Is One "King Kong" Movie worth 1000 Darwin Exhibits?

Dinosaurs! But the creos can say "Look, there's dinosaurs living at the same time as humans! It must be true, I saw it in a movie."

Myabe if Kong makes the creo's realize how ugly but loveable (giggle) they are all will be forgiven BHHHHHWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

If the fundies can see family values in "March of the Penguins" I don't think they're going to see much Darwin in King Kong. Mark my words, Kong will be another crucified Christ symbol who died for Jack Black's sins.

Maybe it's mentioned somewhere on the linked web sites, but since it's not mentioned in the above blog entry:

A fun piece of movie trivia is that it is no coincidence that the main character (Ann Darrow) has the same last name as a famous attorney (Clarence Darrow).

....gah....needed a ::SPOILER:: warning

My Fav. screen monkey was Clive.... handsome, debonair, funny, and had eye for the girls or was that Errol Flynn ......dang I'm not sure now...I must be devolving

The Naomi Watts character is named Darrow. Coincidence?

I don't really think the anthropomorphication of Kong will really matter any more than the anthropomorphication of other animals in other films. I mean, the animals in that Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe movie emote too, or so I'm told. If they can make a lion laugh and cry, that may be a real blow against common descent.

I guess we can always hope that Kong gets kids interested in evolution. Seems to me that dinosaurs were the best thing we had on our side, but now Hovind and others are trying to use them for creationism.

Gads, I feel like such a cultural warrior now...

... The Skull Island Act Two is a grotesque, gut-crunching nightmare of human sacrifice, dinosaur brawls and appalling insect attacks that will give arachnophobes the screaming willies ...

Dan Wintell said
Bill Dembski is arguing for certain elements that appear designedThe part time slightly hidden partly revealed god of certain bits. If you would've read his books then I think you would've known. Ken Ham argues that there is design because the bible says soThe part time slightly hidden partly revealed god of certain letters in a old book of poems. . Get the distinctiondumb and dumber right, Dave! By the way Mr. Thomas, are you an atheist?depends who's asking

I don't really think the anthropomorphication of Kong will really matter any more than the anthropomorphication of other animals in other films. I mean, the animals in that Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe movie emote too, or so I'm told. If they can make a lion laugh and cry, that may be a real blow against common descent.

— Rey

Darwinists can't face the truth said:
DARWINISTSCREATIONISTS CAN'T FACE THE TRUTH ABOUT THE EVIDENCE.

"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitionsGOD in my book. If I knew of any, fossilGOD or living, I would certainly have included them...I will lay it on the line, There is not one such fossil GOD for which one might make a watertight argument."

Colin Patterson

If any event in life's history resembles man's creation myths, it is this sudden diversification of marine life when multicellular organisms GOD took over as the dominant actors in ecology and evolution. Baffling (and embarrassing) to DarwinGOD , this event still dazzles us and stands as a major biological revolution on a par with the invention of self-replication and the origin of the eukariotic cellGOD . The animal phyla emerged out of the Precambrian mists with most of the attributes of their modern descendantsGOD ."

Bengston, Stefan (1990

No wonder paleontologists GOD shied away from evolution for so long. It never seemed to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change---over millions of years, at a rate too slow to account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils GOD did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution GOD cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that's how the fossilGOD record has struck many a forlorn paleontologistIDIOT looking to learn something about evolutionGOD .

Eldredge, N., 1995
Reinventing DarwinGOD
Is that u blasty ?

By the way Mr. Thomas, are you an atheist?

If evolution is a fact,why are there no large humans evolving from King Kong? Wait, there were large humans called nephalim in the BIBLE,but they were not created, can ID explain this?

....gah....needed a ::SPOILER:: warning

— yellow fatty bean

He's us, and we are him...

DARWINISTS CAN'T FACE THE TRUTH ABOUT THE EVIDENCE. ...

One person who will not be attending the discussion forums is Guillermo Gonzalez, author of "The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery," assistant professor of physics and astronomy and main proponent of introducing Intelligent Design. Gonzales argues the theory is not based on religion. "I don't intend to participate in an kind of forum presented by the opposing side," Gonzalez said.

yeah yeah
there are 601,000 "mythology beauty beast"
hits on google
More strip mining of timeless tales by Hollywood.
I can't wait for a complete OT remake sandals ,swords and the "Brady Bunch" horror flick complete with dancing frogs.

