The Revisionaries (2012) User Reviews

Science and Politics

[socialmedia-437-956449 · 7/10 · 31 July 2012]

The interpretation of language is at the center of Scott Thurman's engaging documentary about the Texas Board of Education's meetings to discuss the school curriculum. In 2009 the hot topic was the teaching of evolutionary theory in science classes.

The head of the board at the time was dentist Don McLeroy, a creationist who believes that the Earth was created just 6000 years ago. He once publicly stated that 'education is too big a subject not to be politicized." What he really wants to see is science textbooks highlighting doubts about the theory of evolution. His arguments are couched in scientific terms but it doesn't take much scratching beneath the surface to see the political angle. Although it's clear that the director's sympathies lie with the scientists complaining that creationists are trying to hijack the curriculum, what's remarkable is how McLeroy is treated sympathetically, portrayed as man who has firm beliefs and just wants those to be taught to others.

What emerges is not just a discussion on religion but a sterling look at local government and how incredibly important and fundamental decisions are being made with very little democratic mandate. Less than 20 per cent of the electorate voted in the last board elections. Most decisions it seems are last minute fudges where turn of phrase becomes paramount. Yet the fascinating arguments over science classes have nothing on the 2010 discussions on social studies, where suggestions range from replacing 'hip hop' with 'country music' and one board member trying to insist on the use of the middle name Hussein when citing President Barack Obama. Without board approval, Texas schools cannot buy textbooks, and the publishers won't print non-approved books. It's a documentary in the great traditions of Errol Morris highlighting the politicization of education and culture and how the pursuit of knowledge is obstructed by ideological dogma.

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The last great superpower, the last great dogmatic nation

[horizon2008 · 8/10 · 3 October 2013]

As someone based in the UK, I live in one of the most secular countries in the world, (which Im very pleased to say). That said, there's still far too much religious influence even here (as far as Im concerned). But when it comes to America however, US government and US schools have long been infiltrated by religious crackpots trying to infest minds with their dogma written by sheep-herders some 2000yrs ago. Its quite likely, that America is much more religiously biased than countries like Iraq and Afghanistan which it portrays as places of crazy faith-fuelled zealots.

Just why it is that many parts of America are still fighting the theory of Evolution (even on the use of the word "theory") is amazing in this scientific age. Maybe this was easier back in 1859 when even the great man Darwin wasn't exactly sure as to what the mechanisms of Evolution were, but with the discovery of DNA any doubt was wiped from the record. And here we are almost 100yrs after the Scopes Trial still going over the same old rants from lunatics.

The Revisionaries movie documents just what happens when one of these religious loonies gets themselves into a position to affect schooling for everyone, by controlling what books are sent to US schools and therefore having a country-wide influence. It's a stunning film, and it runs like some surreal story from a distant time and place, when (very) alarmingly it isn't. Today its almost impossible to declare oneself an Atheist and be successful in US government, which gives ideology a fine foothold in American life. The media gets involved too, with places like FOX News also contaminating the water. The final piece of the twisted puzzle is to run their dogma like cancer through American schools eradicating all things Darwinesque. Some folk just don't get the "separation between church and state" idea I guess.

I cant fathom how it is that one manages to blinker themselves to the huge mass of information out there proving the age of the Universe, Galaxy, Solar System and Earth but it must take some doing. The film openly shows backward humans declaring the planet is 6000yrs old (lol). I suppose if you read/say something enough times however you may well start to believe your own mantra. Those peasants who wrote what is known as "The Bible" probably had about as much intelligence back then as some of these Texas Board members do right now – still selling the same old fairies in the sky.

But of course, we all know science and logic will ultimately prevail.

For those folk of rationality, intellect, and free-thought, watch this movie and feel your jaw drop at the hilarity of it all. Maybe some day we will be rid of these crazy people stuck in their Dark Ages time-warp. Or maybe we could just pack them all into a big boat somewhere, two by two, and let them sail off to la-la-land so we don't have to listen to them any more. Ahh… that would be nice.

Great Film, Went Under Many Radars

[gavin6942 · 8/10 · 11 July 2013]

The theory of evolution and a re-write of American history are caught in the cross-hairs when an unabashed Young Earth Creationist seeks re-election as chairman of America's most influential Board of Education.

Noted leftie Michael Moore stated, "I hope every American sees this film," and called The Revisionaries "a must-see film for anyone concerned about enforced ignorance and intolerance, and for those who still believe in science and in Thomas Jefferson." As much as it pains me to put a Moore quote in here, he is right -- this is something anyone concerned about education should see. Texas is powerful with textbook companies, and it seems they can literally rewrite history...

The hip-hop and country music debate was odd (and had brief moments of racial tension that were interesting), and then the whole social studies part... when it starts with a guy who believes people lived with dinosaurs, you think this will be strictly another evolution in schools documentary. But then you see how really strange the board members can get...

You must watch it to believe!

[Freethinker_Atheist · 10/10 · 9 March 2015]

I was raised in the so-called Third World, but live in Europe. While watching this movie, I was thinking "This is a comedy, it didn't really happen, these people are actors!", so hard it was for me to believe this is taking place in a nation most Americans think it's the country that leads the world. If I were American, I would be ashamed.

