Particularly interesting is its implicit admission that Darwinism cannot explain why the world was what it was and became what it is. Despite an overwhelming attempt by the popular culture (and scientists dependent upon secular and government money), Darwin’s mechanism for explaining evolution doesn’t work. As the show points out, there are things in the world and in the fossil record that just cannot be explained by our standard, assumed understanding of evolution.
However, the show does not take any kind of religious tack (it is the BBC, after all). Rather, they come up with an ingenious way of explaining how evolution does funny things. In essence, there are several holes in time and space that flash in and out of existence. Called (in a very Star Trek-esque manner) anomalies, they allow for creatures from very different epochs to cross over into different time periods — thus having drastic affects upon the evolutionary order.
One of the things that challenges the suspension of disbelief is that all of these anomalies seem to be centered around Britain, and that the government is perfectly capable of keeping it quiet that there are incursions by prehistoric monsters into our time on a fairly regular basis.
This got me thinking: why Britain? Why not the U.S. or South Africa or India? Given that Britain is the location of Stone Henge (and all of the weirdness associated with it), what if the anomalies were a long-term consequence of using arcane magic? Obviously, I am now fully going into FRPG inspiration mode, (because this blog is primarily about RPGs). Here is also where I get to sneak in some Christian dogma.
God created the world from nothing. When humanity knew evil (the absence of God), we knew a world of disease, decay and death — these are all symptoms of creation returning to the nothing from which it came. In context of a fantasy world where arcane magic exists and is practiced, this decay could take on a very interesting form. The use of arcane magic (which is, in essence an embrace of Adam’s Fall because most magic users attempt to be God sans God) could tear tiny holes in space and time. Over the long term, this results in anomalies — a symptom of space and time collapsing in on themselves as they return to nothing.
One of the more interesting ideas from the series is that most, if not all, mythological beasts have their origin as creatures from a distant past or future making an incursion into a different time. Thus, dragons might be dinosaurs. A dire boar might be an entelodont. A Lycanthrope or a vampire might be a wolf or a bat from some far distant future where these creatures have evolved some kind of intelligence (in fact, one of the recurring creatures in Primeval is a super-evolved bat).
There are three fundamental reasons why I am so intrigued by this concept:
Firstly, having portals opening up intermittently to other times can justify just about any weird creature you can think of — just call it a creature from the distant past or future. It also explains why dinosaurs of all different epochs could be roaming around a fantasy world.
Secondly, it allows just enough weirdness into a campaign world without going gonzo — how cool would it be to have a party of PCs jump through a portal into the distant past or future? The possibilities are endless.
Finally, and to my mind most importantly, it plays into the post-apocalyptic reality that is D&D — especially in a Homlesian kind of way. The ancient civilization hinted at in the Holmes edition of Basic D&D and how it came crashing down now come into sharp focus — all that powerful arcane magic tore enough holes in time and space that some serious nastiness crawled through to bring the civilization crashing to a halt. In addition, it suggests the very interesting possibility that divine magic (which develops later in the suggested D&D landscape of Holmes) heals these tears in time and space.
For my own purposes, it also helps explain why the concept of time is so non-linear within the confines of the Chateau des Faussesflammes...
11 comments:
Nice post as far as the gaming inspiration. Ignorant post as far as your assigning bias and fraud to an entire professional class ( I.e., scientists).
I think FrDave was describing the show's premise, not his own take on modern scientists(hence his stating that parts of the show make it hard for him to suspend his disbelief).
However, it was a little unclear at first whether the show was a documentary or fiction (I'm guessing the latter)--with certain U.S. cable channels (I'm looking at you, History Channel and SyFy), it's hard to tell fact from fabrication.
@Mel
It is not my intention to assign bias and fraud to an entire professional class, only those "scientists" that willingly corrupt the scientific process by placing more import on agenda than on observation.
When agenda comes first, it forces science to try and answer questions it cannot — questions properly dealt with by philosophy and religion. This corrupts the scientific process and damages both current scientific efforts and the future potential of science by limiting its scope to the support of agenda rather than true experimentation.
Personally, I am a huge fan of science — it is one of those passions that life has never allowed me to pursue in any other role than as an enthusiastic amateur. Those who actually get to pursue true science are some of the people I really admire (especially those who can leave philosophical questions to their proper fields).
@Desert Scribe
Primeval is a science fiction show produced by BCC and has been broadcast by BBC America here in the States.
Thanks for your clarification, Dave. I *am* one of those scientists who receives funding from secular and and governmental sources, which is why your off-handed comment stood out for me. In fact most modern, professional scientists are dependent upon secular and governmental funding, which is why I still believe that you are very much overgeneralizing by ascribing ulterior motives to this group.
Also, I completely agree with you that when agenda comes first, it can produce bad science. This is true, though, of religious dogma as well, and one can easily read into Jesus' teachings lessons that concern "looking" and "listening" without the blinders of dogma, expectation, agenda, and so forth.
