Tony Sidaway informs me that a lot of people have been clicking for Jesus — this new documentary that is being aired in England very shortly has roused the creationist hordes (OK, creationist dozens) to click furiously on its TV Guide entry to downrate it. It’s pointless and trivial — they haven’t even seen it! This is the perfect occasion to marshal our godless thousands to stampede the site and teach them how to properly trivialize web polls. Go ahead, go to the UK TV Guide site, scroll down to Channel 4, and click on the 8pm showing of “The Genius of Darwin”. Vote however you want — giving it a ten is a good score, a one means you think it is very bad.
By the way, what are all those awful American comedies doing on British television? Have they no taste over there?
It’s starting out at 3.1/10.0 with 192 votes. I just gave it a 10.
It’s pointless and trivial — they haven’t even seen it!
Yeah, but how can we vote if we haven’t seen it?
Now at over 230 votes, nearing the score of 5.0.
Poll trivialization is such a beautiful thing.
10 from me, 4.7 rating 225 votes
4.7 and 229 at the moment. it moves!
I dunno, I think You’ve Been Framed! looks pretty interesting. Sounds like a perfect warm-up for ScienceBlogs: The Movie. I mean, I’d certainly prefer that to watching Coyote Ugly, or Family Guy, or Medium, or (shudder) Star Trek: Enterprise.
This isn’t going to take long. hehe. When I rated it, it was already at 4.8.
Woot!!
My vote alone took it from 5.1 to 5.2 :)
in b4 4chan gets ahold of this
When I voted, it jumped from 5.3 to 5.4
5.4 now… geez this makes me mad. Creationists are dumb, I know that, but when they start fucking with the BBC and its programming I get mad. I’m not even British and it irks me. Leave the Beeb alone![/chriscrocker]
But…but…we’re messing with the Beeb!
Slightly off topic, but the BBC is claiming that a belief in a flat earth is a result of religious groups trying to discredit science:
I left a comment saying, honestly, that the previews I’d seen looked very good.
#6-Hey now, how can you put “Coyote Ugly” and “Family guy” in the same category? Come on Seth Mcfarlin is hillarious damn it. You may not care for the show but it’s not as bad as “Coyote Ugly” by far. ::shakes a fist::
6.1 and rising
duly voted! And we do have taste its just that since Father Ted left our screens Channel Four seems to have forgotten how to make a decent british comedy and as such has to fill up its shedule with trashy american ‘comedy’…
R.I.P. Dermot Morgan… :(
DIRECT LINK
http://tvguide.co.uk/detail.asp?id=21281443
Enjoy.
Calling the Simpsons awful. Now that’s sacrilegious.
6.2.
Keep hearing about how good English TV is.
Still waitin’ for an example…
From the UK website:
Question
If humans are descended from apes & both still currently exist; why aren’t there ‘half-human, half apes’ or similar variations? …I will watch this program with interest but this seems like a very basic question which is always avoided by exponents of evolution & I bet this program will be no exception.
Open Minded But Unconvinced
I’d bet this person gave the program a zero without watching it!
Sadly those awful American comedies are still a lot better than the complete pap that is the vast majority of modern British comedies.
I’m looking forward to watching this documentary tonight and will happily rate it once I have done so.
Lago,
Eight tonight?
Good review by the always excellent Charlie Brooker.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/aug/02/television.television
Speaking of trashy english tv , take a look at this !
http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/makechristian.html
They are showing a programme called “make me a christian”.
Sure I’ll rate it- AFTER I’ve watched it. I’m looking forward to it.
Note also that it’s only part 1 of a 3 part series. Would that be even thinkable in the U.S.? We have Darwin on our banknotes. You have some religious screed on yours by all accounts!
fartbandit – I was creased up laughing at Father Ted last night – the episode Kicking Bishop Brennan up the arse. Now THAT is how you do comedy!
“Sorry Bishop Brennan, you can’t leave tonight – they’ve taken the roads in.” http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:0Y0GCFZK9yoJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Qwerty (#22):
I saw that comment too. . . how do you deal with a thing like that? It’s either smug trolling or a complete failure of the educational system.
@Largo #21
See if you can get hold of the first two series of “Coupling” or “Green Wing” for some of the best British comedy.
Rating 7.2 at last look!
Er, no. Neither Channel 4 nor tvguide.co.uk are the BBC.
Darn, being in the States. I want to see this!
Heh 7.5
Lago #20, I would like to bring to your attention:
+Doctor Who
+Would I lie to You?
+The Genius OF Charles Darwin
+Panorama
+Top Gear
+My Family
+Mock the Week
+Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
+8 Out of 10 Cats
The UK made TV is excellent the Cheap American IMPORTS are the ones which are thought of as crap. BTW Family Guy is not bad at all.
I enjoy “Coupling”..but I see the same jokes and styles of comedy in Coupling as I see in “Friends.” Everything follows the same standards used in American comedies.
Sometimes I think people, unsure of their intellectual capacities, thinks jokes are funnier when said with an English accent.
Also, I grew up with Monty Python. It was kinda funny for the 70s, but looking back on all the shows? Well,..most of them sorta suck..
DIRECT LINK AGAIN: http://tvguide.co.uk/detail.asp?id=21281443
I carried that URL all the way back here, and I’m sure as heck not throwing it away now!
Vote #601 cast!
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080712221942AAnTqDG A much more relevant question for the ages. Also, I’d love to plug my little blog: http://politicalobserver.bustablog.com/this-stupid-war/
7.8 at 692, when I voted.
As soon as someone mentions “Dr. Who” as an example of a good English show…well then I know what I am dealing with.
Dr. Who sucks. It is childish and makes little sense…
Cool. I was vote 666. Does that qualify as ‘woo”?
Here is the ratings page for the programme “make me a christian”, which is about a priest trying convert a bunch of people. Is this poll-crashable?
