I’m very much looking forward to the opening of The Golden Compass at the end of this week — and we’re even getting the premiere here in little ol’ Morris. I’m having mixed feelings about the way it’s getting enlisted in the culture wars, though. It’s a fantasy movie, and it’s ultimately going to succeed or fail on its merits as entertainment, not its ideology.
Still, I have to like the attitude in this Mark Morford column.
It’s this: If your ancient, authoritarian, immutable belief system is threatened by a handful of popular novels, if your ostensibly all-powerful, unyielding creed is rendered meek and defenseless when faced with the story of a fiery, rebellious young girl who effortlessly rejects your stiff misogynistic religiosity in favor of adventure, love, sex, the ability to discover and define her soul on her own terms, well, it might be time for you to roll it all up and shut it all down and crawl back home, and let the divine breathe and move and dance as she sees fit. Don’t you agree?
The movie is a pawn in the War Against Religion, whether we like it or not. It better not suck.
On top of all that: the books were excellent and have many fans.
It better not suck.
I hope it doesn’t suck, but the books will still be awesome no matter how it is.
The shittiest movie ever (aside from Armageddon) was the D&D movie, and people still play D&D. So I think the books will be okay even if the movie sucks.
Wow. Well spoken.
Morford should be drafted to the cause and forced to write more in this vein. Succinct. Penetrating. Spot on. FSM must be touching him with its noodly appendage. (There, I finally got to write “noodly appendage!” It feels so good I bet it will stick to the wall.)
Right-wing radio talk-show host Mike Gallagher had a caller last week who told him that the movie was “even more insidious than we were led to believe” because Scholastic has lesson plans–“ready to go!”–for distribution in schools that include The Golden Compass in its reading assignments. Pretty hideous, no? The caller noted that Scholastic had distributed the ungodly Harry Potter books and was clearly anti-God (at least anti-Christian-God, the only one that matters, you know). Gallagher expressed his horror at Scholastic’s nefarious plans to promote and profit from Pullman’s books and the new movie. Apparently the movie is a kind of “gateway drug” that will lead innocent children to the “hard stuff”: Pullman’s actual books, which have a harder edge than the movie. Gallagher and his caller feared that children would read the Pullman trilogy and become unbelievers.
Pretty shocking, no? I expect the panic to escalate.
This is going to have to be a net gain for freethought. Kids are going to see the cool movie with armored polar bears, hopefully read the books (Harry Potter should have greased the way for that) and the fundies will just rave and screech and make a public spectacle of themselves in a most un-cool manner.
If nothing else, maybe thousands of kids will grow up with a more mature concept of god and religion. More mature meaning one that doesn’t make it a full-time job to annoy the shit out of me. Lyra Silvertongue 4eva!
Now we just need to make another such series. One with dinosaurs.
Can’t say how good the movies will be from the trailers. The one thing that’s absolutely undeniable is they spent a buttload on effects.
The earlier trailers didn’t include daemons in every shot; the more recent one does. I was heartened. OTOH I thought the earlier voice for Ioreck Byrnison worked better, good as Ian McKellen is.
Plus, we see a continuation of the apparent iron law saying holiday season blockbusters have to have Christopher Lee in them. (Not that I’m complaining – he’s generally good. Still, after having him in all three TLOTR, Star Wars, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride etc. I was thinking he might need a vacation.)
I heard there were some earlier rumblings to tone down parts that seemed actually atheistic. I do recall there were more than a few scenes cut out of the Da Vinci Code which were really well done (though, nothing could have saved the Da Vinci Code). I think we might have to allow for the possibility that the film sucks because the religionists got their paws on it, and that since it sucks atheism will be taken to suck.
The book is about authoritarianism anyhow.
I have not read any of Pullman’s books, but will have to. I will also be going and seeing the movie. Even if it sucks i’ll gladly pay money to increase its box office success to piss of the religious. However, I’d rather it not suck so we can see the triology that I believe is being talked about (I think). On a side note, there is a Church that is planning to hold its services in the local Regal Movie theaters here in Orlando. They will begin in January. I find it a little disturbing, and hoping not to find religious paraphernalia spread throughout the movie theater, as well as religious people bugging me. I may just take my business elsewhere.
worse yet what if good atheist kids see the movie……hear about the Christian controversy and they decide to pick up the Christian bible??????? If my child comes home talking about animal sacrifice, keeping slaves, killing entire populations who don’t think like her. and having the one truth revealed to her by a sky daddy…..i will be pissed
I went to see an early public screening of the film last night in a packed theater. The crowd was made up primarily of teenagers and families with children. I was somewhat disappointed with the entertainment value of the film. It was clearly cast in the mold of New Line’s earlier fantasy trilogy success, the Lord of the Rings (e.g. the prologue and the ending feel lifted straight from Fellowship of the Ring). Unfortunately, it did not come up to that standard, particularly in the writing and direction, both by Chris Weitz. It’s hard to complain too much about the technical aspects of the film; rendering the daemons alone must have been a mammoth task, but all the effects tend to diminish the power of the rest of the images. Fans of the book will probably be confused by the way it ends, or rather when it ends. I also was struck by how much more fantastical Weitz’ vision of Lyra’s universe was than mine. On a positive note, the acting was very good: Nicole Kidman, as Mrs. Coulter, and Dakota Blue Richards, as Lyra, were the standouts in cast full of many acting legends and promising newcomers. The polar bear fight was the most thrilling part of the film and it elicited gasps and cheers at the same time.
No mention of the Church in the film; it has been shifted to the more inoccuous “Magisterium.” Nevertheless, the link should still be apparent (e.g. it’s representative labels Lord Asriel’s expedition heresy). The Magisterium itself is clearly the villain of the film; this point is well-made by having established film baddie Christopher Lee and Derek Jacobi plot and scheme in dark-lit, private conference rooms. Mrs. Coulter is the attractive, seductive representative of the Magisterium, which she says is like a benevolent guardian, neither mean nor petty. The story here seems to be mostly about maintaining free will, which is all fine and good.
I think, and I hope, the film will do well enough to green-light “The Subtle Knife,” the second part of the His Dark Materials trilogy. Once you see it, however, I think you will agree that we would all be better served by a different helmer, someone who has more experience in large-scale epics and the ability to bring out better the subtleties of Pullman’s writing. I would love to see Alfonso Cuaron or Peter Jackson attached to either of the two remaining projects.
There’s also an article in the most recent Atlantic Monthly (the one with Obama on the cover) detailing the compromises made during the film’s development.
The most amusing thing about the fuss over the movie is that the decision to make the film more acceptable to Christian viewers is being decried as a subversive and coldly calculating move to draw unsuspecting children into reading the books and being turned into fire-breathing, Satan-worshiping atheists.
Those critics don’t care about the contents of the movie at all, nor its potential sequels. They view the movies as a gateway drug to the hard stuff in the books where kids will be mainlining atheism directly into their soul.
Oh, the horror!
8|
mainlining atheism directly into their souls
That’s got to rank with “God doesn’t hear the prayers of atheists.”
If stories about rebellious young girls by non-believers are so dangerous, how come Pippi Longstocking hasn’t been banned yet?
I’m with you on really hoping this film doesn’t suck. It’s not just playing for the atheists in the culture wars, it’s also got the feminists behind it for being that rare beast: a fantasy action adventure with a girl for a protagonist and a range of interesting female characters….
If stories about rebellious young girls by non-believers are so dangerous, how come Pippi Longstocking hasn’t been banned yet?
Oh, there are small minded school boards which every few years get around to banning it and the wizard of oz.
The trailers look … well, awesome. It seems that they’ve choosen to depict Lyra’s daemon rather consistantly as a ferret (which is a perfect animal for the purpose) rather than mutable as all childrens’ daemons are before adolescence.
Sigh. Culture wars. I like to be objective and believe “the other side” might have valid and legitimate concerns that are simply different than mine but so far absolutely nothing said or done has implied anything other than that “the other side” is simply mortally and thouroughly scared of free thought.
A movie. A MOVIE.
A “pawn” in the “war against religion”? Whether one likes it or not? Nope. I’m sorry. Is this serious? I don’t care if it DOES suck. But I do care that the culture we seem to think we all shape places such importance or force onto a movie.
I keep seeing hordes of “minds” (the supposed members of this culture) rushing hither and thither from one craftily disseminated piece of prime promotional palaver to another…and all the while almost nobody seems to have a clue that the head they wear isn’t their own. Damn. When will this “culture” wake up from its coma?
