Pajiba

regarding ben stein- he spoke at one of my company's functions a few years ago, and i was assigned to escort him from his limo to the function and back when he was done. he carried with him an enormous leather satchel that he refused to let anyone else touch or carry for him. right before he was to go on stage, he opens said satchel, and hand-to-god, it was FULL of perscription drugs. like at least 100 different bottles of drugs. he downed a handful of 'em before he got on stage. it was the most bizzare thing i've ever seen. believe it.

Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool!?

I wonder if they'll give him little yellow dialogue boxes to speak in.

If they do it the way they did Cable and Deadpool, you're looking at a 'Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang' movie of breaking-the-fourth-wall proportions. Keen.

Pfft. I still get all fangirly when Pajiba posts show up at ONTD (Oh No They Didn't).

And fuck -me-, Peacock sounds cool.

They also released the guy who's playing Gambit (yee) - Taylor Kitsch from Friday Night Lights.

So, yes. I will be seeing Wolverine. And hey - it can't be worse than X3.

Ooooh Gambit. Is it wrong to have a crush on a comic book character?

Also there's been confirmation that the new Wolverine movie will feature The Blob, which is nine different kinds of awesome.

And you make a good point Mara, it really can't be worse than X3. If I start my X3 ranting then I will never stop so I'm not gonna.

If someone had told me that James Franco was gonna be in a stoner comedy, I would have laughed my ass off in utter disbelief.

Deadpool and the Blob in the Wolverine movie? Is it wrong to squeal like a schoolgirl? Hmmm....my coworkers might not quite understand...

I love Cilian Murphy, I'll definately be looking forward to watching him. Fun Fact, he actually has acted in drag in previous movies before, so it's nothing new for him. It looks like it's going to be good. I, unfortunately, cannot contribute to the mini-diversion...I can't ever remember watching a movie with MPD.

I thought Ryan Reynolds was trying to move away from the smartass typecasting. Ah, well, better for all of us if he doesn't.

I suppose favourite split-personality movie would be a tie between Fight Club and Psycho, with The Three Faces of Eve and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde close behind.

I just want to make sure I "get" the anti-ID vibe here at pajiba:

Complex chains of information storage coming into being by accident is more likely than these same chains of information coming into being on purpose, by design. Yes? No?

I realise that the best counter-argument is 85% of all the trash that comes out of Hollywood, but still: biological nanotechnology seems to me to be a great argument for intelligence and design, not accident and pointlessness.

What's your favorite movie involving split personalities?

Are you serious?

Are there any real contenders other than Fight Club?

Jerry O'Connell, Heather Graham, Lara Flynn Boyle, John Corbett, and Ian Ziering

What, Luke Perry and Sipowicz's ass weren't available?

homo erectus

Don't talk shit about Rupert Everett.

Re intelligent design: one (lateral) step away from astrology. "Give me some pseudo-scientific nonsense with a side order of religious jargon ... not so much that I appear to believe in magic, though -- I'm a persecuted scientist, man, not a whack job!"

how 'bout the scientific explanations as to where and what we came from make a whole hell of a lot more sense than "Let there be light."

It's apples and oranges, there. Science is science, religion is religion and 'intelligent design' is creationism. Trying to give it another name is just polishing a turd.

I'm not too surprised about Ben Stein. He was a professor at Pepperdine in the late '90's, and that place is all kinds of Church of Christ.

(No offense to you Church of Christers out there...well, actually, yeah, offense)

And the greatest of all split personalities was Leland Palmer.

Hater from Siloam Springs: My particular take: If you consider that the universe is infinite then the probability of all this happening by chance, somewhere, at some point actually approaches 1. If you use a big enough scale then the precise combination of forces and atoms required to create life actually becomes downright likely (as does the possibility that everything happened exactly the same way somewhere else but one hydrogen atom was a few nanometres to the left, changing the course of things entirely). (Side note: try explaining this to a class of die-hard creationists. I think the only reason I ended up with an A in Philosophy and Ethics was that I was the only one who didn't flat out tell my professor that he was wrong on a minutely basis. It was infuriating to say the least.)

Also: in my mind the intelligent design argument is flawed at its very core - when you start looking in-depth at human biochemistry you start to realise just how screwed up our biology is. Every cell in our bodies is on the verge of death, the mechanisms for replicating our DNA are insanely faulty and constantly need correcting, our methods of nutrient intake are wildly inefficient. With greater understanding we move further and further away from the "perfect living being" ideal and into the realms of the "insane biological anomaly, randomly cobbled together and barely held in place by enzymatic duct tape".

But yes: Gambit. Hotness.

"Are there any real contenders other than Fight Club?"

Doh! How could I forget the best movie out there?

