The Privileged Planet

Yes, it is an intelligent design film and it makes no pretenses about it. If it were trying to be deceptive or misleading, it would not be named after the book, nor would it feature the author!

Production value? It was non-profit. Read the label.

Yes, it has an agenda. Films with an agenda are not a bad thing! Pro-evolution films push an atheist agenda. ID films push a creationist (though not necessarily Christian) agenda. Michael Moore films push an anti-Bush agenda. Get over it; the filmmakers hold beliefs. It's within in their right to showcase them. Go make your own "Case for Cro-Magnon" if it bothers you that much.

And please use spell check before posting, kids.

Most everything great about the film has been highlighted by other reviewers, so I won't parrot them. Some of the animations were repeated, and the music got a bit repetitive after a while. But I'm being nit picky. It was a great educational film, made by some very intelligent people.

Science is not supposed to answer questions of "why?" Only the "what?" questions are considered acceptable grist for the scientific mill. Unfortunately for traditional science, the "why?" questions are some of the most important and intriguing. For example, Einstein was continually puzzled by the fact that humans can understand what are biologically irrelevant phenomena (e.g., black holes). Indeed, what survival value is linked to our ability to investigate and understand aspects of the universe beyond this earth? We can easily propagate this planet without knowing Earth is part of a solar system which in turn is part of a galaxy system. This ability has no evolutionary value, yet our ability to know persists and even grows. So, what's up?

Richards and Gonzalez have an intriguing answer to a troubling question: Why is Earth so well-suited for complex life and observation of the universe by its inhabitants? More critically, is there evidence, scientific evidence, to suggest design-a purpose that explains more than the sheer permutations and probabilities which allow for complex life-form existence?

Guillermo Gonzalez (Ph.D., Washington), Astrobiologist, and Jay W. Richards, Philosopher (Ph.D., Princeton), seem to be obsessed with finding some sort of reason behind irregular phenomena. They seem particularly obsessed with challenging some fundamental principles of scientific investigation. Not all obsessions are bad, and when coupled with premise challenges, they can be mind-boggling. Such is the case with The Privileged Planet.

Copernicus discovered the Earth was not the center of the solar system, and certainly not the center of the universe. But the medicine we ingested intellectually to avoid the toxicity of anthrocentrism has had a negative side effect-we have assumed, unnecessarily according to Richards and Gonzalez, that the Earth is not special. Sagan called it a little blue dot in a vast cosmic arena. Sagan is clearly right quantitatively, but qualitatively? Perhaps there is more to the Earth than its size.

Qualitatively, why is the Earth so well configured for life? Theists, of course, have a ready answer. But, science normally leans on the huge ledge of time which affords google-sized permutation possibilities. "Why?" is not a particularly popular nor socially-appropriate question to be asked by a scientist. Some fear losing their credibility by asking "Why?"

Richards & Gonzalez are fearless. Challenging traditional premises, they re-examine the empirical record in biology, chemistry, astrobiology, and especially physics. A rather startling conclusion accumulatively emerges: rather than being a pale blue dot insignificantly placed in a galaxy, evidence supports a quite different conclusion-the Earth is uniquely positioned to support complex life, and-here's the real news-uniquely positioned to observe the universe. Einstein was puzzled that humans have such ability; it is a challenge for biologists as well. Just what is the survival value of being able to understand, for example, a black hole?

Scientists who assumed a deity are not unusual; Newton, Pascal, Copernicus, and Einstein are just a few of the more famous. But, today is different. Deity is neither a premise nor a possibility in traditional science. And to be fair, Richards and Gonzalez are not arguing for deity, per se, but arguing that the empirical evidence of life, chemistry, astrobiology, and especially physics accumulatively suggest purpose, not random permutation.

