Saturday, October 27, 2007

A Scientist's Fetish, an Author's Gaffe

Bad Ass Jeremy Irons as Über-Morlock
Bad Ass Jeremy Irons as Über-Morlock

I usually don't focus on the author of a particular piece that I reference, but this bit from the Daily Mail by Niall Firth entitled "Human race will 'split into two different species'" is a two-fer:
The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist.

100,000 years into the future, sexual selection could mean that two distinct breeds of human will have developed.

The alarming prediction comes from evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry from the London School of Economics, who says that the human race will have reached its physical peak by the year 3000.
...
These humans will be between 6ft and 7ft tall and they will live up to 120 years.
...
Men will have symmetrical facial features, deeper voices and bigger penises, according to Curry in a report commissioned for men's satellite TV channel Bravo.

Women will all have glossy hair, smooth hairless skin, large eyes and pert breasts, according to Curry.
This part's too easy. While this unoriginal idea may have some fortitude, I'd rock to the side of the razor where the good theorist is fantasizing about approaching his anime-fetish fantasy girlfriend with more height, a deeper voice, and a whole lot more man-meat than he's carrying around right now; and they'd live happily until the ripe old age of 120. It's like how an artist's face subtly emerges from the portraits he or she paints.

But the bigger stinker in the article went thusly:
Dr Curry's theory may strike a chord with readers who have read H G Wells' classic novel The Time Machine, in particular his descriptions of the Eloi and the Morlock races.

In the 1895 book, the human race has evolved into two distinct species, the highly intelligent and wealthy Eloi and the frightening, animalistic Morlock who are destined to work underground to keep the Eloi happy.
Niall Firth, if you're going to make a referential analogy based on a classic piece of English Literature, read the damn book.

The Eloi were not intelligent nor wealthy - while they had possibly evolved from wealthy classes of the past, they had long ago become complacent and lost their curiosity, height, and most sexual distinction between male and female. They were little more than humanoid sheep which were kept happy and abundant by the Morlocks, but only to serve as their food.

Piss poor literature references really burn my biscuits. If it wasn't for the fetish theorist, the entire article would have been most unpleasant.

No comments: