The Dapper Chapper chatters about…….Creationism

Ok so the Doctor Who blogs went down the swanny when the motherboard in my old computer decided to stop working. I will catch up with the last few episodes when I get them on DVD. Today I thought I’d write the first it what I hope will be a long line of ranty, opinionated blogs about well whatever’s been on my mind really. This week, well last week actually but let us not split hairs I watched a show on BBC 3 about one of my favourite subjects; Creationism. If you haven’t seen it I’ll put in a link below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01n8ls6/Conspiracy_Road_Trip_Creationism/

The show; Conspiracy road trip, presented by comedian Andrew (no I don’t know who he is either, oh maybe I saw him once on an episode of the mock the week?) Maxwell takes a group of people on a journey to challenge their view point. It is a series other episodes have dealt with UFO’s and the 7/7 bombings. The creationism episode got me thinking and got me angry so this is my take on the subject.

I must first point out for those of you that don’t already know or suspect. I am an atheist. I’m what Richard Dawkins would describe as a category 6 atheist. I’m certain beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no God. Of course if there were some irrefutable evidence akin to a huge man in sandals, white smock and gigantic beard standing affront me (I’m picturing Gandalf the white on steroids) I would have hold my hands up and admit he existed. Whether I’d worship him is another question entirely.

I was in a way raised Christian, don’t get me wrong it wasn’t enforced belief or anything but I did for a few years attend church on a Sunday morning even on Christmas morning and that was really hard. In all that time I can never really say I believed in God I might have said I did I may have labelled myself as a Christian but the truth is I had more faith that Santa Claus existed than God. Since discarding my “faith” I looked at the world in the only logical way, through science. To me Darwin, Wallace and Dawkins make a lot more sense than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Science is a progressive world view constantly moving and changing old theory’s or ideas replaced by new ones all governed by available evidence. In contrast religion but more specifically creationism tries to fit the observed world around a belief system. Creationists today are seemingly going to ever more ridiculous lengths to make the word of God fit with current scientific thinking. It’s the blind and unreasoning black is white attitude they hold that really rubs me up the wrong way.

In the show the road trippers go through some their beliefs while they meet scientists who refute them. One of the kookier creationist theory discussed was that the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood, something to my knowledge not specifically mentioned in the bible. Now we’ll get into the subject of the great flood later, for now this section of the programme gives a perfect example of blind faith. Despite being shown a fundamental principle of water, it cuts along straight lines and that in the Grand Canyon there are curves in the valley which would be impossible to have come from a flood event. The response isn’t logical; it’s just to say “well maybe God did it differently that one time”. A mind set like that is both baffling and frustrating and makes the debate between evolutionists futile.

Another well warn “theory” in the creationist arsenal is that the earth is around 6000 years old. This means and I’m happy to be corrected on this, creation came into existence 4000 years after the agricultural revolution. On the face of it the young earth theory could and should be dispelled by a well-educated primary school child. Even if you ignore the geological evidence that puts the age of the earth at around 4.5 billion years old. You still have a rather pesky fossil record showing a huge variety of species of animals and plant that have evolved, gone extinct and become fossilised. After all, 98% of all life that has ever existed on earth is extinct.

To believe this all happened within the 6000-10000 year time frame set out by creation “scientists” is a little hard to swallow. Yet there are fully grown adults living among us that believe just that. They could be doctors, politicians or scariest of all teachers. Yet in society we accept this, let me ask you this though would you leave a fully grown adult who still believed in the Tooth Fairy with your children? I’ve digressed haven’t I?

Back on topic, though along the same lines we return as promised to the subject of Noah’s flood. Creationists tell us that the Ark carried 16000 animals plus Noah and his family for 40 days and 40 nights oh and the dinosaurs. Unfortunately for the creationists the science says no. Problem 1; the biblical dimensions of the Ark is far larger than any wooden boat known to have existed. The physics of the material simply doesn’t allow for a ship of such scale to function properly even if it were built now it simply wouldn’t work.

