Movielog, Following

Following, 1998
Written and directed by Christopher Nolan
70 minutes

I follow people, the young clean-cut man says.

You mean like women? asks an older, more grizzled questioner.

Like anybody. It was supposed to be totally random...

And here I will tread lightly, because this is effectively the opening shots of Christopher Nolan's Following, a decade old now but retaining all of the power it must have had when it was first shot, and showing all the promise that one would expect from the man who would end up directing Batman Begins, the American remake of Insomnia, and Memento, and to say much more is to ruin the myriad pleasures of the film.

Suffice to say that the young man (never named in the film), a writer doing a kind of ill-defined research into people's lives, starts following people to see where they go. A bit here, a bit there, and where's the harm -- who hasn't sat in a restaurant, bar, or coffeeshop and "people-watched"? But the young man begins to break his own rules, following the same people for several days, following them to their homes, to work, and then one of his followees turns around and... sits down for a chat and a cup of coffee.

The man's name is Cobb, and he's a burgular. He breaks into people's houses, and he sees something in the young man's voyeurism that he decides to use to their mutual advantage...

More about the plot I can't say, for although I've ended the synopsis some seven or eight minutes into the film, to say more is to begin to ruin the many wonderful things in the movie. For what starts out as a sort of oddball character study quickly begins to feel more like tightly-paced neo-noir, as the simple pleasures of following people lead down ever-darker paths that end in.... Well, that'd ruin the fun, wouldn't it?

The cast is superb, especially Alex Haw as Cobb, who I am astonished to learn from his IMDB page has never acted in any other films. He's got a sort of affable manner about him, for a burgular, intelligent and witty, incisive and filled with self-knowledge -- he's the kind of robber you'd almost like to have visit your home. Almost, I said.

Nolan chooses black-and-white for the film, probably at least partially because of the reduced cost of photography and lab developing fees, but it's the right choice for this sort of story. What is it about black-and-white film that brings to life the sorts of moral grays of this type of story more than a color palette would? And the photography makes many of the actual items stolen blurry, less-focused, than the faces of Cobb and the young man as they do the stealing. You get the feeling that what, exactly, is being stolen is almost beside the point, but... and again, I'm going a bit too far.

This is a really amazing film, and at a spare seventy minutes it accomplishes more than many films with twice the running-time. There's not an ounce of fat on this baby, and at the end we in the audience are left wondering, watching, waiting.... There are a few details of the film's progression that struck me as just slightly convenient for the plot (for instance, how could one of the characters know that a hammer was going to be left where it was?), but overall this is among the first-rank of low-budget films, on par with Pi and Clerks and Reservoir Dogs.

More on Taxes

Completely randomly, a certain mad biologist has a post with a couple of quotes about taxation here. I'm not going to comment at the moment, but it's an interesting couple of ideas.

Taxation in Ireland, or Arguing Supply-Side Economics

I'm about to do something which I absolutely never do, which is to speak absolutely authoritatively about something I know virtually nothing about. Namely, in this instance, economics, specifically, tax policy.

Last night, I was chatting with a libertarian friend of mine who was trying to defend supply-side economics, specifically referencing "Ireland, which instituted a flat tax and a 0% corporate tax rate, and their economy boomed." I told him I needed a reference for that, and he said he'd get me one. If and when I get it, I'll be happy to link it here and discuss it, but for now let me just comment on the general thesis.

I won't comment on the current state of the Irish economy, as I couldn't begin to do an independent analysis of the econometrics of said country, but I can google as well as anyone, and while Wikipedia has its flaws (and should obviously be taken as only a first-approximation kind of reference), reading the pages for Taxation in the Republic of Ireland and Corporate Taxes in the Republic or Ireland give some interesting details.

From the first:

The system of taxation in the Republic of Ireland is broadly similar to the system of taxation in the United Kingdom. On an individual basis most people are taxed through the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system, based on their ability to pay - the system is quite progressive with little or no tax on low earners and a high rate applied to top earners. For businesses, tax rates are among the lowest in the world with many firms enjoying corporation tax rates of between 10% and 12.5%. A large amount of central government tax revenue is derived from value added tax (VAT), excise duties and other taxes on consumption. The Irish tax system is primarily in place to pay for current expenditure programs, such universal free education (including third level), free healthcare, old age pensions and unemployment benefit, and public capital expenditure, such as the National Development Plan.