Intelligent Design = christian scientists' attempt to justify their "profession", despite the fact that it's all covered under the same umbrella. People...faith and science don't mix. Just give it up. You can the one without the other...you can even have both if you are really committed...but they cannot mix. You don't eat chocolate cake with ketchup on top...that's not to say you can't have both, but they don't mix. See? That's a relatable analogy there...that's classy, people.

"Maybe the world was created in seven days. But, like, maybe they were God's days you know and each one lasted, like, a really long time or something."

Oh, man, Alex...I got to get a hold of that tape now. That sounds fantastic to watch, a la MST3k...while stoned.

Alex T.O. - "...we move further and further away from the "perfect living being" ideal and into the realms of the "insane biological anomaly, randomly cobbled together and barely held in place by enzymatic duct tape"."

I just have to say, that was beautifully put! (heehee, enzymatic duct tape...) Now, if only I knew how to get in touch with the aforementioned creationist gal from my grad program....

Coming from a hispanic military brat living in the Bible Belt...take with a grain of salt. I've seen too much of the one without the other...and far too many cases of the Sunday worshipper (who only practices faith one day a week). I have lost the ability to realize people are capable of both...thank you for correcting me, twig. My apologies to any I may have inadvertently offended.

Aaarrrggghhh. The whole ID thing leaves me foaming at the mouth. Darwinism is a conspiracy?!?! All ID is is creationism wrapped in good PR. If you find yourself even a little bit tempted to believe the arguments, I suggest you head over to youtube and type "Ken Miller" into the search engine. He's the best PR guy we have on our side at the moment. (And I wish to god somebody would shut Dawkins up. He knows his stuff, but he's so tactless and given to hyperbole that nobody wants to listen to him.)

Hater, I think the issue is that neither of those alternatives is a scientific position, to the extent they purport to explain the origin of the universe. Because there's no evidence, a scientist cannot credibly state, "Based on the evidence, I conclude that the universe originated accidentally/was created by an old man with a long, white beard."

That's the fundamental problem with atheists vs. deists in the realm of science: It's philosophy, not science. A scientist can say nothing beyond, "I ran the test 10,000 times, and based on that evidence, I conclude that this genetic sequence occurs randomly." Then, "Based on the fossil record evidence, I conclude that was also true 10,000 years ago." Or 100,000 years ago. But the scientist can't say, "At the beginning of time, this is how it all kicked off."

And that's why these people are "persecuted" ("persecuted" apparently meaning "discredited and laughed at as incompetents"): They insist that their philosophical views must have some scientific validity in their professional world." It's like me going to court and telling the judge, "My client is right, Your Honor -- I know in my heart there's a Maker of Laws out in the ether who decreed it." That's fine for me to believe privately; it's absolutely not suitable for me to insist that someone else accept it as a valid measuring stick.

This isn't limited to ID folks, though. Richard Dawkins falls prey to this fallacy as well, to the extent he purports to "prove" there's no god with factual arguments. But 99% of the time, True Believers have a much harder time accepting that they can't convince me with 2+2=7, so they fall back on laws to compel me to accept it, or at least not openly scoff at it. Non-believers typically don't try to compel me to accept their position by merging it with the state.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I don't know why but every time I read this title I first read it as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Greyskull, which would be a cool movie as well

my question for the ID movie, is whether or not all ideologies are represented. i look to the day when my beliefs as a pastafarian will be as accepted as anyone else's.

one day, one sweet,sweet day the schools of this country will teach true tolerance. They will explain how the flying spaghetti monster and his noodly appendage created our world for his chosen people, the pirates and how all that sciency mumbo-jumbo about evolution was just placed here to fool us.

These arguments wouldn't be so much of a problem if people just respected others' right to their own opinion. Debate and discussion for the purpose of presenting another viewpoint is great and enlightening (that's what I love about this website, in fact)...but both sides are too extremist to believe they could be wrong. They don't respect others, and other's viewpoints, and try to convince everybody that their side is the right side, even if it means looking like jackasses. It's the same with any major viewpoint...it all comes down to not respecting someone else as much as you respect yourself.

Listen to someone's views, read up on various facts or opinions presented as facts, form your own viewpoint and reality, and share with others when the opportunity presents itself; keeping in mind that this is your point of view...not required for everyone. And not required for anyone associated with you....you are allowed to have acquaintances and friends who don't believe the same way you do.

Melody - definitely Dawkins. Hitchens is obnoxious as all hell too, but he isn't an evolutionary biologist, so he doesn't exactly have the same claims as spokesman for evolution. When he limits himself to evolution, Dawkins makes a hell of a lot of sense, but he's so condescending even I don't want to listen to him. (seriously, look up Ken Miller. ten times more charismatic and he knows how to pick specific examples that leave IDers sputtering over their inability to counter them.)