[http://tvguide.co.uk/detail.asp?id=21330237]
It’s hard to judge, because it could be a really interesting look at the indoctrination of faith, or it could be an hour long whining session on how the morality of society has been destroyed by secularism.
lol it is moving at around 20-25 votes a minute
haha… its at 8.1 right now… almost 800 votes
8.2
846 votes
8.4 @ 905 so far…
Reminds me of … SETEC ASTRONOMY.
I dunno, I think “Ideal” is pretty funny. I love those slightly surreal British comedies… Black Books, The IT Crowd, Spaced, Ideal… love that stuff.
” enjoy “Coupling”..but I see the same jokes and styles of comedy in Coupling as I see in “Friends.” Everything follows the same standards used in American comedies.”
Except in Coupling the jokes are actually funny. And the girls are actually attractive.
“Sometimes I think people, unsure of their intellectual capacities, thinks jokes are funnier when said with an English accent.”
No, jokes are actually funnier when spoken with a proper English accent. Really. Think “President George W. Bush” in an American accent. Now think it in a Proper English accent. Bet you lost your cornflakes through your nose in the latter case.
Mostly I find contemporary UK TV comedy incomprehensible but that’s because I left in 1991 and the culture has diverged from my daily experience in the meantime. When I visit I find it hard to understand what people are talking about, the daily slang (what do they mean ‘that stuff is really pants’? Pants are what you wear under your trousers) and even the street graphics. Then again I never did get to understand how pretty much any US TV output got made either. Now I live in rural Vancouver Island and see hardly any of either; except House, Top Gear, Galactica and PBS Mystery!, of course.
For the geographically challenged: Father Ted is funded by the UK’s Channel 4, but its scenario, cast and most of its production was Irish. Dr Who was originally made in London, but this millennium’s glossier version is made in Cardiff (the capital of Wales) with a primarily Welsh team and a Scot playing the lead role (he turns his accent to “off” when in character). So please give some credit or blame to the Celtic neighbours of the Angles and Saxons!
As for Dr Who making no sense: well, I can’t see why Star Trek doesn’t roll over and die because all of its “aliens” are simply small town Americans as depicted in 1950s films with added rubber noses. And it only has three plots: (1) how brave and intelligent Our Noble Captain is! (2) aren’t androids odd? and (3) peeow! peeow! we’ve escaped certain death for the four hundred and sixty-third time by modulating the interaction frequencies of the detector phase grid matrix conduits. Give me the surreal nonsense of Dr Who and imaginatively escapist ideas over Roddenberryesque turgidity any time (but I wish they’d turn down the thudding this-is-what-you-should-feel-now “background” music).
Now, I’ll put a colander on my head to dodge the falling bricks!
8.4 with 932 votes. I wonder if we can break 9.0.
8.4, 900 votes. Does that mean that there are more atheists than believers in the world?
oh and I can’t leave out Peep Show.
At last – someone who actually agrees with me that Dr. Who is childish! British TV has fallen a long way from the 80’s when it was at its peak. I rarely watch any broadcast programmes any more.
I grew up with Dr. Who right from the first episode in 1963 (predating Star Trek by some 3 years I believe), but gave up on it when they brought in that stupid toaster on wheels called K9. I watched a few of the new episodes, but it seems to be no better now, apart from the effects. All show and no substance. As for the rest of British TV – too many make-over and reality shows nowadays. Even the BBC’s flagship science programme Horizon is a shadow of its former self. Thank FSM for the Internet.
So, “Father Ted” is considered funny? I wish I had known that before…
8.5
987 votes
Just poked ‘er up to 8.6 :)
Brownian, if you haven’t seen it you’re simply trivializing a web poll. Nothing random about this poll.
Apropos the relative qualities of American and British comedies, I am somewhere between lago and those who say that British television comedy is far superior to its American counterpart. I have seen a lot of Brit coms that suck big time and others that are at least as good as the best American material. The converse applies to American comedies (I am restricting my comments to comedies)….
Brit material: Like lago, I wasn’t overly impressed with Dr. Who; I have somewhat of a sentimental attachment to Blackadder (except the first season); I also liked Jeeves and Wooster a lot (again ascribable to my total devotion to P.G. Woodhouse’s works); Office–the British one–was absolutely brilliant. Monty Python is hot and cold (generally uneven though light years ahead of SNL and its ilks in America).
American material: The cable shows–especially hbo comedies– are generally better than the network shows. But I thought Seinfeld was decent, and I like Family guy a lot, and the humor in King of the Hill in my opinion is under appreciated (its actually better, in my opinion, than Simpsons). South Park is kinda sophomoric, puerile even,but has its moments. In cable Curb Your Enthusiasm is really good; also check out Flight of the Chonchords (though the creators of this are Kiwis).
non-doctor – I take it you missed the Trek episodes where they tackled abortion, racism, cloning, religious fanaticism, suicide bombers, homosexuality, drug trading, war crimes, controversial medical research, etc, etc, etc.
Don’t remember seeing any of those issues raised in Dr. Who…
For those of you not able to see Dawkins on Darwin live tonight, it’ll be liveblogged on the Beagle Project blog from 8pm BST (which is GMT +1) here: http://preview.tinyurl.com/5z3hlq
if you’d like to watch it before you vote…
Trigger Happy TV!!
I’m too astonished by the news that Tony Sidaway lives. He’s been hiding from usenet for a decade now. Long live Sherilyn.
“Calling the Simpsons awful. Now that’s sacrilegious.”
Come on, have you actually seen the Simpsons since the turn of the millennium or so? Bleah.
8.8 out of 10
1,307 votes
Mock the week woot
I do not know. I think there are just too many people that are prejudice. For one, I hate SNL. It sucks in my opinion, and if people see such shows and think, “Apex of American comedy” well, then I can see why they would think our shows suck ass.
On the other hand, “Mad TV” wasn’t so bad for a while. It had a few good moments…
The thing is, there are some very good shows that are overlooked. “The Venture Brothers” is a great example. The episodes are, however, filled with references that only make sense if you have a shared cultural background with the writers of the show.