Junk is junk. Consider it guaranteed that junk sucks. The best that can be said for it is that it distracts.
Sex? She’s like twelve years old. What was pullman’s ‘lesson’ at the end by the way – in the union of will and lyra? That it’s wrong for adults to interfere in teenage sex lives? What ridiculous nonsense. As they say – a social conservative is a liberal with a daughter in high school. Pullman, with two sons, probably doesn’t understand this. Most societies in the world severly regulate teenage sexual mores so as to prevent things like teenage pregnancy and ruining your lives and all that. Only someone with a leftist ego like pullman could consider restrictions on teenage sexuality a bad thing.
HDM is essentially traditional english anti-catholicism updated with the new religion of political correctness (homosexual angels? ‘gytian’ rebels? come on!)
You can find your own daemon at the Compass site by answering a few questions. Mine is Eamon, a red fox.
http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/
What is the ‘lesson’ at the end of Lord of the Rings by the way? Don’t eat Orcs, they have a bad after-taste?
I like to read literature because it can be entertaining, beautiful and thought-provoking. Generally, I am put off by books that try to teach me a ‘lesson’ (and I think it is slightly out of fashion to teach lessons in novels anyway). Are you always looking for the lesson at the end of a good story?
My daemon was a whelk called Eric. Not that useful.
Sadly, a lot of Scholastic book fairs at schools around the country have been chosing not to offer these books due to the FEAR of protests and irate parents. Never mind that perhaps some kids DO want to read them and have parents who don’t mind if they do – we must “protect the children” against literature that might make them question what they’ve been told.
I got my copy of the trilogy at Costco for about $12. It’s not really my kind of fiction, but hey – I’ll buy it if it supports the cause.
I was hoping for a woozette daemon but mine is a chimp called Clymonistra.
Could have been worse…
“a social conservative is a liberal with a daughter in high school”
It’s a good thing there are no liberals with teenage daughters around THIS blog, or that would be obvious bollocks!
Most societies in the world severly regulate teenage sexual mores
Most societies in the world severely regulate women’s sexual mores. When was the last time you heard someone joke about his baby son “and I’m not letting him date until he’s 30”?
I got a tiger daemon named Achaean. How odd. I breed dogs, love birds, but got a big-ass kitty-cat. It’s also a KICK-ass kitty-cat so I’ll take it.
Hey, Pee-Zed! Have you worked out what responses to give on the daemon-site to get a cephalopod yet?
My reading of the HDM books was mild amusement. The writing is so lumpen and pedestrian, the metaphors and structure so terribly obvious and strained that I put the popularity it enjoyed down to good marketing by the publishing ‘in-crowd’ supporting one of their own. Shows how far removed from the literary zeitgeist I am, i suppose.
If this film is being used to bash faith-heads or even gets a few kids to question their dogmatic teachings then I’m all for it but for goodness’ sake let’s not confuse it with literature.
“There’s also an article in the most recent Atlantic Monthly (the one with Obama on the cover) detailing the compromises made during the film’s development.”
My reading of the article is that there was a gutting of any least intimation of atheism so as to make this a kids’ Xmas movie with the usual good-vs.-evil theme that can be seen by the majoritarian culture as fully consistent with its beliefs.
Haven’t seen the movie yet, so no way of telling if this is completely true.
Oh Cool! mine was a tiger called Haythia. And yes, I was honest, honest.
Most societies in the world severly regulate teenage sexual mores so as to prevent things like teenage pregnancy and ruining your lives and all that. Only someone with a leftist ego like pullman could consider restrictions on teenage sexuality a bad thing.
The trouble is that for problems like teen pregnancy, the “restrictions” mentality (let’s try to keep teens from having sex) doesn’t work. This has been amply demonstrated by the abstinence-only sex ed movement.
For me, the fact that he implies that Will and Lyra have sex in the end isn’t really the problem. The problem is Pullman’s wink-wink-nudge-nudge attitude about it that appears to say that it’s okay to do it but not okay to talk about it. That’s the kind of attitude that gets teens in trouble as I discussed in my review of His Dark Materials.
I saw the movie at a sneak preview on Saturday evening. It is a fantasy movie, pure and simple: magic, familiars, parallel universes, intelligent talking polar bears, good witches, and so on. The Magisterium is not recognizable as a religious entity, per se, but rather a generic if malignant authoritarian regime that has great power in the universe of the story, one being fought by a very brave little girl whose fate it is to oppose it. Obvious religious sentiment, pro or con, is notably absent. There is, of course, magic, and use of the term demon to denote the familiars which are a part of every human in the story will doubtless give those who opposed the Potter stories a reason to object. Bottom line: It’s a movie, people, one suitable for children of all ages. Anyone who uses this a brickbat in the culture wars needs to give it a rest. Seriously.
to #18:
I guess I missed the part where Anyone had sex in any of those three books. Guess I’ll have to go read through them again…
I have two daughters and I had no problems with Lyra and Will coupling. For one thing, it was necessary for his parody of Paradise Lost. Without it the whole plot of the scientist woman sent to the world of the wheel trees to act as ‘satan’ and the pre absolved (what a horrible concept) priest sent to shoot them before they could ‘sin’.
The idea of regulating child sexuality is one born of wanting to control women and is common in patriarchal societies. If two people who have demonstrated their fidelity and commitment and shown great personal growth cannot be deemed able to handle this, also knowing it would be their one and only chance. Then I have no hope for your sense of humanity.
Does that mean it is always appropriate for kids growing up in our culture? no. Because different pressures, responsibilities and consequences arise than operated for Lyra and Will. Hence no wider less can be drawn. It was a bloody allegory, in such things not all events, motives etc have to map to our world. This is basic Literature 101.
Peter
Osprey Daemon named Eamelia. Cool.
+1 social liberal with a daughter in high school. If argumentem ad sound bite isn’t a logical fallacy, it should be.
I will buy the books and try to see the movie if possible overseas. I will do it just help piss off the wingnuts. We also could use more columnists like Mark Morford, he was right on with what he said.
I read the books a long time ago, and didn’t noticed anything particularly odd or atheist-y about them.
Criticism of institutionalized religion and magic use is pretty standard in the genre. Honestly, if you had a dime for every story of young protagonists being stymied by ( or liberating themselves from) authoritarian social structures/institutions of some kind, you’d be able to afford to regularly purchase new books to read.
It must have something to do with most of the books being written for young people.
Then if you had another dime for every young freedom fighter who turns out to be the anonymous genius/heir to the kingdom and suddenly elevated to the top of the dominating social structure, bringing a refreshing new attitude before being tormented into cynical acceptance by the necessities of the job, you’d have another giant pile of change.
Most societies in the world severly regulate teenage sexual mores so as to prevent things like teenage pregnancy and ruining your lives and all that. Only someone with a leftist ego like pullman could consider restrictions on teenage sexuality a bad thing.
I think it only says this in your head. I’d suggest medication for the voices.
“The trouble is that for problems like teen pregnancy, the “restrictions” mentality (let’s try to keep teens from having sex) doesn’t work.”
That’s why out-of-wedlock births were less than 3% at the turn of the century versus over 30% today.
From the CDC:
“The national teen birth rate was at its highest in 1957, at 96 births per 1,000 women ages 15-19. However, most teenagers giving birth in the 1950’s and for the next two decades were married while the vast majority of teenage mothers today are unmarried.”
Teenage pregnancy has fallen. Your complaint seems to be that it no longer necessarily results in a shotgun marriage and/or a lifetime of miserable dependency.
“That’s why out-of-wedlock births were less than 3% at the turn of the century versus over 30% today.”
No, THAT was because, at the turn of the 19th century (and I’m assuming you meant that one), a child born out of wedlock was considered so much of a shame on not only the mother, but also her whole family, that the women were either forced to marry, or they were shipped off to some foster home for fallen girls, where they would give birth, have their babies taken away from them, and then return home, never to mention their pregnancy again.
My daemon was a whelk called Eric. Not that useful.
And, it doesn’t stand a chance in a supernova. Which reminds me, why didn’t we hear all this outcry over the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie, seeing that it was written by an atheist and contained the Babel Fish Argument for the nonexistence of God? Was it just because that happened BTGD (before The God Delusion) ?
Thanks for the tip – I’ll have to check my local Costco.
It’s a good thing there are no liberals with teenage daughters around THIS blog, or that would be obvious bollocks!