The thing is, though, science as a discipline has built in corrections because it concerns public knowledge. For something to be held true it must be replicable, refutable (i.e., testable), and use variable that a community agrees are appropriate (i.e., operationalized variables). This means that over time, scientific knowledge should in principle come to more accurately reflect reality. It takes time. The process is messy, but that is because humans are such creative "believe alls." This is a strength and weakness of the scientific enterprise.
Tim Powers' remarkable novel The Anubis Gates starts from just such a premise: a ritual has opened a number of unstable rifts in time, allowing our hero to attempt a little historical tourism.
Regarding monsters out of time, I suspect (without direct evidence) that HPL was partly inspired by the Cambrian Seas diorama at AMNH. From what we understand of the world before the Permian mass extinction, it looks like a really, really alien place, and very little explored in fiction, compared with the ages of the dinosaurs and sabre-toothed cats - a rich untapped source of creatures.
Why Britain? Alas, I have a hard time thinking past the answer "cultural chauvinism." Ken Hite wrote an extremely interesting short speculative piece a while ago that set Australia as the center of earthly magic and imagined a history where its magical potential became public knowledge, and where consequently the great Powers had to actually take Aboriginal Dream-time stories seriously. I liked his approach because I feel that "imagining big" is one of the great and often wasted opportunities we have over here in RPG land. Australia, like America and California, is one of those place about the actual nature of which we Europeans knew so little on first encounter that our name for it codifies our ignorance - America, land of the Italian adventurer Amerigo Vespucci; California/Calyferne, ie fairyland; and Australia, the antipodes, or Far, Far Away. The sum total of what we know about Aboriginal culture before European involvement amounts to just the sort of ragged patchwork of evocative suggestions that James Maliszewski argues for so passionately, as the proper approach for RPG setting documents.
@richard
From what we understand of the world before the Permian mass extinction, it looks like a really, really alien place, and very little explored in fiction, compared with the ages of the dinosaurs and sabre-toothed cats - a rich untapped source of creatures.
Exactly! Some of the prehistoric creatures that I am most fascinated by come from this period — especially the synapsids. To think that humans are more closely related to a dimetrodon than a t-rex just boggles the mind.
@ Mel
Also, I completely agree with you that when agenda comes first, it can produce bad science. This is true, though, of religious dogma as well, and one can easily read into Jesus' teachings lessons that concern "looking" and "listening" without the blinders of dogma, expectation, agenda, and so forth.
While I completely agree with your positive assessment of science, I must quibble with this statement. You misuse the word dogma here. In Orthodox Christian theology, it does not refer to human institutions or traditions. Rather, the word dogma refers to those statements made by the Orthodox Church that summarize what God has revealed to us about Himself. The Nicene Creed is a classic example, as is the trinitarian formula one in essence and three in persons.
If dogma could change, it would mean that God could change. If God could change, it would mean that He could go from being eternal to being finite. If this were the case, Christians would be wasting their time.
Dogma, when properly understood, not only does not have the negative connotations you imply, but has been creatively used to interact with the realities of every generation of Orthodox Christians.
For the record, I believe the word you are looking for is eisogesis — reading into scripture what you want — which is the antonym of exegesis — reading out of scripture what is actually there.
I might add that "dogma" also has a common meaning for the general English speaking population. It might be an incorrect use, but that how it is.
So. Since I'm stupid I'm going to take the bait. God help me.
Darwin’s mechanism for explaining evolution doesn’t work. As the show points out, there are things in the world and in the fossil record that just cannot be explained by our standard, assumed understanding of evolution.
Was this a postulate for the show you were talking about? If it was your own claim, I'd like to hear what you base that one on.
I'm not claiming you are, but many people, especially in the USA, throw things like that around having no idea of what they speak. Sometimes they even like to through suspicion on the value of education, scientist and the scientific method. There were a very loaded phrase or two in there, probably a reason Mel reacted like that.
@Andreas
Was this a postulate for the show you were talking about? If it was your own claim, I'd like to hear what you base that one on.
It is both. The show made the claim — one of the reasons it so intrigued me in the first place, because I hold it as well. I say this as someone who greatly admires the scientific method and who gets extremely frustrated when people fail to understand that failure is just as important, if not more so, than success in science.
Darwin made his hypothesis prior to our understanding of the cell. Therefore he did not include the cell or its extraordinary complexity into his thinking. As a result, Darwinism fails to explain the complexity of the cell or how such an intricate elemental building block of life could have gradually or spontaneously develop.
In addition, Darwinism fails to explain altruism, which flies in the face of his hypothesis of how and why things evolve.
Finally, there are holes in the fossil record — missing links, as it were. Grant it, they may be out there, but this must be held as a kind of faith, rather than as an acknowledgement of what has actually been found.
Thanks for your clarification!
Worth noting is that unless you want to be bunched up with creationist nut jobs who excel at so called straw men, don't use the term "darwinism". The model used by modern evolutionary biology is called "evolution". Darwinism is not a term popular among biologist, rather the a fore mentioned guys.
Mr. Darwin would indeed have been amazed at what his name have beet attached to.
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