Kong Mirrors Real Evolutionary Paths

CNN has an article pointing out that, though King Kong may be a little extreme, evolutionary gigantism is not out of the question on remote islands. From the article: "There are many examples of what biologists term 'gigantism' on islands. These include the Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards which can be 10 feet long or more and weigh up to 500 pounds. Found on a few small Indonesian islands, the Komodo -- a recorded man-eater -- is in many ways as chilling as anything from Jackson's fertile imagination."

Comments

Hype time already?

[ozmanjusri]

"King Kong," which is reigning at the North American box office this holiday season...

CNN should label these articles as advertisements. There's little science in the story, and certainly nothing new.

Re:Hype time already?

[Lord_Dweomer]

No kidding. In case anybody hasn't noticed...the new trend in PR is to try to tie whatever you're doing to something scientific. Then you can "borrow" some of their credibility and steal some of their press. Although most of the time there is no real science in these articles...they're just fluff pieces which mention whatever is being promoted. What's funny (and makes them even more annoying) is how transparent they are.

Re:Hype time already?

[maxpublic]

You should blame the society which has now grown into short attention spanned pleasure seekers

That "society" you talk about happens to include you. Unless somehow you've been magically exempted from the ranks of short-attention-spanned pleasure seekers.

Max

Jackson's imagination??

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh, I hate to nitpick, but which creatures did Jackson imagine in this remake?

Not to say that the man isn't creative or imaginative, but he certainly didn't invent King Kong...or the brachiosaurus or the T-Rex or the Velociraptor or or or....

Fluff piece

[ljhiller]

This reads like a story invented in a Reuters reporter's head, with out-of-context quotes from scientists to support his clever idea. Anybody that followed the homo floresiensis story knows that large mammals tend to become dwarves on islands.

Sad...

[kripkenstein]

+3 Interesting? I guess pseudoscience is always more interesting than science, isn't it.

You missed the point

[nwbvt]

The article wasn't arguing that King Kong was possible, in fact it clearly states that it is not. It is going into an interesting scientific topic and alluding to a new movie to make it more interesting.

You see this kind of thing happen all the time. For instance, since the Da Vinci Code came out, I have seen plenty of historic tv specials on channels like the History channel that allude to that book in order to gain popularity (think "Da Vinci and the Code He Lived By"). That doesn't change the fact that Dan Brown is an idiot who has no idea what he is talking about 99% of the time and whose books contain nothing factual at all, nor does it make those specials psuedoscience. These specials have nothing to do with the book, they are just feeding off its popularity.

Re:The crocodile is the largest lizard

[balster neb]

Isn't the crocodile the world's largest lizard?

No, crocodile != lizard. Comparing crocodiles and lizards would be something like comparing dogs and monkeys. They belong to an entirely different order.

Crocodiles are from the order Crocodilia, lizards are from the order Squamata (which includes snakes).

Re:Leave Jackson out of this!

[TobyWong]

If your criteria for "originality" stipulates that no external influence or inspiration from other forms of media is allowed then there has never been and never will be an original movie.