I’m a liberal with a five year old daughter. I’m not going to be turning into Falwell in ten years. I don’t want her going out and being stupid, but I think it’s my job as a parent to teach her how to make good decisions. I think a better quote would be “social conservatives are the parents of teenage girls who aren’t confident in their own ability to teach their children proper behavior”.
+2 liberal with a teenage daughter, partly because I don’t want to be a grandfather quite yet. This is my second one, and if that little saying were true, then I would have been Mike Huckabee, ECD, by now due to my oldest. Thank big pharma for depo-provera!
And cuchulainn, I wonder about the accuracy of your data.
As to my daemon, I was paired with a Lion named Thedra. I felt like I was taking a Mini=MMPI – internal validity checks and all that.
I am a sucker for any movie which has talking animals in it. Those magnificent polar bears in armor are just frosting on the cake. My daemon is an ocelot – won’t reveal her name so that no one can cast a spell on her.
I want a daemon called Damon.
It’s a well known fact that repressing teenage sexuality and encouraging fear and ignorance about the subject increases morality, reduces unwanted pregnancies and stops underage sex in it’s tracks.
Oh, wait . . .
So I managed to score a couple pre-screening tickets for this, on the 4th. Really looking forward to it. Hope it doesn’t suck
MissPrism is correct that rates of teenage pregnancy are dropping, as the graph here demonstrates.
Some notes from the graph:
[11] Hamilton, B.E., Sutton, P.D., and Ventura, S.J. (2003). Revised birth and fertility rates for the 1990s: United States, and new rates for Hispanic populations, 2000 and 2001. National Vital Statistics Reports, 51 (12). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.
[31] Ventura, S.J., Mosher, W.D., Curtin, S.C., Abma, J.C., and Henshaw, S. (2000). Trends in pregnancies and pregnancy rates by outcome: Estimates for the United States, 1976-96. Vital and Health Statistics, 21 (56). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.
[32] Ventura, S.J., Abma, J.C., Mosher, W.D., and Henshaw, S. (2006). Recent trends in teenage pregnancy in the United States, 1990-2002. Health e-stats. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hestats/teenpreg1990-2002/teenpreg1990-2002.htm.
cuchulainn, 44 per 1000 is 4.4%, so your data is way off. I am curious as to why you made that particular mistake.
One possibility is that, despite your earlier emphasis on teen pregnancy, you are conflating it with pregnancy rates across all ages. If so, and if you are being honest, then that means you don’t understand how stratification works; if you are not being honest, then that means it’s not just about the teenagers for you. But either way (honest mistake or not), it’s not a kosher way to use statistics just to make a point.
How come nobody ever gets the really off the wall demons? I mean, what if your demon was a sloth? Or a staphlococcus? Or perhaps an amoeba!
An amoeba would actually be pretty cool but a rotifer demon would be out of the ballpark.
With good reason. I actually addressed the problems with his numbers, but my comment is being held because I cited references.
Kinda ironic how ScienceBlogs holds your posts if you back up your numbers, but not if you don’t.
Well in most human societies for most of history if you were not pregnant and married as a teeneager you soon where thought of as an old hag. The development of extended childhood now makes what was common seem destructive.
Saw it on Saturday. It was good, but not as good as I had hoped. It was just so… rushed. And they left out perhaps the most important theme from the first book – Lyra’s betrayal. The movie should have been longer and at least had that in it, hanging over you, with every decision she made.
“Most societies in the world severly regulate teenage sexual mores so as to prevent things like teenage pregnancy and ruining your lives and all that.”
That is a rather broad and doubtful assertion. First, if you take Europe including the east with Russia, that is certainly not true.
Then if you take much of Africa, that is not true either. Then for China, that doesn’t seem to be true either. Brazil doesn’t seem to do it either.
Look at the statistics.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_tee_bir_rat-people-teenage-birth-rate
That’s why out-of-wedlock births were less than 3% at the turn of the century versus over 30% today.
Isn’t this about “out-of-wedlock” births? I thought we were talking about teenage pregnancy.
quoth cuchulainn: That’s why out-of-wedlock births were less than 3% at the turn of the century versus over 30% today.
1) Assuming “turn of the century” means ca 1900, not ca 2000, I consider the 3% number to be suspect – affected by shotgun weddings, quiet adoptions by grandparents/childless aunts, reluctance to report “illegitimate” children, etc
2) I would venture to say that most people, even godless liberals, would consider teenage pregnancy& birth to be a Bad Thing*. But “out-of-wedlock” birth != teenage motherhood. I would be interested to know how many of the current 30% are adult women and/or couples who consciously decide to have children outside (gasp) of the bonds of holy matrimony. (My 21 and 23 year old sons have told me that “my generation destroyed marriage” – good topic for a holiday blog post.)
* as a counter example, I know there are ultra-fundamentalist Christians (and Jews) who encourage pregnancy as early as possible, as long as it is properly accompanied by marriage
The Catholic Church is the major baddie, the insane decrepit entity calling itself “God” is killed by the protagonists, and the rule of that entity and others like him is challenged by humans — that doesn’t strike you as a bit “odd” for a mainstream fantasy novel? That isn’t a bit atheist-y?
I recently read the novels, and I was dumbfounded that there wasn’t more protest against them when they were published. I guess the religious don’t read.
My daemon is a powerful male Tiger named Philon. Woo hoo!
pre-1960 for most of the west bernarda, obviously. africans have different family structures to the rest of the world, where women & men tend to sleep around, men rarely help with raising children etc and monogamy is rare. we’ll probably develop a greater understanding of this anomaly with the emerging science of race differences in genetics. these unusual sexual practices are, incidentally, one of the main reasons aids is spreading so rapidly in africa, but don’t expect to read about it in the nyt anytime soon.
theo – the vast majority of single mothers are burdens on the state. in fact you can predict the size of the underclass in the next generation with one single figure – the number of single mothers in the country.
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.14891/pub_detail.asp
http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.13422/pub_detail.asp
I’m sorry, I will never again be able to take this topic seriously :)
… and in his own words
maybe it is odd for a mainstream book, but that’s what makes it good: it’s not the same old crap that every other mainstream book is. Pullman isn’t afraid to offend a few people. so someone might not like the idea of killing “God”, well nobody forced them to read the book, and I don’t see the previews marketing the movie based on this fact. this does, however, seem to contrast with the fact that churchgoers show up on my doorstep berating me about joining their church, believing their ideas, being chastised for not believing and being told I’ll go to hell and that I simply must accept Jesus as my lord and savior. the part I don’t get is why it needs to be boycotted, if your particular faith and religion is so damn true and strong, why are you afraid that someone might change their mind about it after viewing this movie? could it be that it made the leaders of religion start thinking about their beliefs and faiths? obviously it had to provoke thought in someone or nobody would be concerned about it.
Huh? I’ll have to reread the books. I thought one of the whole themes of the third was that Lyra and Matt (aren’t those the kids’ names? I’ve got to steal my daughter’s copies and refresh my memory) were approaching the point in adolescence where they would begin to have sexual urges and relationships, and that at that point their daemons would be frozen in form. Up until that time, they seem completely unaware of that potential aspect of their relationship, and even when they come to the realization that they love and will be separated the book itself is remarkably “clean” and unsuggestive.
All right, my previous comment shows no sign of appearing, so I’ll do it again without links.
MissPrism is right; you can go to http://www.childstats.gov/AMERICASCHILDREN/famsoc6.asp and see the graph of declining teenage pregnancy rates.
And 44 per 1000 in 2002 is a rate of 4.4%, nowhere near the 30% you cited, cuchulainn, so I am interested in why you made this particular error.
If you conflated the teenage pregnancy rate with the pregnancy rate for all ages, and if it was an honest mistake, then it means you simply does not understand how stratification and statistics work. You have to do it the same way throughout.
If the error was not inadvertent, then it means it’s not just about the teenagers for you, after all, despite your leading with that point. Or there may be another explanation I’ve missed that accounts for how you made that error. In any case, though, even if it is a totally honest mistake, it’s not kosher to use statistics that way in support of a point; you have to do it in the right way, or not at all.
Number 1 it’s not an unusual sexual practice to have multiple partners- it’s the norm.
Virtually zero humans are truly monogamous. It’s a myth. Now the question is should teenage girls get pregnant as a life plan- the answer is no, not because sex is bad but because given the social structure of the USA the likelyhood of a teenage girl receiving the education and training she needs to become effective in the workplace is severely hindered.
