about human genetic history and what we find in genetic databases.The next chapter is on the origin of life. This is perhaps the strongest section of the documentary. Basically, they argue from what is known about experimental chemistry, physics and probability to make the case that origin of life scenarios are less than scientific. Here we also find several brief, humorous animations.The sections on the fossil record and geologic record are too brief to be fully comprehensive, and the ideas are interrelated, but they do discuss transitional forms, including what is expected by both sides. Here also are the first appeals to the biblical Flood at the time of Noah in way of explaining various geologic features.Obviously, they are getting deeper into issues with deep time, so radiometric dating comes next. They summarize the methodology used, discuss several important techniques, and outline some of the most difficult problems they think evolutionary geologists have. These include the ubiquitous carbon 14 found in all layers of the geologic record.The final scientific section is on big bang cosmology. They do not give many hints to an alternative (although there are several models in the creationist literature), but their list of problems with the standard big bang model is comprehensive. Whether or not one agrees with them, their points are well known to the experts.They wrap up the documentary with a 10-minute section on ethics and morality. While this is not a scientific discussion, per se, they do point out how the philosophical underpinnings of science create a situation in which science and ethics cannot be divorced.
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