This is another prejudice. It seems people ignore references if they are from American culture, but do not do the same for English shows. If you, “do not get it” because you are unfamiliar with a reference from an English show it is because you are not educated enough or sophisticated. If the English do not get the references from an American show, well who cares? It is just those silly Americans…
Let me give a quick example. I was in Canada a while back and I saw a black guy with dirty worn sneakers, tight fitting jeans tight around his waist, a tucked in T-shirt, and a fanny pack. I could not stop laughing. The people from Canada had no idea what I was laughing at, but when I told everyone what I had seen when I got back to New Bedford Ma., well, they could not stop laughing either…
Now, do you know why it was funny? You only will if you understand my environment…
Coyote Ugly is a perfectly good movie, you just have to put it on mute.
Channel 4 has some programs to view on online following transmission.
I am hoping this documentary, and the next two, are available.
Mock the week again these are better
May I point Lago in the direction of QI, Dead Ringers, and Have I Got News For You.
Doctor Who childish? A children’s TV show childish? Whatever next?
(I admit, I’m a total sucker for Doctor Who, just as I was for Buffy, but I recognise that I’m part of an incidental demographic.)
Show Rating 9
1574 votes
“(I admit, I’m a total sucker for Doctor Who, just as I was for Buffy, but I recognise that I’m part of an incidental demographic.)”
I love Buffy, but that should not take away from the English, as the show is the invention of Joss Whedon, who was English educated.
“May I point Lago in the direction of QI, Dead Ringers, and Have I Got News For You.”
We have good News Comedy shows as well, “The Daily Show” …”Hannity and Colmes”…”The O’Reilly Factor”
PZ…
“what are all those awful American comedies doing on British television? Have they no taste over there?
No! not quite, but it is getting there, what we certainly do seem to have though are cynical programme acquisition teams that are the bright young guns that were brought up on 1980’s over infatuation with all things American…
American comedy is regarded as fast paced well crafted dialogue and totally vacuous plot line…just the right balance to comatose the great unwashed…
This is childish.
So I participated in it.
Up to 8.9 now.
9.1 and going up
9.1 by the time I voted.
@ Lago: “Hannity and Colmes” and “The O’Reilly Factor” are “good comedy shows”, now? Eek!
“@ Lago: “Hannity and Colmes” and “The O’Reilly Factor” are “good comedy shows”, now? Eek!”
You mean you can watch those shows and not laugh?
Top Gear is the best thing on TV. Anywhere. Period. Download it if you have to.
9.1 right now.
US comedies are cheap tv PZ, in a multi channel environment channels have to fill the airwaves somehow. Anyway, I noticed that ITV3 is showing Rising Damp, I will gladly watch anything with the late great Leonard Rossiter in it.
There’s a channel called Virgin1.
And it shows Star Trek.
Waaaay too easy.
I like Star Trek by the way.
I just voted it a 10 and that took it to 9.2.
And I don’t feel a bit bad in voting. I watched the entire thing on Youtube this morning. It’s a good documentary. Dawkins looks a lot younger in the film. Must have been old footage they used.
Kind of odd that the two clerics on the show still try to fit their magical thinking into the new evidence every step of the way. I guess delusion is comforting.
We get the Daily Show in the UK (one of Channel 4’s free digital channels carries it.)
I can’t describe QI as a news comedy- its a comedy panel game, in the vein of “Just A Minute” or “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue” which have been running on the radio since before I was born.
In fact many BBC TV comedies started out on the radio and then move, giving time for the creators to hone their act (“Dead Ringers”, “Goodness Gracious Me” and “The Mary Whitehouse Experience” for instance.)
There seem to be significant differences between the way US and UK shows are made, especially with sitcoms. In the US seasons are 22 episodes or so. In the UK they are very rarely more than 6. American comedies seem to involve large teams of writers, whereas in the UK there will be only one or two writers (topical satire, and sketch shows often draw from a wide pool of writers). I suspect that these differences account for the most significant difference I notice as a viewer- progressive story arcs. They seem to crop up all the time in the US sitcoms I’m familiar with (Friends & Frasier), but are usually totally absent in the UK ones (Spaced, Father Ted, etc).
I didn’t really care for that Darwin documentary. It was full of mistakes and common misconceptions. It also jumped around in his life a lot and skipped over many important events
#78 – “Top Gear is the best thing on TV. Anywhere. Period. Download it if you have to.”
IMHO Jeremy Clarkson is an arrogant asshat!
He’s also a climate change denialist.
Canuck
That’s not the film. That’s an old film from about 10 years ago that PZ linked to. The new one is presented by Dawkins rather than using him as a talking head.
I made sure to rate it “10” several times. Thanks for the heads-up, PZ.
#60, actually I hung out on Usenet until 2003, when I sublimed to these new-fangled forum thingies.
Next step: sublime to your own blog.
“#78 – “Top Gear is the best thing on TV. Anywhere. Period. Download it if you have to.”
IMHO Jeremy Clarkson is an arrogant asshat!
He’s also a climate change denialist.”
See, this is what I mean. The perspective of the person is key here. “Top Gear” better than Gilmore Girls? My opinion would be that such a claim would be laughable, but the person still has a right to their opinion. One persons brilliantly written show is often another persons arrogant crap…
Jason @ #85 said :
Well of course he is. He’s supposed to be. It’s part of the fun of the show….
“Big Brother” rates a 6 and has 1151 votes. It is a reasonably popular programme [sic] on the same channel.
“The Genius of Charles Darwin” is currently 9.2 with 2188 votes.
I would like to thank the Free Republic for showing me The Way. Because stuffed ballots equal social change.
Okay, no, but they are, in some instances, somewhat amusing.
Iago Coupling is brilliant TV, it is adult, clever, well written, well acted, well shot. Since when did Friends do masturbation gags in the context of fertility treatment? When did the girls in Friends discuss the size of one of the guy’s penises?
If Coupling were shown in the US it would have to be on a small subscription cable channel. Coupling went our free to air. You are comparing apples to Sunny Delight.
star trek is anything but simply “great captain, androids, pew pew”
It’s a bunch of morality plays
IN SPACE.