"... turned me into a bit of a compulsive liar as I have started to actually claim that I am half Irish now... I only do it when drunk though."

So you've fully embraced the culture?

To be honest I think I was always spiritually Irish, Shadows I just had to wait a few years for the Universe to recognise that fact and correct its mistake.

I married a half-Irish guy....

"...I just had to wait a few years for the Universe to recognise that fact and correct its mistake."

Hahaha...nice. So is that a case of forced evolution?

Alex T.O.:

It's true, I used to think of you as my younger Internet sister until I found out you're young enough to be my daughter and it wouldn't have been a teen pregnancy. So now as Socalled suggests I have officially adopted you. My real life nieces were quite upset when they found they'd been bumped several places down in the Will in order to accomodate you.

Shadows of D:

While your comments are more than reasonable, here's my problem: I will give an open ear to anyone who wants to debate an issue with me if he/she is genuinely debating on the same level and being honest about the ultimate agenda, but the ID people are not. They want us to do our usual liberal thing about "listening to everyone" and "it wouldn't hurt to have another theory in the curriculum", but the agenda goes much deeper than that. They want to obliterate the idea of separation of church and state and they ultimately want to impose a fundamentalist doctrine as the guiding philosophy of the state (US but also other countries). I grew up in a country that at the time (70s-80s) was completely driven by religious philosophy (in this case Catholic). I was 19 before condoms could be legally purchased in pharmacies. As recently as the 1990s, a 14 year old girl who was impregnated by her uncle was refused permission to leave the country to seek an abortion. It's much better now: people have begun to reject that control, but you can see why I have a great animosity toward those who want to impose a religious doctrine on a secular state. That is all.

Has anyone else noticed the pop-up ad for "The Upright Ape" book?
Can we have a game where Pajiba posts something controversial each morning and we count how many comments it takes to trigger an ad?

"If life is only chemical reactions which doesn't have any cause or meaning, there's no reason necessary reason to treat life differently than a combustion engine or a windmill."

Other than the meaning we assign it. To an engineer, that combustion engine is precious and worth preserving as much and as long as possible. To an eco-terrorist, that engine is the enemy and must be destroyed. It's all in the viewpoint we take, the meaning we give to what we are seeing. We preserve life because we feel compelled to, a basic human need to keep those things that are like us preserved. Serial killers, sociopaths, terrorists who behead their hostages....these people see others differently than you or I.

I don't feel there is a real debate...as nobody knows. That's the point...nobody knows. It could come to be in a million years, we discover that quantum energy created everything...we could come to find out there is a triumvirate of omniscient beings...but we still don't know. It's the position of two children fighting over who thinks they know where the park is...if neither of them have even been there, how can they know what they are arguing about? My personal philosophy is to leave be...we can't prove anything for certain, so accept that there may be things you don't understand, and believe what you want to based on what you do and don't know.

With greater understanding we move further and further away from the "perfect living being" ideal and into the realms of the "insane biological anomaly, randomly cobbled together and barely held in place by enzymatic duct tape".

Dammit Alex, you should know how hot it is when you go all scientific and logical. It is just as bad as when you get all geeky. I can't be thinking these sorts of things in public! it is so...unseemly!

The thing with the ID vs. evolution debate that is really annyoing is one simple fact that the demogogues on both sides ignore: evolution IS NOT A RELIGION. It is not a philosophy, or a mantra, or anything like that. It is a natural phenomenon, like gravity. It isn't even a creation theory in and of itself. The vaunted "theory of evolution" was simply the attempt to codify these early observations of nature on the genetic level. Darwin wasn't even the first to come up with his ideas, just the one to put the divergent strains together into one cohesive unit. Evolution, in and of itself, was never meant to be a replacement for faith systems. Specifically, it, just like many scientific discoveries, doesn't conflict with the Bible, except in the case of a deeply flawed interpretation of the text. For anyone to act like it is somehow an alternative to religion is a moron, and both sides are guilty of it.

Now if you will excuse me, my primitive male mind must be cleased of this image of a geeky Brit wrapped in only a periodic table. Those gases don't seem so noble now....

GAMBIT!!!!!!!!

Sorry about that. I'll go finish reading the comments now.

"I don't feel there is a real debate...as nobody knows. That's the point...nobody knows. It could come to be in a million years, we discover that quantum energy created everything...we could come to find out there is a triumvirate of omniscient beings...but we still don't know."

Which is precisely why I'm an agnostic - I just don't know and I don't think anyone else does either. I'm also of the mindset that it's not all that important to spend our lives finding it out...I'd rather enjoy the ride.

I really do need to inform myself more fully of the ID versus Evolution argument. I've always just been content to dismiss ID as silliness without actually forming my own argument.

Also, Paddydog and Alex are turning me on with their brains.