It’s not the preganancy so much as the residual effects of said pregnancy. This is where good sex education comes into play and where Europe is light years ahead of the USA.
well, jimc, some races are a lot more monogamous than others. look at this worldwide infidelity chart.
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/05/infidelity-around-world.php
for those who want a dissection of hdm, this site has many:
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/
**Mild spoiler alert**
I actually was able to see the Golden Compass this weekend–they had some kind of special sneak preview in my city.
It was excellent, although very rushed. A lot of running from one place to another with minimal explanation (that the book gives).
The atheism? Um…not so much. Yes, there’s an evil shadowy religious organization, but it’s not nearly as anti-Catholic church as…say.. the DaVinci Code. And, seriously, I don’t associate atheism with talking about souls…
The talking beavers in The Chronicles of Narnia turned me permanently away from the Sweet Baby Jesus, and into a life of beastly fraternization.
I expect the talking polar bears in The Golden Compass may actually drive me to eat living Christian babies, possibly even the offspring of unwary Catholics.
My daemon is a Dutch Belt cow named Bertha. “Your profile reveals that you are overweight, unassertive, contemplative and flatulent.”
(There was also something in there about a crow named Anthora – modest, spontaneous, solitary, assertive and shy – but that can’t be me. If I’m gonna have a corvid, I won’t settle for anything less than Corvus corax, the raven, and she’d have a neat name like Grrrook.)
cuchulainn-
That page sums up my argument nicely. There is no such thing as ‘more monogamous’ when you have multiple partners. Monogamy means 1:1 and thats it. Your either monogamous or your not.
It rarely exists in humans.
It seems that they’ve choosen to depict Lyra’s daemon rather consistantly as a ferret (which is a perfect animal for the purpose) rather than mutable as all childrens’ daemons are before adolescence.
I am among those who got a sneak peek at the movie over the weekend. Pan is mostly a ferret, but also takes other forms often enough to make the mutability clear, as do the daemons of the other children.
quoth cuchulainn: theo – the vast majority of single mothers are burdens on the state. in fact you can predict the size of the underclass in the next generation with one single figure – the number of single mothers in the country.
First, though the statistics may be valid (though I am not sure how “underclass” is defined), correlation != causation.
Second, the original comment was about *teenage pregnancy*. There are lots of single mothers who were never pregnant as teenagers. As a matter of fact, there are lots of single mothers who were *married* when the child was born.
Third, it’s a rather large assumption that acknowledging romantic relationships among teenagers is promoting and encouraging teenage pregnancy and single motherhood. Rather, the strength of Lyra’s character, and the fact that her relationship with Will is primarily based on the friendship of equals, encourages and models a much healthier attitude towards relationships and sexuality that most of the rest of what kids and teens are seeing in the media these days.
I have a tiger daemon named Sereno. Apparently I am modest, shy, assertive, proud and competetive.
It also seems I am schizophrenic. Nothing I didn’t already know then!
And to put in my two pennies’ worth: I first read these books when I was in 6th Form, and I never assumed Lyra and Will had sex. I always felt it was left to each reader to imagine the ending they wanted. Maybe I was just a very naive 17 year old? It certainly did not encourage me to go out and have sex!
Enjoyed reading the trilogy, and look forward to seeing the movie; the website is very intriguing.
My daemon is a three-legged armadillo named Adamant, who survived a close encounter with the brush guard of a Chevy Suburban. “Your profile reveals that you are paranoid, Texan, nosy, destined to be edentulous in old age, and in desperate need of a decent manicure, girl.”
Hank, are you sure you don’t want to name your corvid something like Quoth?
“Number 1 it’s not an unusual sexual practice to have multiple partners- it’s the norm.”
I’m in agreement here, although I think you might just be meaning in our society as well. But additionally, polygyny is practiced by something like 80% of societies (Or was it people? Bah, I can’t remember.) Having multiple partners (for men, usually, anyway) is encouraged and often socially required in other cultures.
I never got the idea that Will and Lyra had sex. They’re what… 12 or 13? And they just figured out what love is? If that’s the case, I really doubt they even know what sex is, or are interested enough to try it. The nearest “implication” is when it’s said that they were found alone together sleeping. Um, yeah. That doesn’t imply sex.
My daemon is an ‘alf-bee named Eric.
I tried to read the books but just couldn’t slog my way through the first one. I don’t have much interest in fantasy, as it turns out. Still, I will attend the movie just because Bill Donahue and his minions are against it.
I saw the sneak preview this past weekend, also.
While I agree with those who’ve said the story seemed a bit ‘rushed’, it did as fine a job of adapting a book to film as I’ve ever seen. This can’t really stand as a serious criticism.
Regarding the religion angle: while they did change the Church to the Magisterium, and remove *most* of the religious symbolism, please note of the paintings on the exterior of the Magisterium building that the bear breaks into to recover his armor. Those paintings look an awful lot like Medieval religious icons. More significantly, while they never said ‘Church’, they *did* say “freethinkers” in reference to the Magisterium’s opponents. Several times. I thought it was a very clever solution: if you can’t say who the Magisterium is, but its opponents are ‘freethinkers’… then what MUST the Magisterium be?
It’s a good solid film. Not perfect, but then very few films are. I think it would be a good idea to support it.
I got a snow leopard named Thedra. Nifty.
the vast majority of single mothers are burdens on the state. in fact you can predict the size of the underclass in the next generation with one single figure – the number of single mothers in the country.
Not if “the country” is, say, Sweden.
“A movie. A MOVIE. … But I do care that the culture we seem to think we all shape places such importance or force onto a movie.”
I care that the culture places such importance or force onto a book. A BOOK. A particularly bad book that promotes rape, slavery, genocide, injustice, etc.
It’s not the preganancy so much as the residual effects of said pregnancy. This is where good sex education comes into play and where Europe is light years ahead of the USA.
Not in the good old UK as we have just about the worst statistics in Europe on that score .
To be honest the Christian religion is largely regarded as an embarassment over here. Tony Blair has said he didn’t want to emphasise his Christian beliefs in case he was perceived as nutter which says a lot.
So the film will be regarded as just another kids fantasy over here , now if it criticised the Islamic version of religion and God then there would be one hell of a reaction both here and abroad.
Conservative types do sometimes argue that the retreat of the Christian religion here creates a vacuum into which Islam jumps and there is some evidence that a few non-ethnic believers are attracted to its disciplines , but there’s been few if any studies on the numbers involved .It has the appearance of being a handful who probably would have been attracted to extreme religous beliefs in any event.
THe challenge here is about building a humanistic version of morality that just doesn’t bend with the wind or “might is right” or lead to a shallow hedonistic lifestyle. I think the environmental movement is scoring well here on that score and in some aspects its moved away from pure global warming science to an embryo proto-religion .It’s one which our politicians are prepared to embrace for sure even with some dodgy science behind it at times.
The advance of irrationalism worries me as much if not more than the actual real evidence that does exist for global warming .It’s not being taken seriously however in either educational or political circles.
I figured it was only a matter of time before an actual teenage daughter of an actual liberal showed up on this thread! ;^)
I haven’t read the books, and so bow to your assessment of the characters… but in real life, I think you’d have to sift through a whole lot of 12 and 13 year olds to find any significant number who didn’t “even know what sex is, or [were] interested enough to try it.” I know I was aware of (and yearning for) sex by the time I was 13, and that was (sadly) in an era (the 70s) that offered much less in the way of public media portrayals of sexuality (though in some ways, that era was more open about sex than our current wingnut-benighted days).
I’ll understand if you don’t want to answer this on your dad’s blog, but at what age did you start to think seriously about your own sexuality?
More generally, y’all can put me in the column of liberal fathers of teenage daughters who has not automagically converted into a “social conservative.” I’ve never bought into the sitcom image of Dad doing whatever he can to intmidate his daughter’s boyfriends, in the name of protecting her “honor.” It seems that this trope is pervasive in popular media: Even ostensibly liberal fictional TV characters (e.g., Jed Bartlet) go all chastity-belt when it comes to their nubile daughters. Personally, I’d be more likely to wave the shotgun at boys who had the bad sense not to want my daughter than at those who pursued her.
