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25

Picking Apart “Origins: Battle for the Planet” (Part I)

Filed Under Cambrian Period, Wacky Science, YouTube

Bad Science Documentary

Above: Mostly naked, completely shaved guy, who frolicks with
arthropods and mollusks. You'll be seeing a lot of him.


Most of the time when I watch a science documentary, I don’t notice scientific errors, although they’re often there.  I’m not a scientist, and even in my areas of interest (paleontology and evolution) I’m not an expert by any means.

But last night I stumbled across an exceptionally bad science documentary.  Although I’m no expert, this documentary left me slack-jawed and breathless.  I was struck dumb by how stupid, and just plain wrong it was!

It’s produced by Discovery Channel, and it’s called Origins: The Battle for Earth.

Reading that name should raise all sorts of red flags by itself.  Over an extremely painful 50 minutes, you will learn that:

  1. Both Anomalocarids and Opabinids were definitely Arthropods (wrong)
  2. Pikiaia gracilens, a direct human ancester, and it was almost hunted to extinction during the Cambrian (dubious at best)
  3. Harry Whittington apparently did not reconstruct Anomalocaris in the ’80′s, so we had no idea what it looked like until Des Collins found the first full specimen in the ’90′s (wrong)
  4. Humans “beat” both arthropods and mollusks to “win” Evolution (hilariously wrong)
  5. If Pikaia had been wiped out in the Cambrian, an intelligent, human-sized super-wasp species would have developed, and lived in sky-scraper-style hives on the waterfront (bizzare, hilarious, and almost certainly wrong)

This train-wreck is too massive to deal with in a single post, so here’s what I’m going to do.  The movie is split into 6 parts on Youtube, so I’m going to devote a post to each part.  I’ll post about one part every day between now and Friday.  Check back every day for a new part!  The Youtube video will be embedded in the bottom of each post, for your enjoyment.

Part #1 – The Stage is Set (Poorly)

The first thing to realize about this documentary is that it really tries to “dramatize” Evolution.  I guess the producers didn’t think anyone would be interested in the Evolution of humanity as it actually occured, so they decided to turn it into an epic battle for survival between vertebrates, arthropods, and mollusks.

But they also assumed that “the masses” wouldn’t be able to remember the scientific terms for these 3 groups, so they refer to vertebrates as “us,” arthropods as “mega-bugs,” and mollusks as “super-snails.”  It’s stupid and childish, but there you have it, Discovery Channel nomenclature.

The documentary seeks to answer that timeless question, how did humans “win” Evolution and become the “dominant” form of life on Earth?  They freely compare the “dominance” of humans with that of “super-bugs,” as if a single species can be compared with an entire phylum (arthropoda).  The entire documentary is a mess like this.

Now let’s look at some some specific issues in part 1.  The numbers in brackets are the time in the video that the quotes occur.

“We tend to assume that we humans are the pinnacle of evolution, natural rulers of the planet. ” (0:07)
No, we don’t.

Opabinia: “This five-eyed paddle steamer carried a vicious mouth at the end of an elephant-like trunk.” (3:23)
Opabinia did not have a mouth at the end of its proboscis. It had a pair of grasping claws, which it used to grab food, and place it into its mouth. If they’d actually fact-checked they could have gotten this tidbit right. Moving on…

“Amazingly [complex animals] appeared almost overnight…”(3:57)
If by overnight, you mean over the course of several million years. Since they seem to assume that their viewers are pretty dumb, they should make things clearer.

“The dominant group today, which includes us, are the vertebrates…” (6:51)
I’m not sure how they decided vertebrates are dominant, considering how many more arthropods there are. I guess they actually do believe that humans are the pinnacle of evolution (see quote 1).

“Standing here in the 21st century, the notion that [arthropods and mollusks] ever competed with us for mastery of the Earth seems ludicrous, but new evidence reveals that we were almost wiped from the face of the Earth, by a bunch of bugs and snails” (7:40)
What is really ludicrous is that they assume we are masters of the earth. We’re smart, but our survivability is pathetic compared to say, arthropods. In fact, as we wipe ourselves out through global warming and other symptoms of our “mastery,” arthropods will be just fine.

That’s all for part 1.  There are more dubious statements, but the whole thing is so dumb, it can be hard to pick out the parts that are dumb and wrong.

Here is the video:



I’d love you hear what you all thing of this mess.  Please leave a comment!  And remember, check back tomorrow for the next part!

Comments

16 Responses to “Picking Apart “Origins: Battle for the Planet” (Part I)”

  1. Noadi on January 25th, 2009 6:21 pm

    We’re top of the food chain for now, not forever and I’m hoping the cephalopods take over.

  2. admin on January 25th, 2009 6:36 pm

    I would support that, too.

