Evolution vs. God: Shaking the Foundations of Faith

The film brings another side to the issue of our origin that needs to be addressed. Most people that believe in evolution only believe in it because their school teachers or their college professors taught them that evolution is a fact even though it's only a theory. Very few people have done their own research on evolution. People who believe evolution is true are putting their faith in their college professors and school teachers. They never consider the possibility that the school teachers and college professors could be wrong, and as a result the notion that we evolved from ape-like creatures could be a myth. Many times people who believe in evolution have never heard any other explanation for our origin, nor have they heard the theory of evolution challenged. It's good to consider all of the possibilities of our origin so that an informed decision can be made. I encourage everyone to watch this film with an open mind.

A reasonable person might expect that a film entitled "Evolution vs. God" would contain some discussion of the theory of evolution. Sadly, this is not the case. Instead, Ray shares clips of his interviews with professors and students, and expects that the viewer will find them so absurd as to discredit the theory of evolution. Regardless of whether the answers are satisfactory, and ignoring the fact that Ray's questions are unreasonable and belie his own lack of understanding of the theory of evolution, this approach makes no sense and does nothing to further Ray's case.

Ray's belief seems to be that if he asks a handful of people to explain evolution, and their answers are unsatisfactory, then the theory itself is bunk. There are at least two huge problems here. Firstly, not everyone who accepts a scientific principle is a good spokesperson for it. Second, many intelligent people, including some of those in this film, have attempted to impart scientific information to Ray only to find that he is simply incorrigible. He asks people to provide evidence for claims that the theory of evolution does not make, and then blames the theory when no such evidence exists. This is a thoroughly dishonest tactic.

Ray also makes a preposterous argument about how the theory of evolution is used as a justification for moral atrocities - for instance, he claims that Hitler attempted to enact natural selection. It is moments like these that make me question, as I did before, whether Ray actually knows what the theory of evolution is, or if he simply considers it a threat to his religious convictions, and therefore opposes it through any dishonest tricks necessary.

Ray Comfort (aka The banana man) is back with yet another disappointedly impotent 'critique' of Darwinian evolution. Apart from the numerous occasions of quote mining and selective editing of interviews throughout the film he has repeated his banana fiasco with both a lack of understanding of both science and evidence.

Firstly, the film makes a false dichotomy between 'God' and Evolution. The theory of evolution, like all scientific explanations is methodologically neutral and naturalistic; to make it a conflict between God and science is deceptive and unwise.

Throughout the film, Comfort interviews a series of professors and college majors and frequently asks if any of them can present 'testable', 'observable' evidence of change from one 'kind' to 'another'. They give examples of speciation but demands they show a change of 'kind'. He doesn't even define 'kind. Creationists have been unable to specify what the created kinds are. If kinds were distinct, it should be easy to distinguish between them. Instead, we find a nested hierarchy of similarities, with kinds within kinds within kinds. For example, the twelve-spotted ladybug could be placed in the twelve- spotted ladybug kind, the ladybug kind, the beetle kind, the insect kind, or any of dozens of other kinds of kind, depending on how inclusive the kind is. No matter where one sets the cutoff for how inclusive a kind is, there will be many groups just bordering on that cutoff. This pattern exactly matches the pattern expected of evolution. It does not match what creationism predicts.

Comfort lacks any elementary knowledge of biology. He asks for changes overnight that modern biologists observe after millions of years. He is easily refuted by transitional fossils such as Tiktaalik (which shows primitive fish becoming amphibians) as well as Archaeopteryx (transition between dinosaurs and birds), which show a change from 'one kind to another'. In fact paleontologists argue whether some intermediates are for instance, reptile-like mammals or mammal-like reptiles; this means there is a multitude of intermediates dicovered.

He ignorantly dismisses Darwin's finches as 'birds remaining birds' and the Lenski experiment as 'bacteria still becoming bacteria'; using the same ignorant excuse of 'created kinds'. Although major changes from one 'kind' to another do not normally happen, except gradually over hundreds of thousands of generations, a sudden origin of a new kind has been observed. A strain of cancerous human cells (called HeLa cells) have evolved to become a wild unicellular life form (Van Valen and Maiorana 1991).

The film also says that evolutionists claim the appendix is useless because they call it 'vestigial'. This is ludicrous. "Vestigial" does not mean an organ is useless. A vestige is a "trace or visible sign left by something lost or vanished". Vestigial organs are evidence for evolution because we expect evolutionary changes to be imperfect as creatures evolve to adopt new niches. Creationism cannot explain vestigial organs. They are evidence against creationism if the creator follows a basic design principle that form follows function.The appendix appears as part of the tissues of the digestive system; it is homologous to the end of the mammalian caecum. Since it does not function as part of the digestive system, it is a vestigial part of that system, no matter what other functions it may have.

The film equates an acceptance of evolution with immorality and purposely edits and selectively quotes the interviewees. However, it is a great introduction to the terrible arguments that creationists push to achieve their agenda.

Aside from flagrantly editing the interviews, Ray Comfort repeatedly demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge about both evolution and science in general. He uses the word 'kind' in reference to anything from species to domain, with six different definitions given. The one student he interviewed that was studying biology answered his questions very well, and was not heard from after the first ten minutes. The interviews with the scientists were cut into three second clips and involved Ray interrupting anyone when they went to give him an answer he wouldn't like. Altogether, those four interviews comprised just over four minutes of the 'documentary'.

Examining the other people interviewed, the short clips of some people can be put together and clearly show one puzzled answer cut into four or five pieces and used in response to multiple questions.

This 'documentary' is not just brain dead, but dishonest too.

This movie has believers in evolution up in arms, and without anything to back up their claims except some ad hominem attacks. They seem to be under the delusion that calling people names equals good logical facts. They come on here and rate it with a low score because they know it shows how foolish they are and do not want others to see the truth.

The film itself is fantastic. Everyone from the highest level of professors in evolution to the common college student has no evidence for their believe in darwin's foolish theory. Science is fantastic, but unfortunately throughout it's history, snake oil salesmen have taught many silly theories as fact and people who do not think very deeply buy into it.