I saw the movie a second time. A second time was more than enough.
I saw it a second time because I was pleased that, amid all of the gaudy CGI, the stupid sight gags, the underdeveloped dialogue, the two-dimensional characters, and the outrageously dumb plot, at least my childhood hero, Indiana Jones, remained relatively intact.
But he wasn't intact. As I watched the film a second time, I noticed that they had given Dr. Jones two new and unwelcome traits: pedantry and patriotism.
We knew from the original movies that Indy isn't always adventuring - that, indeed, he spends most of his time teaching at the fictional Marshall College in Connecticut. We saw in Raiders and Last Crusade how he is a dedicated professor, giving detailed lectures on archaeological methods to classes of enraptured (mostly female) students.
But in Crystal Skull, Lucas and Spielberg take this too far, and turn Indy into a doddering old professor. The gag in the library, when he answers a student's question while escaping on a motorcycle, and the later scene when he begins explaining the difference between quicksand and dry sand while sinking in a bed of the latter, are not only tawdry attempts at humor; they are uncharacteristic of Dr. Jones. Indy didn't pause from fending off snakes in the Well of the Souls to lecture Marion on Egyptian hieroglyphs; nor did he make some dry scholarly remark to Elsa about petroleum's inflammability when they were about to be burned alive in the catacombs. Indy knows to put aside scholarly rhetoric when time or danger do not permit it. By making him a head-in-the-clouds pedant in his later years, Lucas and Spielberg emasculate his adventurous edge.
Further damage is done to Indy's character by making him a flag-waving patriot. It starts with his response to Spalko's question if he has any last words. "I like Ike", he proclaims defiantly. Like all the other gags in this movie, it's cheap writing for a cheap laugh. But I was horrified later to see what they had Indy doing since Last Crusade. OSS? Espionage missions in Berlin? "Spying on the Reds"? The rank of Colonel in the US Military? Dr. Jones, yes; Colonel Jones? What the hell? Part of the allure of Indy has always been his free agency. Sure, in Raiders the US Government asks him to get the Ark before the Nazis do, but in all three of the original movies, Indy does things his own way. He's the independent adventurer, fighting on the side of the good guys, not because he's ordered to, but because he wants to. Putting him in an official military capacity strips him of this independence, and weakens his character.
Some further thoughts:
Jones... -ey?
Jonesey? Jonesie? However you spell it, such a word has no place in an Indiana Jones film. Call him Dr. Jones, call him Indy or Indiana, call him junior if you're his father, even call him just "Jones", but what the hell is Jonesie? And Ox called him Henry. Why? Even Marcus called him Indy, and he's known to the scholarly world by his adopted moniker: viz., when Chattar Lal, upon meeting him in Temple of Doom, addresses him as "Dr. Indiana Jones, the famous archaeologist".
Music
Indiana Jones is inconceivable without the famous Raiders March, written by John Williams, to back him up. But this movie didn't live up to the music for which the original trilogy is known. In those movies, there were separate and identifiable musical themes - leitmotifs - for the artifact, the bad guys, the love interest, and, of course, Indy himself. The theme of the ark made the ark scenes so awe-inspiring; the Nazi theme in Last Crusade is badass enough to rival the Imperial March of Star Wars. But you won't find great music in this film. The artifact and characters themselves were so forgettable that it's no surprise John Williams couldn't come up with epic music to accompany them.
Temple of Doom's shortcomings amplified
Someone I know made the excellent point that the qualities which made Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom the runt of the litter - Willie Scott and Short Round as sidekicks, an artifact not as awe-inspiring as the ark or grail, bad guys not as fun to hate as the Nazis, cheap gags like monkey brains for dessert, the fake mine car chase - are brought back and amplified in Crystal Skull. Mack, Ox, and Mutt are even worse sidekicks than Willy and Short Round. The artifact is just plain stupid. The bad guys are fungible, generic commies with no personality. The gags are cheaper. The stuntwork has sunk to horrifying new lows - oh, how I long to see a bad mine car chase, when presented with crap like surviving an atomic blast in a refrigerator! Lucas and Spielberg, when planning Crystal Skull, should have begun by recognizing what made Raiders and Last Crusade eternally great films, and then imposing those standards on the new movie; instead, it's as if they said, "What made Temple of Doom bad? Let's do those things again - but this time, bigger, and much worse!" Indeed, had they tried to make Crystal Skull a poor substitute for an Indy film, it's difficult to see how they could have had better success.
The idea for the film
It's now obvious to me how they came up with the idea for this movie. Instead of using an intriguing artifact, or even an interesting villain, as their starting point, they clearly began by thinking of what was going on in the 1950s (since, because of Harrison's age, they knew they wanted to set it in that decade). They thus realized they wanted commies to be the bad guys. Then, when trying to think of an artifact, the Roswell incident of the previous decade must have sprung to mind. That this was a bad way to plan the movie is quite simply borne out by the results.
