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Darwins Dilemma
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$ 16.96
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Item Description...
Darwins Dilemma by Illustra Media
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Item Specifications...
Record Label Illustra Media
Format Dolby / Full Screen / HiFi Sound / NTSC
Dimensions: Length: 7.5" Width: 5.3" Height: 0.6"
Weight: 0.25 lbs.
Binding DVD Video
Publisher MTS
UPC 804671063094
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Availability 6 units.
Availability accurate as of May 27, 2012 08:08.
Usually ships within one to two business days from Johnson City, TN.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | Interesting Jun 7, 2010 |
| This was a very interesting film and uncovered some issues that I had not heard of before. I've only watched it once and it's deep enough and has enough material that I feel I need to watch it again to really absorb the information presented. | | |  | Watch it for free on YouTube, before buying ... May 18, 2010 |
There are always two sides to each story. Stephen Meyer and Paul Nelson (both philosophers, not biologists) make the argument that the Intelligent Designer created bacteria and Archaea 3.8 billion years ago, and then did basically nothing for over 3 billion years. And then, in a fit of creative energy, over a period of 10-40 million years (according to "Of Pandas and People"), a blink of the eye compared to the preceding time, decided that now, in the early Cambrian, was the time to create a myriad of new animal phyla, most of which were subsequently allowed to go extinct.
On the other hand, according to science (which has the very major problem that it is not simple and therefore difficult to understand), the supercontinent of Pannotia disintegrated 540 million years ago into the continents Laurentia (the later North American continent), Siberia, Baltica and Gondwana, with a growing enclosed ocean, the Panthallasic Ocean, the later early Pacific Ocean. So actually, the fossil fields mentioned in the DVD (China, Western Canada and Britain) and also Australia (I have seen trilobite fossils in north-western Australia) were right next to each other, and as the supercontinent fell apart, the length of shallow coast suitable for trilobites and other marine animals increased exponentially.
The other argument the DVD makes is that in the preceding precambrian period, the Ediacaran fossils looked absolutely nothing like the Cambrian fossils, and were so bizarre that it's impossible to determine whether they are plants or animals. Well, are modern tropical corals plants or animals? They look like plants, they're anchored to tropical reefs. But they are animals, because they have free-swimming larval forms. Which leads to the next argument ...
The DVD shows the great palaeontologist Paul Chien (well, actually not, he admits that he has no expertise in palaeontology and hasn't published significantly, if at all, in this field) examining fossilised "animal" embryos from the precambrian, and posing the question; if tiny animals from the precambrian fossilised, then why didn't the precursors of the Cambrian fauna? But all they are are groups of perhaps 50 cells, and as a result, it is impossible to determine whether they are animal (no larvae, no adult forms demonstrated). It has been suggested that actually they are just algae or even just giant bacteria. Modern giant sulphur-bacteria are known to divide to produce similar structures, and even contain cytoplasmic vacuoles mimicking nuclei. And it is also more probable, that with the immensely greater number of algae or bacteria compared to early animals, that they are the source of Paul Chien's microfossils.
What other arguments do the makers of the DVD make? Top-down (as apparently Intelligent Design predicts) instead of bottom-up design (as they state evolutionary biology expects). The analogy they provide is that of the automobile; all cars over the past 100 plus years basically look the same, with 4 wheels, seats, chassis, steering wheel, etc, and basically looked similar to that of the first designs of automobile pioneers such as Karl Benz, which just popped into existence without predecessors, the same way Cambrian animals appeared. The trouble with their analogy is that it's wrong. Besides the fact that there were also 3-wheeled cars around, the early automobile makers originated from coach and carriage makers, who could look back at hundreds if not thousands of years of builders of carts.
The other problem is the definition of a phylum; phyla are only recognised when they have radiated into many forms. Early on, the base species in a developing phylum looks exactly like those of other phyla. It's difficult enough putting modern animals into phyla, let alone extinct ones. There are at least 30 modern animal phyla, two thirds of which are not even represented in the fossil record. Did the Intelligent Designer just create them just a few hundred years ago?
The makers also used Charles Lyell's argument that the physical processes shaping the Earth's geology in the past are the same as those acting now. The argument is then made that the Cambrian was a time when a lot of new information was added, and since we know that the only agent now that produces new information is intelligence (us), then intelligence had to be involved then too.
It would be a powerful argument if it were comparing like with like. If Charles Lyell had actually said that mountains formed and then eroded in a similar way to how people build houses and then tear them down. Or if the Intelligent Designer were still creating new species with novel body plans (in which case this DVD wouldn't have been necessary). But Charles Lyell was basing his argument on the fact that mountains eroded. We can admire the beautiful blue and green water of mountain streams and rivers in the Rockies and realise that the colour is due to rock flour resulting from the erosion of stone by ice. He didn't know about plate tectonics, so he didn't actually know how they reformed.
But geologists such as he realised that the Earth was very old and were able to define geological ages based on the fossils contained in layers of sedimentary rocks. The start of the Cambrian is actually defined by the first appearance of trilobites (which doesn't mean that there weren't any earlier). The relative paucity of trilobite and other Cambrian fossils for some 30 million years was probably due to the appearance of primitive worms at that time too, which tunnelled through and churned the sediments, leaving nothing but fossilised worm "poo". Only with the development of harder exoskeletons due to increasing predation did fossils again begin to appear in great number.
The computer generated animation is impressive and beautiful, but at best, it's conjectural and at worst a wild guess as to what the Cambrian seas actually looked like. It also wasn't made clear that all the Cambrian animals are extinct, including the trilobites, which managed to survive for hundreds of millions of years, longer than the (non-avian) dinosaurs. It's actually a fact that one geological age passes into the next as a result of some minor or major extinction event. The Chinese character for "crisis", which also means "opportunity" expresses the effect extinctions have on evolution, opening up opportunities for survivors.