Problem 2a; Where on earth did all those animals fit? Large as it sounds the Ark would not be big enough to fit all those animals on. Problem 2b; there are far more different species of animal than 16000 especially if we’re bringing the dinosaurs too. I mean there are some 400,000 species of beetle alone and that’s just the ones we know about. Problem 3; To quote Jeff Goldbloom in Jurassic Park “that’s one big pile of shit” If we assume Noah has somehow managed to make peace between the lion and the lamb and the T-Rex and the Triceratops they must have been working around the clock to clear the faecal matter away. Perhaps though, this is the etymological origin of the nautical term poop deck.

There are far more problems I could mention but you get the idea. Of course there could be even more fundamental problems than this and the creationist will always have a response for it. It’s always the same response. You know the one I mean by now. They simply say that God did it and this supposed to be good enough that we don’t scrutinise any further.

The God card as I like to call it makes repetitive appearances in every single discussion I have ever had with a religious person. Even the most liberal examples of the breed will resort to it when there are no more answers. This makes a great deal of sense in some ways, religion is after all, a way of explaining the world around us just as science is. As science fills in more and more of the gaps, religion becomes less relevant and in my opinion, superfluous to the needs of the modern world. I believe those who show resistance to science are simply frightened of the concept they have no more purpose in existence than a potato or a fruit fly.

This is the arrogance of human kind coming to the fore. It’s the same mind set which makes some believe they are not animals. That somehow they have taken a different path to every other living thing in the history of the earth. They are not animal, mineral or vegetable but a fourth way, a better way one that also conveniently gives them an excuse to treat the planet and the rest of its inhabitants with despicable contempt. Well I have news for anybody who thinks that way, if humans were to disappear from the face of the planet tomorrow the world would carry on as normal. Furthermore in around 100 million years, no time at all when considering the age of the earth the existence of the human race would have cosmetically at least disappeared altogether.

Yet armed with this knowledge I can still get out of bed every morning, go to work and live a happy life. The reason for this is I don’t live my life with my head in the clouds, I don’t think of myself as the pinnacle of creation, more an ape that got lucky. Most of all I accept that the life I live now is the only one I have, the fact I don’t believe in an afterlife doesn’t mean I have no morals as some religious people believe. I don’t steal; rape or murder because I think of those things as being fundamentally wrong not because there is some overseeing nanny waiting to fire a thunderbolt up my arse if I do. If you ask me someone who would do any of those things if they thought they could get away with it are the ones you need to be watching.

If I could sum up my thoughts on God and religion it would be fairly accurately done so with this sentence. You show me the unicorn and I’ll feed it a sugar lump. I don’t, as most people believe hate religious people. I hate religion and become frustrated with the lack open mindedness displayed by religious people. I find a general lack of curiosity to be one of the biggest failings in any person, religious or not. I don’t know how anybody cannot look at the world and want to know as much as possible about it. That is what I get from science.

“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

Another week and another episode of Doctor Who and its sad to think we’re nearly half way through this series already. Mind you if the first episode is anything to go buy we are certainly going to get quality if not quantity. From the epic scale of last week’s asylum of the daleks we have a definite change in tone this week.

The episode starts off with the Doctor gathering together his gang, he has a gang now, it’s new. A bit of a rag tag band made up of Queen Nefertiti of Egypt who is apparently terribly well known by everyone except me, a bit of bounder type in the shape of John Riddell big game hunter and Rory’s Dad Brian and of course the Ponds. Big yes. Brian wasn’t meant to come but the Doctor didn’t phone ahead like a normal person.

Straight away this episode has a very different feel from its predecessor most episodes of Doctor Who in the modern era have comic moments in them but this episode turned it up a notch. We have neurotic robots played by Mitchell and Webb, the doctor riding on the back of a dinosaur and lots of banter between all the main characters. So whereas last weeks episode was more of a plot heavy adventure this was light and frothy family romp served up at a superfast pace and I loved it.

The overarching plot is simple, there is a huge space ship the size of Canada shaped like a giant plant spore is hurtling seemingly uncontrollably to earth and will hit, if not stopped, in 6 hours 19 minutes. Down on earth there’s a futuristic vision of India with missiles set to target said ship should it get to close to the planet for comfort. Oh and there’s a few dinosaurs on board.