Here is one
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Beauty and the beast: a myth of sadness, madness, and hope in anaclitic depression

Look up "Anaclitic" it pretty much sumarizes the ID movement.

This thread is becoming a trainwreck. Where are the intelligent trolls?

Darwinists Can't Face the Truth: you're a despicable quote miner. You're bearing false witness. You haven't read the books you're citing, you have no idea what the context of those quotes is, you probably can't even spell the authors' names without cutting and pasting.

Go read something intelligent: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part3.html#quote3.13

Theo
"
This thread is becoming a trainwreck. Where are the intelligent trolls?"

Maybe they gave up BS and read these instead
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=8-0618509283-0
http://www.samharris.org/

uh, DSCFTT is a parody, right? Because I can't tell the difference anymore.

The Skull Island Act Two is a grotesque, gut-crunching nightmare of human sacrifice, dinosaur brawls and appalling insect attacks that will give arachnophobes the screaming willies

psssst ->Darwinists Creationist's still can't face the truth

Time to stop worrying about the sleeping arrangements of a bunch of puppets

and your "Dear leader" Howard
wink wink
http://www.tourettes-disorder.com/mozart.html

C-O-L-I-N P-A-T-T-E-R-S-O-N.

In Round 2, ReMine quoted the late Colin Patterson remarking that "Congruence between molecular phylogenies" is "elusive." (Patterson 1993) But Patterson was talking about drawing conclusions from insufficient data. What did Patterson think about biomolecules and human evolution? He called the molecular evidence "impressive," writing, for example, "Comparison of another huge set of sequences, the entire DNA of the mitochondria - about 15,000 bases ... also puts chimpanzees as our closest relatives, with confidence greater than 99.9%." (Patterson 2001)

Can you spell 'lack of fossil evidence'.

Can you spell IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY.

PS---I'm not Heddle, not Salvador, I'm nobody.

The reason why people reject evolution is because it is atheistic to the core.

No wonder why most scientists are rejecting Darwinism. Check this out: "In the last 90 days, 29 scientists, including eight biologists, have signed the "Scientific Dissent From Darwinism." The list includes over 70 biologists.

the Pipsqueeks [sic] here at the PT can't face the evidence.

I invite the bloggers here to warp the evidence all they want. In the end, it's they who will lose. To all you others think for yourself and question authority!

Why don't you answer the questions, unnamed creationist visitor? Too afraid to admit that there is no theory of ID, no peer reviewed articles, no "majority" of scientists behind ID and so on and on all you other lies?

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf

i still can't figure out what's wrong with atheism. i'm an atheist and proud of it.

i think evolution and atheism are definitely tied, because science and atheism are tied. religion is the opposite of science - aw man, i hate when people view things as dichotomies, and now i've done it. i should say, religion requires a denial of science. now, i know there are stupendously qualified scientists and experts on evolution who are religious and read and write on this very blog, but you can't deny that even the barest superstition requires at least a tiny little bit of denial of science. most require a lot.

and by very tangiential extension, sort of, why is the origin of life something to be tiptoed around? everything about the universe that we can be sure of is continuous (not at the quantum level, but that's not what i mean). why can't we assume that the origin of life involves the chemical version of random mutation and natural selection of amino acids and proteins and whatnot? i'm not a scientist, but why do we assume there was some magic event that demarcated the end of lifelessness and the beginning of life? if there are scientists following this line of logic, why don't i ever hear about it? you guys know what's up. where can i find that information?

to get this back on topic, i agree with the above folks who say that half the damn movies in hollywood have anthropomophic animals and objects. those other movies don't support the understanding of evolution. even if this movie uses genetic and evolutionary ideas underneath its story, i doubt very much that the general public will walk away with that.

i'm an atheist! i know evolution happened (happens (will continue to happen))!

I see a number of comments that apparently refer to a comment by someone calling him/herself Darwinists can't face the truth.

However, I don't see any actual comments by that person on this thread. Please tell me that Panda's Thumb has not adopted Dembski tactics - deleting comments without explanation.

I actually read the posts made by "Darwinists can't face the truth" and can attest that they were posted here.

I really dislike this comment deletion tactic.

I think the poster's tone spoke for itself (a lot of emotion but little thought).

Yup, the comments have been deleted. While DCFTT's comments were pretty worthless, I'm not sure this is the best way to handle it.