That's the very first paragraph of the Wikipedia page. The individual incomes taxes are highly progressive, even more so than the US, and pay not only for full education through college but for a universal health care package. Ireland also has a value-added tax in the place of a sales tax, from which a large percentage of their government revenue derives.

What Ireland does have is a relatively low (although not nonexistent) corporate tax rate. But:

Other significant contributors to the national budget in 2004 were corporation tax and excise duties, which contributed roughly €5bn each. This is somewhat surprising as Ireland has the third lowest rate of corporation tax in the world; with a top rate of just 12.5%. Many multinationals are engaged in tax optimisation utilising Ireland's favourable tax rate by reporting the bulk of their profits in Ireland or using transfer pricing to artificially lower profits in high tax countries and report the profits in Ireland.

In short, revenues remain high despite low tax rates for corporations because out-of-country corporations essentially set up mail drops in Ireland and consider large profits (which may or may not ever actually reach the shores of Ireland) to be "generated" from that country for taxation purposes. It's a paper scam, essentially unfairly taking taxation revenue from other countries and artificially giving it to Ireland. If other surrounding countries tried to reap the benefits of a lower corporate tax rate, Ireland's revenues would drop as "their" paper profits went to other low-tax countries.

I fail to see how this is a victory for supply-side economics. If the US attempted a similar move, it would be highly unlikely to have anywhere near the same effect, as the US is already home to many corporations that claim profit here. In any case, such paper-shuffling really only enriches the corporation doing the shuffling, as transferring the cash back to the home office is usually possible.

As an aside, I wonder if that might be a way to get universal health care in the US, by more closely emulating the Irish model. Large corporations have a much lower effective tax rate in the US due to lobbyist-acquired exemptions and armies of accountants taking advantage of them -- if we removed the exemptions but lowered the official corporate tax rate to the unofficial one, but tied it legislatively to universal health care (not health insurance!), it might be possible to maintain a somewhat revenue-neutral tax revision while making a large stride towards greater equality in opportunities for poor Americans. Something to consider, anyway...

A Brief History of Email

I've got something more substantial planned for later, but I just ran across this old livejournal entry about the (then-new) Google Talk function, that also has a nice bit about the history of email, and draws some interesting parallels between the two.

I can't say to what degree Google has listened to the comments made there, ie whether or not they've moved to a more open standard, but I agree that the proliferation of IM protocols is a Bad Thing, and that the whole process needs to be greatly simplified.

Reflections on a T-shirt

I'm wearing an Old Navy American flag shirt today. Which oddly enough makes me feel strangely like I'm abandoning some set of principles, despite, well, being about as patriotic an American as they come.

Here's why: I'm a liberal patriotic American. And wearing the American flag shirt (especially in Alabama) pretty much identifies me as a fundamentalist Christian pro-gun conservative Republican these days, or at best the kind of milquetoast "support the troops" kind of liberal that wears the flag mostly out of a kind of wishy-washy thoughtlessness.

Okay, first of all: I didn't buy the shirt. My mother was cleaning out some old stuff of the family's that nobody wanted anymore -- almost entirely old T-shirts -- and mailed me a couple of care packages with old T-shirts. I have several from New Orleans that must be a decade old, a T-shirt for a radio station I've never heard of, et cetera. This Old Navy American flag shirt was just one of the batch.

And, being a practical sort who does laundry when he absolutely has to, I wear it. But it rankles. Because for a long time around this neck of the woods, anyone who used the word "patriotism" or "power of pride" or anything like that was a dyed-in-the-wool conservative wingnut, and for me the colors red, white, and blue might as well be the color scheme of the GOP.

I can see the response of conservatives reading this now: that my dislike of the flag stems from my own partisan divide, and that if I can't be like a real American and support the colors, then clearly I'm being an America-hating liberal. In short, disliking the flag and not really wanting to wear it is just showing how anti-American I really am.

