Evolution's Achilles' Heels

Plot synopsis:
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.

Tags: christian film

Review:
Creationisms Achilles Heel.
It was Friday night, and I noticed some Christian organization at my college had put up this film in an auditorium.
The poster promoting the film said 15 scientists with Phd's in different scientific fields, and some of them allegedly ex-atheists, many new groundbreaking discoveries, will explain to us why Darwin's theory of evolution is falling apart.
Big words.
I feel a little bit embarrassed for having nothing better to do, but I got curious and thought it could be entertaining.
Of course, its always Christians or other religious groups who argues the theory of evolution, and never anyone else, and this is put together by Christians and for Christians, but okay, lets be fair and give it an open mind.
The movie isn't horrible in every way.
Production-wise its fine.
It has some neat CGI-stuff from inside the cells, which must have cost some money to produce, and lot of alright footage elsewhere too, and it deals with lot of interviews with these 15 mentioned scientists.
It attempts to be as scientific as possible.
I'll also give them credit for trying to make their arguments clear and tidy.
Thats not a given in every creationism documentary.
They have divided the documentary in several parts, dealing with evolution from different scientific fields.
Natural selection was the first chapter, genetics was the next, the origin of life next, then cosmology and so on, challenging the present scientific world view from different fields.
At the end of each chapter they summarize all the points, which I found commendable.
People with the will to challenge the claims and double-check can easily look at their claims.
As for the claims, their overall goal was to make the literal interpretation of the Bible seem plausible, even if the consensus of science today says something else.
Parts of it was interesting.
Its a bit technical though, and I suspect they tried to make it sound a bit difficult to impress.
I doubt many Christians understand what these people are talking about, but I suppose the message was that they're the experts.
"You just have to trust these people.
Don't they sound smart?" Now, I am not en expert on DNA, nor cosmology, so I am not sure how to debunk every single claim here.
I could however understand what they missed with the natural selection part, because they kept going on about evolution needing "new information" when natural selection just deals with existing information.
You don't have to be an expert to understand random mutations is the link they seek.
One of the scientists ironically does mention mutations at one brief point, but its like he just brushed it off, no need to go into it.
Anyway, quite a way into the movie I was actually prepared to say they'd done a presentable job at least, and fairly entertaining and fairly informative at times, if a little bit dense with information at times.
The only real criticism to this point was that it's very biased.
It would have been impressive if they let some scientist with a secular view, the opposite view, deal their arguments back and forth, so the viewer, religious or not, could weigh in which theory seemed more plausible for them.
Its possible to claim the film is a bit of a circle-jerk, and that probably is because this documentary is probably pandering to the religious crowd.
It's a documentary most likely made to strengthen the belief of the already converted, the slightly doubtful Christian that needs affirmation, and its not meant as something to really challenge the scientific establishment, but still, its seemed sincere so far.
The last one part however was atrocious, I regret to say.
To go from a point of view that the creationists were at least somewhat attempting to be scientific, they severely shoot themselves in the foot in the grand finale of the movie.
The last part is about Morality and ethics, in relation to Darwin.
Many of the same people who went on an on about the science in their field was now starting to talk mindless out of their butts, and its very painful to watch.
If you ever heard a religious fundamentalist talking about secular morality, you know what to expect; Without god you have can't have any foundation for morality, so everything is allowed, and yes, that automatically will lead to murder, rape, Stalin and Hitler.
Footage of Hitler and the Nazis was heavily used in this part.
They claim Hitler was inspired by evolution, atheism and Darwin, without anything to really back that claim up.
Its suddenly like social Darwinism and evolution is basically the same thing.
I wonder if they really believe this, or if they are just trying to spread propaganda.
It seems like the latter is the case.
They should know atheists, agnostics and humanists aren't running around killing and raping everybody, as the statistics for this part of the population for criminality is shown to be lower than for religious people.
These people should know moralities are more complex, if they really are PhD's, but still they feel they have right to say that if evolution is seen to be true people will put up holocausts in in every city.
Sadly for them, the last chapter became the films own "achilles heel".
Some of these scientists even admits they are scared of the secular scientific world view, because they claim it would lead to new atrocities, and seems to openly admit this affected the way they saw science that supported it too.