What's up? Was the ISP the same as someone who's been banned?

bah. I always miss the really funny trolls.

dre,

Science and Religion are not opposites (as in science is contrary to religion). Rather I claim they cover different areas of thought (as in science doesn't cover religion and vice versa).

Religion deals with faith, belief, and the supernatural.

Science deals with evidence, observations, and the natural.

These are different areas of thought.

You can be an Atheist scientist but then you could also be a Christian scientist.

Religion does not imply science nor does it deny science.
Science does not imply religion nor does it deny religion (well, it can deny certain religious *claims*).

I agree with Chatfield, deletion without explaination isnt the best policy. It only serves as a defense for Dumbski apologists.

Another vote for no deletion without explanation. Trolls should not be censored unless they are abusive. If you have to snip, say so.

as a perennial lurker i must say that i enjoy reading the posts by the IDiots and cretinists especially when they are way out of line. it disappoints me to see them being deleted. i have come to expect that from dumbski. deleting posts here means that there is no high ground from which to talk about dumbski's motivation for deleting posts.

let the trolls and morons have their say. we're grown ups here. most of us.... well, some of us.... ok i am i'll just speak for me.

Normally off-topic comments get moved elsewhere, but I can´t find the entries by DCFTT on the bathroom wall.
PT: Please, do not make this a habit, if you have to delete comments (and unless they are abusive, there is really no need to), do so only with a short statement re why.

I have to agree with dre, science unwittingly promotes atheism,I can understand some scientists being deists, but has for holding to the Xtian faith, how does it not present a huge conflict?
The fundamental core belief of Xtians is that adam and eve sinned ,no adam and eve, no sin, no sin, no need for redemption, no need for a redeemer,no need for Jesus Christ,there is just no way around that.
Ask any R W C F and they will quickly tell you,that is their main reason for rejecting Evolution.

I have to agree with dre, science unwittingly promotes atheism,I can understand some scientists being deists, but has for holding to the Xtian faith, how does it not present a huge conflict? The fundamental core belief of Xtians is that adam and eve sinned ,no adam and eve, no sin, no sin, no need for redemption, no need for a redeemer,no need for Jesus Christ,there is just no way around that. Ask any R W C F and they will quickly tell you,that is their main reason for rejecting Evolution.

Posting under multiple identities or falsely posting as someone else may lead to removal of affected comments and blocking of the IP address from which those comments were posted, at the discretion of the management.

Thanks for the explanation, Dave.
I also didn't like the idea of deletions as they appeared to have been done on this thread. I have no problem or misgiving about the policy stated above, and the complications in applying it here.

Yes, please avoid deleting and banning, barring truly egregious abuse or repeated and boring inability to make any sense whatsoever.

If you do have to delete, explain what happened and why.

I suspect what happened here is that the post-originator felt the drive-by comments were "off-topic" and utter drivel. Lack of topicality is, in my view, decidedly less important on a post that neither discusses new science nor reports a significant new development in "the clash."

(I recognize that the Kong post does obliquely (and amusingly) approach an aspect of "the clash," but it's neither new science nor major news and is, therefore, the least appropriate place to wax snippy about the "scope" of the comments.)

Our willingness to take on all comers, however deluded and disagreeable they may show themselves to be, has consistently shown that we occupy a HIGHER ETHICAL PLANE than the most-vociferous anti-evolution bloggers.

Let's resolve to keep it that way.

While this was being typed up, "Preview" reveals an explanation for what occurred in this specific instance. Thanks for that, Dave!

JONBOY,

I believe the response to that question is that, to those Christians who aren't afflicted with fundamentalist dementia, the Adam and Eve story is allegorical and the need for redemption exists as a result of human nature, and not as a result of a specific historical event. Or, at least, that is how I've heard it explained.

Regards,

M.H.

Which means that, as good as the efforts are of the American Museum of Natural History, in the end that big monkey may do more to crush the creationists than a thousand intelligently designed Darwin exhibits ever could. . .

What big monkey? Kong's an ape, just like you and me.

Just the other day I was blasting Heddle for claiming that this place doesn't tolerate dissent, and now, as dumb and drive-by as that troll-post probably was, I've been made a liar.

Now, if we can only get people to acknowledge that the NT is best interpreted as an allegory, a great deal of progess would be made.

I watched that "docu-drama" King Kong last night and really enjoyed it. I just knew that dinosaurs and people co-existed!

