This exercise in false equivalence, Duelity, is beautifully animated but promotes a poor idea. It’s basically two videos, one telling the Christian creation myth inaccurately and in the style of a scientific explanation, and another that inaccurately summarizes the evolution story as if it were holy writ. There’s a pretense that these are equally valid descriptions of the history of the world that is completely wrong, and that amplifies the errors throughout the individual stories from mere irritations to dishonest propaganda.
The comments there are largely positive. All I can assume from that is that a lot of people are easily swayed by good production values.
Well… I wasn’t swayed!
Just goes to show, do a little hard reading and fact-finding and even the Hollywood pzazz can’t get you. (I hope!)
*yawn* Sorry, PoMo makes me sleepy.
I believe the evolution one because it is presented with a very pleasing female voice.
That’s great, the evolution occurs by magic, either lightning or transformation of the individual (hints of the “conversion experience”).
Oh I know, it’s not supposed to be literal, but it’s worse than literal, it’s visual. Your naive believer is going to say to himself, well, it’s magic one way or magic the other way, I might as well believe in the magic that looks reasonable to me, building things like a factory does.
More junk on the internet. Who’d have expected that?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Cute. Clever. But lame, nonetheless. We live in an era of easy and superficial equivalences. The “equations” and “science” in the creation account are mere window dressing (backdrops from the prop shop), while the evolution account can be buttressed with a solid and growing body of evidence (peer-reviewed publications). Not equivalent at all.
I know, though, that lots of people think we should “teach the controversy” (as though there is one) and no discussion of science can be considered complete without equal time for nonsense.
PZ said, “All I can assume from that is that a lot of people are easily swayed by good production values.”
Really? I saw a lot of commenters that were impressed by the production values (I am one of them), but no one who was swayed by them.
I didn’t feel that pretense of equivalence. I just thought they were two cute tellings of two stories. I’m not sure the authors honestly had a point, I think they just wanted to do a little art project.
If anything, it accurately demonstrates that the gut truthiness of a story has much more to do with how it’s told than the content. Creation doesn’t become true by being described technically, and a current going theory of the origins of earth and humanity doesn’t become less true for being told with reverence.
I dunno about those alien bacteria, though.
I actually think that’s an interesting idea, because if you’re on the ball enough to spot that one or the other is screwed up, it shows up quite nicely how neither communicative paradigm works for the other concept.
While it doesn’t say anything about the relative truth or falsity of either narrative (pardon the term of art), you could use it as a “teachable moment” for people who might be swayed by people who try to talk about science in religious terms (like that guy with his dang frozen waterfalls), or people who try to talk about religion in scientific terms (the ID “cargo cultists”). Once you get someone to that point, you can neatly put a bullet in the brain of the “separate magisteria” argument.
Cute, but stupid.
And next they’ll be doing geocentrism as science and heliocentrism as a religious myth?
Two vastly different views of life
Can seem the same, of course–
With crowbar, and some axle grease,
And lots of sheer brute force.
They seem to fit, if hacked apart,
And bruised, and out of joint…
Ok, they don’t. They aren’t the same.
I think they missed the point.
If the explanation for any natural phenomena is an invisible magical being who leaves no evidence, beyond a a few scrolls written by a bunch of people who declare it to be his/her word – I’m out.
And then they woke up.
That’s a good point, Interrobang, as far as it goes, but the site itself presents its narratives without any other context. As such, it’s worthless. Well, unless you’re a creationist (or a PoMo wanker) who wants to feel better about believing that science is just another religion.
The art is pretty flash, but neither is the scientific method. The creation short just puts “science” (Or G.O.D. , if you will.) in all the parts where is says “god”.. thats not scientific.
Did anyone miss one of the filmmakers own comments?
“I’m curious as to how so many ‘intelligent’ (i’m defining intelligent here as people who advocate evolution) people can miss the entire point of this project. The idea here is to show the two competing ideas from the opposing viewpoint. It is not to elevate one over the other, but rather to show a juxtaposition between the message and the manner in which it is delivered, ie: a ‘scientific’ explanation of religion, and a ‘religious’ explanation of science. What does the inability to pick up on the themes here say about such ‘intelligent’ people?
