From Alex Zalben:
Fine, fine, I guess there’s something to be said for presenting both sides of an issue.
Last night on Futurama, we were treated to what might be the first hilarious honest debate about creationism versus evolution. And while as an episode the logic may not have made sense, and the B-plot was disposable, at best, the main thrust of the episode was smart, funny, and necessary.
Fed up with a creationist ape named Dr. Banjo, Farnsworth and crew head to an abandoned planet to start over. Once there, Farnsworth releases a gaggle of water-cleaning nanobots, who, interacting with the toxic sewage in the planet’s lakes, end up quickly evolving. Over the next few days, the crew gets to witness the whole of robot evolution, even ending up in a Scopes-like trial to prove that evolution and creation are sometimes one and the same thing.
I’m gonna make no bones about it (pun intended): creationism is pretty darn stupid. There’s a willful ignoring of facts for no good reason, and a blatant hatred of the other sides point of view that’s reprehensible at best, and downright dangerous at worst. And yes, I’m aware I’m trashing them as a way of making my point, but that’s where Futurama comes in.
Towards the end of the episode, Farnsworth agrees that it's possible some great big being in the sky could have created life, and Dr. Banjo agrees that it's possible evolution could exist as well, that this being could have jumpstarted things and then left. There’s an open-mindedness there that is almost never brought to the creationism debate, and that’s what leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Science states that anything is possible, you just have to prove it to be true – but creationists jump on that to say, “You can’t prove it’s not true, so it must be true!”
It’s the gotcha methods and tautologies that end up tanking their side of the non-issue, as brilliantly illustrated in a sequence where Dr. Banjo keeps pointing out more and more miniscule missing links that science has not discovered. I don’t know if there’s a great big guy in the sky – maybe there is, maybe there’s not. He doesn’t rule my life, and I don’t care if he rules yours. Just don’t tell me I’m wrong for saying I don’t care.
Which, in essence, is what Futurama was – and is always – saying.
This makes me want to go and watch Futurama again. It's been too long.
2 comments:
I feel like you miss a very important perspective. The message of the episode to me was that both sides are solely looking for evidence to prove their point. People say creationism makes no sense but they maintain that it totally makes sense that all matter has always existed and therefore never needed to be created. And people say evolution can't exist despite evidence of evolution. But you're missing a bigger point.
In the Futurama episode, the robots did in fact evolve. But they did not always exist. They evolved from the nano-bots Farnsworth brought to the planet. The robots had no way of proving or disproving that Farnsworth existed. Or in terms of the evolution-creationism debate, why does the presents of evolution automatically mean that no being set the universe into motion?
@B Houston
Evolution has nothing to do with abiogenesis or the Big Bang. Evolution and God are not mutually exclusive; anyway, the Big Bang is a proven theory - you misrepresent it.
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