Dodos

The Dodos are coming! The Dodos are coming!

Reserve the evening of Thursday, April 12, for the award-winning documentary "Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus." Appropriately, the film will make its western Kansas debut at Sternberg Museum in Hays among the "fish within a fish" and mosasaur specimens.

Update: The film will begin at 7:00 pm.

The official synopsis:

Flock of Dodos is the first feature documentary (84 mins.) to present both sides of the Intelligent Design/Evolution clash that appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek in 2005. Filmmaker and former Evolutionary Ecologist Dr. Randy Olson tries to make sense of the issue by visiting his home state of Kansas. At first it seems the problem lies wiht intelligent design - a movement labeled recently as "breathtaking inanity" by a federal judge - but when a group of evolutionists convene for a night of poker and discussion they end up sounding themselves like . . . a flock of dodos.

According to Wikipedia,

Flock of Dodos humorously examines the debate between proponents of the concept of intelligent design and the scientific establishment that supports evolution. The evolutionary famous dodo (Raphus cucullatus) is a now-extinct bird that lived on the Island of Mauritius, which is approximately 500 miles east of Madagascar. When Portuguese sailors arrived on the island, the possible combination of over-hunting and introduction of new predators (i.e. pigs, macaques) seems to have led to its extinction by approximately 1700. Due to its lack of fear of humans and inability to fly, the dodo was easy prey, and thus became known for its apparent stupidity. It failed to change with an evolving environment, which ultimately led to the birds' demise.

The film attempts to determine who the real "dodos" are in a constantly evolving world: the scientists who are failing to promote evolution as a scientifically accepted fact, the intelligent design advocates, or the American public who get fooled by the salesmanship of the Discovery Institute. While Randy Olson ultimately sides with the scientists who accept evolution, he gives equal air time to both sides of the argument, including intelligent design proponent Michael Behe and several of his colleagues.

A panel discussion will be held after the film.

The showing will be sponsored by the FHSU Science and Math Center, FHSU's Sigma Xi chapter and other entities.

Get this on your calendar before your free time goes extinct!