(disclaimer before I go down in flames, I do understand how evolution works and yes, the universe is older than 6k years old)”
Seems to me that this was an interesting (from an artistic standpoint) to juxtapose different things; to turn viewpoints on their heads. I don’t think the makers were trying to state that they are equivalent views; they were trying to show how one might look if viewed through the lens of the other.
I don’t know it was all bad – I found the “evolution” story pretty moving: Even if it left out all the details, the story was still a congruent whole.
The creationist view told “scientifically” simply turned into gibberish. Which, I suppose, is fair.
(note for the literal-minded: I know neither of the quoted words are the correct ones, I simply used them for convenience)
Not pretty at all. And totally batshit.
I guess I must be rather odd amongst the general population (although not here I suspect) in when wanting to know more about an area of science (or history, or anything else for that matter) would prefer to read a well written book on the subject by an author who either works in the field or has a very strong grounding in it.
It was Richard Dawkins’ “The Blind Watchmaker” which first got me interested in evolution. At the time I knew the basics of the theory but had not studied it in depth. I was also blissfully unaware that there people foolish enough to be creationists. In case anyone does not know, I live in the UK where thankfully creationists are thinner on the ground than in the US, and also less vocal (although that seems to be changing of late). Personally I think it might be a good idea to hand a copy of “The Blind Watchmaker” to every school kid, both here and in the US. It would have the benefit of driving the fundies mad, and the kids might just read some excellent science writing.
I think I saw it differently… I only watched a few minutes of each but the message I *thought* it was promoting was:
* Look how stupid creationism seems once divorced of its mysteriousness
* Look how unnecessary it is to describe the true creation in hushed tones of reverence and worship
I am obviously not the target demographic…
I for one love the short. To me, it shows very well how framing can influence the message, how scientific creation doesn’t work and how Darwin isn’t compatible with religious points of view. And it’s pretty.
In other words: This short is not designed to further Creationism, and it is not designed to explain evolution. So when it does neither, I don’t think that’s a weakness.
I agree with Olive, #7.
However, a fish with a frickin’ halo and illuminated dinos? I’m sold.
Come on, PZ, don’t you know that truth always lies in the middle of two opposing points of view? I mean, didn’t they teach you in math class that if one person says 2+2=4 and another says 2+2=6, then 2+2 simply must equal 5?
It struck me as simple (and by simple I mean short-bus simple) contrarian pseudo-intellectual film school claptrap. And the maker’s “surprise” at all those “supposedly intelligent” people “failing to understand” rather clinches that for me.
Really fabulous eye-candy, but quite empty.
I thought it had artistic merit, and not just for production values. I caught on to what was evidently the filmmaker’s point: showing each view within the stylistic framework of the other. The religion was treated like science: the science was treated like religion. I didn’t get the sense that a point was being made that “science is really another kind of religion” and “religion is scientific.”
But they walked into a Hot Topic area, and their project was just bound to be seen as making a point about the evolution-creationism issue. And we easily spot the “fallacies” if you assume that’s what it’s about. We’re not being stupid because we “don’t get it.”
You can “get it” and still make points regarding how this will be misread. Though that image in the evolution section where the of head of another species pops out of a fish would make a great visual illustrating how creationists think evolution happened.
I agree with shiftlessbum. Its not saying they’re the same, its just playing with the delivery. They are looking at these stories not because one is right and the other is claptrap, but because in our society these are the two views that are presented. I don’t think they are making in value judgment of either.
It’s dumb because, however much ‘scientific jargon’ is sometimes unecessary, terminology has evolved and is used for a reason. To replace biblical story with ‘technical terms’ IMO is misleading as to the essential purpose of such terms (and diagrams etc). Also, the woman’s fake fairytale voice is totally lame.
Eh, other than a few small details, I kinda liked the evolution one. I’m with markp from #20 about the creationism one – it really did make creationism look pretty silly. But I may not be the target audience, either.
I sometimes wonder how science got that stereotype of being all neat and “beepy?” In my own line of work doing engineering research, and visiting the few scientists I know, real research is a whole lot cruder & less glamorous than the public image of it.