Also sometimes it’s anvilicious
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Anvilicious
Insight into web trolls
I think it’s interesting (and could go on almost any thread here). Trolls almost never give an accounting of themselves where they’re trolling.
Glen D
You can watch Genius: Charles Darwin on YouTube at
“Iago Coupling is brilliant TV, it is adult, clever, well written, well acted, well shot. Since when did Friends do masturbation gags in the context of fertility treatment? When did the girls in Friends discuss the size of one of the guy’s penises?
If Coupling were shown in the US it would have to be on a small subscription cable channel. Coupling went our free to air. You are comparing apples to Sunny Delight.”
I am guessing you have not watched too many episodes of friends?
Oh, and Coupling is on PBS in the US, the same as Sesame Street.
Liveblogging the Dawkins Darwin show:
10 minutes in and Dawkins is trying to engage a class of London schoolkids, many of whom reject evolution because of their religious upbringing. They offer the defence that people should be allowed to believe what they wish to believe. So Dawkins is taking them out on a field trip to go fossil-hunting…
Next, we get Darwin’s early life. Beagle. Rhea varieties. Galapagos…
Eh, the new doctor who started out very nice, but i can’t stand all the amazingly in your face “The doctor is the messiah” crap and VERY exceedingly silly technobable it’s descended into.
My favorite sci-fi ever is still Babylon 5. That was a well plotted out series with impressive character growth.
AND REALISTIC SPACE COMBAT DAMNIT!!! Arg! If I see another smooth airplane like movement in space combat again, I’m going to scream till my wife hits me!
Rating: 9.2
It’s good to know that Pharyngulites completely outnumber British Evangelicals.
Dawkins on Darwin:
Darwin digs for fossils. Dawkins digs up sloth bones and notes similarity to other varieties.
Darwin’s interest in geology. Lyell.
Dawkins at the beach with the kids, digging up ammonites.
Darwin back in England. Correspondence with other biologists. Interest in embryology. Looking at similarities betwwen seperate species. The development of the concept of a tree of life. The bushiness of the tree.
Darwin’s interest in pigeon breeding. Looking at how artificial selection shapes species. Darwin the pigeon fancier. Making the leap toward natural selection.
Natural selection. Dawkins in the Savannah with lions.
“The amount of cruelty in the natural world is beyond human comprehension.
“No central authority, no safety net. For animals life is suffering, survival and death.”
Darwin approaches nature from the perspective of Malthusian economics. Applies struggle for resources to nature.
“Nature is an arena of pressure.”
Variance in animals. Variations helping changes of survival. Passing heritable helpful traits to offspring.
“The race is survival. The finishing line reproduction.” the key to evolution.
Gave it a 10 out of a deep seated love for futzing with online polls.
Dr. Who… I’ll admit that I’m a desperate fanboy despite the fact that I’ve read enough real literature to recognize that it is mostly rampant emotional sensationalism mixed in with some of the most flagrant uses of deus ex machina that I’ve seen in YEARS.
But hell, I enjoy watching it, and that’s pretty good in today’s TV market.
# 46 (Star Trek):
You forgot “planets with styrofoam rocks are really dangerous if you’re wearing a red shirt”.
I’m not a raving Dr Who fanboy by a long chalk, but I thought Blink was highly entertaining.
Natural selection sculpts shapes. Specialisation leads to speciation.
These species are honed by presence of other species. Some species prey on other.
“It’s an escalation, an arms race.” Advanced engineering of races. Camouflage, vision, fangs. The war with nature.”
Human battle with viruses. Dawkins in Nairobi. The spread of HIV. Dawkins encounters a prostitute who has developed resistance to HIV.
Microbiologist talks about the development of resistance to HIV that can be passed on to children. A new generation of HIV resistant population?
HIV resistance is evidence of natural selection.
Darwin’s search for a theory. Hesitates to publish. Natural selection suggests there is no God working on biology. Wallace threatens to scoop Darwin, so Darwin works to prepare his book.
Darwin steels himself for publication. vacillates between confidence in theory and great doubt. Publishes The Origin of Species. Instantly sold out.
However, there remains a gap in Darwin’s understanding…
# 102:
I hope he took some Christians along, in case they get hungry.
Lago,
What about the Young Ones?
Ever been had?; it’s now 8:49 and the missus has control of the remote.
She offered me the choice Eastenders/Panorama on BBC1, University Challenge/Dragons Den on 2, The Tourist Trap/Corrie on ITV, Gadget Show on 5 or a 100 channels of other shite to choose from on SKY. She didn’t mention The Genius of Darwin on 4.
I knew there was something I wanted to watch tonight.
Fortunately, my mate’s got Virgin with catch-up so I’ll just have to pop around there later this week.
Beer & Darwin – almost a perfect evening …
2,589 votes, 9.3 rating. These are always such fun…
How to vote more than once:
1. Open the direct link I posted earlier.
2. Type this into your Address Bar: javascript:alert(document.cookie);
3. Look for a ASPSESSIONID cookie (the name was followed by junk for me).
4. Type this into your Address bar: javascript:void(document.cookie=”ASPSESSIONIDCQABDTCQ=0″);javascript:alert(document.cookie);
5. Vote again.
6. ?????
7. PROFIT!
#111:
Or, you can keep doing this:
javascript:void(document.cookie=”ASPSESSIONIDCQABDTCQ=0″);javascript:alert(document.cookie);
#112:
Wrong code.
javascript:void(document.cookie=”ASPSESSIONIDCQABDTCQ=0″);javascript:location.reload();
My mouse is crappy and didn’t copy it the first time. -_-
Top Gear is a great show, regardless of some of the hosts’ leanings. Check out the series in 2006 when they bought clunkers in Miami and had to drive to New Orleans. The rednecks at the gas station were downright scary.
Unfortunately, I have read that a U.S. version is in the works. Why do I suspect it will be NASCAR-centric?