That said, it's not my fault (or, for that matter, my ideological brethern's fault) that the flag seems to mean "conservative" these days. It was the work of the GOP right after 9/11, sticking those damned lapel pins and bumper stickers all over the place, all of them implicitly placing God and America over on the other side of the aisle, using the threat of "lack of patriotism" to silence dissent from anyone who thought that maybe, just maybe, attacking Iraq was not the proper course of action after the attacks in NYC and Washington D.C. Or, for that matter, that maybe the best way to combat the kinds of fanatics who would blow up buildings and kill thousands of people was to attempt to understand them, rather than to fall into a blind rage and chant the rhetorical equivalent of kill kill kill at the top of our collective lungs....

I love my country. I love the freedoms I am afforded, I love the history, the ideals, the hope that my country has offered to the world throughout its existence. But that doesn't mean turning a blind eye to the tortures, to the blood and sweat and toil that it has engendered around the world, past and present. It doesn't mean ingoring the history of slavery and the genocide of the American aboriginal peoples; it doesn't mean ignoring the present-day abuses of power and the depravity of debating whether or not waterboarding is really torture. And it sure as fuck doesn't mean turning a blind eye to the lessons that the nations of Europe and Asia might be able to teach us with regards to economic growth and, well, the basic ability to just fucking live together....

The symbol I'm wearing however reluctantly today is supposed to be a symbol of all of us, all of us who hold to the ideals of freedom and democracy, all of us who call ourselves Americans. That it now seems to mean something else, something more partisan and restrictive, is among the shameful things (although certainly by no means the worst) that can be laid at the feet of the current batch of conservatives. Using our national heritage as a political tool only cheapens that heritage -- we are all Americans, liberal and conservative, religious and nonreligious, urban and rural, hawkish or pacifistic.

So I'll keep wearing this shirt. But it doesn't mean what a lot of the people who may see me wearing it think it means. Because I believe in the real America, not the one that so many people have tried to shove down the world's throat the last six or seven years...

Filmlog, Ginger

Ginger, 1971, 100 minutes

I've recently reacquired a Netflix subscription, and I've been using it for two things: 1.) to check out classic and new classic films that I haven't seen for whatever reason and 2.) to expose myself to some genres and some older films that I haven't exposed myself to before.

And boy, Ginger is definitely not of the first type.

In a nutshell, this is a titty flick from 1971. The titular (pun intended) character is, according to the blurb, a "James Bond type" who uses her looks and sexual appetite to tackle evildoers. In practice, that means that this blonde bombshell goes around and sleeps with (or at least exposes herself to) everyone in sight in order to accomplish her goals.

The minuses to a film like this are obvious. The acting is moderately bad at best and absolutely horrendous at worst. The lead heavy Rex Halsey (played by Duane Tucker, vaguely familiar to me from Fast Times at Ridgemont High) has a habit of standing against a wall to be shot solo at all times, making some strange editing and directorial choices as the spacial relationships between characters changes moment-to-moment. Either the director was totally incompetent, or most of his scenes were shot separately and edited in later (guess which way I'm leaning?), because it's just incoherent at times.

But who's coming to this party for the acting? How are the tits?

Well, they're seventies tits. Which means heavy tanlines, droopage, and otherwise "natural" physiques that you never see in movies nowadays. Not a drop of silicone in sight, and if that's your thing, this is quite a movie, because every female character comes up completely nude (or nearly so) at some point during the film. (For that matter, lovers of cock will also be satiated, as most of the male characters also drop trou, at least for a side view or a nice ass shot.) The sex scenes are shot with a minimalist style, meaning someone basically sat the camera down while a guy climbed on top of a girl and rubbed around for a bit.

The positives? Well, aside from the nearly constant nudity, there's a recurring theme of bondage, first of a redhead getting tied up with her bathing suit on a beach (prickly sand on the tits, ouch!), then of a male character in a torture scene (more on this later), and finally of our heroine, hogtied and left in a hotel room towards the end. It's interesting to see such activity in something resembling a "mainstream" (okay, not really) film.