Immediately put me in mind of this excellent music video:
All the factory-stuff and patent crap… They didn’t make Creationism sound like science, they made it into a marketing spiel. It felt like the intended response was “Yes, I’ll buy one of those worlds!” rather than “Yes, that makes sense as an explanation.” I’d wager you simply *cannot* turn the Creationist story into something that actually sounds like a scientist explaining how things happened.
Also, clicking on “Watch” gave me a default of watching just the Creationist cartoon. The huge pauses irritated the hell out of me until I realized what was going on.
All in all, I conclude that someone enjoys 3D modeling and cell-shaded materials far too much, and has a friend who enjoys pure flat animations (Flash?) far too much, and they wanted a project to practice ’em both on.
The truly sad thing is, the utterly bogus evolution as a faith version was still more believable.
I also posted about this film on my blog. And I think you hit the nail on the head-the film is really about the production values, not the content. It is interesting to watch, but don’t expect to get any real content out of it. I especially liked the “hand of god” appear in the evolution side…what does that mean? are they making a deist comment? ID? probably doesn’t really matter.
S.
ADAM V.01 !?
I love how right after eve eats the apple, it cuts to a woman scientist trying to explain where we came from.
And after the evolutionary tale, it cuts to a theologian trying to explain the universe.
Anyone with the smallest clue knows how wrong that is. But, I gander children won’t be able to separate lies from facts.
Never thought I’d be the one to say this, but here it is:
You’re being too literal-minded.
markp and shiftlessbum had it right. It’s an artistic juxtaposition of expository styles, meant to be amusing, not instructive. Like those cell phone commercials where the people look like they’re fighting, but saying positive things.
“I don’t hate you!”
“I know you really mean that!”
Hey, I’m with Sastra on this one. I can ‘get it’ and appreciate the animation strictly as an art project without getting all worked up over the factual errors or false equivalencies. There’s an Elvis Costello song called ‘Monkey To Man’ that contains this couplet:
After all the misery he has caused/
He denies he’s descended from the dinosaurs
Which is, of course, wrong. People aren’t descended from dinosaurs. We aren’t birds. But you know what? It’s still a great song. And I can enjoy it as such, as far as that goes.
I want to add, though, that the animators need not express surprise that ‘intelligent’ people who’ve been through the creo/evo wars will see this as anything as potential ammo for one side or the other.
shiftlessbum (#16), “Ryan” the commenter is not the same person as “Ryan” the filmmaker as evidenced by the part of his comment that you did not include in yours:
If he were Ryan the filmmaker, that would be a strange comment indeed.
Beth says: “I don’t think they are making [a] value judgment of either.”
Personally, that’s a problem for me – because ID/creationism needs to be judged, repeatedly, on what utter horseshit it is, in contrast to the mountains of evidence evolution has for support.
Poorly-educated people who watch this will not understand that fact from this video.
I’m with markp. I pretty much liked it, because the creation story looks even more ridiculous dressed up as “science” than it does in the Bible, if that’s possible. The evolution side threw out all the evidence for evolution, but told a story I found more hauntingly moving than Genesis. Nothing on the evolution side made me think, “well, that’s just silly”, except for the hand of god appearing and the little cherubs.
I left a review on the Stumbleupon page similar to what you said PZ. It was clever but hollow.
I enjoyed the video. It makes you think: who in the evo/creo wars sees religion as science, or science as religion?
Also, I’m not so sure that the creationists could use this as ammunition. Creationists advocate both a religious view of science and scientific view of religion. Both of these views are made to look silly in the video.
Yeah, that’s the oldest line in the book. Especially in the pseudo-intellectual crowd.
As for the “point”, I get it. It’s just a dumb friggin’ point.
Cuttlefish — when is your book coming out?
You could be the Calvin Trillin of science.
I see from where most everyone is coming, but when I saw these videos I thought it was just to reverse the normal presentation and,as Interrobang said, show “quite nicely how neither communicative paradigm works for the other concept.”
Realization:
The makers are artists.
Artists like religion because it sparks strong emotions and offers wonderful symbolism and imagery to play with. Then they get annoyed by all the inane rules.