Just watched it – groovy. Dawkins is marvelous, of course, although I could do without hearing the recitation of the “entangled bank” section again – not because it isn’t lovely and brilliant, but because I’ve simply heard it too many times. Still, good to see science being propagated. Dawkins was interviewed in the Radio Times – the classy TV guide in the UK – and he came across as a lovely man, as he always does, which irks the religious because atheists should be murdering bastards…
My verdict: Should have been unnecessary; also, annoyingly slow-learning school children let it down. A good show.
End of show:
After 20 years Origin is published. With its publication there is no longer a need to believe in the supernatural.
Darwin did not crack the problem of how improvements to creatures were preserved and not diluted by interbreeding. Neodarwinian research–gene science–explains this.
Mutations. DNA. Craig Venter’s lab. Human genome. Diversity and similarities at genetic level. Genetic evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of evolution.
Darwin anticipated problems with his theory, which have largely been explained.
Dawkins back at the beach with the kids, talking about DNA and how it demonstrates common ancestry.
The kids seem to be thinking a little more, though the religious still cling to their god. “I believe in evolution but I still say my prayers.”
Darwin’s tangled bank. “There is grandeur in this view of life.”
NEXT WEEK: Hominids. Misuse of Darwinism in politics, economic theories and to excuse genocide.
Wallace Turner, #109, unlucky but there’s still channel4+1
Very good – I had to give it a 10. Dawkins as usual covered all the bases. I like the point he made about Darwin assimilating all the facts in order to create his theory. This is for all the “just a theory” crowd – a theory explains facts, it does not (and never will) become a fact. The theory of gravity explains the fact of gravity. The theory of evolution explains the fact of evolution, and so on. Simple as that. (But how many times do we have to point this out?)
Hope to see this on the youtoobs soon (ie. tonight when I get home from work).
Slaughter, the hosts are supposedly Adam Carolla, Tanner Foust and Eric Stromer. Carolla is a pretty serious car guy and Foust does some racing/stunt work, so the show has that going for it.
I have just noticed PZ’s national howler. PZ C4 is available all over the United Kingdom, I can even see it up here North of the Border. Fancy that?
England is a part of the UK/GB, it does not represent, nor can it be used as shorthand for UK/GB. it is as though I referred to the US simply as California. Scotland hasn’t split off, yet.
I’m jealous of the limeys now, they still get Star Trek: TNG.
You guys are devils.
You only get Channel 4 until the day we declare independence from you Scots.
“non-doctor – I take it you missed the Trek episodes where they tackled abortion, racism, cloning, religious fanaticism, suicide bombers, homosexuality, drug trading, war crimes, controversial medical research, etc, etc, etc.
Don’t remember seeing any of those issues raised in Dr. Who…” #56
Racism has been covered heavily by the last few seasons as has cloning, religous fanaticism, homosexulaity (one of the lead characters is bisexual), drugs, morals of war (the Doctors a Pacifist), Medical research etc etc
it doesnt cover it as well as Star Trek does but thats primarily a difference of style and message
I still prefer Star Trek myself as they tend to rely on the doctor realing out a whole load of technobable really quickly to solve problems which is baffling most the time
OT, but I’ve just heard that Morgan Freeman has been injured in a car accident. I hope he’s ok. Well, he must be OK, because it’s an open secret that he’s really God, isn’t he?
… isn’t he?
“By the way, what are all those awful American comedies doing on British television? Have they no taste over there?”
It’s all down to cultural exchange. America gets to see Fry and Laurie, “Red Dwarf”, “One Foot in the Grave” and Brits get an opportunity to turn off the set and head down to the pub for an hour.
Rob, we get all the Star Trek variants, including the original, and still the best. When men were real men, seduced green skinned women and wrestled reptilian aliens with their shirts off. TNG was a boring soap opera and the Q introduction was a simply ridiculous magic plot device. Ditto the time travel in Enterprise, I stopped watching at that point.
The Genius of Darwin.
I enjoyed it. Dawkins was relaxed and likeable. It might have been nice to see a tad more science, though I understand the limitations of the format. It seemed to lack weight when it came to the discussion of genetics–a subject too important to be skipped over so lightly.
One suspects the Godly might not be convinced by this show. It was big on linking evolution to a revolution in thought. RD kept emphasizing how the theory of natural selection overturned superstition and spirituality. That will not go down well with the god-botherers.
Like the summary, Lee Brimmicombe-Wood.
Ah, so I’m guessing the creationists were freaking out because Dawkins was “indoctrinating” the poor defenseless kids. Or am I giving them too much credit?
Lee #129 – What does go down well with the god-botherers? I can hear them now wailing: “How can Dawkins condone all the violence, pain and death he reveals in Nature?” – and thus missing the point altogether. Dawkins of course, doesn’t condone anything at all – he simply tells it like it is. That’s perhaps the one thing he didn’t say in this programme that maybe he should have. I know he’s said something similar in the past, on the lines of “This is Nature, like it or not. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
Evolution is a fact, but the religulous would like to think that we atheists condone it as acceptable behaviour, which of course it isn’t. But that doesn’t invalidate the reality of it.
Um Moody Dr Who has had an openly gay character. The spinoff series Torchwood has had full on homosexual kissing and come ons (it goes out mide evening on public TV and is very popular). It tackled immigration and people trafficking. The Dr has had a black assistant, one of his white assistants had a black boyfriend. Many of the Dr Who storylines in the past were on racism, translated into alien space but ditto Star Trek.
Just because you do not recognise the themes being explored, our tv tends to the subtle, US tv tends to lay it on with a trowel, does not mean they are not there.
It’s all down to cultural exchange. America gets to see Fry and Laurie, “Red Dwarf”, “One Foot in the Grave” and Brits get an opportunity to turn off the set and head down to the pub for an hour.
Actually, I think the opposite is much more likely. Americans seem relatively indifferent to British shows, whereas numberless Brits can’t get enough of Friends or The Simpsons.
Dawkins’ show was good fun, although I was annoyed by his somewhat dishonest exaggeration of the power of creationism in Britain. I’d stake good money that the kids in that school in the programme were not randomly chosen. Dawkins must have known in advance that they had a weird propensity toward creationism.