Back to that torture scene. Ginger ties a guy up and threatens to cut his balls off with piano wire; in doing so, she delivers a fairly decent monologue about the treatment of Japanese POWs in WWII. It seemed almost Tarantinoesque, and I'm guessing that it's in those types of scenes in grindhouse flicks like this that Tarantino got the inspiration for his style.

Overall, a dud, but an interesting one if you like old-school skin flicks.

Next in my Netflix queue (not necessarily to be movielogged), Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Following, and Baby Face.

Jesus, it's been a long time

...since I've posted here. I plan on reinvigorating this arena soon, with a new title and template.

I had a blog over at Counter Monkey for awhile, and I'll probably move one or two posts over here, but it looks like this will be my new (old) blog home.

Lots has happened in the last year and a half, but we'll get to all that... later.

Scienceblogs SAT Challenge

My entry to Chad Orzel's Blogger SAT challenge can be found here. I got a 4 out of 6. I'm going to post the actual text of my response below, and comment on it tomorrow or the next day.

Ask any writer, director, artist: character trumps plot every time. In dramatic fiction as well as in our understanding of the world around us, we often look more to those who have significant barriers to their goals in order to provide inspiration, to provide catharsis, to provide understanding. Whole theologies are even built on the idea that it is the dynamic struggle against one's inner nature rather than the results of one's labor that is the true mark of character.

But is this really true? It is a trite aphorism that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but might it also be said that results matter more than feelings, and that being right/accomplishing good deeds/reaching goals is much more important than the struggle against inner and outer obstacles needed to reach those goals? No amount of struggle against outside factors would have allowed for the cure of polio absent the real, factual, scientific observations of Jonas Salk.

In my opinion, these two perspectives are really looking at two slightly different issues. While the achievement of success in any realm connected to reality (luck notwhitstanding) is in a sense its own measure, its own reward and disconnected from any thoughts or accolades due to struggle, this external success is not necessarily a measure of the difficulty of the task -- while Jonas Salk and his associates are rightly honored for their work on the polio vaccine, we know that in fact the discovery of penicillin relied primarily on a chance observation of mold in a petrie dish. While this speaks of the power of a mind open to suggestive evidence, and suggests the power of education and knowledge, it is not a good example of triumphing over great adversity.

On the other hand, even the simplest actions taken by those with great handicaps, whether mental, emotional, economic, et cetera, are often a measure of great exposure to stresses in difficult circumstances, and any level of achievement at all can often be instructive to the character of the individual and inspirational to the power of all. This is why stories of handicapped individuals achieving simple ends, Horatio Alger, and many other historical and fantastical/fictional accounts have such power over our emotions.

In short, while real achievement is what counts for the world, it is through an understanding of the triumph over adversity that one can truly measure the worth of character. Polio was conquered regardless of the amount of energy expended over it (and that is a very good thing) but to ignore the lesser achievements of those who have greater handicaps is to ignore much of what makes us human. In an often heartless and uncaring universe, to hope for great inspiration through triumph over adversity is often all we have to go on.

Pop Culture and the PIG

I've apologized so many times for not posting that I'm going to have to start apologizing for writing an apologetic post, so I'm not even going to bother with that today. Instead, I'm just going to write the damned post I wanted to write and be done with it.

Long story short, I have recently procured a job at a local large-chain bookstore, and one of the fringe benefits (i.e. instead of an increase in pay) I have the opportunity to "check out" books from the store as if it were a library. Which is a good thing, because it means that I've had a chance to peruse The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design without actually having to have my hard-earned money go to Jonathan Wells. Now, since I'm still a poor undergraduate (working for six-and-change at a bookstore, at that) I'm not even going to try to critique the scientific arguments (such that they are) in the book, or to make more than generalized comments about the book as a whole. Instead, like any other twentysomething Gen-Whatever, I'm going to comment on the pop-culture references Wells makes.

Pop-culture? In what purports to be an essentially scientific/political book? Yep, in three places during the text (I skimmed over most of the book, so I may have missed on or two) Wells provides little cutesy info-boxes that contain snippets of TV sitcom dialogue, two from an episode of Friends, and one from Seinfeld.

