Weekend 'Round the Web: Evolution Is Antsy
Plus trans horror, God studied, and...NO NOT THE BEES!
I am, as you certainly know if you’re reading this, an atheist. I don’t deny the existence of higher powers; rather, I disbelieve in the notion that any such thing is a distinct being with whom we can have conversations.
That said, whether it’s God or nature, I feel like something up there has a sense of humor, for this headline alone:
‘Things keep evolving into anteaters.’ Odd animals arose at least 12 separate times
When I wrote an article about things in Ant-Man 3 that don’t make sense, I noted and pointed out to all who would listen that ants aren’t going to “evolve” into giant versions of themselves with human genius level IQs. There’s no need: they are perfectly adapted for survival, and this have remained basically unchanged since prehistoric times. Which is why nature keeps evolving predators for them. This seems like the sort of thing Douglas Adams’ conception of God would do (like the Babel fish).
The evolutionary appeal of ant eating seems to have grown shortly after the dinosaurs died out, as ants and termites ballooned from 1% of total insects to a combined 45%, an uptick possibly driven by the spread of flowering plants during the late Cretaceous. At the same time, termites began evolving the large colony sizes that anteaters now treat as their buffets, Vida and his colleagues found when they looked at the evolution of colony size among 158 social insect species. It was only after those all-you-can-eat dining spots appeared that anteaters evolved to exploit them.
While we’re on the topic of God, two of my favorite Biblical historians to read on Substack had a conversation with each other. Here’s a pointed excerpt:
I think it’s important to avoid two extremes: one says that everything that is written in the Bible is factually or historically true and there are no errors in it. In this view, everything we know about history, science, geography, other religions, and so on, need to be made to fit within the biblical narrative. The other extreme says that the Bible is purely a religious text that provides no reliable evidence for anything. In this view, the Bible is not seriously engaged with as a series of historical texts that may still provide value and insight. Both extremes are irresponsible in different ways and prevent decent work and conversations from taking place.
Many people may fall somewhere in between such extremes, though they still act as apologists or debunkers. I think people of faith must recognize that the apologetic endeavor already assumes the “rightness” of their beliefs and it is not actually proving or disproving anything, apart from someone’s ability to construct post-hoc arguments. And those seeking to debunk biblical texts or claims must recognize the limits of historical inquiry and hold their conclusions with open hands and be willing to adopt new perspectives as they encounter new information, even if it means admitting they may have been wrong about something.
Is horror cinema transphobic? Miguel Martinez looks at the evolving attitudes of a sometimes accidentally progressive genre:
So where do we land on Sleepaway Camp. For me, it reads like a cautionary tale about forcing a child into a role that does not fit, about the violence of coercion, about the way shame curdles. If this story lived completely outside the tradition of trans coded villains and shocks, maybe it would feel like a sad, sharp fable and nothing more. But it does not. It lives inside that lineage, which is why so many trans viewers and allies feel that little twist of the knife during the reveal. The film is both a time capsule and a conversation starter. That is valuable, and it is also complicated.
Maybe Neil LaBute’s Wicker Man was truer than we know, because Nicolas Cage just got attacked in real life by a swarm of bees:
The filming was scheduled to take place in caves in Megara, but an unexpected problem changed the production’s plans.
Specifically, they were forced to find a new filming location after Nicolas Cage was attacked by a swarm of wild bees in a cave.
I don’t need to read the story here and I’m not sure you do, but this guy is a hero:
Here it is anyway:
Taco Bell's Chief Digital and Technology Officer Dane Mathews told The Wall Street Journal that deploying the voice AI has had its challenges.
"Sometimes it lets me down, but sometimes it really surprises me," he said.
He said the firm was "learning a lot" - but he would now think carefully about where to use AI going forwards, including not using it at drive-throughs.
While you’re at it, Taco Bell, fix the stupid app so I can use it like at McDonald’s and pay at the window. (If there is a way to do this, readers, and I am missing it, let me know.)
What all have you been reading lately?
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