Of course in my last post I meant to say Natural Selection, not Evolution, as being unacceptable moral behaviour. But I’m sure everybody knew what I was getting at.
“So, “Father Ted” is considered funny? I wish I had known that before…”
Hahahahah!
Careful, or you’ll get kicked up the arse like Bishop Brennan!
Here in the land of lakes we take any religious irreverence we can find! Feck! Drink!
#132 – i know i was quoting post #52 i agree
Oh as far as Uk panel shows, yeah, I love QI, and Nevermind the Buzzcocks makes me hurt from laughing sometimes… Mock the Week is ok, HIGNFY is good. We have nothing like these in the states.
God Bless the usenet. :)
I’ve just seen it. It was good.
(I’ve just given it a 10 – AFTER seeing it!)
After all this effort I sure hope 10 = good, 0 = awful, not the other way around.
The program on youtube called “Genius – Charles Darwin” is not the one we are watching here in the UK at the moment. On tonight was the new three-part series called, “The Genius of Charles Darwin”. And it was very good, I am looking forward to next weeks episode.
I’m sure some will interpret it that way. It’s a show that wears its atheism on its sleeve.
Well, going by history I’d say:
– The unchallenged authority of scripture
– The unchallenged authority of priests
– The unchallenged authority of the anointed leadership
– Such science, philosophy, economic theory and political ideology as does not present a threat to any of the above.
You may be right. It will be interesting to watch next week’s show. It looks as if Richard will be charging in boot-high at the evil that is Social Darwinism.
Many god-botherers cannot conceive that morality may exist independent of a creator, that you can cleave to a humanistic moral system undistorted by superstition. They assume that those who accept evolution as fact are Social Darwinists to a man; that we are all closet eugenicists, holding firm in our hearts a belief in the harsh law of the jungle. Some believe that left to our devices we would launch pogroms against the weak, the genetically impure, the poor, the Godly. We are cold-hearted monsters in their mythology; blasphemous, profane and inhuman. We march in lockstep with murderers and criminals.
It may prove hard to disabuse them of this view. They do, after all, regard themselves as the elect; the arbiters of morality and the stewards of God’s love. Poor souls, they cannot somprehend their errors.
9.6
9460 votes.
TV critics, pfffft.
9.6, 4970 votes. woot
Oh, the irony of that spelling mistake…
Holding at 9.6 with 4989 votes showing.
For anyone that missed it, Channel 4 On Demand have the first episode ready for download. And I agree with Craig #137 – Never Mind The Buzzcocks is so funny it hurts, don’t know if it’s humour that translates very well though.
Peter, it’s not available as an analogue broadcast in Wales (they get S4C instead), and the digital coverage there isn’t complete yet. So PZ’s ‘England’ is more correct than saying ‘Britain’ or ‘the UK’, although incomplete.
Yours in Pedants Corner,
Barney.
#63 Cloudwork,
Thanks for the “mock the week” intro.
Watching that link & a few of the other snips of it derived from that link: first time I’ve laughed in a month & did so several times.
I suspected that the Darwin doc on YouTube wasn’t the same one being discussed here, pretty much confirmed by “copyright 1999” in the credits, and after watching it I’m relieved. It wasn’t great – the pacing was slow, some of the period illustrations were poorly chosen, and the narration referred to “animals and birds,” which is biologically illiterate. On the positive side, I was pleased by the emphasis on pre-Darwinian evolutionary theory. Too often Darwin’s contributions are misunderstood and misrepresented by those who don’t know the history behind them.
Looking forward to seeing the real thing.
Barney – shouldn’t that be Pedants’ Corner?
(ducks)
Crash my shamelessly attention whoring poll dammit! It’s no fun if it doesn’t get crashed.
9.6 as of now.
—
@El Herring (No. 150): Try reading Private Eye. Or maybe you do already…
I sent in my 10 (of course) and mightily enjoyed the show, once I’d shaken off the shock of hearing the school children in the first 10 minutes.
You do realise that we’ll all have to go back to the TV guide next week and keep the atheistic end up.
From this little Englander, concerning the US/UK tv debate, two words:
The Wire.
All other televisual sins forgiven.
So shows like, “The Young Ones” and “The Red Dwarf” trump anything America has to offer then, now do they?
Sorry, you can keep them as far as I am concerned. My opinion is that those shows are cartoony and silly at best.
Oh, and why is everyone talking about “Openly gay characters” as being such a big thing, especially in a debate over American TV verses English? There are openly Gay characters in everything from Will and Grace, to Buffy and Two and a Half Men. Gay characters are all over TV in the US.
I just looked in and it’s at 9.6. You people are terrible!
*guffawing*
#89, PZ Myers | August 4, 2008 3:08 PM
“Next step: sublime to your own blog.”
No, I’m not that vain! :-D
Here is a brief outline of the program, which I believe is also now available on “4OD” (Four on Demand) in the UK and, outside, is probably available through Youtube.
There are four strands to this episode: one is a pretty straightforward account of Darwin’s early life, the Beagle voyage, and his research afterwards up to the reluctant publication of The Origin of Species.
The second is a presentation of modern evolutionary ideas to a group of secondary school students, quite a few of whom have been taught to harbor strong religious reservations about evolution.
The third strand is my favorite: on a visit to his native Kenya, Dawkins shows the brutal struggle for existence among large mammals on the veldt, and then goes to Nairobi to interview one of a number of prostitutes who have developed a resistance to HIV, which has reached epidemic proportions in Kenya. This particular woman had survived life as a sex worker for twenty-five years.
I thought the idea of debating evolution with a class of ordinary English year 12 kids was lovely. then Dawkins takes them on a school trip to a Dorset beach and lets them hunt for fossils, pretty much as the first English fossil hunters did. Pretty soon they’re picking up fossilized ammonites, extinct since the K/T boundary event.