Not really having been a fan of Friends (well, I watched most of the first season when it first premiered during my early teen years) and not having watched a lot of Seinfeld since it went off the air, I had to look up transcripts of the episodes in question, which Wells made especially difficult by not referencing episode numbers or airdates. I understand that the boxes are meant humorously, to provide a sort of lightheartedness as one goes through the text, but this lack of a reference strikes me as just one more example of the shoddy work that went into preparing the book, as those of us actually curious as to how the quotes appeared in context had to do a bit of web searching to get the information needed to track down the episodes.

I'll start with Seinfeld -- from page 139 of the book:

From Seinfeld: Kramer has an altercation with a monkey at the zoo
Kramer: So, so what do you want me to do?
Mr. Pless (zoo official): Well frankly, we'd like you to apologize.
Kramer: Yeah, well, he started it.
Mr. Pless: Mr. Kramer, he is an innocent primate.
Kramer: So am I. What about my feelings? Don't my feelings count for anything? Oh, only the poor monkey's important. Everything as to be done for the monkey!

I searched it out, and it turns out that this exchange occurs towards the end of the sixth season, in episode 109(link goes to transcript), "The Face Painter". First of all, note that the quote in question is placed totally without context -- the reader of the book has no idea what exactly this exchange is about, without actually remembering the episode. Placed as it is, I can only surmise that Wells is "arguing" that the scientific authorities (i.e. Mr. Pless) are attempting to impress upon the ID crowd (i.e. Kramer) the nature of primate emotion, and essentially are equating the hurt feelings of some monkey with those of a human being. Wells seems to be using this exchange as a proxy for the (supposed) absurdity of placing human beings anywhere within the animal kingdom, that placing primates and human beings on the same ontological level would be to deny any meaningful difference between human and animal feelings.

Let's look at the exchange in a bit more context, shall we? I'm quoting from the above transcript, and make no allowances for its technical accuracy, for I have no seen this episode, and don't have a copy handy. Since the sections in question are scattered through the episode, I'll be placing in places where nonrelated plot should go.

Jerry enters his apartment carrying a bag of groceries. As soon as Jerry closes
the door, we hear Kramer's door open and close. That moment, Kramer walks in.

Kramer: Hey, Jerry? You're a smart guy, right?

Jerry: No question about it.

Kramer: Alright, you know I'm supposed to go on this special tour today with
George's girlfriend.

Jerry: At the zoo?

Kramer: Yeah, but before I met up with her, I stopped to look at the monkeys,
when all of a sudden I am hit in the face with a banana peel. I turn and look
and there is this monkey really laughing it up. Then someone tells me that he
did it. Well, I pick up the banana peel and I wait for that monkey to turn
around. And then I *whap* let him have it.

Jerry: Kramer, you threw a banana peel at a monkey?

Kramer: Well, he started it!

Jerry: It's a monkey, Kramer!

Kramer: Well, he pushed my buttons, I couldn't help it, Jerry.

Jerry: Well, I still think it's wrong.

Kramer: Alright, alright, fine. You take the monkey's side, alright, go ahead.

Jerry: I'm not taking anyone's side.

Kramer (walking out): Cause I know what happened, Jerry.



Kramer is in the office at the zoo.

Mr. Pless: Ah, Mr. Kramer?

Kramer: Yes.

Mr. Pless: Thanks for coming.

Kramer: So, uh, what did you want to see me about?

Mr. Pless: Well, Mr. Kramer, to get right to it, we're having a bit of a
problem with Barry.

Kramer: Barry?

Mr. Pless: The chimpanzee.

Kramer: Oh. Well, uh, what's the problem?

Mr. Pless: Well, he's not functioning the way he normally does. He seems
depressed. He's lost his appetite. He's even curtailed his autoerotic
activities. And we think this is directly related to the altercation he had
with you the other day.

Kramer: So, so what do you want me to do?

Mr. Pless: Well, frankly we'd like you to apologize.

Kramer: Yeah, well he started it.

Mr. Pless: Mr. Kramer, he is an innocent primate.

Kramer: So am I. What about my feelings? Don't my feelings count for
anything? Oh, only the poor monkey's important. Everything has to be done for
the monkey! Look, I'm sorry. I--



Kramer enters.