Artists like science because it opens up new ways of looking at the world. Then they get annoyed if they have to deal with how concrete and mathematical it is.
This video makes perfect sense from the standpoint of a pure artist.
It’ll still suck when people try to misuse it, but I really can’t blame the makers.
What GodlessHeathen says.
If you think that piece is even trying to make a statement, you’re looking too hard: art school Big Ideas have all the intellectual heft of a poo on the carpet.
I hate post modernism, it robs any value from anything its slimy tentacles touch. This is certainly no exception .
Did anyone miss one of the filmmakers own comments?
That clearly isn’t one of the filmmakers, it’s someone else who happens to be named Ryan. But if it were one of the filmmakers, then his statement “I do understand how evolution works” would definitely be false. And that’s a point that many of the commenters here just don’t seem to get — that the video radically misrepresents evolution, and that such a misrepresentation is necessary in order to create the sort of false equivalence that the video does create. It also misrepresents science as merely a matter of tone in the religious story, ignoring the importance of confirming evidence and all other elements of the scientific method. The video spreads and reinforces false beliefs, and is therefore an anti-scientific piece of crap.
Come on, PZ, don’t you know that truth always lies in the middle of two opposing points of view? I mean, didn’t they teach you in math class that if one person says 2+2=4 and another says 2+2=6, then 2+2 simply must equal 5?
It’s 5.32 as every true mather knows. Die heretic!
I see from where most everyone is coming, but when I saw these videos I thought it was just to reverse the normal presentation and,as Interrobang said, show “quite nicely how neither communicative paradigm works for the other concept.”
So many of the comments here are so pathetically stupid. Science is not a “communicative paradigm”. Science works regardless of how it is communicated, and religion fails no matter how it is communicated. And both stories told in the video are fairy tales, not science.
PZ, you missed the joke!
To me, it seemed very funny because of the forced juxtaposition of creationism in scientific style, and evolution in a religious style. Of course it’s wrong.
Nothing on the evolution side made me think, “well, that’s just silly”
It should have. The whole narrative was absurd, starting with it being a narrative read from a holy book. “In the beginning, our universe was born as a great eruption of energy, illuminating the impenetrable abyss”?? What does that have to do with evolution? And what “impenetrable abyss”, and how did this energy “illuminate” it? Do you suppose that light from our universe shines on a vast space outside our universe? The filmmakers seem to, both from the words and the images. And they think the Earth was seeded by bacteria and protein via “icy rockets”?? How did the bacteria and protein come about, and how did it get onto these “rockets”, which came from … where? “And there, upon the ocean floors, the smallest creatures begat creatures of greater size”??? Where did the “smallest creatures” come from? Is evolution just a matter of bearing larger offspring? (And why are the offspring larger?) If not, what is evolution, and how does it work? Are we just large bacteria or globs of protein? Where is the theory of evolution presented at all? This video is incredibly stupid, as is anyone who thinks that nothing on “the evolution side” is silly.
PZ, you missed the joke!
To me, it seemed very funny because of the forced juxtaposition of creationism in scientific style, and evolution in a religious style.
Something isn’t a joke just because it seems funny to you. And how do you know PZ didn’t find the juxtaposition amusing, as well as pretty and fundamentally wrong? But I suspect that his amusement was tempered by the fact that it is fundamentally wrong because, well, he isn’t stupid.
shiftlessbum (#16), “Ryan” the commenter is not the same person as “Ryan” the filmmaker as evidenced by the part of his comment that you did not include in yours
For some reason, this video has made a lot of commenters here unusually stupid. I think PZ has something when he writes “All I can assume from that is that a lot of people are easily swayed by good production values”. I don’t think he meant that they would be swayed to believe in creationism or reject evolution.
Which is, of course, wrong. People aren’t descended from dinosaurs. We aren’t birds. But you know what? It’s still a great song. And I can enjoy it as such, as far as that goes.
That’s pretty stupid, because the whole point of this video is to create an equivalence, but the equivalence rests on radically wrong beliefs about evolution, whereas the error is only incidental to the song.