The key to what made this episode so enjoyable for me is the relationships between the members of the cast. Pretty early on the episode the gang of six is split into two groups of three with Amy, Riddell and Neffi in one and the Doctor, Rory and Brian in the other. Amy really steps into the Doctors shoes in this episode, taking charge of her team, pushing buttons and even referring to Neffi and Riddell as her companions. She showed for the first time in a while that she has learned from her time with the Doctor. She actually works some very important things for the story out. Like the fact the ship they are in is Silurian and it’s an ark from just before the dinosaurs went extinct.

Meanwhile the Doctor, Rory and Brian have been teleported to the engine room. Though at first it appears to be a beach but is actually an engine run by wave power. Also looked remarkably like bad wolf bay. The chemistry between Smith and Darvill is even more appealing than between Smith and Gillan. The off screen relationship between the two really comes through and they were on good form this week, they even had a little kiss. Also the excellent relationship between Rory and his dad definitely has legs. It’s a shame they don’t have any time to grow it. This means we’ll be robbed of more “what sort of man doesn’t carry a trowel?” moments.

After being chased by some things that aren’t kestrels they manage to get themselves into the safety of a cave. This is where the robots enter, played by Mitchell and Webb of peep show fame. For the most part I thought they were fun, very Douglas Adams it was only the line about a bit of oil coming out that made me cringe a little. On the whole they could have been so much worse and I really liked the design, kind of reminded me of the armour the aliens where in the fifth element.

The robots take our trio to their leader, a very dark and mysterious character known only as Solomon. At first it appeared he may know the Doctor but later on we discover he is only interested because he is injured and in need of medical help. A shame really, for a fleeting moment I wondered if we were looking at a new incarnation of the Master. Instead what we get is a very dark and evil character partial to genocide and the killing of innocent animals. A space pirate for want of a better name he stole the ship from Silurians murdering them in the process. Add that to the killing of a very friendly triceratops and it makes for one very angry doctor.

Solomon is the very antithesis of the Doctor putting a value on everyone and everything. Except of course for the Doctor, his scanners don’t seem to be able to find a record of him. This might be another sign that he’s done a good job stepping into the shadows. Solomon takes an interest in Neffi valuing her even higher than a ship load of formerly extinct dinosaurs. Though the Doctor is never going to let him have her she makes the decision for him by volunteering to go with him. With rest of the team reunited, the Doctor hatches a plan to save the day.

Now teleported into the main control room of the ship the gang have to find a way to fly the ship away from its collision course with earth. Rather conveniently the only way the ship can be flown is by two people with the same genetics. This means it is down to Rory and Brian to save the day while the Doctor finds a way of getting the freshly launched missiles off their tail. To do this he does something very undoctorish. Trapping Solomon in his own ship, leaving the device the missiles are seeking on board and blasting it out to space. Big boom. Personally I don’t have a problem with what he did but it’s definitely a change in the character we’ve seen a few times in the Smith era.

Though not as good as Asylum of the Daleks this episode is still thoroughly entertaining. Very much an episode to come back to again and again when you want to just relax and watch some great Doctor Who. It’s crammed full of funny lines and a great repartee between the characters. Though this is also the closest the show has come to making me cry, the death of Tricie was completely heartbreaking. If the current trend of quality continues then we are looking at the finest series of Doctor who in the shows (nearly) fifty year history.

Asylum of the Daleks

As promised I’m dedicating today’s blog to series opener of Dr Who and what a way that was to kick it off. They promised us five 45 minute films and if AofD is anything to go by they are going to deliver that and more. The hardest thing about writing this is knowing where to begin. From the very first scene you knew that they had kicked up a gear or two from the last series. Starting on Skaro meant I was on board straight away as the Doctor meets with a mysterious woman inside a giant dalek statue. I love the dalek puppets, for me it was the first time the daleks have been scary in the whole of new who. The fact they could hide amongst people in plain sight gives them a great extra dimension.

Speaking of the dalek puppets, the ginger lady in the opening scene, is she significant? It might just be me over thinking it (likely) but I just have a sneaking suspicion that Moffat never puts people in without some purpose. It’s probably just me but I wouldn’t be surprised if she turned up again this series.

After the fantastic opening we are brought back to earth with the Ponds. Karen Gillen appears frolicking to some sort of modern pop tune acting as a model not exactly pushing her range given her previous career. When Rory arrives we can see a frosty relationship between the two carrying on from the last episode of Pond Life. She signs the divorce papers before both are abducted by the dalek puppets. The flashing bulbs around the mirror were a particularly nice touch.

