Popular Misunderstandings of Evolution, Take Twenty Two

Well, if people are expecting an accurate treatment of evolution in a movie with werewolves and vampires, then we're in deep trouble indeed.

Having made the mistake of seeing the first movie (it's awful), I suspect the title refers to one of the main characters, who is half-vampire, half-werewolf, turning him into an, uh... werepire? So here it is evolution in a more symbolic sense than a literal one. Or maybe I'm wrong -- it's been known to happen from time to time.

Fair enough...but isn't it striking how consistently evolution is misused in these films?

Having seen the movie, don't go in with any expectations of accurate science of any kind. As a vampire/werewolf flick, it's entertaining. In fact, if at any point you think about science while looking at Kate Beckinsdale in black leather, I think you need to reevaluate your priorities :)

I went and saw it this weekend, I actually liked the first movie. (It helps to have Kate Beckinsale in tight leather).

I thought this one wasn't bad either. The "Evolution" concept appeared to the main bad guy's desire to create a new race of Vampire/Werewolf hybrids to do his bidding. It didn't look like they were meaning Evolution in the biological, natural selection, random mutation sense, rather as the non-biological "becoming better" meaning of the word.

OK, I see that several commenters have made explicit the sole reason to see either movie:

Kate Beckinsale in tight black leather clothes.

That's it. I'll go see the movie, too, and I won't cavil too much about the pseudoscience and ridiculous mythology, unless, somehow, it gets in the way of Beckinsale's athletic prancing about.

Is this the film in which Kate Beckinsale plays Connie Morris, Adam Sandler portrays William Dembski, and Bob Denver brings Phillip Johnson to life? And isn't it subtitled "Ernest Teaches Intelligent Design"?

So, is it like in Pokemon, i.e., the term evolution is used to denote metamorphosis?

P.S. I was not planning on seeing it but now that you mention Kate in leather....

I'll go see it - I actually loved the first film (Scott Speedman's not bad to look at, either, guys). But then, I have a soft spot for campy vamp trash sprinkled with pseudoscience. As long as it doesn't take itself seriously.

And to be fair - it's not called "Underworld: Evolution by Natural Selection. . . "

Having seen both and having loved both for the gore, bloodshed and Scott Speedman's abs, I'd recommend U:E as a loud and cheesy afternoon flick.

Here's a fun thought: I'd love to see you "Experty Science Types" figure out a semi-plausible way the "genetics" and "transformations" would actually work in the real world. It'd be a fun way to show that people who don't believe in monsters and magic can still have fun with the idea of monsters and magic.

It'd also do two other things. One, as I'm a screenwriter, I'd have some wonder pseudo-scientific sounding gobblytygook to steal umm...borrow for future screenplays and two, all of us would have a wonderful reference point from which to wait, watch and time how long it'd take for the non-science to be quoted somewhere down the line as real science.

Okay, okay. I just want the pseudo-scientific gobblytygook.

Thanks, everyone. Jody, I don't know how the science of transformations would work, but I'd say that in Contact, Carl Sagan really tried to give a scientifically defensible version of how aliens might look and behave--so that would be one starting point.

A really strange coincedence involving that movie: I am moving in the spring so I was going through all my old junk to see what I could ebay and what I could not. I found a book of paintings by the fantasy artist Frank Frazzetta - you know, beasts and warriors and scantily clad damsels in undress. Well just as I was looking at a fearsome image of a black-horsed axe-wielder entitled "Death Dealer", the TV playing in the backround whispers to me "I'm the Death Dealer". That is the tagline for the movie. I had not seen this book in around 20 years and at the very moment I open that page the TV whispers the title of the painting at me. FREAKY!

If we seek a scientific foundation for rapid metamorphosis, instead of evolution (adaptation), consider acclimation. No changes in the genome/DNA required, just up- or down-regulation of various genes, altered biochemical pathways, etc. It's more noticable among organisms with flexible body plans (plants), but it happens when we go sun-tanning at the beech.