Amidst the evidence supporting a purposeful design is the rather startling precision of the relationship between the moon's mass/distance from the Earth and mass/distance from the sun. One scholar extols, "were it not for the moon, we would not be." In fact, Gonzalez discovered that the size of the moon is precisely what allows solar eclipses to be scientifically rich experiments. If it were slightly smaller, or larger, we could not observe solar flares (and starlight bending from the sun's mass, a major confirmation of Einstein's theory of relativity). Furthermore, it is the moon's precise mass that stabilizes the Earth's axis to maintain a temperate climate whereby complex life forms can exist.

Richards and Gonzalez continued to reveal a variety of accumulated evidence which supports two pillars of thought: (1) the Earth is particularly well-suited for complex life forms, and (2) the Earth is particularly well-suited for observation. Specifically, Gonzalez argues that both sides of the equation must be considered; i.e., not only the number of possibilities, but also the number of factors that must be precisely "in tune" to support complex life-forms and an observational platform. Small changes in just one factor (e.g., gravity) remove all possibilities of complex life. And there are more than a score of factors which must be precisely tuned not only to a given level, but also tuned systemically with all the other factors. It turns out the probability for a well-suited environment for observing complex life-forms trumps the "other side of the equation."

The debate will continue, and it should. After all, there are few questions more important than "purpose." To be driven by purpose is one definition of obsession, and Richards and Gonzalez are obsessed. Perhaps we too need to be obsessed-as scholars we have some work to do. Surely, there is more to our purpose than mere propagation.

D. Thomas Porter, Ph.D., School of Mass Communications, University of South Florida (Retired))

It is a film that tries to come off as scientific, but really should just be muted and used for amazing images. Throughout the film, it tries to convince the viewer that intelligent design is more than an unscientific conjecture by making enough small leaps of logic that it sounds on the surface as plausible. Beware of the misinformation in this movie, because while it never asks you to believe in a god, it flatly rejects any real science in an effort to leave you at an intelligent design conjecture, and allows you to assume the intelligent design-er. Suggestible for a logic class however, as it would be a great exercise in circular logic and factual fallacies.

This documentary was excellent! It never ceases to amaze me how wonderfully complex and finely tuned our universe is ... and how unlikely it is that it would provide the conditions necessary in which complex life could arise. To those who reduce this documentary, as well as the Intelligent Design movement, down to nothing more than a pseudo science ... please provide your arguments AGAINST the observations/claims in this documentary ... rather than merely cutting it down in your language. The various scientists and scholars that were interviewed throughout the course of this documentary (Guillermo Gonzalez - Ph.D. in Astronomy, Jay W. Richards - Ph.D., Dennis Danielson - Ph.D., Seth Shostak - Ph.D. in Astronomy, Charles A. Beichman - Ph.D.'s in Physics and Astronomy, Bijan Nemati - Ph.D. in Physics, Kevin Grazier - Ph.D. in Physics, Don Brownlee - Ph.D. in Astronomy, Paul Davies - Ph.D. in Physics, Robin Collins - Ph.D. in Philosophy) gave scientific facts, as well as their interpretation of those scientific facts, to produce their conclusions. Please leave a detailed rebuttal to their conclusions or your empty criticisms of their conclusions will be reduced to nothing more than anger and contempt towards the possibility that the Intelligent Design movement might be right after all. Thank you.

This film does a nice job of providing evidence that the Earth/Universe is not necessarily a random accident. The whole point of this DVD (and others like it) is to provide alternate viewpoints for people who believe that everything we experience and see in life is the result of accident and blind forces. It presents that perspective in a very non-offensive (to people who tend to react negatively to this type of thing) way. You are allowed to draw your own conclusions.

The authors clearly believe in Intelligent Design. The question for anyone watching is "Based on what I've seen, is it possible that perspective is true, or at least has some merit." If so, you should go on to examine other, similar DVDs (check out Lee Strobel). For full disclosure, I do believe in Intelligent Design (after reading about the matter for a couple of years). I think it takes a lot more 'faith' to believe that all the universe and life is the result of 'accidents' that have odds so impossibly remote, you'd never accept them if it were a different subject. I highly recommend this.