At around 40 minutes into this 50-minute program (not counting advertising breaks) Dawkins introduces marrying of genetics with darwinism in the neodarwinist revolution. He visits Craig Venter and discusses the evidence for common descent in the genome.
Dawkins is shown on the beach describing this evidence in the genetic code with the schookids. At the end each one gets a personal face-to-camera spot, and this works beautifully. They are all clearly impressed, even those who are reluctant to disavow the holy books of their respective religions. They are thinking about the ideas presented to them. As Dawkins says, he has only had a few hours with them, and those who indoctrinate them in religion have had an entire lifetime.
Can’t wait to see the show, I’ll have to find it somewhere on the interwebs.
Re American vs British comedy, “Green Wing” was mentioned once, but should be shouted from the rooftops. Best. Comedy. Ever! (And it’s made by Channel 4 by the way… well, paid for by them) A shame it didn’t run for more than two seasons. “Red Dwarf” and “Father Ted” are also rather funny. I can’t think of any American shows I find funnier, but when it comes to political satire “The Daily Show” beats anything else, in my humble opinion.
Actually Green Wing ran for two seasons and a special. I thought that was enough–the whole of the classic Fawlty Towers was just two series of six episodes, shown in 1975 and 1978 respectively. For the many who enjoy that style of humor, the same company’s sketch show Smack the Pony will be a delight.
While on the subject of Fawlty Towers and Green Wing, I should remark that I found Mark Heap‘s portrayal of the pompous, paranoid Alan Statham to be a triumph of physical comedy, the best I’ve seen since John Cleese stopped doing the funny walks.
I’d also recommend Rab C. Nesbitt. Although even I need a phrasebook to decipher the Govan dialect, and the broad Glaswegian accents are difficult to follow, the writing is superb, and I’ve never seen another comedy program break taboos with such flair. Father Ted on steroids.
Finally, David Renwick‘s comic masterpiece, One Foot in the Grave, must not go unmentioned.
Alas, British comedy writing in general suffers from its culture of small teams of writers, usually single writers or duos, who write a small number of episodes on a theme. Innovation dries up. There is something to be said for the American culture of franchising good formulas. While this isn’t unknown in British comedy writing, and most sketch shows accept material from many sources, it is comparatively rare in situation comedy.
British comedy has also failed to translate well to the big screen, with the honorable exception of Monty Python. To find comic writing with comparable success in film, I think you have to go right back to Will Hay‘s comedy films of the 1930s and 1940s, though individual comic actors such as Peter Sellers and Dudley Moore have translated their comedy success on British radio or television into successful Hollywood careers.
#38 as all QI enthusiasts know, it’s 616: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDuINMO9CKQ&feature=related.
And did no-one here watch The IT Crowd? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTbX1aMajow
9.7
bric #159
The IT Crowd is one of the funniest shows to come out of england in years, season 2 upped the anty with the episode called “The Work Outing” I almost needed to change my depends it was so funny. And “The Dinner Party” made my side hurt near the end :-)
The IT Crowd was written and directed by Graham Linehan, one of the creators of Father Ted. The Works Outing is absolutely the best episode. Linehan went to a succession of good Catholic schools btw.
#103 Dr. Who… I’ll admit that I’m a desperate fanboy despite the fact that I’ve read enough real literature to recognize that it is mostly rampant emotional sensationalism mixed in with some of the most flagrant uses of deus ex machina that I’ve seen in YEARS.
What do you mean, despite?
It’s pure, unadulterated escapism. The child in me loves every minute (and yes, it lives behind the sofa).
#154 There are openly Gay characters in everything from Will and Grace, to Buffy and Two and a Half Men. Gay characters are all over TV in the US.
Yes, but they don’t go on about it as much (goodbye Will and Grace, hello Gimme Gimme Gimme; only the latter had me having to explain “felching” to my then teenaged daughter, who was absolutely fascinated).
But seriously, Doctor Who owes a huge debt to the success of Buffy, which demonstrated a huge market for intelligent escapist drama.
The program in question is now online here for the next week:
http://www.channel4.com/watch_online/
I am not sure if it will be accessible to those of you outside the UK.
Here’s another poll, this time from a local station in Nashville, I believe. The question is “do you believe in God?”
Right now it’s running about 4:1 affirmative. Here’s the link:
http://www.wsmv.com/news/17063986/detail.html#-
Go do that voodoo that you do…
Now at 9.7
A dissenting review of the 1st ep of “The Genius of Charles Darwin”:
The expressions “disappointing” and “missed opportunity” spring to mind. Dawkins seems to have a problem with his collaborations with Channel 4 (i.e., The Root of All Evil?, The Enemies of Reason and this) – he comes across well personally, but the script and/or editing always seem to let him down. Arguments and explanations seem to get oversimplified and exaggerated, and this was no exception. And I cringed at the claim that Darwin was one of the first people to recognise that fossils were the remains of extinct organisms (as if this hadn’t been the established scientific position since the mid-18th century, and indeed goes back to Leonardo da Vinci and beyond). Even if the programme makers were too lazy to employ a fact-checker, I’m amazed that Dawkins himself didn’t pick up what was really a stupid and unnecessary error.
The “evolution displaces God” theme was also over-exaggerated to the point of being positively unhelpful. Yes, evolution by natural selection renders theism redundant as an explanation for biodiversity, but that’s pretty much all it does. Given the way that Dawkins kept hammering away on the theme in the broadest of terms, I wouldn’t blame the audience for taking away the erroneous impression that one had to choose between evolution and religious belief in a simplistic either/or fashion. At the very least, it seemed odd not to mention that many Christians have no problem accepting evolution (by dint of interpreting Genesis figuratively and pushing their deity’s creative input further back up the causal chain).
The biggest missed opportunity was the whole “take a bunch of 15-16 year olds and show them the evidence for evolution” business. A fossil hunting trip and a brief lecture on DNA doesn’t even begin to fulfil that promise. There were any number of field trips and demonstrations that they could have employed (I’m sure the Natural History Museum in London could have rustled up a few transitional sequences of fossil specimens if asked) which would have been far more informative and convincing – not just for the kids themselves, but for the audience. As it was, it looked like the producers had this idea of introducing a “human interest” angle but lacked either the budget or the imagination to do anything effective or interesting with it.
