Darwin Movie




I beg your pardon....THAT is wrong on so many levels.

I need some MARKETING STAT!

Or maybe it's just a shit movie but the Producer wants to pretend he's a martyr?

Seems to me it's the religious films that get blacklisted in America.

Nah,, it's British...they don't make shit movies.

I dunno... its getting overall positive reviews and if America is the ONLY large market not buying it, the "shit movie" theory would seem a major stretch.

Seems to me that while many Americans believe those in the middle east are the developmental equivalent of 13th century folk, they forget that most of the "2009" world often see's much of America as something out of 1828.

The only one I found was 4 years old.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/18748/Most-Amer...planations.aspx

Wait so the real way that evolution happened didn't have to do with 2 naked white people in a middle eastern desert talking to snakes, eating apples, killing dinosaurs and fighting the Taliban?




who knew

Ahem...

The Passion of the Christ (2004) $370,270,943
The Da Vinci Code (2006) $217,536,138
The Exorcist (1973) $204,565,000
The Santa Clause (1994) $144,833,357
Sister Act (1992) $139,610,000
The Santa Clause 2 (2002) $139,225,854
Four Christmases (2008) $120,136,047

We're talking about distribution, not public acceptance.

Mel Gibson went insane putting that movie out. Every other movie on that list either ridicules accepted religion or is The Exorcist which is far more a horror flick than it is a movie about religion.

A case could be made against any one of those films based on religion. Any movie about Christmas is by default a religious movie, even if you don't want to admit it.

Perhaps if they retitled it Tyler Perry's Darwin Movie?

It's a good thing he's above stereotyping.

The Santa Clause is a religious movie? Then I guess the Easter Bunny is a religious figure, too. And the Great Pumpkin.
What is really significant in the data is that 29% believe that both evolution and creationism are probably true. This is why data drawn from the general public can't be used to prove a point; the general public are ignorant morons. Maybe having the church tell people what to believe wasn't such a bad thing?

You spelled Morons correctly.

It's sad to know that America is still going to believe that black babies are brought to their parents by ravens.

I take it Ben Hur and The Seventh Sign don't count either.

I have to respectfully take the opposite stance here, nun. Not nearly enough Anti-theist movies make the mainstream. Someone needs to explain to asshats how asshattish they are. Thank Darwin for Hitchens and Maher and the like.

Bill Maher's movie didn't have a hard time finding a publisher.

That's probably a far more "offensive" movie to the religious nation of America than some Darwin biopic (or whatever it is).

And that's what this is about, somebody coming forward and fronting money to put the movie out. This isn't about theatres not picking it up (that comes later) or the MPAA not allowing it to be shown. This is about distributors not thinking they can turn a buck on it.

If Pi can find financial backing and this movie can't .... it has to be a stinking turd of a movie.

Or maybe this producer is a total douchebag and everyone in the industry refuses to talk to him. That could be it ... well, no. Money trumps personality in the movie biz.

Dude there are reams of movies that don't find distribution for a myriad of reasons... stinking turd just being a nugget, if you will, in the massive pile (again, if you will).

That said, the publicity this may be getting for not having a distributor may directly result in it now getting one! And perhaps that was the intent all along?

I want to see this movie. But not likely in the theater.

Yes


Now you're getting it!


Nope, you lost it again...

You were doing so well.

The distributors who don't want this really aren't doing the reputation of Americans any favours- it comes across either that they believe you to be backwards, close-minded religious nuts who will riot at the cinema, or too thick to understand the film and its debate and thus won't go for that reason.

I hope it's not crap- Jon Amiel made The Singing Detective! But he also made Entrapment.

Christmas films are not necessarily religious, they may be based on a religious festival and would not exist if it were not for that festival, but if said religious festival is becoming more commercial than religious, what does that mean for a FILM- essentially a product- based upon it?

The Catherine Zeta-Jones' Ass movie? I guess the director lacks the cache as a producer. I'm surprised he didn't secure a deal before he made the movie since he already had ties to the inside.

I guess I will join the weeping. I found the cited poll, on Gallup's own web site, dated February 11th 2009.