Ack, late to the party. Stupid time zone.

I am surprised, really, that nobody has yet mentioned the glory of die-hard isolationism that is CONSERVAPEDIA. Its first edits are the best, because they are the most pure and concrete example I can offer of the logical fallacies behind creationism. cf. the article on how kangaroos got from the Caucasus to Australia without leaving any joeys behind.

ID on its own, though, is not science; it's just a cheap re-hash of Aquinas's fifth proof of the existence of a divine power. Frankly, Aquinas said it better.

And now, I turn from Aquinas to say: Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman together at last, plus James Franco's allegedly bare ass in "Milk"? This is going to be a good summer for the beefcake.

Socalled: it's 3 drinks: one for the shortened name, one for putting it in bold and one for invoking her before her appearance.

I actually tried adding up the alcohol intake for one teeny tiny and innocuous comment thread once, I lost track after my third bottle of Bushmills. I hate to think of the consequences of anyone actually playing with the full set of rules.

On the other hand....after the eighth commenter and 20th drink...the comment thread diverts delightfully...

Then again, many posters here don't seem to need alcohol to divert the thread (I'm looking at you, TK!)

Cynthia Nixon also played someone with MPD on Nip/Tuck and was actually surprisingly good. Hmmm I see a pattern emerging...

I'm pretty sure you can invent your own rules at this point socalled, I may have so refine the game the next time I get some serious downtime at work. It may be in need of an update.

Yay, Pastafarians! Thanks for the shout-out, Maggie. I too have been touched by the noodly appendage.
I propose that anyone who blathers about ID should be countered by the scientific evidence of the Spaghetti Monster. Every time.

On another note, yet ANOTHER movie about "an unplanned pregnancy that turns a married couple's life upside-down". Ugh. Let me guess; parents-to-be freak out, the husband acts like an ass, there are at least two wacky relatives/friends, hilarity ensues, everything is perfect when the baby is born, 'cause it's JUST SO AMAZING.
I dare Hollywood to make a movie called "RU-486: Second Chances".

"I dare Hollywood to make a movie called "RU-486: Second Chances"."

I triple dog dare them.

Well if you're gonna triple dog dare them then how can they possibly resist kolbs?

Would some states allow certain movie theatres to refuse to show it? Would there be confusion over whether it was the same as another movie that although similar was in no way as extreme? Would there be a general lack of education as to who was allowed to view the movie and for what purpose?

I'm taking this metaphor way too far aren't I? Right, off to finance with me and no more posting (for a lil bit)

vermillion brings some sense to the table. it shouldn't be viewed as ID vs. evolution. most pajibians mock the concept of an " old man with a long white beard " being responsible for this vale of tears we inhabit. on the other hand, why is it somehow more believeable to wander through a zoo and contemplate the gorilla sucking on a banana as the source for what we have become ? and why are the concepts incompatible?the bottom line is simply that no one knows and these rants are a waste of energy.
three faces of eve the #1 split personality flick with norman bates close behind ...

Alex - who's to say they wouldn't greenlight it under the impression that it's a film about the down-on-their luck crew of a WWII submarine and their plucky, forgiving captain? I mean, come on, RU-486? Sounds like a boat to me.

Alex the Odd & Pinkcheese, I will fight you both for Gambit. Hardcore, with a deck of cards and bow staff and everything. I seriously love me some Gambit.

PBS did an incredible program on the ID on Trial:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/

My dad is a Science teacher / fanatic and he practically begged me to watch it with him, which he didn't need to do, but he thought it was so cool he had to pass it on. It might be handy for the teachers out there. THEORY in science is not the same word as THEORY in common speech, which was something the ID people Could. Not. Get. Plus the doc goes into some scary Christian Right Wing take over the world stuff that prompted the ID debate!

Socalled:

Since you bring Spock into it, he would of course rigidly observe the Prime Directive which would only permit harm against a living organism if other life were in extreme danger.

Kris:

I have to comment that I have really enjoyed this debate this morning which has come back to a real Pajiba-balance of snark, intelligent discourse and lusting after actors. Can you point to any poster on either side of the debate who reduced the argument to that of a 4-year old?

Ben Stein!? What are you doing? You're smart, interesting and a cool guy all around. Why are you hosting this crap?

Paddydog: I'm not talking about Pajiba, I'm talking about overall. Present company is always excepted. It's just always been one of my pet peeves when it pops up in the media; it's a pissing match, a political tool, and a ginormous waste of time and energy. If we could each create our own pocket universes to spec, that would be a different story.

V - I will be waiting for your "Top Ten Reasons Why Agnoticism May or May Not Be Totally Awesome: List Subject to Change According to Evidence" with great anticipation.

Also, under normal circumstances, your obsession with ATO would disturb me, but, for some reason, I find it adorable.

