Monday, June 6, 2011

X factor


If I list the films I've seen this year, you will immediately know I have a teenage son. Thankfully I don't have to see the real kiddie stuff anymore, but I do have to see the blockbusters. We saw Thor recently, and I guess if I had heard nothing about it, I might have enjoyed it more, but because people were raving, I was disappointed. Kenneth Brannagh is a Shakespearian director but there was no Shakespearian grandeur there, it was just too slight and silly for me.


Last night we went and saw the X men prequel, X Men, First Class. I realized that I have never seen another x men film, because I could see that there were nuances that I wasn't getting. But even with no knowledge, this was a multi leveled, well acted interesting film. I liked how they tied in all the fears of the post WWII era - eugenics, superior races and nuclear war. Then I read this article in Fox -, all concerned about its 'gay agenda' but in particular wanting to have a discussion about Evolution.


From the tone and content, it was clear that the author and perhaps much of the readership, think evolution has made humans and stopped. We are a pinnacle piece. But that is completely wrong. Evolution never ends. We are continuously evolving, and in a million years, humans we will be physically and intellectually different to how they are today. We are evolving socially far more quickly than we are evolving physically, but every day, natural selection - through nature and through cultural elements, allows some humans to thrive and others not, and the ones who thrive have children with a far better chance of survival. As long as we exist, our species is evolving. And so the dance continues...

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