I rather like this from Laura Miller in the LA Times regarding the e-mails circulating from the Catholic League:
“The messages had the breathless, marginally literate quality of rumors about spider eggs in bubble gum. Perhaps that’s why the controversy promptly earned itself a page at http://www.snopes.com, that venerable Internet clearing house for urban legends. Snopes lists this particular rumor as “true,” presumably because the e-mails use a few genuine, if cherry-picked, quotations from Pullman’s writings and press interviews. But that doesn’t keep the whole thing from being fundamentally ridiculous.”
Fundamentally ridiculous seems quite apt. Now if I could just find the quote from the columnist in the Irish Independent who called the Catholic League “chronically hysterical”.
I am not advocating 12 year olds in this day and age having sex but in terms of the allegory and the alternative ending to the myth, sexual knowledge celebrated with love and without guilt is crucial to changing the perspective regarding the nature of innocence and sin. Without it, Lyra cannot actually make Eve’s decision.
‘I’ve never bought into the sitcom image of Dad doing whatever he can to intmidate his daughter’s boyfriends, in the name of protecting her “honor.”
This is a science blog right? Surely you must beware of the evolutionary-genetic reasons why a father would want to keep his daughter sexually innocent until she has a stable male provider? Before the welfare state, ie 99.9999% of our evolutionary history, a girl who screwed around with guys who wouldn’t provide for children faced reproductive oblivion. Fathers have a solid genetic interest in insuring that doesn’t happen.
Ooh, cool! I’ve got a Lion Daemon named Pelagia. It makes me want to sit up straight and be noble and fearless. And now, of course, I’m gonna have to see the movie.
It was something which was one of the underlying plot points (though not known to the children themselves). The relevant sections are towards the end of chapter 35 of book 3 (having just bothered to go and look!). Although the author deliberately cuts away to avoid writing the scene, the end of the chapter makes it pretty clear that that’s the only sensible interpretation of the event.
I can’t be bothered to look up and work out the ages but I think Will was somewhat older anyway and that Lyra was acting younger than she really was at the start of the story. There was also quite a passage of time through the books, eg when Lyra’s mother had her in her clutches to “educate” her.
I got a Raccoon; I can’t decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing. They are rabies vector after all. Stupid Brain diseases.
Re the discussion whether Will and Lyra had sex, it was asked directly to Pulllman in an interview:
So it is however you read it.
I post the link to the interview in a separate comment so this one doesn’t get caught up.
Pullman interview is here
Mine is a blowfly named Poindexter. Damn.
Wow. Apparently, I simply does not understand how grammar works.
Kseniya, I daresay my editor is more brainless than your editor.
More caffeine, stat!
I had never heard of these books until I read a movie review that mentioned that Dobson was against it. So I went out and bought “The Golden Compass.” I enjoyed it, and bought the 2nd book yesterday, and expect to buy the 3rd.
However, if I had children, I would not bring these books to their attention because of the use of smoke leaf (presumbably tobacco, although my first thought was marijuana, because of a servant stealing some), and eating “opium heads”. Also, Lyra is a habitual liar. Sometime lying is necessary for benign purposes such as self-preservation, or having a social life, but I really do not like to see it viewed approvingly, as in this book.
I thought it sort of sucked. And my expectations were pretty low for it. I’m not sure of the reason for its existence, frankly. It does nothing like justice to the books, so no one just seeing the movie will have any notion of why people fall in love with the books, and to people who have read the books, it adds less than nothing. It feels small without feeling intimate. It is episodic and has no discernable narrative thread. The Coke polar bears are more realistic. And the song at the end of the movie didn’t sound as if anyone had actually bothered to write a song–just gave some woman a microphone. Having said that, the performances were superb (Mrs. Coulter dripped honey venom, and Lee Scorsby was every leathery inch the Texas adventurer, e.g.). And…the message of religious skepticism and free inquiry actually came through quite powerfully, I thought. I was not disappointed because I had moderated my expectations in line with what I had already learned about the movie. I do wish I could see what Tom Stoppard did when he tried to write the script. I think that could have been interesting. The big conclusion is that these books cannot be made into decent movies. They are too complex, too idea-rich. Narnia and Harry Potter are simplistic tales with few actual ideas. They are only nominally in the same category as His Dark Materials is. Even JJRT’s trilogy is a relatively straightforward quest story. Pullman is all over the place, with mythology, theology, physics, politics, sex, philosophy–to say nothing of a ripping adventure yarn. Maybe His Dark Materials is like what was once said of Ibsen’s “Peer Gynt”: The best way to stage it is on the radio.
PS: I will say that Iork could freaking KILL Aslan in a fight. Stupid lion would probably just come back to life, though.
Sigh.
At first I thought the following was a tongue-in-cheek response, but I don’t see any smilies:
Well, one of the advantages of living in the most recent 0.0001% of our evolutionary history is that one of the products of the previous 99.9999% is human technology, which allows, among other wonderful things, the decoupling of sexuality and procreation. While I’m grateful for the legacy of human evolution that has resulted in the world around me (though I take a few points off for George W. Bush!), I don’t feel personally compelled to subordinate everything else to the propagation of my genes.
Mebbe so; this father has a much greater interest in ensuring his daughter’s happiness… and since I think human sexuality is, on balance, a Very Good Thing, I wish her great joy in it, as soon as she feels ready. Perhaps my genes will curse me for this position… well, let ’em.
Surely you must beware of the evolutionary-genetic reasons why a father would want to keep his daughter sexually innocent until she has a stable male provider? Before the welfare state, ie 99.9999% of our evolutionary history, a girl who screwed around with guys who wouldn’t provide for children faced reproductive oblivion. Fathers have a solid genetic interest in insuring that doesn’t happen.
No, fathers have a FICTIONAL genetic interest in ensuring that doesn’t happen. You seem to have adopted a number of poorly-conceived notions that you think are well-founded in science. For example, the “emerging science of race differences in genetics”. Or the dismal science, evolutionary psychology.
To be brief: one can posit all sorts of reasons why the societies and social norms we see today MUST plausibly increase fitness and therefore MUST have been driven by evolutionary biology. But, in fact, there is no evidence that either of these claims are true. That’s the sort of thing that one would require on a “science blog”.
Indeed! We should absolutely base our behavior and ethics in the year 2007 on the genetically-instilled instincts passed on to us by our dung-flinging evolutionary ancestors! Now if you’ll excuse me, I must remove my birth control so that I can start squeezing out babies at once to ensure my genetic survival. High quality sperm donors plz?
My wife and I just saw the movie at a preview this weekend. It was sold out, and a very good adaptation of the book. It does end before the book does which took us a little by surprise, but very clearly sets up the next two movies.
The story was a greatly simplified version of the book, but nothing important (that I could tell) was left out. Overall, I rate it good enough to be willing to go spend the money to see it again with some friends this next weekend – and really, what better thumbs up is there than that?)
ex animo-
a tiger named valerian or some such… I don’t really see it myself…
Eric
cnsrvtvs blv n hmn ntr bt nt vltn. lftsts blv n vltn bt nt hmn ntr. t’s fnny wtchng lftsts sqrm whnvr y dscss th IMPLICATIONS f vltn, rthr thn th thry tslf. y ll s vltn s mns t bsh rlgn, bt thn gnr t whn t cms t nythng ls – , whn t tlls s tht mn nd wmn thnk nd ct dffrntly, r tht t s lmst sttstclly mpssbl tht rcs sprtd ggrphclly by lmst 40,000 yrs f vltnry hstry vlvd dntcl IQ lvls, r tht th d f gy gn s drwnn nnsns. thn y ll bry yr hd n th snd nd scrm yyyy ntl th bg bd mn gs wy. pthtc.
[Go away, island. Your racist screeds are tiresome. -pz]
since its advent, i’ve found this debate so amusing. all these emphatic christians saying that the movie is just an attack, by an atheist on their belief system. if that was the case(which it is most certainly NOT), then wouldn’t their slandering the movie fall under the category of a christian attacking the belief system of an atheist?
oh yeah, i forgot: all is justified in the name of god!
“men and women think and act differently”
There needs to be a Godwin’s Law-esque term for when this pops up in a thread. “Summers’ Law”? the “Lego-Barbie Paradox”?
It’s obvious you understand neither.
cuchulainn: i thought your post was interesting and wanted to comment on it. one of my roommates is a man who holds his Ph.D in genetic evolution and at dinner recently i was asking some questions that had to do with the evolution of traits and characteristics that are neither vestigial, nor functional. we talked about homosexuality as an example of that. in our global society, some evolved traits no longer matter, or at least matter far less than they once did. while it is true that if one is gay, one is not likely to reproduce, they are, nonetheless, significantly more likely to live a long happy life than they once were. further, with advances in the tolerance and technology of our society, it is now more likely for gay people to reproduce, through surrogate motherhood and the like, and therefore more likely for the trait to be maintained in our species. i don’t know, i just thought it was very interesting.
