Ray Comfort, New Zealand-born evangelist, takes to the streets to ask random people to provide him with evidence for evolution, along with four evolutionary biologists.Ray Comfort, New Zealand-born evangelist, takes to the streets to ask random people to provide him with evidence for evolution, along with four evolutionary biologists.Ray Comfort, New Zealand-born evangelist, takes to the streets to ask random people to provide him with evidence for evolution, along with four evolutionary biologists.
Photos
Gail Kennedy
- Self - Associate Professor, Anthropology, UCLA
- (as Gail E. Kennedy PhD)
Peter Nonacs
- Self - Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UCLA
- (as Peter Nonacs PhD)
Craig Stanford
- Self - Professor, Biological Sciences and Anthropology, USC
- (as Craig Stanford PhD)
Emeal Zwayne
- Self - Executive Vice President, Living Waters
- (as Emeal 'E.Z.' Zwayne)
Albert Einstein
- Self
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- Quotes
Gail Kennedy - Associate Professor, Anthropology, UCLA: I think the problem Creationists have with Evolution is that they don't have any imagination.
Narrator: Exactly.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Comfort Zone: Richard Dawkins Has Become a Christian?! (2014)
Featured review
A Creationist Deception
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.
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.
helpful•3913
- koran90-762-126762
- Aug 12, 2013
Details
- Runtime38 minutes
- Color
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content