Science is about finding out, whatever it is. Trying to prove a book is right is, therefore, not Science, especially not a pile of scrolls written in the desert 2,500 years ago.

It's laughable because some people decide that God exists, a certain god is the right god and a certain book is his book. If God exists, Nhanderuvuçu, the god of the indigenous people in the Amazon forest, can be the true god, and all the people who think the true god is the god of the Bible are wasting their time.

Also, John Calvin is a very bad advertisement for a country, since everybody who knows History also knows that he did evil things, like sending opponents to be burnt at the stake (for example, Michael Servetus).

The book "Liberated from Religion", by Paulo Bitencourt, elucidates all the problems with the belief in God.

Scholarship and Science is No Longer Decided by Research and Peer-Review: It's Done by Political Committee

[classicalsteve · 8/10 · 23 March 2015]

There are some people who believe the world is flat and others who believe the world is on a giant tortoise. (During a public lecture when one of the "tortoise believers" was asked by the scientist-speaker what the tortoise was on, the woman very confidently said "It's tortoises all the way down!") There are also people who deny the Jewish and Ethnic Holocaust of the 1940's. While these three ideas seem contrary and far-fetched to most rational 21st-century minds, the people who believe these notions are very fervent and positive their assertions are correct. Now superimpose some biblical stories relating ideas about the origin of the world and the universe in the place of the flat-world and the giant tortoise, and replace Holocaust Denial with ideas about America's Founding Fathers and The Civil War. In this case, origin myths from the Bible are believed by some people to be the basis for scientific reality and not residing only in religious-spiritual imagination. Yet others, often overlapping, want to believe but also propagate the Founding Fathers created a "Christian" nation by minimizing the secular-enlightenment views of many of the founders, such as Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and most importantly Thomas Jefferson, who distrusted the Bible. They have also sought to distort the facts about slavery before America's Civil War, stating the issue wasn't about slavery per se but only state's rights. These are the issues discussed in the documentary "The Revisionaries".

During the first decade of the 21st century, the Texas Board of Education reviewed textbook items for the coming years. While most school boards around the country either accept or reject a textbook already published, Texas wields textual power over these books because of their huge market. Textbook writers and publishers are pressured to include and exclude whatever the Texas Board of Education deems proper and improper, even if some items may be contrary to what the writers and publishers intend. Most of the people making the decisions on this board are not necessarily educators, scholars, and scientists in these fields, and yet some, not all, are using their political power to determine curriculum which meshes with their own views.

By the time of the hearings, the board was comprised of members of the religious-right who sought to impose their own ideas about science and history into High School textbooks. A window of opportunity had presented itself for the right-wing Creationists and Historical Revisionists because the Texas High School curriculum was under review. The documentary takes us inside the hearings of the school board and shows how the debates unfolded, revealing a sharply divided public about what material should be part of the books and what shouldn't. In other words, a political body was determining material, as if what is and what is not science and history could be voted on by a committee. Would you want a policeman deciding what is and what is not architecture in an architectural school, especially if you're going to be residing in buildings designed by people graduating from these schools?

Much of the documentary focuses on Don McLeroy, appointed the Texas State Board of Education Chairman by Governor Rick Perry. McLeroy is a self-proclaimed Evangelical and Young-Earth Creationist. While, to his credit, he concedes that Creation-science doesn't belong in science textbooks (at least that's what I gathered from the documentary) he largely rejects the findings of science in regards to Evolution. He also believes dinosaurs and human beings walked the earth at the same time, a notion which has received no proof in science. He also teaches children at evangelical schools. Then why in the world does he want to have a say in the public sphere?

His ideological rival is Ron Wetherington, a professor of anthropology at SMU in Dallas. Wetherington makes the case that unfortunately whether they believe or don't believe in evolution, the Creationists do not understand evolutionary theories, and yet they tout themselves as bona fide experts. One aspect, which I wish was discussed more thoroughly, is that the Darwinian Theory of Evolution is not the idea of common ancestry among species. That notion is regarded as a fact and was not proposed by Darwin alone. Darwin's Theory of Evolution, the mechanism by which species evolve into other species is "Natural Selection". And yet, over and over again, the Creationists say that the Theory of Evolution, meaning common ancestry, is "only" a theory, in the sense that it's just an unproven idea but we really don't know. Common Ancestry is not the theoretical part. "Natural Selection" is the theory, and a theory of this kind in science is a very painstakingly researched series of principles which are thought to well-describe phenomena in nature, in the same way "Newton's Theory of Gravity" is not about whether or not gravity exists, but how gravity operates, in this case how large objects attract smaller objects.

An engaging, sometimes confusing, and often enraging series of scenes in which people whose educational background is questionable in regards to disciplines about which they are making huge decisions about education. Should a dentist and a lawyer decide whether or not particular science and history material should or should not be included? Scientists and historians do have full-out drag-out debates on these ideas, and their findings are what should end up in the textbooks. Not a vote by people who are not really in these fields. Otherwise, it is not unforeseeable that a committee could vote to include in a textbook that holds the earth is flat and sitting on a giant tortoise.