It was a bit long - PJ could have [spoiler ahead ....] reduced the time spent on the dinosaur stampede and Kong fighting the dinos, but hey. Andy Serkis (aka Gollum aka Kong) says that he spent a lot of time observing gorrillas to get all of the facial mannerisms - they looked pretty human to me!

Funny also to see herbivorous weta (Hemideina spp) attacking people.

Go and see it! Good kiwi stuff.

Is is possible to delete those posts with a place-keeping post stating that that has been done, so that we don't seem to see censorship at work? [That having been said, those deletions should be rare; it should be unassailable: PT doesn't censor or avoid issues, facts, debates, but egregious abuse will be dealt with appropriately. An informational email to the ISP's admin would also be appropriate; this is not just bad netiquette.]

Trollish multi-post mock debates are themselves a form of censorship, as they take up bandwidth and restrict others' access thereby; I, for one, am on a cursed-slow dialup account, and trolls like that limit my freedom of speech and right of assembly, too, if you look at it that way. Plus, it is jes' plain rude and low-class. The loud intrusions of self-aggrandizing ignorami, beside making my subway ride more unpleasant in the daily world, on the Internet restrict the amount of discourse I can partake of in a given time. (Oh, and hiding behind avatars is cowardly and childish; its nothing more than e-graffiti. Push the doorbell and run....)

Trolls: If you have something worth saying, you'll say it well; if you have nothing worthwhile to say, you'll say it loud.

Just the other day I was blasting Heddle for claiming that this place doesn't tolerate dissent, and now, as dumb and drive-by as that troll-post probably was, I've been made a liar.

Gads, I feel like such a cultural warrior now...

Look up "Anaclitic" it pretty much sumarizes the ID movement.

uh, DSCFTT is a parody, right? Because I can't tell the difference anymore.

The fundamental core belief of Xtians is that adam and eve sinned ,no adam and eve, no sin, no sin, no need for redemption, no need for a redeemer,no need for Jesus Christ,there is just no way around that.

re comment deletion due to single address:
What about NAT (network address translation) behind a router...
if anyone else on my network posted (they wont, fear not) they would have the same address as me.
So we need an "is a unique individual" test - hmm, thats difficult...
Why not append a comment "This poster appears to be identical to..."

As an old, nerdy physicist, I can see an opportunity to teach some physics with the size and scaling of King Kong. Galileo recognized the properties of scaling and that mass (hence weight) scales as the cube of the dimension of an object while the ability of its structure to bear loads scales with the square of the dimension. A King Kong this big is inappropriately scaled to be able to stand up and move like a normal sized gorilla.

Scaling plays an important part in evolution of creatures as well. It is part of the way we can relate species in the fossil record. I wonder if the Intelligent Design/Creationism crowd will find this movie to be a refutation of evolution. :-)

A King Kong this big is inappropriately scaled to be able to stand up and move like a normal sized gorilla.

— Mike Elzinga

The fundamental core belief of Xtians is that adam and eve sinned ,no adam and eve, no sin, no sin, no need for redemption, no need for a redeemer,no need for Jesus Christ,there is just no way around that.

— JONBOY

Funny also to see herbivorous weta (Hemideina spp) attacking people.

As an old, nerdy physicist, I can see an opportunity to teach some physics with the size and scaling of King Kong.

k.e.: Look up "Anaclitic" it pretty much sumarizes the ID movement.

Galileo recognized the properties of scaling and that mass (hence weight) scales as the cube of the dimension of an object while the ability of its structure to bear loads scales with the square of the dimension. A King Kong this big is inappropriately scaled to be able to stand up and move like a normal sized gorilla.

The king-kong-sized weta would be impossible too ---- not only because insufficient air would be able to diffuse into its spiracles. ;>

And hence a monkey, hence a primate, hence a mammal,...

Anaclitic

Looking at Primates there doesn't seem to be a separate name for the clade that contains all apes and monkeys but nothing else. But it does appear in the diagram as a separate clade (just not named) - the lemur and tarsier groups branched off earlier.

Henry

Uh - can somebody tell me why this blog's spellchecker doesn't like "clade"? ;)
(Or "tarsier", or "url", or "href", for that matter.)

Yeah Henry J. I constantly have to remind my students to be specific about what they mean with the word monkey.

Any primatologists out there to help?

My Primate Adaptation and Evolution textbook is at school.

Looking at Primates there doesn't seem to be a separate name for the clade that contains all apes and monkeys but nothing else. But it does appear in the diagram as a separate clade (just not named) - the lemur and tarsier groups branched off earlier.

As a total aside?

The wetas that attacked the people were a carnivorous species made up for the film, _Deinacrida rex_. The book, "The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island" is a collection of concept art for the film, fleshed out as a guide, with details on many creatures who never even made it to the film.

The best part is that it's in that realm of "biological feasibility" - the reason these wetas are carnivorous is that they thrive in the ravines of the island, which are basically hostile to anything but scavengers and opportunists. OK, giant insects aren't biologically sensible, but once we step past that mechanical stage, the actual *paths* taken by evolution on the island are a nice "could have been", with three foot, herbivorous chameleons in the trees, parasitic crabs, carrion-eating parrots, and cliff-dwelling egg-stealing varanids.

It's worth getting, or at least borrowing someone else's copy ;)

Just finished reading AiG's review of "Dinosaur". It made me sad. They think very little of children's ability to handle violence and fright, and they really stretch it a couple of times to read an insidious Darwinist message into the film. Seriously, who remembers Alydor, anyway?

Anacoital

The purpose of the Narnia books and movie is entirely different. They are meant to introduce readers and viewers to sophisticated theological concepts, such as talking animals.

— Bayesian Bouffant

Skull Island is charged with radiation from a magical volcano. I'm confident that's why there are so many big creatures there.

You know, before now, it never occurred to me that C.S. Lewis's formulation of Christian theology as myth might have exactly the opposite effect of what he intended. Oh well, The Screwtape Letters still rocks.

I'm always puzzled by creationists who are upset that we are closely related to apes. It seems to me that we aren't in a bad family at all. Apes are pretty cool. Granted that angels and demigods seem to be out of the picture, what would you rather be related to? Aardvarks? Rotifers? Palm trees? mushrooms? Pond scum? Yersenia pestis?

... what would you rather be related to?

Peter Jackson is a genius! It's very comlicated to shoot such movies. I think it will be great!

don't see apes doing neat tricks?? seems i've seen plenty of neat tricks done by orangs and gorillas and chimps over the years.

they just can't do double backflips out of the water (though i have seen some pretty incredible acrobatics from tree limbs).

plus they can use those neat opposable thumb thingies to make and use tools.

let's see your air breathin' fish do that, eh!

besides, when the world is gonna come to an end, the dolphins will be the first to bug out, and all they'll say is, "...thanks for all the fish!"

Is is possible to delete those posts with a place-keeping post stating that that has been done, so that we don't seem to see censorship at work?

BWE
hur hur hur

I once met a girl (true story)
Named Violet Klironamou she was a Greek geek.
.......
:)

The difference is that Narnia tries too hard and ends up making the New Testament tale and the whole thing about being sons and daughters of Adam and Eve seem like it might just be a fairy tale. I think that this possibility is much more important than the religious symbolism and I think Christians might be somewhat mistaken that the movie will soften kids up for the Bible.

...what would you rather be related to? Aardvarks? Rotifers? Palm trees? mushrooms? Pond scum? Yersenia pestis?

Posted by Pierce R. Butler on December 14, 2005 10:10 PM (e) (s) k.e.: Look up "Anaclitic" it pretty much summarizes the ID movement.

Syntax Error: typo detected->all work destroyed

Typo Error:Syntax detected->all work destroyed

Maybe Kong will inspire more interest in the Gorilla Foundation, starring the real and much more interesting gorilla Koko! (http://www.koko.org)

And yes, it would be good to leave a placeholder message for auto-deleted comments. It's one thing to support free dialogue; it's quite another
to let trolls abuse the forum.

I saw the movie. Boy, that last line is bad, and poorly delivered.

Quoth JONBOY:

"The fundamental core belief of Xtians is that adam and eve sinned ,no adam and eve, no sin, no sin, no need for redemption, no need for a redeemer,no need for Jesus Christ,there is just no way around that."

Is that serious? No way round it? There are many ways to look at it - here's one (evolution-compatible, too!):

'Adam' and 'Eve' are ciphers for early humans. Recall, it's not that 'Adam and Even sinned' so much as that they ate of the tree of knowledge, thus becoming aware of the difference between good and evil, and thus becoming capable of sinning (their nakedness, for example, was no sin until they knew it to be wrong, something dependent on them becoming beings to whom 'good' and 'evil' applied). So we have the fruit of the tree as a metaphor for self-awareness or for the capacity for abstract thought - for becoming 'human' in the metaphysical sense (if you like). As brute beasts that had no understanding we were free from sin; as aware humans we are not. That seems to resolve your dilemma quite nicely...

PS Why do my attempts to use this shitty KwikXML NEVER EVER work? I always get some bloody syntax error message...

ON Adam had 'em and even evem.

Guys you are completely extraneous to the the story it's all about eve........and the snake.

An early form of erotic snake wrestling incorrectly translated from the primordial soup of Myth.

PS Why do my attempts to use this shitty KwikXML NEVER EVER work? I always get some bloody syntax error message...

— outeast

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/15/ncromer15.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/12/15/ixhome.html

(that link is a little off topic but I liked it)

I understand the metaphor of the fruit of knowledge and us becoming human, as in that is what separates us from animanls. That's all good but for a Xtian that means christ died for an allegorical truth that didn't change. Kinda takes the meaning out the whole cross thing. Y'know what I mean?

I'm no primatologist, but I believe anthropoid is the term you're looking for.

By the way Mr Chatfield, I see that Mr. Thomas posted an excellent explanation while I had been composing my comment. I'm happy to be wrong in this case. Thanks for the explanation, mods.

I'm recalling some of the interviews with filmgoers who had just seen "The Passion of the Christ" and reacted to it in a way that can be summarized, "If someone submitted to all that torture, everything he stood for must be true."

— Julie

Guys you are completely extraneous to the the story it's all about eve........and the snake. An early form of erotic snake wrestling incorrectly translated from the primordial soup of Myth.

— k.e.

When I read arguments about the reality of the Jesus story, I'm reminded of the old joke about the English prof who decided that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare. It was a different man with the same name. In the First Century, Palestine had as many Jesuses as the Dominican Republic does today so opportunites for misidentifications abound.

One thing is clear. Whether or not somebody named Jesus got crucified, the gospel version of what occurred is loaded with elaborations, many of them historically impossible. Drawing factual conclusions from such sacred histories is a chump's game. Meanwhile, the oldest references to the crucifixion are in Paul's epistles and have almost no biographical detail. Indeed, Paul's Christ sounds more like a mythic than a legendary figure--Paul was pretty gnostic.

Meanwhile, no matter how you slice it, it doesn't make sense that anybody's death would have a remote-control good effect on anybody else. You have to be extremely superstitious to take that notion literally.

I saw the movie. Boy, that last line is bad, and poorly delivered.

Ah, now you're talking real spoiler territory! It sounds like maybe they used the same last line as the 1933 version. A(n) (in)famous piece of movie dialogue, but barely excusable even in 1933, and Robert Armstrong reportedly didn't want to say it, because he thought it was stupid.

Still, if you're a fan of the original Kong, it's hard to imagine a tribute/remake without it, anymore than you could imagine a film version of Hamlet without "To be or not to be..."

"Anthropoid" is not the right word, I'm afraid.

The Primates have three major subgroups: the tarsiers, the prosimians (including lemurs) and a third large group that must be what you are looking for, the simiiformes (sim-ee-if-FORM-eez). As far as I can tell, this group does not have a common name, but I don't think it would be too far out to call the whole group "monkeys". That naming strategy would force us to consider apes to be a derived kind of monkey.

If we want to exclude apes from monkey-dom, we face a different problem: the remaining simiiform primates no longer form a proper clade. The way it works is:

Simiiformes
Catarrhini ("down-noses")
Cercopithecoidia ("Old World monkeys")
Hominoidea (apes, essentially, including us)
Platyrrhini ("flat-noses" or New World monkeys)

You can see that the common ancestor of the group of animals we are used to calling "monkeys" is also our ancestor.

Perhaps a compromise solution would be to call the whole clade "simians", split them into Old World simians and New World simians, and leave monkeys as a paraphyletic group. (In older usage, all simians were called "apes", and the Hominoidea were distinguished as "great apes".)

Darn, my beautiful tree didn't come out well. Trying again:

Simiiformes
Catarrhini
Cercopithecoidea
Hominoidea
Platyrrhini

So what happened to the term Anthropoidea? In my textbook, (Primate Adaptation and Evolution by John G. Fleagle) the platyrhines and catarhines are both within the suborder Anthropoidea (pg. 7). Has the suborder been renamed?

And yes, I'm well aware that this situation highlights the difficulty in categorizing organisms that are more truly a continum. I'm just curious to see if the term anthropoid is gone.

Continum read continuum.

Forget about the relevance of King Kong to evolution, giant carnivorous weta, humans and dinosaurs etc - my wife had the most to say about Ann Darrow wearing a skimpy dress and those shoes in the snow and climbing the ladder to the top of the Empire State Building!

Take the MP "Holy Grail" scene on the windswept gorge with the shaky rope bridge to the "other-side" and Lenny standing on the Bridge asking very (very, very[I'll spare you a page full of 'what' from Watt**]) simple questions and the lost Knights either "get it" or are flung into the further reaches of despair

arrrrrgggghhhhhhhhh hhuurrrrrrrr
KiwiInOz .....Ladders AND skimpy dresses NOW that brings out the BEAST in ME

Bayesian Bouffant, FCD: It's a metaphor for original sin. Plus, it is a reminder to use the 'Preview' button.

"Anthropoid" is not the right word, I'm afraid.

Creationism 101?

The king-kong-sized weta would be impossible too ---- not only because insufficient air would be able to diffuse into its spiracles. ;>

Let us not forget an even more basic fact: For all it's evil look, Weta are actually vegetarians and wouldn't have much of an interest in attacking people. :)

Hey, then why didn't that apple come with a "Preview" button?

— Pierce R. Butler

Hey, then why didn't that apple come with a "Preview" button?

Even with a 1.0 release, you'd think an OID (Omni-Intelligent Designer) would at least be capable of matching the feature set and fault-tolerance of KwickXML...

In the recent "intuition" neurons article, what ACW is calling Simiiformes and what Vandalhooch had thought was called Anthropoidea (an overarching label for the clade that includes all monkeys, apes, and humans) is apparently called Haplorrhini.

Can someone in the know explain the plethora and/or progression of these labels? Is there some underlying rationale--new science? newly included or excluded species? a new list of distinguishing features?--which explains the different usages? Thanks!

In the movie, Kong appears to be about 25 feet tall in a crouch--about seven times the height of an actual silverback gorilla. At that size, a very rough estimate tells us Kong would weigh anywhere from 20 to 60 tons. That would make it quite difficult for him to get around. "Given that Kong would be supporting his mass on two legs, I strongly doubt he'd be athletic at all. He might even have a hard time moving faster than a slow shuffle," says Hutchinson. "In a worst case scenario, which is still quite likely, he couldn't even stand. ... The good news is that as long as he didn't move around much, Kong could probably survive just fine. Giraffes are almost as tall and are more than able to keep their bodies running. ... Of course, keeping a big body like that powered would require huge amounts of food. Since Kong is a mammal, his dietary requirements would be quite demanding. Larger animals tend to have lower metabolic rates, but it's reasonable to expect that Kong would consume truckloads of food every day. Since an average adult male gorilla eats approximately 50 pounds of food daily--about one-eighth of its body weight--we can guess that Kong would need at least 7,500 pounds of food per day. ...

I recently started working towards a PhD in evolutionary biology. Our department had our Xmas party today, and I took the opportunity to ask an expert. The prof I was talking to studies the evolution of primates from a genomic approach, mostly. In any event, he didn't like the term "Simian" and preferred "Anthropoidea" to describe a clade inclusive of Old World Monkeys, New World Monkeys, Apes, and Hominids, but exclusive of Tarsiers and Lemurs. There was enough uncertainty in the conversation, though, that I got the impression he would like to consult some sources before putting that down as his answer officially. Also, it was a party and there was beer. So, I wouldn't stand on this as unassailable truth.

PS: My first PT post! Yay!

The purpose of the Narnia books and movie is entirely different. They are meant to introduce readers and viewers to sophisticated theological concepts, such as talking animals.

This post has spawned quite a large thread on the IMDB's King Kong message board.

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0360717/board/thread/32529098?d=32529098#32529098

Anyone who would like to pitch in and set the creationists straight on a few issues are welcome.

They shuld make another KING KONG because this one was great.

They shuld make another KING KONG because this one was great.

They shuld make another KING KONG because this one was great.

Did anyone else see Darwin's face in Kong's sac? That is providence, people.