BBC documentary: Did Darwin Kill God?

There you go. Here is a BBC documentary directly tackling the evolution-atheism connection. Did Darwin Kill God? is written and presented by Connor Cunningham, from the Center of Theology & Philosophy at University of Nottingham. The documentary presents both creationists (young-Earth creationists, the ID folks, etc) and ultra-Darwinists (such as Dawkins, Dennett, etc) as opposite and yet equally wrong in their claims. Here are some quick comments:

I think the first 40 minutes are quite good. Overall it provides a good background of the history of the reception of evolution in religious circles and then the 20th century opposition from American fundamentalist Christians. He goes to Dayton, TN and also visits the Creation museum in Kentucky. He is very clear in calling Intelligent Design nonsense. The only strange thing is the repeated use of conflict narrative - when one of the main purposes of the documentary is to diffuse the whole science & religion warfare thesis.

The last 20 minutes of the show are downright bizarre. Here it takes on the ultra-Darwinists. But all of the attention is focused on the Selfish Gene and the idea of memes. In fact, the presentation makes it appear that the entire modern atheism rests on the success or failure of the theory of memes. And, of course, you may be surprised to find out that Connor Cunningham vanquishes the ideas of memes at the end - leaving religion triumphant in the face of this atheistic challenge.

This is a very strange move. The documentary would have been far more effective if it had taken the position that evolution does not necessarily lead to atheism. He could have still have an excellent discussion with Dan Dennett, Michael Ruse, and Francis Collins, without getting obsessed with memes. One of the biggest problems here is that he has presented the issue of the origins of morality and of religion only through memes - with God as the only other causal alternative. But there are other alternatives to both the origins of morality and also to the origins of religion (check out this David Sloan Wilson lecture on Evolution and Religion). Many of these do not necessarily present any threat to religions - and may have even produced an interesting discussion in the documentary. Instead, we pretty much get a view that all of modern atheism (and its related explanations of morality and religion) is dependent on the success of this theory of memes. In fact, Connor should go back and listen to the first 10 minutes of his own show. One can always argue that God works through the process of memes - and that's all there is to say to satisfy a religious belief. By the way, at the end we are also treated with a strange discussion with Simon Conway Morris - about some music being out there - and we may only be detecting it. Phew! I also had the pleasure of hearing him speak at a Science & Religion conference two years ago. Most of his talk was fine (about convergent evolution - and one may agree or disagree with him), but the last 10 minutes were utterly strange when he started talking about our brains (and other animals' brains) acting as antennas to detect this music etc.

Any way, do see the documentary. The first 40 minutes are good and the last 20 are utterly amusing. (The embedded video appears to be cutting-off a bit on the sides. It appears fine for me in the "preview" mode. It should be ok if you watch it in "Full Screen" mode. If you are still having trouble, you can watch it in six parts: one, two, three, four, five and six).