When I reviewed recent nature documentaries, including March of the Penguins, I worried about anthropomorphizing the penguins, interpreting their behavior in human terms and not paying enough heed to the fact that technically, they’re not people. Evidently some conservatives are unconcerned about that; they think that the difficult Darwinian struggle of the birds to reproduce provides a good lesson in Christian family values. Frankly this baffles me. For starters, if I’m remembering this correctly, the penguins choose a different mate each breeding season. Serial monogamy is certainly a human practice as well but it’s not one that I thought had much to do with conservative Christian ideals. I also can’t see anything in the movie to support the idea of an intelligent designer. It’s striking that these creatures can thrive in a harsh environment, but there’s nothing in the movie to dispute the fact that they adapted to it through natural selection (and in fact I believe the narrator mentions how they’ve lived there for millions of years, which goes against the literal Biblical account of creation). Wouldn’t an intelligent designer, especially one who finds life sacred, have found a way around some of the incredible difficulties that winnow out penguins at every step of their struggle to reproduce?
Here’s an article from the New York Times (free registration required) about the conservative reaction to the movie.