Aw man. Can everyone please forgive me for NOT being excited about a live action Gambit?

I live in Louisiana, and I can not tell you how much a bad cajun accent in a movie makes me want to KILL.

Vermillion - Alex will problem have answered this before I finish typing but anyway...technically we share a common ancestor with apes, and our closest relatives and chimpanzees and bonobos (go read up about bonobos! they are crazy sex fiends!). Fun fact: all the great apes have 24 pairs of chromosomes, humans have 23. This is weird. If we share a common ancestor we should have the same number of chromosomes. You cannot just lose one, there's too much information there. You would not be viable. So, something like 50 years ago, scientists proposed that the only possible explanation is that at some point in our lineage, two chromosomes fused together. Only possible way we could be closely related to apes. And then we managed to sequence both the human and chimp genomes, and somebody said, "hey - let's look for this." It's pretty easy to test, actually. All chromosomes have special sequences on the end called telomeres and another special sequence in the middle called a centromere. If we really share an ancestor with apes, then we would have a chromosome with a telomeric region in the center and two centromeres, one of which would probably be silenced. And we do. It's chromosome number 2, and it corresponds to chimpanzee chromosomes 12 and 13 (which we have since renamed 2a and 2b, because we are disfunctional and always have to make everything about us).

s.pisaster, you do my job for me so well that I don't have to - and I thank you for that! Beautiful explanation there, man (lady? I'm clueless as to your gender I'm afraid) I remember learning about that in genetics and genomics. My professor kept throwing up problems and then producing their solutions. The amount of glee in his voice you honestly expected him to say "and for my next trick..." and then whip the next answer from a conveniently placed top hat.

I was going to take a slightly different tact (one that wouldn't require me to fact check) and say something along the lines of:

When people think of us being "descended from apes" they tend to think of us being directly descended from the modern apes we see today, chimps, gorillas etc (although anyone who knew the ex Mr TheOdd would probably agree with the "yes we evolved directly from chimps" argument) and that eventually, given time they'd evolve into people - that's a misconception. We evolved along the same path and from the same ancestor but at one point in our history we split off and took different paths of evolution. It's true for all primates (damn, I really wish I had a whiteboard for this - it's so much easier with diagrams), think about it like this:

Evolution works kind of like a tree you take a single point and then split it into two, then those "branches" split off again, and then those smaller branches split off, they split again etc. Each individual split represents a genetic diversion when a population splits into two and the two groups begin to evolve differently. The split between Homo Sapiens and, for example, gorillas happened much more recently than the split between our common branch and, say, lemurs - meaning we're much more closely related to each other than either of us is to the majestic lemur.*

Wow, I just made that needlessly complicated. Basically: Saying people are descended from chimpanzees is like saying that mice are descended from rats - you're going in the right direction but the details need work.

* I'm going to start digressing off into Parsimony which, while very funky, is not entirely relevant. Hence the stopping.

Re: Ben Stein--this intelligent design thing doesn't even faze me. Didn't anyone see that him co-hosting that horrible VH1 reality show...I can't remember the name, but it had to do something with the world's smartest supermodel. Talk about a total downward slide. He was beyond annoying and it made me sad, because I really used to like his game show.

And for some reason, all these stories in the comments about him kind of make sense. He just seems like he'd be a bit whackjob-ish in the head.

Alex - ah, good point on the tree thing. I'm a (female) research-scientist-in-training and I sometimes forget (or just have no idea at all) what's actually common knowledge. You'd think I'd realize that most people are confused when they start talking about monkeys giving birth to people and shit. I do know is there's a helluva a lot of cool new developments going on in terms of evolution that we (the researchers) aren't doing a very good job of getting out to the public.

causaubon, the song in the Pineapple Express trailer is "Paper Planes" by M.I.A., from her second album, Kala. Her music is amazing in general.

This preview cracked me up. It was the foot through the windshield that did it.

I couldn't even make it through the Ben Stein . . . trailer, I guess, though aren't trailers supposed to be 2 minutes, tops? That was like a movie info-mercial. And there're only so many times I can hear myself referred to as "mud animated by lightening" before it stops being amusing.

I got a solution for this whole debate. Why don't we put this whole pointless discussion on the back burner until we find a cure a big name disease say...breast cancer or something. This whole argument between religion, quasi-religion/science, and pure science is silly and infantile.

Aw, Alex The Odd (although you're not really that odd by this site's standards):

Just when you have Vermillion at the point of swimming the Atlantic just to worship at your feet, you throw out the notion that you might be related to him (in an evolutionary sense of course). Don't do it to the poor boy. Let him dream. Remember what happened to Luke Skywalker when he found out he was Leia's brother?