I want to add, though, that the animators need not express surprise that ‘intelligent’ people who’ve been through the creo/evo wars will see this as anything as potential ammo for one side or the other.
Even more stupid; not all people named Ryan are the same person, and the evidence that this Ryan isn’t the filmmaker is ample — including the way he disses one side of his audience when the filmmaker is supposedly trying to take an even hand.
They are looking at these stories not because one is right and the other is claptrap, but because in our society these are the two views that are presented.
No, they aren’t; no one (other than the filmmakers) presents this absurd “view” of evolution.
I don’t think they are making in value judgment of either.
Their message is that all stories are equivalent. The value judgment is that evolution is just another story.
But, I gander children won’t be able to separate lies from facts.
Aye. And that’s what’s so pernicious about this video.
I thought the video was freaking brilliant.
It’s a shame it can’t be seen for what it is (or what I think it is), which is a creative work that isn’t really making a statement on creationism vs. evolution. I don’t know if I’d call it a “joke” as Inoculated Mind does, but it is certainly clever.
Anyway, it’s a film school project, with an obvious emphasis on the visual. If I were to make a guess, I’d say the writer/director was not a religious sort at all, but buys into evolution. So he presented a panspermia version, and glossed over the details and took some artistic license so it fit the concept of making the science view look religiousy. If you are taking that as some sort of statement that science is just another form of religion….well….you need to get out more or something.
To those who say it is completely stupid….can we see something you’ve done that’s better?
It’s a shame it can’t be seen for what it is (or what I think it is), which is a creative work that isn’t really making a statement on creationism vs. evolution.
It’s a shame that you’re too stupid to grasp that “Duelity is a split-screen animation that tells both sides of the story of Earth’s (sic!) origins”, together with videos labeled “creationism” and “evolution” (sic!) makes a statement, whether the filmmakers meant that statement or not.
To those who say it is completely stupid….can we see something you’ve done that’s better?
Look, moron, PZ acknowledged that it’s pretty and has good production values. No one said that it is completely stupid — the people who made it knew how to use their technology. But when it comes to understanding evolution it’s very stupid, and yes there’s plenty that is much better on that score.
If you are taking that as some sort of statement that science is just another form of religion….well….you need to get out more or something.
If people who get out more have all been hit on the head or or something, making them incapable of clicking on the Synopsis link at the site.
You’re right, your exact words were “This video is incredibly stupid”. So shoot me for using “completely” when I should have said “incredibly”.
But you know truth machine, you’ve got a serious attitude problem. Hey, it’s great that you believe in science and evolution and all. But you know what? You are childish and hateful. And frankly, it doesn’t appear that you are all that smart either, because it seems you have massively misinterpreted the video. How old are you anyway, 16? It shows.
But you know truth machine, you’ve got a serious attitude problem.
Yes, I seriously dislike stupidity and intellectual dishonesty.
And frankly, it doesn’t appear that you are all that smart either, because it seems you have massively misinterpreted the video.
For which claim you provide no support.
How old are you anyway, 16? It shows.
Yet another thing you’re stupidly wrong about.
To those who say it is [incredibly] stupid….can we see something you’ve done that’s better?
Whether someone else has done something “better” — better as a presentation about evolution or better as a work of art — has no bearing on whether the video is incredibly stupid, moron. Apparently you’re too stupid to comprehend that ad hominem arguments are fallacious.
Truth Machine wrote:
.
Truth Machine: don’t you see the ad hominem in the argument you present?
Moving on, I think PZ missed the point of the video. I saw it as an attempt to reconcile our differences.
I thought it was great! I don’t think they were trying to make any contribution to any side of the argument. It seemed to me just a funny, up-side-down way of looking at things, like when someone draws eyes on their chin to make a face with an up-side-down mouth. It kind of screws with your brain in the same way as saying, “Behold! They moved upon the land and begat all manner of beasts.” Very creative.
Truth Machine, the hateful dogmatism in your comments both here and on the blog accompanying the movie is an embarassment to all science-minded people. The funny thing is, one of the aims of the makers of these movies is clearly to expose people like you. You must be very insecure in your scientific beliefs (and beliefs is all they are in your case, because if you had truly grasped the concept of science, you would not feel so threatened by this funny and clever movie).