    I figure sometime in the next few centuries, Cthulhu will rise from the deep, heralding the dominion of his tentacled brethren.

    Or something like that…

  3. Glendon Mellow on January 25th, 2009 9:31 pm

    Sometimes I’m glad I don’t have cable.

  4. Raptor Lewis on January 26th, 2009 11:07 am

    I can describe that video in Two words: Television Trash. Completely incorrect.

  5. Troy on October 23rd, 2009 3:02 pm

    I think you’re a bit hard on the show. It is meant for a general rather than an academic audience. Most of the issues you bring up are either pedantic or there is wiggle room for the producers being correct. All your criticisms are dead on but to explain the nuances to a general audience would be boring and time consuming beyond the scope of what they were trying to do. Humans of course aren’t the pinnacle of evolution and the arthropods will no doubt take over again, but we sure feel on top ha ha.

  6. Denis on November 11th, 2009 11:04 am

    I react to your second post on the subject before seing the documentary, and seing this post.

    Well, as you say, there’s way too much non-sense and mistakes here.

    First of all is the fact they think of evolution as a struggle of species against each other… That’s non-sense.

    Then by saying we are the dominant group… bacteria have been the dominant group since appearance of live, then, among animals, arthropods exist everywhere on the globe, and it’s said that for each human, there’s more than its weight in ants only… Among vertebrates, actinopterygians dominates (even if we drive many species to extinction) and among mammals, rats dominates easily… So what do we dominate?

    The mouth at the end of the frontal process of Opabinia… Too bad, this theory has been wiped out since 1975… The last reference of this is in Moore’s treatise in 1959!

    …

    The think I like in this documentary is to see Desmond Collins and digital movies of Cambrian creatures… Even if they really represent Opabinia with its mouth at the end of its frontal process… Damn, how could them had been so stupid.

  7. Get over yourself on August 22nd, 2010 7:49 am

    It seems like you are taking offence at mere statements made in the documentary. While a couple of your complaints may have a leg to stand on, most of your whingeing seems to be targetted at “emotional” sentences surrounding human dominance. I’ve watched this doco and most of what you whine about was not what the doco was saying. You have read too much into it to the point of imagined outraged. In other words, you seem to be getting upset at nothings in this doco. Have a cuppa, a bex and good lie down, sweety.

  8. Psi Wavefunction on October 4th, 2010 11:23 pm

    I know I’m late to the party, but our paleontology instructor imposed this nightmare on us. As a microbiologist (of the eukaryotic variety), I nearly hurled in the first 4min. “Slime”??? Fuck off, crackpot wannabe scientist TV star. No predators before the Cambrian? Completely and unarguably false (else no heterotrophic protists exist, period.) And just…the entire movie…down to showing a lichen while talking about ‘the first plants’…was the worst pain I’ve been through aside from creationist movies. Actually, those I can ignore, as no sane person accepts them as scientific. This shit, on the other hand, is outright toxic.

    Worst. Documentary. Ever.

    Glad someone took care of the ranting for me! =D

    Cheers,

    -Psi-

  9. Psi Wavefunction on October 4th, 2010 11:26 pm

    PS: Microbes, namely prokaryotes, are, have always been, and will always be the dominant group [of self-sufficient organisms; ie viruses excluded, though those do win both in abundance and sheer diversity, by far]. Eukaryotes are but a tiny minority compared to prokaryotes, and animals just a tiny splinter of total eukaryotic diversity, and vertebrates a rather insignificant part of animal diversity. Thus, in the grand scheme of things, vertebrates are actually most irrelevant.

  10. admin on October 6th, 2010 9:45 am

    I wouldn’t say you’re late to the party at all. This post series seems to be getting more popular as time goes by.

    I agree with you completely, in terms of diversity and “success” defined as say, diversity, abundance and survivability, vertebrates are pretty unimportant.

    This documentary just assumes that humans are the greatest and runs with it, never questioning the blind assumption that we are the uncontested rulers of all life on earth.

  11. EtriX on May 19th, 2012 10:31 am

    Is it possible to repost the full movie? Thanks.

  12. uk superior research papers on May 20th, 2012 10:58 am

    This is my term paper topic. Why would they call it a Super Earth if the temperature can’t support life? Doesn’t sound like a Super Earth to me…sounds like just another planet.

  13. EtriX on July 4th, 2012 2:55 pm

    Could someone please repost the movie? It is no longer available in the link above. Thanks!

  14. etriX on July 28th, 2012 11:37 am

    The video links are broken. Could someone please repost the movie? Thanks.

  15. EtriX on August 4th, 2012 3:00 am

    Someone can post? Thanks.

  16. EtriX on September 1st, 2012 3:08 am

    Any news? Thanks.

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