There was a Soviet experiment, I think, that bred some sort of canine, and selected the more docile individuals for further mating. Over time, they saw increasingly droopy ears and different fur colouration. By selecting for calmer bahaviour, they effectively selected for lower adrenaline production. Adrenaline is involved in multiple biochemical pathways, including pigmentation. This was sped-up evolution, where humans were the selecting agent.

So here's some scientific gobblytygook to provide fodder for films.

I'm trying unsuccessfully to think of any movie in which evolution is faithfully represented. Even Clarke's/Kubrick's 2001 sided with ID, and who would have it differently? At least the movies depict the snake lemma correctly.

That's the important thing.

Apart from the Beckinsdale Motivation (yes, I will see it, but only to vet it for my kids, of course) we might point out that hybridism is indeed a major process in evolution, both in allowing the introgression of genes across species boundaries, and in forming new species (often parthenogens in animals).

There is no movie I know that has faithfully portrayed evolution, maybe because a process that takes millions of years isn't the most exciting to capture on film.

It's a bit unfair to label 2001 "intelligent design" because Clarke and Kubrick were only using the aliens for dramatic effect rather than as a statement of what really happened. That's the difference between science fiction authors and ID proponents: Science fiction authors realize what they're writing is fantasy.

A far worse offender was "Altered States," in which the main character turned into an ape-man and a glowing "sun-man" through the heavy use of drugs (at least I think that was the case -- it was hard to follow anything in that movie.) Depictions of prehistoric life meant to be accurate usually are not, such as the Rite of Spring segment in "Fantasia," which mixed dinosaurs from different time periods.

There was an Eastern European film from the 1960s titled "Journey to the Beginning of Time" in which a group of school boys journey on a river that stretches backward through geological time, so they travel from the Ice Age to the Cambrian Period in a matter of days. From what I remember, it did a pretty good job of keeping animals from different time periods seperate, with a few exceptions. I have fond memories of it and its stop-motion animals from my childhood, but haven't seen it for years. Review: http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/jbtime.html

I would have loved to see "Evolution" played straight rather than as a screwball comedy. It had an interesting premise that -- while impossible -- could have explored the science in an entertaining way that was accessible to most audiences. Evolution before your very eyes! The fact that it happened over weeks and months rather than millenia is a forgivable stretch of the imagination.

According to this Salon review, Beckinsale is wearing latex, not leather.

By pursuing a policy of avoiding any movie heavily advertised on television I have saved both money and sanity and I intend to keep it that way.

Damn! I want to see Underworld: Evolution by Natural Selection now...

The first Underworld movie was surprisingly good as long as you took it on its own terms. The second one is not as good, they kind of betray all of the foreshadowing in the first movie, rapidly kill off most of the characters left alive after the first movie, and introduce a bunch of random new characters to kill off in a listless plot.

Apart from the title "Underworld: Evolution" there was no annoying pseudoscience evo-babble that I remember.

But Kate Beckinsale is indeed still [Jon Stewart high voice]hot[/Jon Stewart high voice] and there are some decent actions scenes so it's not a total loss.

***

The only two movies I've seen that involve evolution in an intelligent fashion are:

1. Master and Commander. This was the swashbuckler with Russell Crowe. There is a delightful subplot where they go to the Galapagos in the early 1800s and it is suggested that the ship's doctor would have discovered evolution if only he could have stayed a little longer (instead, the French warship they have been tracking appears and a climatic battle ensues).

2. Adaptation starring Nicolas Cage. You have to read the book The Orchid Thief first to get it, and preferably learn a little bit about orchid diversity and evolution.

If you've read the book it's amazing, because the movie captures both the standard interesting stuff in the book about orchids and orchid thieves, *and* captures the impossibility of turning this into a standard Hollywood movie (most of the movie is about the writer's struggle to perform this "adaptation"). I suspect Adaptation is the only movie ever to include the famous Madagascaran orchid species, Angraecum sesquipedale which has a 30 cm nectar spur. Darwin predicted that a moth must exist with a 30 cm tongue, and in 1903 it was finally discovered and named Xanthopan morgani praedicta in honor of his prediction.

But in general movies/TV scifi etc. are totally worthless with evolution. Star Trek is particularly hopeless, an old-fashioned progressive evolutionism seems to be at the heart of the series.