Jerry: Hey.

Kramer: Hey. Well, I just spoke to your girlfriend.

George: Girlfriend, yeah, right.

Kramer: Anyway, she asked me to apologize to Barry.

George: Barry?

Kramer: The monkey.

Jerry: Well?

Kramer: Nothing doing. Jerry, I didn't do anything. It's the monkey that
should be apologizing to me.

Jerry: Well, I don't think that's gonna happen.



Kramer is at the zoo, talking with Barry, the monkey.

Kramer: Anyway, I um, I just want to say that I'm sorry. I lost my temper and
I probably shouldn't have. I took it out on you and, look, if I've caused you
any problems as a result of my behavior, well then, I'm sorry. I apologize.
Even though, Barry, between me and you, we both know that you started it. I
mean, who's kidding who? But they tell me that you're very upset, and god
forbid I should disturb the very important monkey, I'm just hoping we can put
this behind us, let's just move on with our lives, ok? So no hard feelings?

Kramer moves in for a handshake, Barry spits water all over his jacket. Kramer
gets defensive and Barry starts screaming and climbing the cage bars.

So basically, the storyline goes thusly: Kramer gets hit in the had with a banana peel, looks around to see a monkey through the peel at him, gets mad and throws it back. The monkey becomes depressed over its injured feelings, and Kramer is called upon by the zoo to apologize to the monkey, which he at first refuses to do because "the monkey started it". After mentioning the issue to Jerry, Kramer eventually decides to be the "better man" and apologizes to the monkey, albeit in a bit of a self-serving way, and gets water sprayed on him for his efforts.

Setting aside that this is sitcom humor all the way, and that obviously the interactions of Seinfeldians has little bearing on reality (Matt Silberstein's claims of the show being a documentary notwithstanding), what exactly does this have to do with ID? Kramer lets his emotions get the better of him, responds in kind to what is essentially a monkey being a monkey, and refuses to acknowledge the effects of his actions. Seeing the context, it is clear that in the Wells-quoted exchange, it is Kramer, not the zoo official, who sees the monkey as being in some sense equal to himself, in that he assumes that the creature has a similar moral sense and ability to show restraint that a human being should. If Kramer is supposedly standing in for ID, it's clear that Wells has not really thought out his use of this popular culture moment before including it in his book.

It's also a pretty silly scene, very much in-tone for the series, which was full of lighthearted fun being poked at various social conventions in what was often a slapstick, cartoony way.

More serious for the purposes here are the two Friends references from pages 155 and 188. Taken from episode 203 (numbered differently from the Seinfeld episode above, this was the third episode of the second season), this B-plot element actually refers to Phoebe (a hippy ditz used to great "dumb-blonde" moments on the show) disbelieving in evolution, and Ross (a paleontologist whose neurotic habits were his comic forte) trying to convince her otherwise.

Youtube actually has a video of the entire subplot edited together, but I will reproduce the sequence from the transcript here for those without access to video.

Phoebe: I'm sorry, but sometimes they need help. (Everyone groans) That's fine. Go ahead and scoff. You know there're a lot of things that I don't believe in, but that doesn't mean they're not true.

Joey: Such as?

Phoebe: Like crop circles, or the Bermuda triangle, or evolution?

Ross: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, you don't, uh, you don't believe in evolution?

Phoebe: Nah. Not really.

Ross: You don't believe in evolution?

Phoebe: I don't know, it's just, you know...monkeys, Darwin, you know, it's a, it's a nice story, I just think it's a little too easy.

Ross: Too easy? Too...The process of every living thing on this planet evolving over millions of years from single-celled organisms, is-is too easy?

Phoebe: Yeah, I just don't buy it.

Ross: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact, like, like, like the air we breathe, like gravity.

Phoebe: Ok, don't get me started on gravity.

Ross: You uh, you don't believe in gravity?

Phoebe: Well, it's not so much that you know, like I don't believe in it, you know, it's just...I don't know, lately I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down as I am being pushed.

(There’s a knock on the door.)

Chandler: Uh-Oh. It's Isaac Newton, and he's pissed.



Ross: How can you not believe in evolution?