Soon after; we are brought in to the parliament of the daleks. A little strange to think the daleks sit around in a big room talking about dalek law, bit of a stretch but as its Moffat I’ll go with it. As I suspected the huge amount of daleks were kind of thrown away but I think it’s the sort of thing they can release images of to get the press talking while they get on with making the show. Only real disappointment is that the special weapons dalek wasn’t used at all but there was the startling image of 1000s of lights flashing as they asked for the Doctors help.

The asylum itself is a great idea; the only thing a dalek would fear (aside from River Song) is an unpredictable dalek. The nanogenes were also an excellent touch adding another element of danger. Then there was the big shock that was promised beforehand; the reveal of the new companion 5 episodes before any of us were expecting it. Have to say if this is what she will be like when she joins the show; however that happens (more of which later) she is shaping up to be tremendous. In her own words she’s a genius who’s a tiny bit sexy but no good at making soufflés. Also, praise the Moff she’s not from contemporary earth but some time in the future. Hurrah.

Down on the planet/asylum we saw a character I was sure was actually from a different episode purely based on the early trailer. He actually turns out to be a dalek puppet zombie which again was very spooky and scary. They reminded me of the vashta nerada or more what they did to people in Silence in the library. The night vision was especially creepy. Amy loses the little bracelet thing protecting her from becoming a dalek puppet.

Back to Rory and he’s in what could be described as a dalek graveyard, or what appears to be. Of course we all sat there knowing that they were going to come to life it was just a question of when. There were some brilliant scenes of Rory shushing the daleks and asking them about eggs. This was quotable and also funny. Nice bit of flirting between Oswin and Rory too showing that he was trying to move on from Amy perhaps.

Back with the Doctor and Amy and they are under attack from a number of daleks being helped out again by the voice of Oswin. One of my favourite scenes in the whole episode is where the Doctor manages to get a self destructing dalek to reverse into the rest with a big boom to destroy them all.

Finally we get Amy and Rory back together and talking to each other. Trying to resurrect there marriage. There was a lot of exposition about why they broke up in the first place. It’s something to do with how Amy can’t have children anymore since the events of demons run. Rory confirms what I’ve long suspected, that he loves Amy more than she loves him. Although she denies it I think it was clearly shown especially in the earlier parts of series 5 that she would have happily cheated on Rory. We also discover that the Doctor has rather cunningly slipped his protector bracelety thing on to Amy’s wrist. All part of the Doctors plan to get the Ponds back together I suspect.

The Doctor goes looking for Oswin as they’ve only heard her voice so far. To get there he must pass through intensive care. A room full of broken and battered daleks that all have one thing in common. They all survived battles with the doctor. They sprang to life and come to attack the Doctor and we see him looking truly scared and begging for help from Oswin the girl who somehow is able to outsmart and hack the daleks. She ends up saving him by wiping the Doctor from the daleks memories.

When the Doctor finally does see Oswin well he’s in for a big surprise as are we the audience. She’s a dalek! She’s a human that has been given a full conversion. She is suppressing this horror into a dream or fantasy that she is still human just waiting to be saved. But where would she get the milk and the eggs for the soufflés? That’s what the Doctor has been thinking about ever since she first mentioned it.

This reveal throws up a huge number of questions. Who is Oswin? How the hell does she become the new companion now? Will she carry on as a dalek or as a human? Does he go back and get her earlier in her time stream? Or is it like River Song again and she’s meeting him out of sequence? Rather superfluous to the big reveal the Doctor, Amy and Rory escape leaving dalek Oswin to “die” and teleporting back to the TARDIS. The final scenes reveal that the daleks have now forgotten who the Doctor is thanks to Oswin’s computer wizardry and the ponds are back together.

To sum up this rather rambling synopsis come review come speculation come thing. I really loved this episode. Every series opener in the Moffat era has been brilliant. I’m not sure it’s as good as the eleventh hour but it is damned close. The whole episode felt epic in scale and ripped along at phenomenal pace. The best test of any good television or film is that you never once check your watch and before you know it, it’s over. It was so so good and I cannot wait for the next episode even though I have worries that Dinosaurs on a Spaceship could go either way. Overall I think it was egg-cellent and definitely deserves 11 out of 10.