An ocelot named Aurora. And she’s cute.
Did you also talk about the relative paucity of evidence that homosexual behaviour is primarily genetically controlled, or about that it varies hugely across different societies and in different contexts, and so doesn’t necessarily need a sociobiological “Just-So Story” to account for it?
Man, the imperialism of evolutionary psychology is really tiresome.
My daemon, Arphenia, is a snow leopard! Too cool.
If you’re pig-ignorant enough to believe that human behavior is entirely determined by genetics, as this passage and your implications above about research purportedly finding genetic causes of the sexual practices that predominate in much of Africa (which are, in fact, widely acknowledged as spreading AIDS), then why are you criticizing the portrayal of adolescent sexuality as healthy? Not only do adolescents demonstrably have sexual urges and feelings, which are unambiguously biologically driven, but according to your idiotic viewpoint, the people who don’t feel this should be repressed must be genetically programmed to feel that way.
I guess you’re genetically programmed to be an idiot?
As for your comments on parents of teenage daughters, my position now is not substantially different from what I expressed in this guest article. I would only add that I strongly disagree with people who argue that trying to keep children and teenagers ignorant of, and cultivating in them a fear of, sex is a mistake.
Accidentally trying to open your car door with your house keys is a mistake. Refusing to provide one’s children with the education they will need to function as healthy adults for reasons of paranoia or personal discomfort is a cruel and selfish betrayal.
My daemon, Arphenia, is a snow leopard! Too cool.
wait, am I missing something, has someone already put up a “answer these questions and find out what your personal Daemon looks like” webpage?
if so, certainly PZ should make a thread out of it, right?
if not, shouldn’t someone get on that right away?
Tulse: no we didn’t talk about it and I acknowledge that particular ambiguity of my post. Instead let me say this: we talked about homosexuality as an example of that, making the assumption that homosexuality is genetically motivated. in our global society, some evolved traits no longer matter, or at least matter far less than they once did. while it is true that if one is gay, one is not likely to reproduce, they are, nonetheless, significantly more likely to live a long happy life than they once were.
Really off-topic, I know, but I don’t know where else–or to whom else–I can exclaim over this passage in an article on MSNBC.com about a boy whose brain was pierced by a deer antler:
“The medical staff decided to put Connor on massive doses of antibiotics and keep close tabs on the infection. For two months, the treatments continued, with another MRI taken at each visit to the medical center.
“As if by magic, the abscess kept shrinking and the hole growing smaller as the brain healed itself.”
WTF?? He was on massive doses of antibiotics, and as if by magic, they worked?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22039805/
Man, the imperialism of evolutionary psychology is really tiresome.
careful, you’re not actually speaking to an evolutionary psychologist more than you are responding to “pop” evolutionary psychology.
In the same vein, sociobiology itself is nothing more than the attempt to apply the mechanism of selection to behavior.
Selection doesn’t always work to explain the current observed phenotypes of a specific trait, regardless of whether it is behavioral, physiological, or morphological, but certainly you can’t deny it hasn’t been a productive place to start looking for ultimate causes.
If you do, you might as well throw out anything within the ToE related to the idea of natural selection as a mechanism.
LOL
that’s the media for ya.
Actually, its not just tiresome, its probably wrong. There is some evidence that such variation is a *natural* consequence of having two sexes. A male that is 100% male, with no sexual inclinations towards other males at all, is likely to to produce female offspring that are overly aggressive or more prone to same sex attractions. And the same goes if you get females that are 100% female, since there will be a tendency for them to produce male offspring that are more likely to be attracted to other males, than to females. There is even some evidence of this in human societies, in as much that women who are highly promiscuous **tend** to also have the highest instances of *gay* children. I have no idea if there is any data yet on the correlation of hyper-male types having a higher tendency to produce a lot of lesbians, but I would predict that they would. Its the same idiot logic I find so stupid in the books by David Drake, where he presumes that it should be possible to breed stupid, mute, nearly brainless females in the Kzinti species, without, in the process, turning the males into stupid, mute, nearly brainless males. I can’t imagine any mechanism which can produce a species where the average result, across the species, even with regulation differences in the XX vs. XY chromosome combination could “possibly” result in anything more extreme than a 70-80% fully male or female (presuming you actually think sexual preference is the defining quality in the first place).
Worse, for humans at least, the idea is even more absurd. While regular chimpanzees are less prone to it, they still act, some of the time, like the Bonobo, and among them its not unheard of for sex to be used for status, social cohesion and even trade, so its also not impossible for a pregnancy to happen with them, under those conditions, or presumably with early humans, if they had a similar social system at all, even *if* the individual doing the impregnation or being impregnated had a strong attraction to the same sex. Its only when you insert “human” standards about proper behavior, the evilness of prostituting ones self of status, food, or what ever, etc. that you create an “artificial” situation where the trait might not be passed on. Ironically, this has been replaced by an equally artificial pile of BS, called religion, which encourages males and females, who are attracted to the same sex, to pretend to not be, and have “normal” relationships, along with children, in some vain attempt to prove they wouldn’t instead strongly prefer to be sleeping with someone of the same sex.
Basically, even if it was vestigial, the idiots that want to enforce the male-female combination are creating the very conditions that would perpetuate the trait anyway, by convincing people that have it to try desperately to look, and act, like they don’t. I.e., they sell themselves anyway, not for money, food, or the other stuff we insist is wrong, but for the social status of being a member of the group that keeps telling them they are sick and unholy for wanting the wrong sex partners. They are just selling themselves to that group through the proxy of something that “fits” the definition of what they *should* be looking for.
Damn funny if you ask me, given how against every other form of prostitution these people are.
but certainly you can’t deny it
hasn’thasnot enough coffee.
Oh. BTW. This is why I hate polls that try to peg you as X or Y when you do them. The first time I did the Daemon thing I got a bear, like the lead character, which I found a bit annoying. Today I got a tiger named Bryanna instead, obviously due to a few minor shifts on one or two answers.
But why not make the same point using a trait such as nearsightedness, or a tendency toward diabetes, any other for which a) there is good evidence of a genetic component, and b) modern society and technology has rendered them less deleterious to inclusive fitness? We can generate all kinds of stories about how various kinds of human traits and behaviours might be genetically controlled, and how the selection pressures on such genes may have changed over time — my only point was that you choose a behaviour about which there has been a ton of unsupported speculation. It would be like saying that “making the assumption that girls liking pink is genetically motivated, the modern existence of red dyes should help to increase that trait in the population” — the premise is hugely speculative, and not well supported by the evidence.
Evolutionary psychology (née sociobiology) has a terrible tendency to simply assume that behaviours are dominated by genetic control. I was just cautioning about making those kind of assumptions.
Kahegi, I must take issue with your characterization of sex differences. It’s entirely possible for male and female to evolve very, very different patterns of behavior. There’s many examples of species where the males are little more than floating sperm factories, or only live parasitically inside the female. Regulatory machinery can easily produce vastly different outcomes; that’s why we do so well with only 40,000 genes.
Err, to clarify, the point being obviously that you could easily imagine a biological system where sex attraction was rigidly partitioned – males only found breasts and vaginas attractive, females only found penises and body
odorhair attractive – without reducing anyone’s fitness. After all, males don’t pass their propensity for growing penises on to their daughters.But why not make the same point using a trait such as nearsightedness, or a tendency toward diabetes,
exactly.
Evolutionary psychology (née sociobiology) has a terrible tendency to simply assume that behaviours are dominated by genetic control.
no, the underlying assumption is that there is, or was at least, and underlying selection pressure(s) involved, which then IMPLIES that such a trait is heritable, and thus should have at least some genetic component.
you are quite wrong to say that all evo psych folk, behavioral ecologists, or those that still label themselves sociobiologists (are there any left still publishing?) assume traits are “dominated” by genetic control.
that’s quite oversimplifying our understanding of genetics and development, and assuming that those involved in evo psych or behavioral ecology have no clue of the entire field of evo devo.
sure, just like with any field, you will find someone in the field stretching the central hypotheses far beyond what is represented by empiricle research, but that doesn’t mean the entire field(s) are based on such a stretch.