Phoebe: Just don't. Look at this funky shirt!

Ross: Pheebs, I have studied evolution my entire adult life. Ok, I can tell you, we have collected fossils from all over the world that actually show the evolution of different species, ok? You can literally see them evolving through time.

Phoebe: Really? You can actually see it?

Ross: You bet. In the U.S., China, Africa, all over.

Phoebe: See, I didn't know that.

Ross: Well, there you go.

Phoebe: Huh. So now, the real question is, who put those fossils there, and why?



Ross: Ok, Pheebs. (He’s holding two little toys.) See how I'm making these little toys move? Opposable thumbs. Without evolution, how do you explain opposable thumbs?

Phoebe: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts.

Ross: Please tell me you're joking.

Phoebe: Look, can't we just say that you believe in something, and I don't.

Ross: No, no, Pheebs, we can't, ok, because—

Phoebe: What is this obsessive need you have to make everyone agree with you? No, what's that all about? I think, I think maybe it's time you put Ross under the microscope.

Ross: (To Chandler) Is there blood coming out of my ears?



(Ross enters carrying a briefcase.)

Phoebe: Uh-oh. It's Scary Scientist Man.

Ross: Ok, Phoebe, this is it. In this briefcase I carry actual scientific facts. A briefcase of facts, if you will. Some of these fossils are over 200 million years old.

Phoebe: Ok, look, before you even start, I'm not denying evolution, ok, I'm just saying that it's one of the possibilities.

Ross: It's the only possibility, Phoebe.

Phoebe: Ok, Ross, could you just open your mind like this much, ok? (Holding her thumb and forefinger close together) Wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the world was flat? And, up until like what, 50 years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess of crap came out. Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this? (Monica and Rachel are intrigued.)

Ross: There might be…a teeny…tiny…possibility.

Phoebe: I can't believe you caved.

Ross: What?

Phoebe: You just abandoned your whole belief system. I mean, before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. How, how, how are you going to go into work tomorrow? How, how are you going to face the other science guys? How, how are you going to face yourself? (Ross slowly closes the briefcase and walks out hugging it.) Oh! That was fun. So who's hungry?

Anyone who has ever attempted to argue science with an antievolutionist will probably experience a touch of Deja Vu when reading or watching this sequence, as in tone and structure it is very much what arguing with antievolutionists is actually like. No matter how much knowledge one presents of the science involved, antievolutionists only need a simple, "Well, I just don't believe it," or, "there are a lot of possibilities out there," to be completely secure in his or her antievolutionism. Though the character on the show comes to her antiscience position through new age beliefs while most creationists are instead religious fundamentalists, the upshot of the anti-science beliefs (and the frustrations they can cause by the reality-based community) are very similar.

Note also that Phoebe presents no evidence for her position except for a bit of far-flung (and shakily connected) metaphorical hyperbole connecting atomic theory to evolutionary biology. Ross takes a large amount of time (for a TV comedy show anyway) attempting to show her why her beliefs are unreasonable, even going so far as to literally bring museum pieces to his friend to personally demonstrate the power of evolution.

Phoebe never even bothers to look into the suitcase, and while she "wins" the confrontation insofar as the episode is concerned, she does so by denying the concept that scientific knowledge is provisional, believing that if there is the tiniest shred of doubt in evolutionary biology, that Ross's entire belief system must be completely destroyed, and by wearing down Ross's defenses by simply refusing to hear any of what he has to say.

"Fun", indeed.

It's interesting that in both of these cases, the anti-evolution character is the "dope" of the show, used entirely for comic effect and rarely if ever allowed to show any serious intent. Kramer's slapstick entrances and Phoebe's awful songwriting are notorious in sitcomland, but for a supposedly serious scientific/political argument to identify with either of these two characters only shows what buffoonery the ID movement really is.

Maybe at the next ID conference, Wells or Dembski will sing Smelly Cat to all the participants. That's probably be worth the cost of airfare.

Howdy.

The blindingly brilliant, devastatingly handsome owner of this blog has kindly invited me as a guest poster. I've got a couple of ideas just about ready to come off of the fermenter, and will post them here in due time. Peace, y'all.