A spaceship
Let me reiterate that there was a spaceship - a fucking spaceship - in this movie. Res ipsa loquitor.
Useless
Besides the teenage joy ride that opens the film, the FBI agents also struck me as a complete waste of time. Their suspicions of Indy are not followed up later in the film, and the scene involving them seems to achieve nothing except set up the part where the dean has resigned and Indy is close to losing his job - also a pointless excursion from the already suffering plot.
Plot-driving device
I already pointed out in my earlier review that Professor Oxley's dementia was a shameful excuse for a plot-driving device. It is worth remembering what served in this capacity in Raiders and Last Crusade. When searching for the Lost Ark, Indy had to find the headpiece to the Staff of Ra, which connected him with Marion and then led him to Cairo and the Ark's resting place in the Well of the Souls. In the Last Crusade, his father's grail diary is the plot-driving device, acting first as a sign that his father's in danger, and for the rest of the film as a guide for his quest. Given these epic precedents, could Lucas and Spielberg really come up with nothing better than a gibbering, deranged lunatic, who somehow possesses only enough consciousness to spout enigmatic riddles? It's more like watching an Alzheimer's patient than one of Dr. Jones's adventuresome colleagues.
Too Little, Too Late
By the time John Hurt's character regains the proper use of his brain, there is not much time left in the film to develop his character. When he delivers his last two lines, "[They have gone to] the space between spaces," and "How much of human life is lost in waiting," we are so used to hearing him babble nonsense that these lines sound no different.
"Three times it drops"
The waterfall scene actually bored me with its sad predictability and continuation of the film's hokey reliance on CGI. The first drop was disappointing but to be expected. The second drop had me yawning. The third drop was an unforgivable robbery of 20 seconds of my life.
KW's review
Crystal Skull Actually Made of Cheap Plastic
The Canon
Allow me to hereby EXCISE Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull from the official Indiana Jones canon. Like the "Young Indiana Jones" series, this pathetic waste of film, money, and talent deserves no place next to the immortal original trilogy of Indiana Jones, and all events portrayed in the film shall henceforth be regarded as apocryphal nonsense.
27 May 2008
22 May 2008
Indiana Jones and the Lamentable Return
"It is something that mankind was not meant to disturb."
That's Sallah's warning to his friend Indiana Jones about the Ark of the Covenant. But he may as well have said it to Steven Spielberg and George Lucas regarding the Indiana Jones legacy itself.
Indeed, it is as I feared. With Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, they have done to Indiana Jones what they did to Star Wars: extended the series with work that is not at all up to the brilliant standards of the original trilogy.
In my mind, there are three elements that make an Indiana Jones movie great (besides Harrison Ford as Indy, which is a proven constant even in a movie such as this). Those three elements: great characters, a great artifact, and great stunts. It grieves me to report that in all three of these respects, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a thorough failure.
Oh Steven, oh George, why have you forsaken Indy?
1. Great characters
A. Villains
The villains of the original trilogy - Belloq, Toht, Lao Che, Mola Ram, Walter Donovan, Colonel Vogel - were successful because they combined personality with magnificent - but not cartoonish - evil. Belloq is a self-proclaimed "shadowy reflection" of Dr. Jones, a disturbing image of what would happen to Indy himself if his values succumbed to his greed. Toht is a terrifying, eccentric, and mysterious embodiment of Nazi evil. Lao is the consummate devious gangster, and Mola Ram's Thuggee sadism is terrific fun to watch. Walter Donovan is a smart and resourceful turncoat whose own greed undoes him. Vogel is an SS Colonel who relishes the infliction of pain as a perk that comes with the job. All have qualities that give them depth and lines that are memorable as Indy's.
The central enemy in Crystal Skull is the Soviet Irina Spalko, a cookie-cutter "Natasha"-type villain, who in a horrendous waste of talent is played by the brilliant Cate Blanchett. Her personality is developed clumsily by her two-dimensional lust for 'knowledge' and her ridiculous attempts at exercising psychic powers. None of her lines are memorable, and all are delivered in a Russian accent worthy of Rocky and Bullwinkle. She captures neither the venality of Belloq or Donovan, nor the genuine, bone-chilling evil of Toht or Colonel Vogel; she is simply, transparently, cartoonishly evil. Given a role with deeper, more complex motivations, Cate Blanchett could have made Spalko a disturbing and memorable villain; instead she is merely laughed at and forgotten.
Even the minor villains of the original movies were memorable: the shirtless German mechanic who fights Indy around, on, and under the plane; the Arab swordsman Indy insouciantly blows away; the tenacious Nazi captain who struggles with Indy over control of the truck.
Tragically, ALL of the secondary villains in Crystal Skull are faceless, interchangeable Soviet thugs. None of them has any personality, none of them provide Indy with unique or interesting challenges. They're mere ducks in a shooting gallery.
B. Allies
Indy's friends - most notably Sallah, Marcus, and his father - are characters who not only are engaging in their own right, but also whose chemistry with Indy convinces the audience that they genuinely go way back. And the Indy girls are every bit a match for Dr. Jones, be it Marion's no-nonsense personality and independence or Elsa's intelligence and manipulative wiles. (One could argue also that the great weakness of the Temple of Doom was the allies, in particular the strident, prissy, and insufferable Willy Scott.)
Indy's allies in Crystal Skull are a mixed bag. Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood was good, but would have been superb, had they given her the snappiness she had in Raiders. Shia LaBeouf as Mutt Williams actually exceeded my expectations, though his relationship with Indy falls far short of that of Indy and his father, one of the greatest movie duos of all time.
Dean Charles Stanforth (Jim Broadbent) is a decent role, but one that could have benefited from further development. We don't feel a shared history like we do between Indy and Marcus or Sallah.
Sadly, Marcus Brody and Henry Jones, Sr. have passed on by the time of Crystal Skull, and Sallah is nowhere to be found (enjoying retirement in Cairo, presumably?). Their absence is made all the more painful by the inexcusably wretched roles intended to replace them: 'Mac' George McHale and Professor Oxley. Both are played by great actors; both are tragic wastes of talent.
'Mac', played by Ray Winstone, tried, and failed, to be interesting. His double-cross of Indy links him to Elsa of Last Crusade, but he lacks her intelligence, charm, and passion. The chemistry between him and Indy is terrible; all of their dialogue sounds forced. The audience is left wondering why we should care whether he's Indy's friend or enemy.
Professor Oxley is the most tragic shortcoming of the whole movie. Played by the incomparable John Hurt, Oxley could have been the next Marcus Brody, an eloquent and supportive ally to Indy; instead, Spielberg and Lucas made the inexplicable decision to turn him into a babbling, raving lunatic for nine-tenths of the film. The clues buried in his incoherent ranting and babyish behavior are a poor excuse for a plot-driving device. Professor Oxley is to this film what Jar-Jar Binks was to Star Wars Episode I: an irritating, purposeless distraction. George Lucas, must you put one of these in all your revisited films?
C. Dialogue
The dialogue in this film vacillated between forced, corny, falsely sentimental, and only occasionally witty and engaging. Some of the lines (like Indy's about his father at the end) were so excessively cheesy as to be appalling. It was difficult to understand how the dialogue in this film could have been conceived by the same minds who thought up the epic one-liners of Raiders or the delightful father-son banter of Last Crusade.
2. A great artifact
The Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail are potent symbols in the Western imagination. In the Indy movies, they carry awe-inspiring yet understated power, and their looming presence is so well developed that the audience can actually come to believe their supernatural properties.
The crystal skull belongs to a crystal skeleton of an alien being. It is also a magnet. As if this were not stupid enough to begin with, when you return the skull to the skeleton (in a tomb of thirteen of these skeletons), you receive great 'power'. Which turns out to be great 'knowledge'. Which turns out to incinerate you, or something (it's not really clear why). It's a silly artifact with an unclear purpose and an anticlimactic execution. And whereas in the original films, Indy is a prime actor in the culminating scene when the artifact is used for its designed purpose, in this movie he simply jumps out the window before Cate Blanchett is burned up with, uh, knowing too much and the aliens - or single alien? again, it's not really clear - go up into the spaceship (christ I wish I were making this up) and flies away after causing a big tornado that destroys the ruins in which it all took place.
What the fuck, George and Steven? Did you ask a five year old for these ideas? Aren't there about a million artifacts you could have used that would have had at least some basis in reality and some relevance to the audience?
3. Great stunts
The stunts and special effects of the original Indiana Jones films are legendary, and set the bar for all action-adventure movies to follow. The truck chase in Raiders and the tank chase in Last Crusade are the most famous examples. Yes, those are real stuntmen being dragged behind the truck or jumping off a horse onto a moving tank! Yes, that boulder is rolling after Indy! Yes, that plane is actually exploding! The gritty and genuine realism of these stunts and effects lend an authenticity to the Indy films that makes them stand out in movie history.
But Spielberg and Lucas have gotten lazy, and have turned to computers to do a lot of the stuntwork and effects for them. The results are tawdry (the car chase through the jungle is transparently CGI), unrealistic (the duck boat's entry into the water via tree bending down from cliff), or just plain fake (everything having to do with the aliens at the end, particularly their 'sweeping up' as they leave, looks so fake it's might as well be a cartoon).
The scene when Shia LaBeouf swings through the jungle like Tarzan, accompanied by a cohort of monkeys, is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen on film. And Indy surviving a nuclear-blast-induced airborne ride in a refrigerator makes me weep, for the standards for stunts have sunk so very, very low.
When stunts and special effects go too far, the audience doesn't watch with bated breath; the audience points and laughs.
Other observations
-The opening scene of the teenagers on a joy ride is a complete waste of time. It contributes nothing to the plot and bears no relevance to anything. The movie could start five minutes later, with the trucks entering the military installation, and nothing would have been lost.
-The ending troubles me. First of all, the idea of Indiana Jones getting married seems fundamentally wrong - unless it's a sign that he's through adventuring. Secondly, it's a bizzarely muted note to end on. Raiders ended with the magnificently ironic warehouse scene, and Last Crusade concludes with the iconic ride into the sunset. And this movie ends with Indy walking out of a wedding chapel? How pedestrian!
All of this being said, I will see this movie again. Why? Because even though the characters were weak, and the special effects were cheesy, Harrison Ford can still wear a fedora and crack a bullwhip like nobody else. Despite the film's many flaws, Indy, at least, is still Indy.
That's Sallah's warning to his friend Indiana Jones about the Ark of the Covenant. But he may as well have said it to Steven Spielberg and George Lucas regarding the Indiana Jones legacy itself.
Indeed, it is as I feared. With Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, they have done to Indiana Jones what they did to Star Wars: extended the series with work that is not at all up to the brilliant standards of the original trilogy.
In my mind, there are three elements that make an Indiana Jones movie great (besides Harrison Ford as Indy, which is a proven constant even in a movie such as this). Those three elements: great characters, a great artifact, and great stunts. It grieves me to report that in all three of these respects, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a thorough failure.
Oh Steven, oh George, why have you forsaken Indy?
1. Great characters
A. Villains
The villains of the original trilogy - Belloq, Toht, Lao Che, Mola Ram, Walter Donovan, Colonel Vogel - were successful because they combined personality with magnificent - but not cartoonish - evil. Belloq is a self-proclaimed "shadowy reflection" of Dr. Jones, a disturbing image of what would happen to Indy himself if his values succumbed to his greed. Toht is a terrifying, eccentric, and mysterious embodiment of Nazi evil. Lao is the consummate devious gangster, and Mola Ram's Thuggee sadism is terrific fun to watch. Walter Donovan is a smart and resourceful turncoat whose own greed undoes him. Vogel is an SS Colonel who relishes the infliction of pain as a perk that comes with the job. All have qualities that give them depth and lines that are memorable as Indy's.
The central enemy in Crystal Skull is the Soviet Irina Spalko, a cookie-cutter "Natasha"-type villain, who in a horrendous waste of talent is played by the brilliant Cate Blanchett. Her personality is developed clumsily by her two-dimensional lust for 'knowledge' and her ridiculous attempts at exercising psychic powers. None of her lines are memorable, and all are delivered in a Russian accent worthy of Rocky and Bullwinkle. She captures neither the venality of Belloq or Donovan, nor the genuine, bone-chilling evil of Toht or Colonel Vogel; she is simply, transparently, cartoonishly evil. Given a role with deeper, more complex motivations, Cate Blanchett could have made Spalko a disturbing and memorable villain; instead she is merely laughed at and forgotten.
Even the minor villains of the original movies were memorable: the shirtless German mechanic who fights Indy around, on, and under the plane; the Arab swordsman Indy insouciantly blows away; the tenacious Nazi captain who struggles with Indy over control of the truck.
Tragically, ALL of the secondary villains in Crystal Skull are faceless, interchangeable Soviet thugs. None of them has any personality, none of them provide Indy with unique or interesting challenges. They're mere ducks in a shooting gallery.
B. Allies
Indy's friends - most notably Sallah, Marcus, and his father - are characters who not only are engaging in their own right, but also whose chemistry with Indy convinces the audience that they genuinely go way back. And the Indy girls are every bit a match for Dr. Jones, be it Marion's no-nonsense personality and independence or Elsa's intelligence and manipulative wiles. (One could argue also that the great weakness of the Temple of Doom was the allies, in particular the strident, prissy, and insufferable Willy Scott.)
Indy's allies in Crystal Skull are a mixed bag. Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood was good, but would have been superb, had they given her the snappiness she had in Raiders. Shia LaBeouf as Mutt Williams actually exceeded my expectations, though his relationship with Indy falls far short of that of Indy and his father, one of the greatest movie duos of all time.
Dean Charles Stanforth (Jim Broadbent) is a decent role, but one that could have benefited from further development. We don't feel a shared history like we do between Indy and Marcus or Sallah.
Sadly, Marcus Brody and Henry Jones, Sr. have passed on by the time of Crystal Skull, and Sallah is nowhere to be found (enjoying retirement in Cairo, presumably?). Their absence is made all the more painful by the inexcusably wretched roles intended to replace them: 'Mac' George McHale and Professor Oxley. Both are played by great actors; both are tragic wastes of talent.
'Mac', played by Ray Winstone, tried, and failed, to be interesting. His double-cross of Indy links him to Elsa of Last Crusade, but he lacks her intelligence, charm, and passion. The chemistry between him and Indy is terrible; all of their dialogue sounds forced. The audience is left wondering why we should care whether he's Indy's friend or enemy.
Professor Oxley is the most tragic shortcoming of the whole movie. Played by the incomparable John Hurt, Oxley could have been the next Marcus Brody, an eloquent and supportive ally to Indy; instead, Spielberg and Lucas made the inexplicable decision to turn him into a babbling, raving lunatic for nine-tenths of the film. The clues buried in his incoherent ranting and babyish behavior are a poor excuse for a plot-driving device. Professor Oxley is to this film what Jar-Jar Binks was to Star Wars Episode I: an irritating, purposeless distraction. George Lucas, must you put one of these in all your revisited films?
C. Dialogue
The dialogue in this film vacillated between forced, corny, falsely sentimental, and only occasionally witty and engaging. Some of the lines (like Indy's about his father at the end) were so excessively cheesy as to be appalling. It was difficult to understand how the dialogue in this film could have been conceived by the same minds who thought up the epic one-liners of Raiders or the delightful father-son banter of Last Crusade.
2. A great artifact
The Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail are potent symbols in the Western imagination. In the Indy movies, they carry awe-inspiring yet understated power, and their looming presence is so well developed that the audience can actually come to believe their supernatural properties.
The crystal skull belongs to a crystal skeleton of an alien being. It is also a magnet. As if this were not stupid enough to begin with, when you return the skull to the skeleton (in a tomb of thirteen of these skeletons), you receive great 'power'. Which turns out to be great 'knowledge'. Which turns out to incinerate you, or something (it's not really clear why). It's a silly artifact with an unclear purpose and an anticlimactic execution. And whereas in the original films, Indy is a prime actor in the culminating scene when the artifact is used for its designed purpose, in this movie he simply jumps out the window before Cate Blanchett is burned up with, uh, knowing too much and the aliens - or single alien? again, it's not really clear - go up into the spaceship (christ I wish I were making this up) and flies away after causing a big tornado that destroys the ruins in which it all took place.
What the fuck, George and Steven? Did you ask a five year old for these ideas? Aren't there about a million artifacts you could have used that would have had at least some basis in reality and some relevance to the audience?
3. Great stunts
The stunts and special effects of the original Indiana Jones films are legendary, and set the bar for all action-adventure movies to follow. The truck chase in Raiders and the tank chase in Last Crusade are the most famous examples. Yes, those are real stuntmen being dragged behind the truck or jumping off a horse onto a moving tank! Yes, that boulder is rolling after Indy! Yes, that plane is actually exploding! The gritty and genuine realism of these stunts and effects lend an authenticity to the Indy films that makes them stand out in movie history.
But Spielberg and Lucas have gotten lazy, and have turned to computers to do a lot of the stuntwork and effects for them. The results are tawdry (the car chase through the jungle is transparently CGI), unrealistic (the duck boat's entry into the water via tree bending down from cliff), or just plain fake (everything having to do with the aliens at the end, particularly their 'sweeping up' as they leave, looks so fake it's might as well be a cartoon).
The scene when Shia LaBeouf swings through the jungle like Tarzan, accompanied by a cohort of monkeys, is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen on film. And Indy surviving a nuclear-blast-induced airborne ride in a refrigerator makes me weep, for the standards for stunts have sunk so very, very low.
When stunts and special effects go too far, the audience doesn't watch with bated breath; the audience points and laughs.
Other observations
-The opening scene of the teenagers on a joy ride is a complete waste of time. It contributes nothing to the plot and bears no relevance to anything. The movie could start five minutes later, with the trucks entering the military installation, and nothing would have been lost.
-The ending troubles me. First of all, the idea of Indiana Jones getting married seems fundamentally wrong - unless it's a sign that he's through adventuring. Secondly, it's a bizzarely muted note to end on. Raiders ended with the magnificently ironic warehouse scene, and Last Crusade concludes with the iconic ride into the sunset. And this movie ends with Indy walking out of a wedding chapel? How pedestrian!
All of this being said, I will see this movie again. Why? Because even though the characters were weak, and the special effects were cheesy, Harrison Ford can still wear a fedora and crack a bullwhip like nobody else. Despite the film's many flaws, Indy, at least, is still Indy.
16 May 2008
Answering Creationist Nonsense
Scientific American: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense
When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.
Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy. They lobby for creationist ideas such as "intelligent design" to be taught as alternatives to evolution in science classrooms.
Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism. The arguments that creationists use are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution, but the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage.
To help with answering them, the following list rebuts some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom.
My personal favorite (because one hears this idiotic objection so often):
1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.
Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.
In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true.'" The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling.
All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make physicists' conclusions less certain.
When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.
Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy. They lobby for creationist ideas such as "intelligent design" to be taught as alternatives to evolution in science classrooms.
Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism. The arguments that creationists use are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution, but the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage.
To help with answering them, the following list rebuts some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom.
My personal favorite (because one hears this idiotic objection so often):
1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.
Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.
In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true.'" The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling.
All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make physicists' conclusions less certain.
14 May 2008
The Methods of Dr. Jones
CNN: Experts: 'Indiana Jones' pure fiction
Indiana Jones managed to retrieve the trinket he was after in the opening moments of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." He pretty much wrecked everything else in the ancient South American temple where the little gold idol had rested for millennia.
Though he preaches research and good science in the classroom, the world's most famous archaeologist often is an acquisitive tomb raider in the field with a scorched-earth policy about what he leaves behind. While actual archaeologists like the guy and his movies, they wouldn't necessarily want to work alongside him on a dig.
Indy's bull-in-a-china-shop approach to archaeology will be on display again May 22 with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," in which he's sure to rain destruction down on more historic sites and priceless artifacts.
To argue that Indy is an 'acquisitive tomb raider' who has a 'bull-in-a-china-shop approach to archaeology' is to entirely miss the point of the Indiana Jones movies.
And I don't mean in the sense that it's Hollywood, so of course it's going to misportray the methods of archaeology. I mean that in the plots of the Indiana Jones movies, the traditional methods of archaeology become a moot point.
Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade are, fundamentally, race movies - Indy and the Nazis are both trying to acquire a priceless and powerful artifact, and the fate of the civilized world hangs in the balance. As Indy's father, Henry Jones Sr., says: "The quest for the grail is not archeology. It's a race against evil. If it is captured by the Nazis, the armies of darkness will march all over the face of the earth!"
When you're trying to get to something before the Nazis do, you don't exactly have time for a traditional archaeological dig. Indy realizes this and smashes through whatever he has to in order to prevent Hitler from having eternal life or the Ark (the Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction). The same goes for the Temple of Doom - I'm sure Dr. Jones would love to spend more time looking around at ancient artifacts, but there are several hundred child slaves in a subterranean forced labor camp, so forgive him if he doesn't take time to stake out a standard dig site.
Moreover, this article couldn't be more wrong when it says that Indiana Jones "rain[s] destruction down on historic sites and priceless artifacts"; it's the historic sites and priceless artifacts that are trying to rain down destruction on him! The Well of the Souls in Raiders, the Temple of the Crescent Moon in Last Crusade, the Temple of Doom, the South American temple mentioned above - all of these places are fraught with lethal traps and pitfalls, and it's all Indy can do to get out alive! If anything is over the top, it's the deadliness of the places themselves, not Indy's trying to escape them.
We know that most of the time, Dr. Jones is either teaching at a bucolic New England college or, indeed, doing traditional archaeological digs. But that doesn't make for good filmmaking. So lay off his methods in the movies: they're not supposed to be about archaeology. They're about "a race against evil"!
Indiana Jones managed to retrieve the trinket he was after in the opening moments of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." He pretty much wrecked everything else in the ancient South American temple where the little gold idol had rested for millennia.
Though he preaches research and good science in the classroom, the world's most famous archaeologist often is an acquisitive tomb raider in the field with a scorched-earth policy about what he leaves behind. While actual archaeologists like the guy and his movies, they wouldn't necessarily want to work alongside him on a dig.
Indy's bull-in-a-china-shop approach to archaeology will be on display again May 22 with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," in which he's sure to rain destruction down on more historic sites and priceless artifacts.
To argue that Indy is an 'acquisitive tomb raider' who has a 'bull-in-a-china-shop approach to archaeology' is to entirely miss the point of the Indiana Jones movies.
And I don't mean in the sense that it's Hollywood, so of course it's going to misportray the methods of archaeology. I mean that in the plots of the Indiana Jones movies, the traditional methods of archaeology become a moot point.
Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade are, fundamentally, race movies - Indy and the Nazis are both trying to acquire a priceless and powerful artifact, and the fate of the civilized world hangs in the balance. As Indy's father, Henry Jones Sr., says: "The quest for the grail is not archeology. It's a race against evil. If it is captured by the Nazis, the armies of darkness will march all over the face of the earth!"
When you're trying to get to something before the Nazis do, you don't exactly have time for a traditional archaeological dig. Indy realizes this and smashes through whatever he has to in order to prevent Hitler from having eternal life or the Ark (the Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction). The same goes for the Temple of Doom - I'm sure Dr. Jones would love to spend more time looking around at ancient artifacts, but there are several hundred child slaves in a subterranean forced labor camp, so forgive him if he doesn't take time to stake out a standard dig site.
Moreover, this article couldn't be more wrong when it says that Indiana Jones "rain[s] destruction down on historic sites and priceless artifacts"; it's the historic sites and priceless artifacts that are trying to rain down destruction on him! The Well of the Souls in Raiders, the Temple of the Crescent Moon in Last Crusade, the Temple of Doom, the South American temple mentioned above - all of these places are fraught with lethal traps and pitfalls, and it's all Indy can do to get out alive! If anything is over the top, it's the deadliness of the places themselves, not Indy's trying to escape them.
We know that most of the time, Dr. Jones is either teaching at a bucolic New England college or, indeed, doing traditional archaeological digs. But that doesn't make for good filmmaking. So lay off his methods in the movies: they're not supposed to be about archaeology. They're about "a race against evil"!
08 May 2008
Taking a holiday from good economic sense
Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain are supporting the idea of a summer 'holiday' from the federal gas tax. Most economists - and, I'm happy to say, Barack Obama - think that this is a bad idea. It may be a popular idea - doesn't cheaper gas sound great? - but it is indeed a worthless and stupid solution.
It's economics 101: what happens to consumer incentives when the price of a good goes down? There is an incentive to buy more of that product. And what happens when consumers buy more of a product with a limited supply, like oil? Supply shrinks. And when supply shrinks but demand doesn't, prices go up. So essentially, by the end of the summer 'holiday', the price of gas will have risen to its previous level anyway. The difference is that instead of some of that revenue going to the government, it will be going into the pockets of the oil industry. The net effect of this brilliant scheme is that the government is taking our tax money and giving it to oil companies. (At least that's so with McCain's version of the plan. Clinton's version involves taxing the oil companies more after the fact, which basically taxes the consumer via the company - since the company will raise prices to make up for the tax - rather than taxing the act of consumption directly.)
As Paul Krugman points out in his blog, the McCain gas tax holiday would be "a giveaway to oil companies, disguised as a gift to consumers," whereas Clinton's holiday would be "in one pocket, out the other... pointless, not evil."
By opposing an idea that is both popular and bad, Barack Obama is demonstrating that he is willing to do what is in the people's best interests rather than what appeals to their visceral sentiments. If that's elitism, it's just the kind of elitism we need!
It's economics 101: what happens to consumer incentives when the price of a good goes down? There is an incentive to buy more of that product. And what happens when consumers buy more of a product with a limited supply, like oil? Supply shrinks. And when supply shrinks but demand doesn't, prices go up. So essentially, by the end of the summer 'holiday', the price of gas will have risen to its previous level anyway. The difference is that instead of some of that revenue going to the government, it will be going into the pockets of the oil industry. The net effect of this brilliant scheme is that the government is taking our tax money and giving it to oil companies. (At least that's so with McCain's version of the plan. Clinton's version involves taxing the oil companies more after the fact, which basically taxes the consumer via the company - since the company will raise prices to make up for the tax - rather than taxing the act of consumption directly.)
As Paul Krugman points out in his blog, the McCain gas tax holiday would be "a giveaway to oil companies, disguised as a gift to consumers," whereas Clinton's holiday would be "in one pocket, out the other... pointless, not evil."
By opposing an idea that is both popular and bad, Barack Obama is demonstrating that he is willing to do what is in the people's best interests rather than what appeals to their visceral sentiments. If that's elitism, it's just the kind of elitism we need!
06 May 2008
Praying at the Pump
AFP: Tired of paying through the nose, Americans try praying at the pump
The half-dozen activists -- Twyman, a former Miss Washington DC, the owner of a small construction company and two volunteers at a local soup kitchen -- joined hands, bowed their heads and intoned a heartfelt prayer.
"Lord, come down in a mighty way and strengthen us so that we can bring down these high gas prices," Twyman said to a chorus of "amens".
"Prayer is the answer to every problem in life... We call on God to intervene in the lives of the selfish, greedy people who are keeping these prices high," Twyman said on the gas station forecourt in a neighborhood of Washington that, like many of its residents, has seen better days.
"Lord, the prices at this pump have gone up since last week. We know that you are able, that you have all the power in the world," he prayed, before former beauty queen Rashida Jolley led the group in a modified version of the spiritual, "We Shall Overcome".