Gallup Poll - On Darwin’s Birthday


That being said, dig a little deeper when you read the post. There are some glimmers of hope.

Not many...

Entrapment was quite successful at the cinema though wasn't it? Catherine Zeta Jones' glory days!

...cause you know...they might riot.

While it's easy to insult the average American's intelligence (I do it all the time), you have to feel even a little vindicated when the movie distribution companies obviously feel that the American population is either:

A: Too dumb to understand evolution anyway
B: Not too dumb to understand it but so ignorant of what it is that they'll never get it in a 90 minute (?) movie
C: So stuffed with religious fire that they'll kick up a huge fuss when cinemas try to show the movie.

While religious belief is ok, being such a fanatic that you can't tolerate a film being shown with a different point of view from your own is, to me, proof that you're really a dumb person.

So reading from the list above, the best the American population can do is be... ignorant and probably wilfully so at that.

Keep banging the rocks, guys.

Moved from the global warming thread:



I think it doesn't sell because even evolution advocates can't point to how life was created in the first place and my questions have always been:

What are there still apes?
Where are our feline/canine/avian/reptilian counterparts?

If natural selection was able to shape primitive apes into modern day humans, why hasn't natural selection performed the same work on other species?

Oh, I'm no scientist. I can't debate the science fluently, only that there are large contingents of American people who claim it didn't happen SOLELY because of Genesis. And politicians(amongst others) have played, and played, and played that into the ground, dug it back up, put it in deeper, yadda yadda bing bang!!

It seems in this day and age of easy access to information, people are so willing to grab press releases, newspaper stories, etc. at a whim and share it with others as proof (or more proof, if you will) of some opinion/angle/evs. No real research goes into it. No consideration for the author, the intent, the history... it scares me, because there are so many sheep and plenty of wolves waiting for 'em. Not enough hawks (or eagles, if you wanna go American Patriotism route).

C'mon nun, really? Don't make me regret considering you a man of reasonable intelligence.

Don't make me consider you a man tethered to a popular opinion and unable to take a broader scientific analysis of the issue. No animal on the natural selection Garden of Eden, the Galapagos Islands, has created art, recreational music, started making and using tools, set up coffee stands, introduced commerce built rafts to seek out new islands or anything like that.

Sure they've perhaps developed helpful traits and bred out unhelpful ones.

But then if Evolution took us from apes to modern humans via natural selection (a huge change) then why are there still black people and messicans?





Why isn't the human race more homogenized? And how did this natural selection work GLOBALLY at the same rate? The most primitive aboriginal is still just as physically and genetically human as the most erudite European.

These are questions that are just brushed under the rug because Darwinism has no answer for them.

Which means the theory is still strongly a theory and should be presented as such as opposed to a fact. There are very interesting tales to tell about the theory of evolution, and I'm not saying that they shouldn't be told in a classroom setting. But any discussion of it should be balanced with the perspective of Intelligent Design, and yes, even Creationism. If for no other reason than give the students a holistic base to ponder for themselves.

You forgot the possibility we're all just part of the Matrix.

I thought the theory was that homo erectus evolved in the rift valley in Africa and then spread out across the world. Only after we had spread out did we start to diverge slightly in our outer physical characteristics, in response to the environmental conditions in which we found ourselves.

As to why there are still apes, I'd say it's because they still fit the ecological niche in which they find themselves. Animals evolve to take advantage of their surroundings. If they are still suited to their environment, there is no need for them to change.

But someone in America (with a religious bias, no doubt) decided if you ignore and accuse rather than consider, you have a better chance of selling your ideas to a populace that, end of the day, would rather take such individuals at their word rather than consider the alternatives.

I've heard bits and pieces of what you've mentioned above before, but would consider myself far from educated enough on them to have brought them forward... however, because I don't have that knowledge base, I am therefore prone to someone saying "these questions were brushed under rugs" and believing it has some basis in fact (or legit theory) when instead it is a total misnomer. Fortunately, this is not my first time reading a TJNR thread!! lol

No, actually these are pretty basic questions that you would find the answers to in a 100-level Biology course. My degree is in literature and I know that much.