“I have no idea if there is any data yet on the correlation of hyper-male types having a higher tendency to produce a lot of lesbians”
Would Dick Cheney be a data point? His masculinity is so hyper that it can be measured in number of heart attacks.
His masculinity is so hyper that it can be measured in number of heart attacks.
and the number of shotgun blasts. Just ask his hunting buddies.
I saw a preview screening this weekend.
The movie seemed rushed to fit in the book.
The minor cuts from the book that were removed are negligable, except the ending, which apparently is starting the next movie (if they make one).
The CGI is pretty fantastic. yes there are talking animals, but they are never “cutesy” or comedy, like all other talking animals we’ve seen, and do an EXCELLENT job of characterizing the main characters, and expanding on their thoughts. IT’s a good fun movie that won’t win movie of the year.
Take your teenagers (some stuff is a bit rough for anybody under age 10), but the acting is superb, and the story is as good as it was in the books.
Go see it, it’s worth the money. It’s just a bonus that it also will piss your local clergyman if it does well.
To be fair, I didn’t say that “all” such researchers do, just that the field as a whole has a “terrible tendency” toward such loose assumption. And to be further fair, I will grant that this is more a quality of the research that tends to get reported widely, since it is the “sexier” research that draws broader conclusions about human nature.
There are certainly careful evolutionary psychologists around, who do good solid work. But the research that tend to see reported in the popular science news sources is generally far more of the “girls are evolved to like pink” variety.
While that may be true Saurabh, its **very** questionable is that would be the case in a species with a similar developmental background to us, and even more improbably in humans, when our closest relatives exhibit the behaviors I talked about, not to mention the evidence that implies that in our case it appears that such shifts, and the consequences, are probably true. I never said it necessarily applied to all species, though I perhaps wasn’t clear enough about what it “does” apply to. It does seem, since some of the evidence comes from deer populations, where this drift between high aggression in females + low birth rate, versions low aggression in males, with fewer male “breeding”, but higher numbers of females birthing (if I understood the article right), would seem to imply that, at least for mammals, there is a trade off between sexes, and that extremes cause shifts in the behavior of “both” sexes, when they have offspring, which then effect how many of both sexes exhibit a trait, like high aggression, which fewer *successful* births in females.
What happens in other species which lack anything like our social structure, our body types, our behaviors, or our underlying genetic mechanisms for sex selection, isn’t exactly relevant to *us*, in this particular case, other than to imply that it could have been different, if all those other factors had been. The rest, including the idea that some nuts are selling themselves to the church by proxy of some man/woman that is more *acceptable* to the churches standards, without at all changing their real behaviors, desires or attractions, still stands.
As to the Kzinti example, I still find it improbable. Cognition isn’t something that easily turned off, without causing severe detriment to the other sex in the process. One might argue that this did happen to the Kzinti, on some level, since they lost much of their technical skill and turned science into a religion of, “Mumble this phrase while turning the knob that is fourth from the right.”, but the extreme level of deviation that is implied to exist just seems unbelievable, from my understanding of cognitive development, or how genes would normally develop to regulate it in a species that *started out* with equal levels of skill in both sexes.
I will grant that this is more a quality of the research that tends to get reported widely,
bingo.
look at the primary lit itself, and many of your concerns evaporate.
the general “impression” of sociobiology/evo psych has been built up primarily from media exposure, IMO, given the actual content of research published, and the stated aims of the researchers involved.
to be trite, “don’t throw the baby out with the toilet water” (yeah, not even the bathwater) might be worth trotting out here.
when you look at the actual lit, neither area has the “terrible tendency” towards “loose assumption” you ascribe to it, even going back to Wilson’s Sociobiology.
which, btw, I would recommend reading, along with Hamilton’s work (the collected papers and commentary in the series Narrow Roads of Gene Land is fantastic), for at least a historical perspective if nothing else.
But the research that tend to see reported in the popular science news
again, it’s hard to judge a field fairly based on what gets reported in the popular news, “science” news or otherwise.
That’s true of any field of endeavor, btw. I think it just gets noticed more when the fields are involved in trying to explain human behavior.
I guess you’d also censor the Hobbit and LOTR…
…not to mention Harry Potter. At least Lyra is honest to herself about bending the truth and does not whine so much.
You can find your daemon at
http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/
Lyra’s daemon shown on this site is an ermine, which is the form it takes several times in the book.
Ermine and ferrets are in the same family/genus :
mustelidae/mustela
Ermine are species erminea
Ferrets (European polecats) are species putorius
The domesticated ferret is subspecies furo
(blackfooted ferrets is species Mustela nigripes)
Well Windy, if I had an 8-year old, I wouldn’t take them to see “Halloween”. If you want to call it “censorship”, fine. I would call it good judgement.
My mother and her father were in misery the last 5 or 10 years of their lives from the results of smoking. So I wouldn’t want to encourage it.
Since I have a couple of relatives who are compulsive liars, and since I have had my life damaged several times by other people’s lies about me, I am not a fan of recreational lying. I have read all of the Harry Potter books, and he didn’t lie for fun, as Lyra does.
I am not very familiar with The Hobbit & LOTR, because I couldn’t get into them, so I don’t have an opinion about their suitability for young children.
Tulse and Ichthyic: You’ve got a point. Thanks. I enjoyed reading your posts.
Do you actually think that it being mentioned offhand in a book (I doubt it’ll make it into the movie) is going to “encourage” it? Especially when you’ll be explaining the health effects and other reasons it’s a bad idea to them? Just how dumb do you think your [prospective?] kids are?
As for the lying, I haven’t read the books, but I can certainly imagine how a habit of lying on the part of a main character could be used as a plot element or to illustrate something (its significance perhaps being as a coping mechanism?). Would you prefer books with flawless protagonists?
Askyroth, I based my opinions on what I personally read. I withheld opinion on what I didn’t. You are making making a judgement of my opinions of the book when you haven’t read it yourself. That sounds to me like fundie thinking.
I am making a judgement about your argument here based on the justification you’ve provided and experience with similar arguments and the reasons behind them in the past. I have explicitly qualified it as such. I make no claim to absolute knowledge and would be willing to adjust my opinion if you were to provide a compelling reason to.
If that reminds you of fundy thinking, then ffs what doesn’t?
My review:
Chris Weiss should be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. The Golden Compass balances book and film eloquently. In fact, it puts the Potter films to shame. Sure, it makes sacrifices for the sake of cinema, but in the end, the sacrifices make for a better end product. Potter cannot say the same.
The book opens up the imagination but this film takes it and runs with it. And boy do they have fun. The cast is very good and each, save for (in my opinion) Lord John Faa, are cast to perfection. The CGI left nothing to be desired.
As far as religion goes, the film doesn’t overtly state it. Some say they cut it out or toned it down, but they didn’t. Instead, they just don’t come out and say it. They say it through subtle dialogue, costumes, and settings. In fact, it highlights it more. Sure, coming out and saying “the Church” in places would make it much more obvious to the younger crowd, but it isn’t necessarily needed. Thematically, the film is superb, just like the novel. And that’s the reason why I think it deserves Best Adapted Screenplay.
The bottom line is that it was pure brilliance in every way. Entertaining to the nth degree. Worth every penny of admission.
Oh, and Polar Bear fights rule.
I suppose I shouldn’t expose one of my favorite authors to your scorn, but credit where credit is due: The Kzinti were created by Larry Niven, within the context of his Known Space series of novels and stories. Many other authors have written stories of the Kzinti, as part of the Man-Kzin Wars series, but as near as I can tell, David Drake is not among them.
Regardless of any scientific implausibility, the Kzinti are fascinating and useful fictional characters. Sometimes a story is just a story, you know.
Haven’t read the books, but people have been raving about them, so I may have to check it out. Plus, Daniel Craig—YUMMY.
Jeff, I’m in the middle of The Golden Compass. “Yummy” is the word I used to describe it earlier today to a friend. Pullman writes beautifully.
This may be a pointless comparison, but I can’t resist: Though I have very much enjoyed the charms of Rowling’s wizarding world, and her sense of humanity and wit, there’s really no contest as to which of the two is the writer’s writer.
I, too, am looking forward to the bear fight. They must have toned it down a lot from the book, though. (Spoilers now, if you haven’t read the book.) Doesn’t one bear tear the jaw off the other, rip his throat out then open the corpse’s chest and eat his steaming heart in a ritualistic dominance ceremony before yelling out “BEARS! WHO IS YOUR KING?”? It’s not really a “children’s book” kind of moment.