They really believe it because they WANT things to be a certain way(Christian/religious), and not because things seem to really be that way, which is what science is really about.
So is in other words they're not really doing real science.
Perhaps a more fitting name for the documentary would be Creationisms Achilles Heel..
A must-see for anyone born in Western civilization in the last 100 years..
Whilst I wouldn't say that the quality was amazing, or that the presentation style was brilliant, the content...
was great.
(Don't get me wrong though, the quality and presentation style are fine, just not Hollywood)The theory of evolution is so prevalent and universally accepted, that it's immune to the normal operation of science.
How can a science function if no-one is willing to falsify it?
This documentary presents a simple and exhaustive summary of the current arguments against evolution.
It accompanies a book with the same title, which is even more detailed.
I guarantee that you will go away with an understanding of where the creationists are coming from.
You may be surprised by how compelling and scientific their arguments are.
From biology to physics, the science in itself is fascinating.
And its great to hear science presented without the arrogance of the statement, "we now know..." - which I am sick of hearing in other documentaries.Creation Ministries International have produced a number of DVDs. This one probably covers the most ground, providing a summary of the whole context of the modern debate.Seriously, you've got to watch it - because in other sources you'll only hear one side of the argument..
Fatal flaws in the theory of evolution, clearly presented by PhD scientists.
A serious and thoughtful documentary exploring scientific and logical flaws in the theory of evolution, written and presented by PhD scientists from a range of disciplines.Schools are being urged to teach evolution as scientific fact – but this documentary clearly demonstrates that Darwin's big idea remains firmly in the realm of hypothesis and surmise.
The strength of "Evolution's Achilles' Heels" is that it ranges across all the disciplines influenced by evolutionary thinking – biology, genetics, geology and cosmology – showing how real world evidence just does not tie up with the stories of Darwinism and long-age uniformitarianism.
There are key questions that evolutionists have singularly failed to answer and these are all flagged up here.
How could organic molecules, and in particular the amazing interrelated assemblage of DNA, RNA, enzymes and proteins in even the simplest cell, have arisen from non-living matter?
Confronted with this irreducible complexity – which of course Darwin had no conception of - evolutionists are having to invoke the agency of aliens.
Where are the myriad transitional forms which should be observable in the fossil record?
How is it that species alive today appear suddenly, in their current form, and have since undergone no change?
How can landforms be described as millions of years old when current catastrophic events, such as the explosion of Mount St Helens, can produce them in a matter of days or months?
How can natural selection be used to explain an increase in genetic information, leading to more complex organisms, when in fact it can only weed out the "less fit" and thus decrease the amount of information?
Mutations damage, rather than add to, the genetic code.The presenters are not blinkered fanatics throwing reason out of the window, but are careful observers of the physical world whose theories fit the evidence rather better than those of Darwin and Dawkins.
Critics – instead of slinging mud at these creationists, take up the challenge of responding to these points in kind with evidence, observation and logical reasoning.
And where there are unknowns, be humble enough to admit that the materialist hypothesis requires just as much faith from its adherents as does the story of creation..
Loss of Words.
This documentary presentation was such a daring non-conformist point of view toward the socially accepted norm of Evolution.As the title puts it, this really details volumes of information that is not publicized or recognized by the Evolutionist society we live in now.
(To add on to that, this film does not speak rubbish and have really good points that leave the Theory of Evolution with a question mark)This documentary made me interested in the whole debate on Evolution vs Creation.
This topic of contention really is the fundamental of existence and the meaning of life.In my opinion, it is a must watch film whether you are an Evolutionist or a Creationist..
Heresy's Trojan Horse.
The movie claims to be promoting the biblical view against secular hostility, but in reality creation science like this is a legalistic heresy where salvation is by accepting young-earth claims.
As a Christian PhD geologist whose research focuses on both paleontological and DNA studies, I can definitely say that none of their arguments are valid critiques of evolution.
Much is based on false assertions, like the idea that mutations only degrade things or that information can only come from an intelligent source.
Others are misrepresentations and misinterpretations.
A truly Christian and biblical approach to science is to work carefully and honestly, admitting if it doesn't match what we want it to and thinking about whether our interpretation of the Bible might be incorrect.