This is clearly not my area of expertise. But I know there are still modern apes because they haven't gone extinct yet -- the same reason every species is still alive (well, maybe an exception for the ones humans have prevented from going extinct). Evolution occurs through mutation & natural selection. The vast majority of mutations will prove unfavorable, and that trait may die out. But favorable ones are usually eventually passed along. As long as the various apes can survive, they will remain as they are, and as conditions change and/or mutations occur they may change too. If they don't, they may go extinct. In an organism as complex as an ape, though, this is most likely to take a very, very long time.

I can't tell if you're clear on this or not, but evolution doesn't say that humans today evolved from gorillas, chimpanzees, or any other modern primate. It says that we share a very close common ancestor.

Natural Selection does occur in essentially every species. Are you really asking why there aren't Lizard Men or something?

And the evolution of man, for the most part, is believed NOT to have occurred globally. IIRC, the homo sapiens evolved in a certain area (most likely somewhere in Africa), and spread out from there. Other homo species that had already spread out died off. Homo sapiens continued to evolve, largely to adapt to new areas they ended up in, thus the difference in human races, but not to the point of forming a new species.

Perhaps the better question is why are there still ugly people, then?

And why shouldn't there be lizard people? What makes the Homo line unique? If there is no intelligent creator, why wouldn't there be cat-people, bird-people, dog-people, and the like? Why only the Homo lineage?

Mutation and natural selection does not explain art or music or appreciation of a beautiful landscape or any number of things that specifically mark the human experience apart from the animal experience.

No species in no location has ever had the marked change attributed to Evolution that the human species has. Why not? I think many accept the concept because we can look at primates and feel kinship and see similarity ... but how does that extrapolate to this one animal rising to great heights of knowledge and technology and expression and independence, but not any others?

Evolution does not deal with psychology.

How convenient.

Why hasn't evolution purged seasonal allergies by now. That's what I want to know.

Psychology is an invention of man from the last thousand years, give or take. As are seasonal allergies, and most things one would bring up. Man is somewhere around 200,000 years old, in its current species state? (diverging from another humanoid species 300,000 years before that!) But I guess a book from a few thousand years ago is the best source for information more than 200,000 years ago... so a book wrote today should be a much better source on everything that happened in the last 198,000 years??

The cucumber: The cucumber sleek shape is the correct size of the human hand. While one can make the weak argument that cucumbers are just that size because apes eat them and Godly micro evolution caused this them to be convenient to a human sized hand no other primate we are supposedly related to eats the cucumber, only humans. This also makes the cucumber the optimal size to be inserted into a human bodily orifice, again there is no natural reason for this. Only humans are depraved enough to violate themselves with a vegetable. Cucumbers have a tough out skin that allows them to put up to resist repeated rubbing, like what will happen when a cucumber is inserted into a human bodily orifice for purulent reasons. Again, no natural reason for this.

Evolution can not explain the cucumber. So clearly the cucumber has a creator.

Who or what is so obsessed with what humans put into their bodies that it would create a vegetable to enable it? There is only one answer; the God of the Christian Bible. Sticking things into your bum is a major point of Christianity. It is the direst of sins and God is on the constant alert for it, He is utterly outraged by it and tests humanity for it relentlessly. Clearly cucumbers are created by God as a trap for any hidden self sodomites out there.

Game over Atheists.

I guess you can't argue with logic.


Praise Jebus!

1) Evolutionary theory is only concerned with how life changes over time. It has nothing to do with the origin of life. One may as well criticize geology for not stating how the planet was formed.

2) Evolution is not directed. There is no goal. We are not the end result of a plan. We are the result of very specific environmental stressors, and random mutation filtered through natural selection. No other living species has been through those exact stressors and had the exact mutation filtered through natural selection necessary to form a sapient, sentient, creatively-thinking species, just as no other living species has undergone the exact mutation, selection and environmental stressors to form more platypus-like creatures. There were other closely related humanoid species (also descended from a common ancestor) but they went extinct.

3) We share a common ancestor with modern apes and monkeys. "Why are there still apes?" is like asking "Why do my cousins exist?"