"We'll have lower gas prices, we'll have lower gas prices..." they sang.
I'm not making this up. This is real. There are people out there who do this. These are citizens - people who are entrusted with drivers' licenses and voting and jury duty and the rearing of children. And they believe that the best way to bring down gas prices is not to educate oneself about macroeconomics and elect leaders who will effect appropriate change, but to stand at a gas station and ask God for cheaper super unleaded. Given the choice, they would sooner act like a neolithic vilager begging the gods for rain than an informed citizen of the 21st century who could watch a meteorological report.
I find this terrifying.
The half-dozen activists -- Twyman, a former Miss Washington DC, the owner of a small construction company and two volunteers at a local soup kitchen -- joined hands, bowed their heads and intoned a heartfelt prayer.
"Lord, come down in a mighty way and strengthen us so that we can bring down these high gas prices," Twyman said to a chorus of "amens".
"Prayer is the answer to every problem in life... We call on God to intervene in the lives of the selfish, greedy people who are keeping these prices high," Twyman said on the gas station forecourt in a neighborhood of Washington that, like many of its residents, has seen better days.
"Lord, the prices at this pump have gone up since last week. We know that you are able, that you have all the power in the world," he prayed, before former beauty queen Rashida Jolley led the group in a modified version of the spiritual, "We Shall Overcome".
"We'll have lower gas prices, we'll have lower gas prices..." they sang.
I'm not making this up. This is real. There are people out there who do this. These are citizens - people who are entrusted with drivers' licenses and voting and jury duty and the rearing of children. And they believe that the best way to bring down gas prices is not to educate oneself about macroeconomics and elect leaders who will effect appropriate change, but to stand at a gas station and ask God for cheaper super unleaded. Given the choice, they would sooner act like a neolithic vilager begging the gods for rain than an informed citizen of the 21st century who could watch a meteorological report.
I find this terrifying.
01 May 2008
Crazy
"Faith is what credulity becomes when it finally achieves escape velocity from the constraints of terrestrial discourse - constraints like reasonableness, internal coherence, civility, and candor. However far you feel you have fled the parish, you are likely to be the product of a culture that has elevated belief, in the absence of evidence, to the highest place in the heirarchy of human virtues. Ignorance is the true coinage of this realm - 'Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed' (John 20:29) - and every child is instructed that it is, at the very least, an option, if not a sacred duty, to disregard the facts of this world out of deference to the God who lurks in his mother's and father's imaginations.
"To be ruled by ideas for which you have no evidence (and which therefore cannot be justified in conversation with other human beings) is generally a sign that something is seriously wrong with your mind. Clearly, there is sanity in numbers. And yet, it is merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts, while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window. And so, while religous people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely are. This is not surprising, since most religions have merely canonized a few products of ancient ignorance and derangement and passed them down to us as though they were primordial truths. This leaves billions of us believing what no sane person could believe on his own. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions. Consider one of the cornerstones of the Catholic faith: [the Eucharist]. Jesus Christ - who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death, and rose bodily into the heavens - can now be eaten in the form of a cracker. A few Latin words spoken over your favorite Burgandy, and you can drink his blood as well. Is there any doubt that a lone subscriber to these beliefs would be considered mad? Rather, is there any doubt that he would be mad? The danger of religious faith is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy. Because each new generation of children is taught that religious propositions need not be justified in the way that others must, civilization is still besieged by the armies of the preposterous."
- Sam Harris, The End of Faith, pp. 65, 72-73.
"Isnt' it interesting that religious behavior is so close to being crazy that we can't tell them apart?"
- Gregory House, M.D.
"To be ruled by ideas for which you have no evidence (and which therefore cannot be justified in conversation with other human beings) is generally a sign that something is seriously wrong with your mind. Clearly, there is sanity in numbers. And yet, it is merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts, while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window. And so, while religous people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely are. This is not surprising, since most religions have merely canonized a few products of ancient ignorance and derangement and passed them down to us as though they were primordial truths. This leaves billions of us believing what no sane person could believe on his own. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions. Consider one of the cornerstones of the Catholic faith: [the Eucharist]. Jesus Christ - who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death, and rose bodily into the heavens - can now be eaten in the form of a cracker. A few Latin words spoken over your favorite Burgandy, and you can drink his blood as well. Is there any doubt that a lone subscriber to these beliefs would be considered mad? Rather, is there any doubt that he would be mad? The danger of religious faith is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy. Because each new generation of children is taught that religious propositions need not be justified in the way that others must, civilization is still besieged by the armies of the preposterous."
- Sam Harris, The End of Faith, pp. 65, 72-73.
"Isnt' it interesting that religious behavior is so close to being crazy that we can't tell them apart?"
- Gregory House, M.D.
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