Recent episodes of Skepticality have touched on issues of outreach and activism in the skeptical community, and how skeptics like Jeff Wagg, Alison Smith and Daniel Loxton are using their particular talents to help nurture science and critical thinking.

This week, Derek and Swoopy are pleased to continue this trend with their interview of evolutionary ecologist-turned-filmmaker Dr. Randy Olson. 

Dr. Olson's film, Flock of Dodos: The Evolution - Intelligent Design Circus, is not your typical evolution versus ID documentary. Rather than simply pitting one camp against the other, this whimsical film explores how the two sides of the debate market their ideas to the public—and, more specifically, how the scientific community has failed to capture their audience as effectively as the Intelligent Design camp has done in recent years.

Show Notes

Date - October 30th, 2007, Read by Swoopy.
We had a lot of feedback on our last episode featuring Daniel Loxton.
Where Do We Go From Here was even linked on Whedonesque.
Our good friend Richard Saunders offers some great advice about little dragons.
We're planning an episode on activism in the near future.
The best way to get started, is to find a local organization.
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry has a great list of skeptical organizations.
Meetup.com and Facebook are also great place to find groups.
Halloween is upon us again.
The annual Houdini Seance will once again take place at the Houdini Museum.
You can participate in the online seance and email your results here.
Swoopy is a documentary junkie.
(Note the odd noise you heard during a portion of the interview is our dog snoring.)
Flock of Dodos - The Evolution Intelligent Design Circus is not just another us vs them
Biologist turned film maker Dr. Randy Olson is the director of Shifting Baselines.
Shifting Baselines focuses on awareness of changes in our earth's oceans.
This idea can be applied to many parts of life, not just conservation.
Some of the partners in Shifting baselines are scientists and hollywood film makers.
Shifting Baselines began to take off following Dr. Olson's piece in the Los Angeles Times.
Dr. Olson's next film will be on the topic of Global Climate change.
Scientists who embrace the media have the tools to make their message entertaining.
A good example is The Daily Show being the most watched news program.
Why don't documentary films get respect from the movie going public?
If you saw the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, you'd know why.
How do we stop being angry?
Former Kansas Board of Education Member Connie Morris called Evolution a "Fairy Tale."
Dr. Stephen J. Gould explained evolution in common terms, like baseball.
Dr. Olson was a student of and teacher's assistant to Dr. Stephen J. Gould.
The most vocal scientist in the Flock of Dodos film is Dr. Tom Givnish.
Dr. Randy Olson's mom calls herself Muffy Moose.
Muffy is 84, lives in Kansas, and supports Evolution.
Flock of Dodos has been screened for secular and religious groups alike.
Intelligent Design advocates like Michael Behe and John Calvert feature in the film.
The Discovery Institute declined to participate, despite Behe's urging they should.
Following the release of the film, The Discovery Institute called it The Hoax of the Dodos.
The controversy (that is explained in the film) is regarding Haeckel's Embryos.
The one example that Intelligent Design advocates all cite is the Mount Rushmore test.
One of the points the film makes is that Intelligent Design stalls out at the intuition stage.
Intuition is part of science, the next part of science is the proof.
ID has yet to produce any science with proof of a designer.
The Intelligent Design advocates have a slogan, "Teach the Controversy."
What will our slogan be?
One of the directors of Shifting Baselines is Gale Anne Hurd, who produced Terminator.
The antithesis of Flock of Dodos will be Ben Stein's upcoming film, Expelled.
Stein already interviewedDr. Michael Shermer for the film.
If you are interested in arranging a screening of Flock of Dodos, contact Dr. Steve Case.
Promo - Scott Sigler's Nocturnal.
Dr. Randy Olson is a biologist that turned to film making to get his message out.
Information on Flock of Dodos on DVD can be found here.
Information on Shifting Baselines can be found here.
Skepticality outro.