4) Humans are not homogenised because as we spread over the globe populations adapted to their environment.

5) Creative thinking. This is what makes us unique. Physically weaker than most creatures of our size, our pre-human ancestors had to rely on their intelligence and socail structure to survive. They thought creatively and they took care of each other. Those that didn't were weeded out. These advantages don't come without cost, though. Thanks to the undesigned nature of these changes, they are filled with flaws. The very mechanism that allows us to recognise faces even after they undergo change such as wounding or aging is also responsible for us seeing faces in leafy trees and dragons in the clouds. We're prone to taking on superstitions based on confirmation bias (like lucky underpants, etc), ignoring overwhelming negative evidence. Because of the way our brains process visual information we're fairly easily fooled by simple optical illusions such as the juggler's disappearing ball.

6) Seasonal allergies do not prevent breeding.

7) "Theory" in science has a different definition to the lay term. To the average Joe "theory" means something closer to a hunch. In science it is an explanation of observed facts, based entirely on the evidence available and not conjecture. A common misconception is that there is a hierarchy, with "theory" being under "law" in terms of validity. Not true. There is the Law of Gravity, which is the observed fact. There is also the Theory of Gravity, which is the explanation of the observed fact. It is not a hierarchy.

8) Pre-emptive strike: There's no real division between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. These are terms largely used by those who wish to deny speciation. To say life can "micro-evolve" and not "macro-evolve" is the equivalent of saying it's possible to walk to your front door, but not to the corner shop. "Macro-evolution" is the exact same process as "micro-evolution" - it just takes place over a longer period of time, resulting in greater change.

^ That was good.

But Darwin was still full of shite.

Plenty of ugly people have kids. Also people don't just kill their kids, if they are ugly. There is more to having kids than just being good looking. Do you agree with at least that much?


As to why there are no lizard-people, and bird-people and such; the current theory for the evolution of the line that became Homo sapiens is that we evolved greater capacities for language and creative thinking to be used for teamwork and tool making/using. Other species have been shown to have limited capacities for creative thinking and language. We have been able to teach other species language, but none of them can use it as well as us and none of them have shown the capacity to pass on an expand on language without human intervention. Tool usage and tool building can be seen in the wild, but and even teaching of tools has been seen in the wild, but never generational improvements in tools.


The line that lead to Homo sapiens had hips that allowed them to run and carry tools at the same time. That was the ancestor that was the split between the line that became modern chimps and the line that became modern man. Our bipedal hips allowed us to run with our tools. Being able run with tools meant that we could run after our prey carrying weapons, and also we could keep our tools and improve them. The smarter ones would make better tools and spread those through their tribe. The tool makers killed all the other bipedal apes. (The toolmakers also killed lots of quadrupedal apes too.)


Being able to run with tools was perfect storm that allowed us to get smart.




This is already a wall of text, but I think I will add more.


I believe in the theory of evolution and in the big bang theory, but there are limits to physical science. The will always be limits to physical science. The is where metaphysics come in. There will always be knowledge that is beyond science.


The Catholic priest (a Vatican astronomer) in Religulous seemed to get it. He believed in science, but saw no conflict with being religious.


People like Richard Dawkins step outside of physical science and make claims that are metaphysical beliefs.

This is 2800 Bullittsburg Church Rd. And this is Ray, the Kiwi who leads an exciting double life. For when Ray unpeels a banana, an amazing transformation occurs.

Ray is Bananaman! Ever alert for the call to action!



Funny thing is, Ray thinks the people who denounced his banana speech don't understand, that removing the part about the coke can takes it out of context. He doesn't understand that the context is perfectly preserved, even without the coke can! He claimed the banana was designed for us by God, and people showed him that it wasn't - it was the result of deliberate breeding by human beings!

God made rocks too. We can't eat rocks.


That banana thing is dumb.

On a side note:

Obama is president nun, and all the praying you and other right wing nut jobs did couldn't stop it.

If God is all powerful why did this happen?

Were is your God when you need him, huh? Where is your beautiful, merciful faggot now?

Shampyon, I'd hug you if you weren't so friggin' far away. Well done.

Viva la resistance!