Living Waters: Intelligent Design in the Oceans of the Earth (Schoolhouse Review)

Do you enjoy beautiful nature videos? Then you will love Living Waters: Intelligent Design in the Oceans of the Earth, sold at FishFlix.com. Emily loves learning about marine life, so I knew she would enjoy this video, but it even surpassed my expectations. Through beautiful cinematography, Living Waters teaches the viewer about aquatic creatures, in particular, the amazing abilities and design of dolphins, turtles, salmon, and humpback whales.

This video would appeal to a wide range of ages. Young children would enjoy watching the captivating footage of sea life, from jellyfish to whales, even though some of the narration might be beyond them. Older children through adults receive an impressive science lesson on a variety of ocean and river life. Although we watched it primarily for entertainment at this point, there is enough detailed information on anatomy and physiology to count it as an hour of credit toward a biology or marine biology course. If we were to do that, I think I would pause the video at points to let Emily copy the detailed drawings of the internal anatomy of the dolphin and whale.

Through it all, the script points to God as the Creator. By showing the viewer the incredible complexity of the navigational radar systems of dolphins (far better than anything man has been able to reproduce), and the amazing means that turtles find their way back to their hatching grounds to lay the eggs of the next generation, through magnetic imprinting, the viewer is shown that evolution based on random mutations could never produce these results. Salmon also find their way back to the place they were hatched, yet using an entirely different method. The theorized evolution of the humpback whale is discussed, and the problems with this theory pointed out. The argument for intelligent design is not over-emphasized; instead, the producers focus on the amazing complexity of nature, then point out the difficulties with random chance producing what we see.

In addition to the beautiful photography, many drawings are shown that illustrate the anatomy and physiology of these animals. It was so interesting to see and learn about the methods dolphins use to produce sound and to utilize echolocation to not only locate, but to identify, their prey and the direction and speed of its movement. I was very interested to learn that a dolphin chasing a school of fish locates and follows just one particular fish out of the hundreds of fish to be its target. Amazing!

 

Emily and I sat down to watch this video one evening, with the thought that we’d watch part of it, finishing it up another night. However, Emily insisted that she didn’t want to pause it, but wanted to watch the whole film in one sitting. I’m sure that this is one video that will be viewed over again.

Living Waters: Intelligent Design in the Oceans of the Earth is currently $13.99 at FishFlix. It is the third in the Living Waters Intelligent Design DVD Design of Life series, and is preceded by the films, Flight and Metamorphosis, which were reviewed by other members of the Crew earlier this year.