I suppose it was nice that one or two of the more religious teenagers seemed to be prepared to think about what they’d learned, but I wonder how long that will last.
I really, really hope that the next two programmes in the series are going to be an improvement, because otherwise I’m starting to think that Dawkins should either stick to writing and lecturing, or else find a better team of documentary makers to work with, because this particular collaboration really leaves a lot to be desired.
Tony Sidaway # 164: Doctor Who owes a huge debt to the success of Buffy, which demonstrated a huge market for intelligent escapist drama.
Are you serious? Dr. Who has been around since before Buffy was even born, and probably her parents too. I’m no great fan of the current show but I’ll stick up for its previous incarnations, from William Hartnell (1963-66), Patrick Troughton (1966-69), Jon Pertwee (1970-74), Tom Baker (1974-81) through to several others who can all be found here. No way should we ever dismiss these great actors just because they were “pre-Buffy” or anything else.
I’m now in my 50’s, and I grew up with Dr. Who. It may not be true to its original spirit (IMHO) but it’s still quintessentially British, and owes nothing to any U.S. shows past or present.
El Herring (#170):
I suspect Tony was referring to the current incarnation of Dr Who. Russell T. Davies has been fairly open about Josh Whedon’s influence on him. Unfortunately for Davies (and the viewers), he’s no Joss Whedon.
Nancy Banks-Smith reviews the Dawkins show:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/05/television.television
The first programme was about Charles Darwin himself, a more curious man in some ways than Dawkins mentioned. He was, like several prominent Victorians, prone to psychosomatic illness. He had a daughter who died very young and he found that utterly intolerable. His expression, before it was awash with whiskers, looks beleaguered. After the voyage of the Beagle he showed no appetite for foreign travel but, luckily, the mail was magnificent. (“He wrote letters and back the letters flowed from all around the world.”) He became, endearingly, a pigeon-fancier, attending shows in a top hat. Pigeons and dogs have trustingly thrown in their lot with man and can be bred into bizarre shapes at his whim. Cats can’t. They are always unmistakably cats. Why is that, professor?
He showed us Darwin’s piano and marked out the history of life on the keyboard. “We have nothing but bacteria all the way up here past middle C. The dinosaurs don’t come in till about here.” Ping went the high note, an unexpected sound for a dinosaur. “The whole of human history would occupy a space of less than half a piano string right at the top of the keyboard.”
On the subject of reviews of TGOCD:
Here’s the Independent’s take, and that of the The Times.
They’re both sympathetic, but also point out a few of the programme’s shortcomings.
Iain Walker – fair enough.
btw I can kill you with my brain.
FYI, there’s a torrent linked of the homepage of RichardDawkins.net.
#170
Tony Sidaway # 164: Doctor Who owes a huge debt to the success of Buffy, which demonstrated a huge market for intelligent escapist drama.
Are you serious? Dr. Who has been around since before Buffy was even born, and probably her parents too….I’m now in my 50’s, and I grew up with Dr. Who. It may not be true to its original spirit (IMHO) but it’s still quintessentially British, and owes nothing to any U.S. shows past or present.
Er yeah. Iain is correct when he says he thinks I mean the current incarnation, which I actually adore greatly.
Like you I was a child when the first episode went out (the day after JFK was assassinated!) and enjoyed it for years.
I happen to think Russell T. Davies is incredibly talented (I mean, Queer as Folk, come on!) so to me, Iain saying “he’s no Joss Whedon” is a bit like saying of Benvenuto Cellini “he’s no Michelangelo.” Meh. Who wants to be a talking turtle in a mask, anyway?
I won’t go into huge detail about series 4, for the sake of those who want to watch it when it’s shown on Sci Fi channel, but this I have to say about it: don’t take your eyes off Catherine Tate!
Nancy Banks-Smith is right about cats. They are breeding us. Mark my words, one day all that will remain of the current incarnation of homo sap is a lovely transitional sequence of the human lap in a cat museum.
I’ll bite.
IIRC, the conventional wisdom is (or used to be) that in domesticating cats, we stunted their development more than we did dogs or pigeons. Cats never really grow up, so they don’t express as many adult differences.
You wouldn’t want cats to really grow up, because wild cats are solitary hunters, whose instincts would make them lousy pets. You want them to stay sort of kittenish or juvenile, and see you as mommy. As a side effect, you get the physical forms of not-quite-grown cats, which are more similar than truly adult forms.
Dogs, on the other hand, are social hunters who can see you as the alpha (pack leader). You can let a dog grow up to be psychologically more adult, and still have an animal you can get along with. As a side effect, you also get to choose among a lot more “adult” variation in physical forms that you can bring out with artificial selection.
I’m wondering if this conventional wisdom has been borne out or contradicted by modern genetics, evo devo, etc.
(For example, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s something else going on with cats, such as a founder effect reducing variation in the gene pool. My impression is that dogs were domesticated gradually over a long time and over a wide geographic area, but that modern housecats all stem from a smaller population in a smaller area.)
I can’t believe I’ve read all these posts and no-one has mentioned Knowing Me, Knowing You and I’m Alan Partridge, as well as the insanely brilliant The Day Today and latterly Brass Eye! Did no-one else watch television in the 90s?!
For my money the best comedy from Britain or the US is equal in quality though the styles are usually so very different. Apart from more recent ‘cringe-comedy’ (The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm etc.) I tend to find much more variety of setting in British comedy – eg the different historical eras of Blackadder: most American shows seem to be set in suburban homes or city apartments – and a tendency for characters to be truly melancholy and hopeless in a way that American characters aren’t; no matter how hard the writers try there’s an odd American optimism(and often sentimentalism) that creeps in in most shows.
British characters are often genuine ‘losers’ – in American shows even when people are apparently hard-up they are still in general unfeasibly attractive, healthy and living in rather nice places.