Dodos 1, Evolutionary Biologists 0

The tables have turned on
evolutionists who equated
the dodo bird with ineptness 

 

Let’s face it. We’ve all been guilty of calling dodo birds stupid. But the facts tell a more nuanced tale.

The extinct bird’s poor reputation probably stemmed from early sailors who, landing on the island of Mauritius for the first time, saw the rotund flightless pigeon relatives with goofy-looking heads wandering up to them on the beach unaware they were about to be slaughtered. Sure enough, the dodo went extinct in 1662 a century after being discovered. The dodo has since become an icon of an unfit creature destined for extinction. (Actually, humans hunted them recklessly, destroyed their habitat, and imported invasive species that ate their eggs. So who were the real dodos?)

Lewis Carroll portrayed the Dodo Bird as a solemn but witless authority figure in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The Dodo bird stages an illogical race, at the end of which he announces, “everybody has won, and all must have prizes.” That phrase has taken on its own life to the present day, signifying the absurdity of advancing individuals for participation rather than for merit.

In 2007, Randy Olson made a film he called Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus. A marine biologist and evolutionist, Olson fingered his evolutionist colleagues as the dodos: inept and rather stupid for allowing intelligent design advocates to get a media spotlight when the “facts” of biology (according to him) vindicated Darwinian evolution. AI’s synopsis of the film explains,

The Irony of the Title: While intelligent design advocates are portrayed as politically savvy and organized marketers of a flawed concept, Olson’s central thesis is that the scientific establishment behaves like a “flock of dodos”—cluelessly bumbling their messaging and turning on each other rather than effectively engaging the public.

Olson exhibited dodaic inclinations himself in the film by misrepresenting intelligent design advocates and their arguments, failing to perform a thorough literature search like a good scientist should. The Discovery Institute was quick to point out the film’s lies in a response website called HoaxOfDodos.com and a series of articles at Evolution News. Mostly forgotten, the film remains in the Darwin party’s arsenal, according to AI:

The documentary is occasionally shown in university science communication departments, evolutionary biology seminars, and specialized museum events (such as regional Darwin Day celebrations) as a historical case study on how not to communicate science.

On the ID side, writers on rare occasions still use the phrase “flock of dodos” or “hoax of dodos” as a metaphor for public misrepresentations of the evolution/ID controversy by Darwinians (example from 2012).

As for us at CEH, we have portrayed Darwinians as dodos, but intelligent in a malevolent way, as Brett Miller’s cartoon illustrates:

Breaking News: Dodos Were Intelligently Designed!

We interrupt this article with news from evolutionary biologists in Australia and Canada:

Shedding light on dodo’s ‘bird brain’ (Flinders University, 7 Aug 2026). According to new findings, scientists, novelists and the public are guilty of disparaging a bird that was most likely adapted for night foraging. It was possessed of night vision processing in a well-developed brain and had a keen sense of smell.

The Mauritian dodo – a global symbol of human-caused extinction, and one of the world’s largest pigeons – may not have deserved its reputation as silly simpleton and may have been the only member of its group to live in the dark.

An international study, led by Canada’s University of Lethbridge Iwaniuk Lab and including Flinders University researchers, has shown that the dodo’s ‘forebrain’ – a region associated with a bird’s ‘smarts’ including cognition and memory – was not smaller in proportion to any other pigeon, when compared to the rest of the brain.

The team also found several traits in its skull and brain that are usually only found in birds that are active at dusk or night, according to University of Lethbridge PhD student Sara Citron and Professor Andrew Iwaniuk

The only mention of evolution in the press release is in the CV of Professor Vera Weisbecker, described as an “evolutionary biologist” but who says nothing about how a dodo evolved its adaptations.

Dodos probably weren’t as stupid as historians made them out to be: new research (The Conversation, 5 Aug 2026). Weisbecker, Iwaniuk and Citron join to explain their findings in this article. Notably absent again is any mention of evolution. Instead, it’s about adaptive design. The dodo has had a bad rap,

But new research shows this image is misleading. The dodo was likely no less intelligent than any modern bird. It may also have possessed a rare and overlooked ecological trait: an adaptation to life in low light.

Its trusting behavior as noticed by early sailors was not dissimilar to other island birds unfamiliar with humans and natural predators, like those at the Galapagos and like New Zealand’s kiwi.

The dodo was intelligently designed.

Humans are at fault for wrecking its habitat. The bird was well adapted for successful living until man arrived.

Humans were the real dodos. And some still are.*

*using the historical connotation as a moral choice.

The New Dodo Paradigm

There are no “birdbrains” (imbeciles) on God’s green earth. Darwinians are the ones calling certain creatures and fellow humans imbeciles (see 24 Feb 2019 about eugenics). We do this because we humans are sinners, prone to idolatry, immoral behaviors, lies and logical fallacies. Part of that sinfulness is failing to see the awe and wonder in the creatures designed by God.

All humans are intelligently designed—including Darwinians—but are born sinful in need of a spiritual heart transplant. Those who shout DODO (Darwin Only! Darwin Only!) have turned their intelligence into malevolence. Is it not contrary to the ideals of science to censor opposing views, or to misrepresent them?

Those redeemed from their sinfulness by repenting and receiving Jesus Christ have a new way of looking at the world. They can shout DODO with new meaning: Designed Only! Designed Only!

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Note: What Bible student has not chuckled at finding men named “Dodo” in the Old Testament? The new paradigm requires that we recognize them as mighty men of valor.