The way of the dodo...

Yesterday I went over to Rice University to see a screening of Randy Olson's "Flock of Dodos". I was curious to see his "ten things" in practice. I loved it! It was pretty funny at the expense of both sides. Randy managed the rare feat of being incisive [1. intelligently analytical and clear-thinking. 2. accurate and sharply focused] and insightful about intelligent design creationism, without humiliating its proponents (in fact some of them come across quite sympathetically). The scientists were not at their best (the ending is masterful, but I won't spoil it for you), but I found them to be representative of the range of opinions, attitudes and personalities common among my colleagues: from rambly to focused, from introverted to extroverted, from emotional to analytical, etc. I essentially agree with what Carl Zimmer wrote about the movie and, like him, do not want to give too much away and spoil the fun. Just go and watch it!

There was only one problem -- the audience. Apparently the movie has been playing to packed houses in Kansas, Yale, Harvard, etc. Sadly, that was not the case yesterday. I don't know what happened but let's just say that my wife and I, and my four graduate students must have been about 10% of the total. Ironically, there must have been some severe miscommunication on the part of the organizers (not scientists, by the way), because Rice's E&E department first heard about the event a couple of weeks ago when I told Joan Strassmann. After that a couple of emails were sent around, but still I only saw Joan and Dave Queller there (maybe I missed someone else). I have no idea where all the graduate students were -- maybe a free screening isn't enough these days unless there's also free beer and free pizza... If I'd known, I would have offered extra credit to students in my Evolutionary Biology class!

So, the film was excellent, but the discussion afterwards was a bit disappointing. I left before it ended because I was almost fainting from hunger, so I didn't get to congratulate Randy in person as promised. Maybe I can do it the next time he comes to Houston after the movie is released and he becomes famous. Maybe we can even arrange for him to come a give a talk at UH...

Update: "Flock of Dodos" will have it's official World Premiere at Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday, April 30 in New York City. Congratulations!