Randy Olson , director of the movie, Flock of Dodos has sent in some thoughts regarding the ongoing conversation here about his movie. A lot of commenters were offering opinions on how evolutionary biologists should communicate with the rest of us. I thought I’d publish his entire comment here in a post of its own. (Added note: Randy is fielding questions and opinions in the comment thread if you want to join in.)
The nominees for the 2005 Koufax Awards: Best Expert Blog have been posted. Many thanks to whoever put the Loom on the list. The voting hasn’t started yet, but please keep this blog in mind when it does. I don’t hold out too much hope, since the list contains quite a lot of impressive bloggers.
But I will claim one title. I’m assuming that Carl and Ben “Language Log” Zimmer are the only siblings on the list.
My post on zombie roaches and brain surgeon wasps seems to have hit a nerve. There have been well over 100,000 hits on that post alone, and 175 comments have been posted. I imagine that most people haven’t read through all 175 (many of which have more to do with God than wasps). But I would urge any interested readers to check out
this one from Gal Haspel, who spent seven years in grad school contemplating the sinister glory of Ampulex compressa.
Last night I drove into New Haven, Connecticut, to catch an advanced screening of Flock of Dodos, a movie about evolution and intelligent design. Afterwards I took part in a panel discussion. It was an interesting evening, not only because the movie was quite good, but because it provoked a noisy discussion.
I don’t want to give away too much of Flock of Dodos, because I would prefer that a lot of people get a chance to see it for themselves. Randy Olson, the creator of the film, spoke after the film and explained that the version we saw was still a bit rough around the edges, and he’s getting ready to enter it into various film festivals and hopes to get distribution after that. I wish him well.
Over at DailyKos, DarkSyde has been interviewing science bloggers. Here’s our exchange. Greetings to visitors from DailyKos–make yourself at home. If you’re looking for a few samplers of the stuff I write, you may want to check out the “Starting Points and Old Favorites” list in the righthand column. I had hoped to respond to comments at DailyKos, but for some reason I can’t set up an account. (And yet I still have the audacity to claim to be a blogger….) In the meantime, I’m happy to field any questions through the comments here.
Originally published February 11, 2006. Copyright 2006 Carl Zimmer.