I have stayed off the Pajiba boards for a while due to the inexplicable dry humping love for Ryan Reynolds. I can't stay mute any longer:

The man is the blandest. His favorite color is beige and his favorite flavor is plain.

Adaptation is clearly the best split-personality movie. It so counts!

I have no idea who Gambit is. But Tim Riggins on the big screen?! I'm SO THERE.

megbon: I think most biologists - and lay people, for that matter - consider evolution to be a fact. The thing folks seem to be unsure of or unable to agree upon are the hows behind it - and there are many theories to explain that.

He's also vanilla ice cream and the sweet dab of butter on my toast. Nothing wrong with beige. (I was going to put muffin instead of toast, but then I remembered where I was).

Good god, why would anyone let Ben Stein narrate anything? That brain-numbing monotone voice turned me right off, way before the content did. Cannot. Stand. Him. And it makes the "Bullshit? Bullshit?" jokes waaaay to easy.

And I usually hate James Franco, wooden as he is, but the Pineapple Express might bump him up an iota. It looks quite good.

Here you go, maggie.

http:// www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/textbookdisclaimers/

Megbon - because the scientific community doesn't define theory and law in the way the textbooks tell you it does (that's right! textbooks lie!) We pretty much don't ever use law anymore unless we're talking about a mathematical equation. Theory = explanation supported by substantial evidence with no evidence that refutes it. Hypothesis (what a lot of people really mean when they say theory) = guess at explanation for observed phenomena that hasn't been supported by evidence (we never say "proven," stuff can be disproven, but never definitively proven).

Joker - oh man...I don't even know where to start...how's this: something most people don't realize - Much of the evidence for evolution is genetic these days. Genes encode proteins, and a lot of the same proteins are largely used for the same processes in nearly all organisms. Your cells break up glucose and convert it to energy in the same way dog cell and worm cells and even plant and fungi cells do (and that's just one example). There's a protein that's named ubiquitin because it is literally ubiquitous across all eukaryotes (that'd organisms whose cells have nuclei i.e. not bacteria). And since we can sequence genomes now, we can compare the genes for these common proteins and see where there are differences, and we can use those to draw up genetic histories. If you have three related organisms A B and C, and organisms A and B have a mutation in a gene that organism C doesn't have, then it's likely that that mutation originates in a common ancestor of A and B (but not C, which would have split off before the mutation occurred). Same with fusion and splitting of chromosomes - you trace where specific evolutionary changes took place by looking at which organisms have a mutation and which don't.

Late to the party, as usual.

socalled: The first time I read through this comment thread in a rare respite from the Little Pink insanity yours (wondering what I had to say) was the very last one. Funny junk.

Frivolity first:

"And those of us who know and love Blade: Trinity only for the presence of Reynolds also know that dude can do the wisecracking action hero."

[Raises hand and waves it about proudly.]

Also, to the "He's vanilla ice cream." comment: This girlie would love to be his bowl full of cherries. Together we could make some tasty cherry vanilla.

What's with the Gambit love? Honestly, I don't get it. Does it come from the cartoon? If I recall Gambit was heavily featured in the cartoon, but I always found him mild to moderately annoying. Of course, the cartoon came at the beginning of my slow disengagement with heavy comics reading. Nightcrawler was always my favorite, and he was criminally underused in "X2". And completely ignored in that miscarriage of a film that followed it.

Speaking of MPD, anyone else here read "The Bird's Nest" by Shirley Jackson? I love that woman.

Onto the serious stuff:

In conversations like these, I always feel like I'm in a scene out of "Invasion of a Body Snatchers" and at some point everyone is going to turn, point, and howl menacingly from their wide open maws at me for being different.

Yeah, I'm a Christian. Yeah, I believe in God. Yeah, I believe in God as the Creator.

Do I know how he did it? Fuck no. Do I care? Not really.

I am less concerned in my own spiritual life with the How than I am with the Why. I'm not looking for the man behind the curtain, but rather searching for my purpose, my part in the world, and how God wants me to fulfill his command of "Love your neighbor".

This world, this universe, with all its complexities just amazes the shit out of me. Seems the more we uncover, the more find we still do not know. That's spectacularly marvelous. Human understanding and knowledge is a crazy expedition through wild terrain. Sometimes we find a path which takes us right back to where we began; sometimes we reach the top of a precipice only to discover there are even larger mountains to scale. Sometimes we discover a beautiful, rich valley.

Look back at what was accepted as scientific fact throughout the centuries. Some has withstood the progress of time, and some is laughed off as quaint antiquities. It's exciting and humbling to think of where the progress of our knowledge will be in fifty or a hundred years and yet how much more of the surface we will have yet to scratch.

So for me,as a Christian, to dig in my heels and refuse to accept any information science has to offer would be a refusal to acknowledge the mysteries of the universe and the capacity and curiosity of my own God-given brain.