The Cambrian was preceded by a series of severe global ice-ages for which the term "Snowball Earth" doesn't do justice, terminated by the disintegration of the previous supercontinent Rodinia and the resulting volcanic activity. Then there was another 350 MYA, which lead to colonisation of land by vertebrates, another at the end of the Permian 250 MYA (and which was the largest mass-extinction known being referred to as the "Great Dying" and which lead to the rise of the dinosaurs, and then the one 65 MYA at the K-T boundary due to the Earth's collision with an asteroid, which lead to the rise of mammals (including us) and the avian dinosaurs (dinosaurs still walk and fly amongst us).
So the Intelligent Designer definitely had us in mind at the very start 3.8 billion years ago, but took an extremely long and devious route to get to us, just 100,000 years ago?
The other problem with the DVD is that it is somewhat mendacious. Besides quoting Richard Dawkins out of context; "Without gradualness in these cases, we are back to miracle, which is simply a synonym for the total absence of explanation" [ River out of Eden (1995) p.83], where he was writing about the evolution of complex structures, such as eyes, or incompletely, as in; "(In the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years (evolutionists are now dating the beginning of the Cambrian at about 530 million years), are the oldest in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups). And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history". And then proceeds to ignore the continuation; "Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists", and the explanation was omitted. [The Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.229]
Another example is the account of the "peer-reviewed" article of Stephen Meyer his good friend Richard Sternberg had smuggled into the "Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington" in 2004 (a dry taxonomy journal not concerned with esoteric philosophical questions). I've read it; the most controversial aspect of the paper was how lame it was.
There's only one palaeontologist interviewed, Simon Conway Morris, who is no friend of ID. Ironically, he has written a review article in "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences", entitled "Darwin's dilemma: the realities of the Cambrian `explosion'" (to find, look at the wikipedia article on the Cambrian explosion, the link is the 4th on the list of "Further reading") in which he offers reasonable explanations (Intelligent Design wasn't one of them). | | |  | Trilobites Meet Theology Apr 16, 2010 |
My name is Mark McMenamin. I have completed a PhD on the fossils of the Cambrian Explosion, have published several books on the subject, and am a devout Christian. At the present time I am actively researching the latest fossil discoveries from Cambrian boundary strata.
This video is an outstanding success. It presents the design argument better than anything I have seen before. From the perspective of a scientist informed about the raw data, the main thrust of the film is absolutely correct. Just as Darwin (to his credit) pointed out, a robust Cambrian Explosion destroys the concept of evolution by gradual natural selection. If anything, the Cambrian event seems even more abrupt than it did in Darwin's day.
I wrote to both James Valentine and Simon Conway Morris after, to my astonishment, seeing them appear in this video. Valentine, although no Intelligent Design proponent to be sure, admits that epigenetic transmission of information (i.e., heritable information not transmitted by nuclear DNA) really does happen. This has huge implications for how we understand evolutionary change.
Although Simon Conway Morris admits that we do not fully understand evolution, he claims that the Cambrian event is uncomplicated natural selection at play. How can this be, when the Early Cambrian Chinese fossil chordate Myllokunmingia appears comparable in complexity to a modern catfish? This is sudden appearance of complexity, not ordinary microevolution. Andy Knoll at Harvard has been quoted recently as saying that it is natural selection all the way. Please, gentlemen, it is time to think more broadly, and it is past time to provide a persuasive scientific basis for these opinions about the efficacy of natural selection.
This is not to say that there are no ancestor-descendant connections across the Cambrian boundary. Dolf Seilacher has argued quite a bit with me about the Ediacaran fossil organism called Spriggina. Seilacher sees this fossil as a weird vendobiont creature, whereas I have evidence that it is the trilobite ancestor:
[...].
This said, I agree with Seilacher that most Ediacarans are bizarre and not closely related to Cambrian animals.
To conclude, biotic change through time has certainly taken place but this change is not random mutation mediated by gradual natural selection. The scientific community needs to distance itself from the taint of Darwin's defunct, socially corrosive theory. On the other hand, the Intelligent Design community needs to be careful, lest it seem to be dictating to God how He can or cannot create. It would be theologically problematic and silly to presume to allow God to create in one way (instantaneous fiat), but not in another (change through time).
Finally, with the Cambrian event we have a scientific and intellectual challenge of the first order. We need all hands on deck to bring this ship to port. To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes in "Silver Blaze," we need to see the value of imagination, imagine what might have happened, act upon the supposition, and perhaps in the end, find ourselves justified. Let us proceed. I wish to congratulate creationists for (finally) making a substantive contribution to scientific discussion.
| | | | Darwin's Dilemma Confirmed Apr 15, 2010 |
| Awesome documentary exposing the underlying falacy of the evolutionary theory. Evolution has no ground to stand on and this film certainly makes a great case for a God who intelligently designed this planet vs. the illogical thinking behind life forming by pure accident. Odds are astronomically against such a hypothesis. It is lengthy and detailed but certainly makes a logical, reasonable case worth anyone's time to think through. | | | | Darwin's Dilemma Mar 22, 2010 |
| GREAT FILM! I saw part of this film on television and couldn't wait to order it. The quality of the film is excellent and filled with crystal clear images and brilliant colors. It is a wonderul educational tool. All ages, especially those interested in Paleontology, will find this film facinating! I have loaned it to several people and all of them were impressed. I plan to order another one to use as a gift. | | | Write your own review about Darwins Dilemma
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