Who's Back?

Well this is embarrassing, here was I saying I was going to jump start my blogging again and yet again I didn't get past the first week. However as some of you may have read, I have started blogging about my sponsored weight loss and as I am committed to updating that at least once a week, hopefully that will mean I’ll keep posting here too.

So its 1am on the 1st of September which means we are just a few hours away from the new series of Dr who. After over 9 months of waiting it’s finally back on our screens all be it for an all too swift 5 weeks. So I thought I'd kick of the new blog by speculating on what we might look forward to seeing, based on the full length trailer and to lesser extent the recent pond life series. If you haven't seen it you can watch the trailer here.

http://youtu.be/qrEUBl2pacU

When I first saw the trailer I picked up my note book and jotted down my initial thoughts because let’s face it I am a little bit sad. I'll turn to these notes now to produce a quick summary of the trailer.

Opening shot of all those daleks is exciting but also makes me nervous, dalek episodes in new who have been very hit and miss however it’s a Moffat episode and I trust him to do something interesting with them. Nice to see the special weapons dalek too. Dinosaurs on a spaceship? Direct riff on snakes on a plane that could go either way. The robots are from this episode too I think which may not help they could come across as too cheesy. I like the nod to Jurassic park the big game hunter instantly reminded me of Bob Peck (clever girl).
Looks like there was a historical character too possibly Cleopatra or an unknown Egyptian Queen/princess.

Back in America again a little bit disappointing. Not sure why they keep needing to placate an American audience by basing an episode there. Everyone in Britain can watch American shows without wanting them to do the odd episode in Swindon. Sorry side rant over. The Doctor mentions the master to Amy even though she wouldn't know who he was. Does this mean the master returns this series or does it mean they are playing games with us again; maybe the master is a different character all together. The weeping angels return and that cherub blowing out the candle is the creepiest thing I've seen in new who. The angels are still the best new monster hopefully they won’t be over done like the daleks have been.

There seems to be a man working along side the daleks? That seems an unusual move for them giving that they are the Nazis of space. I may have got confused over that one. River Song back again in a nice hat I'm thinking it may have been her who killed all the daleks though IMDb disagrees. The shot of character from possible west world/western episode looks like the love child of Kryten and the Terminator.

Pond Life

If you haven't seen the prologues to series 7 I suggest you check them out at either the BBC website or their YouTube channel. They are basically a little appetiser to whet our appetites ahead of today’s episode. Supposedly they show us what the Ponds have been up to while the Doctor has been away. You'll notice that each of the 5 episodes is set in a new month starting in April running to August. At an average of around a minute in running time there is not much in the way of story line but they are interesting nonetheless.

April

The episode shows the Doctor reconnecting with the ponds over an answer phone message; most interesting thing is that he’s escaping from the Sontarans by surfing on flames. It’s very much reminiscent of the impossible astronaut opening sequence trying to get the ponds attention.

May

A lot more interesting, the Doctor interrupts’ Amy and Rory in bed (not like that) although it turns out he's turned up too early in the time line. He tries to reassure them that history is safe while tiny snippets of the season 7 trailer are weaved in.

June

Ood on a loo, that’s more or less it. Rory discovers an Ood sitting on the throne. I've never liked the Ood very much so I hope they won’t be coming back.

July

More Ood, this time with more of an explanation of why he's there as the Doctor tells them he was travelling with the tentacle bearded extra terrestrial and he must have snuck off in his last visit to the Ponds house. Basically he becomes their butler and there is a montage of the Ood helping around the house.

August

The last episode feels a lot more like a nod to what we may be seeing over the next 5 weeks. Again the Doctor checks in with Amy & Rory this time though all appears not so well in the Pond house. The Doctor pops around to their house only to find them out. This is followed by a silent scene of Rory clutching a bin bag full of belongings followed closely by a crying Amy who seems to be mouthing the words "I hate..." It ends with her back at the house stating that she needs the raggedy man back in her life. I couldn't agree more.

So it’s not long now really looking forward to it. Hopefully I will get round to posting my review of Asylum of the Daleks some time on Saturday evening.

If you made it this far, well done and thanks for reading.