Here's my take on the whole ID crew and their campaign. There is a school of thought within the Christian faith that sees the Bible as absolute truth and every single word in it as coming directly from God. Those people who adhere to this philosophy (my departed Grandmom one of them) need to believe in the absolute veracity of the Bible in order to accept the teachings of Christ. Sorry folks, but that's just the flavor cream some people like in their coffee.

Well, these fundamentalists have kids, raise these kids in the same manner of faith, these kids then go off to public school, and come back home with a truckload of information that does not compute with the Genesis story of creation. The fundamentalist parent is then stuck in a corner where he has to rectify his chosen religious dogma with what his child is being taught as accepted as proven fact. This puts the fundamentalist in a position he is not comfortable with. This pisses the fundamentalist off. Because there is nothing more than a fundamentalist hates is to be asked to think beyond the maxim, "God did it, the Bible said it, and I believe it."

Rather than have to think beyond their little fundamentalist box and try and explain to their children that it's okay to have faith in God and believe in a science that is not included within the verses of the Old Testament, they start up this frivolous campaign that has done nothing more than deteriorate the credibility of the Christian faith and portraying Christians as combative and intolerant.

It's a shame that Christianity is being defined by people such as this because really there is so much more to the faith than this kind of divisive bullshit.

And this was reeeally way to long of a post and did someone say I had to Drink for socalled's comment? If so, I am going to prepare a beverage that, while illiciting horror from some of my fellow Pajibites, was dubbed a Skinny White Bitch by a very wise Pajibite. And do some cleaning.

AlabamaPink: It's not just Christians. I have a friend who teaches science at a Yeshiva and every term a little hand is raised to ask "but Mrs. Gold, how can that rock have layers that are millions of years old when the world was only created 5,000 years ago?" She walks a very narrow line because the curriculum mandates science but the parents and some of the school admin don't. It's worse that she's at a girl's school because most them are being raised to be good wives and therefore not considered in need of a lot of science learning.

I haven't read all the comments, but I feel a little lonely. I know I'm in the minority here, but I still love Pajiba.

One last comment on the philosophy stuff and then I'm done.

I think it's interesting that the extreme ends of the discussion -- the scary "Christian right" and the scary "militant atheists" -- are both worried that the other side is going to take over the world, and that fear is completely unjustified either way.

Let me suggest something: if God is really God, then the "Christian right" doesn't have to worry about the atheists -- they have to worry about being obedient to the commands of God who cannot lose because (if the Bible is as right in Revelation as it is in Genesis) God has stacked the deck so he wins. He's going to cast his enemies into a great pit of fire, and he's not going to need anyone's help. Tell me about your Jesus, and why he died on a cross, but if you believe it, do me a favor and act like you have a Lord and Savior and not a damsel in distress for a King.

If there is no god, the the "militant atheists" don't have anything to worry about except whether or not they are doing the things which please themselves. Whatever it is they believe about right and wrong is good enough for them, and they ought to admit that if the religious kooks get their jolly by imagining that people who are dead are in hell, who's that hurting? All morals are based on personal preferences, and if someone likes being a moper and a kill-joy, that's their trip. If Jesus is imaginary and hell is a boogie-man story, stop fearing that either one of them is worse than believing, well, the things Neitzsche or Satre believed.

Thanks. Back to the sarcasm.

oh man...watch us highjack the thread for philosophical discussion. To clarify: by hardwired I don't mean "designed," I mean that the...capacity I guess, for lack of a better term, for empathy is part of our genetic makeup. A normal human brain has the proper architecture so to speak (and again, I'm not using that term to imply design, just structure). As far as good goes, I would simply define it as not causing harm/pain or alternatively helping others. i.e. murder=bad, premarital sex = no problem. I realize that's a very broad definition, but given the whole empathy aspect, it's really the only possible one. I'm not claiming it's perfect as a source of morality either. The capacity for empathy varies from person to person, which is one of the reasons the atheist camp is so divided - "good" from this perspective is a very individual thing. Generally I would say the greater good = good of the species and especially good of the social group. If you look at it from the perspective of a small tribe, rather than the whole of humanity it makes a little more sense. If you have to work with others for food, protection, etc. just to survive and pass on your genes, then being able to sense - and caring - what they feel is a very useful thing. Applying that to a whole world of people is challenging however, and in all honesty I can't say that atheist morality would work for everyone - but it's certainly possible.

megbon--

i'm new to the south (i grew up in massachusetts, pennsylvania, and chicago), but teaching evolution is a big deal for the school boards. teachers themselves try to stay out of the controversy that the school board keeps riling up.

speaking of inherit the wind, my history class was supposed to read it, but we were told we couldn't by the principal. that's education in america right now.