That, and apparently they cut out the unforgivable act that Asriel commits at the end of the first book. I can see why, kind of, but it’s damned important for his character arc, and I sincerely hope they won’t tone it down if the movie scores a sequel.
#135: Something like that, yeah. One of the things I like about the armored bears: they may be talking, they may even be friendly some of the time, but they’re still *bears*. Intelligence doesn’t magically make them behave like apes. Just because the writer is an intelligent ape, and all his friends are intelligent apes, doesn’t necessarily mean that every intelligent being needs to act like an ape; but in many series they do. Pullman doesn’t follow that, and I like it.
Kagehi wrote:
Before you label it “idiot logic”, consider that evolution is cleverer than you are :) Sexual dimorphism in many deer species is not restricted to males having 80% bigger antlers than females. Brains tend to be a lot less sexually dimorphic because brains are a good thing to have for mammals of both sexes, not because evolution or development is incapable of making them different.
As others have pointed out, it’s not that implausible, considering existing examples of sexual dimorphism. But the Kzinti are still scientifically implausible because of their extreme convergence to certain Earth mammal species ;)
As for fun examples of implausible sexual dimorphism, there’s always Opar!
I will loathe The Golden Compass (the crap yank name for Northern Lights) for the same reason I loathe the Loony, the Witch and the Wombat. Pullman shoves his miserable atheism at you the same way that Lewis subjects you to his nauseating Christian apologia.
I loathed the CS Lewis movie not because of the Christian nonsense that was pushed at us, but because of the abysmal stupidity of the major plot points. The trilemma? Give me a break. The lion was killed, but not killed because of some mythic lawyering? Baloney.
I’ll judge this movie on the same basis. If it’s internally consistent and doesn’t expect me to be a flaming moron to accept the actions of the actors, it’ll be OK, atheist propaganda or not.
And I’ll have you know that that’s not miserable atheism, it’s happy imaginative weird atheism! Get your classification schemes right.
The primary problem with Narnia’s storytelling is something that Eric Raymond pointed out: “Lewis, by contrast [to Tolkien], cheats his readers. His secondary world lacks causal depth — one way or another Aslan is at the back of everything.” The author’s fingers keep poking into the scene; events don’t transpire because that’s how they followed from the setup, but because Captain Jesus has flown in, waved his cape, and handed out plot coupons stamped with his chop.
The problem you’re citing is something that happens in each book–there’s a reasonably good story, followed by a furry deus ex machina loping onto the scene and pretty much dictating a happy ending. Apart from being maddening and nonsensical, it robs the stories of any power they might have had; the whole world of Narnia feels less like a place with weight and history and more like a toy to be used to illustrate this week’s lesson.
Philip Pullman is interviewed by Eleanor Wachtel on CBC Radio’s Writers & Company. RealAudio downloads available at:
Part 1 – 25 Nov 07 (47 mins)
Part 2 – 2 Dec 07 (38 mins)
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To Bill Dauphin, Oops… Yeah. Got the wrong author. Just read another one recently by Drake, so must have gotten them confused.
As to the comments of how improbable dimorphism is, in this case, I don’t think its very probable. Mind you, I think the argument that its unlikely for alien species to look anything like ours to be absurd in and of itself. Its possible to derive similar morphology under similar conditions, and likely imho. Yes, there are likely to be differences, but we have no grounds at all, at this point, to project how extreme those differences can be, let alone would be. Thus, it is at least as probable that a species will look similar to an Earth species as that it won’t. And with respect to the specific argument, about wide sex differences. I would tend to suspect that you would have to start out with a less complex form, with fewer redundancies and interconnected developmental traits, to be able to “easily” engineer such a drastic alteration, never mind breed for it. After all, in the later case, you are trying to breed for a state that, one can presume, is **not** in the basic genotype of the species already. The only possible means I could see to achieve it would be something like introducing a downs syndrome style disease, which only *appears* in females, because it requires two defective copies of the gene. And **that** only works if you presume that the mechanisms for sexual differentiation is similar to that of a human, where there is a specific genetic difference in the chromosomal structure, which determines if something is male or female, as apposed to what many other species uses, which involve temperature variances, hormonal triggers, and other methods. In those cases, attempting to introduce such a radical shift in traits would be inherently more complicated, and probably not realistically something you could “breed” into a species (and probably not too easy to engineer into one either, without altering a fair number of developmental pathways and genetic traits).
I found it interesting when I read it, if ethically disturbing, but since then.. I am not so sure that it would be practical to manage, since, almost by definition, any error, over a large number of generations, could all too easily leave the males unable to continue the process (i.e., one error would have left them unable to comprehend the science needed to continue to make the changes needed, via breeding or otherwise).
And yes, I do have a bad habit of picking poor wording when making declarations of how I feel about some things. That is why I only *post* on blogs, while people like PZ write them. ;)
Thus, it is at least as probable that a species will look similar to an Earth species as that it won’t.
The examples of convergence between very different lineages on Earth aren’t that extreme, and all life on Earth is related- extraterrrestrials wouldn’t be. Mammals are the result of contingency and we have no reason to assume that even on Earth something like mammals would have necessarily evolved, had things gone differently a few hundred million years back.
The only possible means I could see to achieve it would be something like introducing a downs syndrome style disease, which only *appears* in females, because it requires two defective copies of the gene. And **that** only works if you presume that the mechanisms for sexual differentiation is similar to that of a human, where there is a specific genetic difference in the chromosomal structure, which determines if something is male or female, as apposed to what many other species uses, which involve temperature variances, hormonal triggers, and other methods.
I’m sorry but you seem to be arguing from personal incredulity here. Some fish species have extreme sexual dimorphism although it’s environmentally determined. Even in humans, sex determination proceeds from a few genes in a cascade that wouldn’t be impossible to replace with an environmental switch. The chromosomal structure does not matter that much.
Here’s an example of ESD in a species with dwarf males (which I would classify as more extreme dimorphism than in the Kzinti):
http://www.entu.cas.cz/berec/papers/BerecSchembriBoukal2005.pdf
Sigh… Fine, its possible for evolution to produce such a result, if the conditions where right to drive it. Find me a fish, dog, cat, etc. that has been “breed” such that it exhibits such dimorphism and I will consider it more probable. And as for species developing differently some place else. We just don’t know. We do have some cases, like the recent analysis of what happens if you increase the size of something like an insect, which imply that what ever *form* you are dealing with, there are purely mechanical reasons why you won’t find, in this case, 500 foot bugs, unless they breath something other than oxygen, and in **far** higher concentrations than the level of oxygen we find on earth. The just isn’t any viable means to produce such a thing, and still have anything even vaguely like any of the types of circulatory systems, which all species need, to work right. I would tend to suspect that, while some wild variation is possible, and likely, there are similar basic mechanical, energy related, etc. constraints on that variation that would demand that they at least be “recognizable” enough to make general classifications of them, such as “rat-cat”. We have thousands of various solutions for how to form skin, eyes, etc., but on a mechanical/energy/structural level they all *must* work, on some level, the same, for them to work at all. Why would internal scaffolding (i.e. bones), locomotion, etc. differ in some wild fashion either? You claim I am basing this on incredulity, but your basing your assumptions on pure denial of the fact that there **are** be constraints that dictate what “can” result, even if we don’t have a clear concept of what those constraints may actually be in every case.
Maybe I could in turn ask you to find me an extra-terrestrial humanoid with tiger fur and a rat’s tail, and I will consider it more probable? :) OK, I won’t, but here’s some dimorphism on the brain:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/194/4261/211
HAHA! It was SO GOOD! I saw it last night, this movie beats the shit out of narnia. Narnia was all about obeying authority and trusting others blindly. This movie is about distrust of authority and demanding good reasons for trust. An excellent movie. Oh, and the bear kicks so much ass. I wish I was that bear. Polar bears rock. If only her sea sidekick was a giant, monstrous kraken, I’d be ll set to call it the best movie I seen all year. I liked it better than transformers (!).
I just wanted to mention, at the end of Yorik’s battle (you’ll see what I mean) the theater was shocked into silence, then broke into wild cheering. It was awesome. I tell ya, all this home movie experience with our 52 inch televisions and heptaphonic sound systems can’t match the emotional electricity in a packed movie house (and it was packed, although I didn’t see anyone below the age 16-17).
GO SEE IT. TAKE YOUNG’UNS.