I thought they were both pretty, and actually I took the Creation video to be satire. When the Evolution on rolled however… oh boy. They of course jumped over many things in evolution, like in the end when man just comes forth after the meteor kills all the dinosaurs.
But what irritated me the most is that evolution (of life) has nothing to do with the Big Bang, or the birth of the solar system, or even how life began at earth. To present it as such just shows how the creators mistake evolution as some sort of scientific creation-story.
Is that Ben Stein, commenting on December 11, 2007 at 8:55pm?
see:
http://duelityblog.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/hello-world/#comments
If TM comments on #64, I trust he will not do so with the amusement I got from reading it.
When one side says “The world is round”,
The other says “It’s flat”;
To reconcile can’t be done–
And that, my friend, is that.
“Duelity” or “Duality”? Are we fighting a duel or are we combining/comparing two different world views?
Dunno, but teh duelity is obviously not meant seriously – they have to be just kidding us. No chance it is for real. They just took the usual creation-religion / evolution-science relationship and turned it upside down just because they thought it would be fun.
Woody Allen once rewrote some of the Bible stories. In one, God came to Abraham in the night and told Abraham to sacrifice his son. When Abraham got to the altar, God said “What in the WORLD were you THINKING!”
The moral of the story is that people will do anything a well-modulated voice in the dark tells them to do.
Can we stop trying to prove that parody of fundamentalists cannot be done now?
Frank Oswalt #64
I don’t necessarily agree with truth machine, but I’m afraid you’re dead wrong here. Listen to yourself. You’re basically saying, “You’re only angry because, in the back of your mind, you know you’re wrong.” No, no, no.
Besides, shouldn’t we be encouraging “insecure” beliefs?
Oh, come on! You guys are taking this too literally! It is just an amuzing video! Besides, the ones who says that big bang and evolution had nothing to do with each other, the connection wasn’t the point. It was just showing how the universe was created and life arose. It is a fact that life arose after the big bang, so they put evolution in there, if not, how else could it have reached the conclusion that humans were curious about nature if there were no humans?
I thought it was fantastic. The animation was great.
But I saw the point. It was to show a cartoon characterization of each story through the cartoon characterization of each perspective. And then juxtapose them together. It was an extremely clever and well-done mixture of ideas and imagery.
Holy shamoly! Could we all just calm the heck down?
This was a cute little exercise that was incredibly wrong on BOTH sides of the dichotomy, but it obviously was not meant to be 100% accurate.
I swear to you I have heard EXACTLY the same incorrect crap as on these vidoes EVERYDAY from dedicated jeebus mouth breathers to people who consider themselves ‘educated.’
What we who ARE educated and dedicated to the endless pursuit of knowledge sometimes forget is that what we learned years ago SEPARATES us from MOST of the entire human race. What we have come to know as the foundation upon which we build all other things is just not known by the overwhelming majority of humans.
For instance: evolution, the scientific method, logic, mathematics, the list is almost endless. When I reveal that I have earned a degree in mathematics virtually everyone responds with, “Oh, I’m terrible in math, I just never got it.”
So it comes as no surprise that the makers of this very cute little video are WRONG about both the god myth and evolution. The makers are of the herd, you simply cannot expect them to be accurate, but they can be entertaining, can’t they?
PS-rest assured, they won’t make people any dumber than they are.
I just watched this, and I loved it — I’m an atheist, I accept evolution, and think that creationism is a load of bunk, but I’m having trouble understanding why I’ve seen so many people are getting torches and pitchforks for the films. It’s art, it’s fun, and the whole point of the film is the strangeness that results from trying to switch the language between evolution and creationism.
I seriously think that too many of us have gotten so frustrated with debunking creationism and clarifying misconceptions about evolution that we think that any “popular” mention of evolution and creationism need to come with footnotes and a disclaimer. It’s like that Family Guy parody of “The More You Know.”
I’m surprised that you didn’t all go around years ago, ranting about how Pokemon was misinterpreting evolution, promoting creationism, and confusing the public about science.