::EYE ROLL:: *rolling to the back of my head as I slam my cranium against a desk (and it's not one of them IKEA fake pieces of shit)*

The very fact that some bottomfeeding, drooling, Walmarter, bible inserting jackass has the power to generate a debate as to whether evolution is "real" just means that WE ARE FUUUUUUUCKED UP. People, we should just give up now. We deserve to be wiped-off the face the earth and leave everything to the Chinese.

Fuck us, we suck.

skipping the id debate, I'll just put in my vote for the 1931 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as my favorite split personality film...

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Meh".

Man, this looks terrible. A large portion of the audience I saw it with gasped, and not in a good way.

I wonder if AARP Discount Ticket Tuesdays will be crowded for this one.

Ok, I'm going to put this out there. I believe in intelligent design (AAAAHH!!! PLEASE DON'T HIT ME!!), but I REALLY don't think it has any place in the classroom. I mean, aren't we supposed to be teaching kids the hard, scientific facts? Not beliefs? Isn't that what church is for? Seriously, Intelligent Design and Creationism have NO place, whatsoever in tax-funded, public schools. Separation of Church and State anyone?

I'm Canadian, so I've got no clue whatsoever how the American school/legal system works, but there's that whole shit-storm with Creation being taught in science class. If that's un-constitutional, shouldn't your Supreme Court be doing something about that, like right now? Or is that just the most naïve question ever asked on this site?

I am circumventing the debate on religion vs science entirely and will just answer Dustin's mini diversion.

'Psycho' instantly came to mind, and as I was scrolling down I was waiting to see who would be the first to mention it. Go Todd!

'Primal Fear' also springs to mind. Ed Norton is simply STUNNING in it. May I also mention that here he is the hottest psychopath I have ever seen on screen.

Bit harsh Ganesh, don't you think? I'm pretty sure the debate going on here is very civil and nobody's insulting anyone for their beliefs.

As one of the fanatical liberals you talk about I'd like to point at 'bama's post and tell her that she just effortlessly summed up the reason I adore her as much as I do. There's nothing that warms my soul so much as tolerance and acceptance from someone who holds a very definite opinion (and can defend it as articulately as she does). I certainly don't think she's a " a stupid, inbred, bottomfeeding, delusional, dogmatic, simplistic, wackjob". Actually I think she's rather cool.

KatyBelle: I'm certainly not going to hit you but you're talking about the Cause and Effect hypothesis rather than ID (I know, I'm nitpicking) which is something else entirely. In my personal opinion that something else is entirely more rational than the concept of ID and is, in my agnostic-to-atheist-depending-on-my-mood soul much more likely than the alternatives ("the universe was created by something" wise) - although I'm still going for the "random act of chance" explanation.

OK, that's enough hungover philosophy from me. Off to work.

The obvious choice is Sybil, if for nothing else than Sally Field climbing a bookshelf to get away from the bad cats in her imagination. However, I'm invalidating the choice since I don't put made-for-TV in the same category as theatrical releases.

So, the questionable choice would be Cat People - not necessarily a clinical case of split personality, but I'd say the personality is pretty well split when you switch between a woman and a panther.

The safer choice is The Three Faces of Eve, which does feature an excellent Joanne Woodward performance if nothing else.

And there is no battle for the worst: Identity is awful with no redeeming qualities. At least I Know Who Killed me has a good opening reel and interesting twist, even if everything else is awful.

Re "Intelligent Design"--it's _not_ just a Southern thang. I live at the Left Coast, and my nephew is in the gifted children program at his elementary school. But his biology book does not have the E-word (namely evolution); instead it refers to "natural selection". The teacher never says the E-word in class, either. The last time someone said it, the school got bunch of "Christian" parents come in and threaten to sue for violation of their "religious freedom" (funny how their children's Christianity is so easily threatened).

My take on it is--if you happen to believe every word written and edited by multiple anonymous people over hundreds of years is the word of god, I'm okay with that. Just teach that in your own home school. Keep your mitts off the public school system. My nephew (who wants to be a geologist) needs a good education, and you're blocking it.

Alex the Odd I'd never heard of the Cause and Effect Hypothesis, but I like it!! Now people won't look at me like I'm some mouth-breathing bible-thumper!

For the record though, I am Protestant, but I really think that God has better things to do than meticulously create each little individual, slightly different species. Like 200 different kinds of gnats.

Yep KatyBelle, most of the Christians I know take your particular view point. The cause and effect hypothesis basically says that it was God that just gave everything the little nudge it needed to get started and then just sat back and watched the fireworks.

Or something.

I'm totally late to the party, as usual, but I just have to say this is hands-down, the best comment thread ever! Even after having to switch over to wikipedia three times.

I can't believe I never knew about the awesomeness that is the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Invisible Pink Unicorn.