Snow Leopards aren’t Leopards

Snow leopards are part of the Panthera/big cat genus along with tigers, lions, leopards and jaguars. Considering snow leopards and leopards both have rosettes and are able to climb easily, people have often mistaken them as beings very closely related.

Snow leopards are actually more closely related to tigers than to any other member of the genus. Lions are the species most closely related to leopards.

There is evidence that snow leopard ancestors bred with the lion-leopard common ancestor a long time ago. The lion-leopard lineage received more snow leopard genetics than snow leopards received lion-leopard genetics. This would come about by the hybrids preferring to mate with lion-leopards over snow leopards. (A similar thing happened with humans and Neanderthals: hybrids would breed with Homo sapiens rather than Neanderthals.)

 

Some have suggested that this crossbreeding is where snow leopards got their leopard-print from. This isn’t a feasible idea.

Spots and rosettes are present in most feline species, including the Panthera genus. Jaguars also have rosettes for life. Tigons and ligers, tiger-lion hybrids, have lifelong spots despite neither parent species having them for life, indicating that spots were part of the evolutionary history of the genus. (Most lions lose their markings as they mature.)

It’s such a common trait that there are two possibilities. 1: it evolved in a feline ancestor and those present species without spot markings evolved unspotted coats. 2: it’s such a useful trait that it’s convergently evolved many times over. For either possibility, leopard genetics in snow leopards are clearly unnecessary.

Also, remember that lion-leopard received more snow leopard than the other way around. So, if anything, the crossbreeding hypothesis would lead to the conclusion that leopards received their leopard-print from snow leopards!

Another important point is that these snow leopard ancestors and the lion-leopard ancestors might have both been without rosettes or they both had rosettes. To assume one got it from the other is dismissing all the other points of origin for rosettes.

Hence, saying snow leopard’s leopard-print is the result of their interbreeding with lion-leopards is false. So to use the fact that they both have rosettes to justify that snow leopards are leopards is faulty.

 

So, it’s pretty clear that snow leopards aren’t leopards. It’s like claiming jackrabbits are rabbits, even though they’re hares: sure, it’s in the name, and sure, they’re closely related, but neither of those qualifications mean ‘same as’.

Cheetahs aren’t ‘Big Cats’… Maybe

A ‘big cat’ is one that belongs to the genus Panthera. This includes tigers, lions, leopards, snow leopards and jaguars. Cheetahs aren’t in this genus. If something isn’t in the genus labelled ‘big cat’, then that something likewise cannot be called a big cat.

 

So that’s for when ‘big cat’ is a noun. If the ‘big’ is used as an adjective (a description), a cheetah can be labelled a big cat. One simply cannot look at a cheetah and claim they are small. It’s taller than many (noun) big cats. Most cat species have a lesser body height, length and weight to a cheetah, too. So as an adjective describing the noun ‘cat’, ‘big’ is suitable for use about a cheetah.

 

But calling a cheetah a big cat does make people think they’re closely related to members of the Panthera genus, especially leopards and jaguars. Calling cheetahs big cats perpetrates false information which isn’t helpful. Hence why using ‘big cat’ for cheetahs is frowned upon in all situations.

Critique: Moon Knight

The plot was rewarding. The dark moments were handled well, letting the audience feel the pain without bringing the mood of the whole show down.

 

Stephen ends up being the avatar of Khonsu, Egyptian god of the night sky who punishes people for actions they’ve already done. They aim to stop Harrow from resurrecting Ammit who would punish people for what they might do in the future.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

There were many positives.

To start off with, the show made out like Stephen was the main personality and Marc was the additional personality. So, when it turned out that Marc was the main one, it was a complete shock. The show managed this reveal tactfully.

The animation for Ammit, from her clothing and the way her tail dragged. And the hair! My goodness, her hair was amazing. Ammit looks like a humanoid crocodile, or a crocodilian humanoid in the show. Ammit is traditionally depicted as a crocodile head on lion forequarters and hippo hindquarters. Seeing hippo feet and leonine arms poking out of her dress would have been more accurate, I suppose, but Egyptian gods took many forms. There’s no reason why Ammit couldn’t be a crocodilian humanoid. (Plus we’d be left without her tail animation.)

All Marvel productions have the same kind of feel to them. As time has gone on, the films and tv series have leant more into this identity. It’s lead to more attempts at humour and a desire to deal with more serious issues which has produced a string of films and shows that feel disjointed with themselves. Moon Knight has its own identity which is refreshing. Its humour and seriousness fit together rather than being forced together.

 

Taweret was my favourite character. At first I thought it odd that she guided souls to the afterlife, considering Egypt had plenty of gods whose job that actually was. In my research, I found out she did have a role in dealing with the souls in the afterlife. It was nice to learn something new.

            The costume they designed for Taweret’s avatar was spectacular. It’s hands-down my favourite super hero suit. The wings, especially, were brilliant.

            At one point, Taweret talked to Layla by possessing her briefly. Layla’s actor imitated the animated Taweret’s hand actions and facial expressions with complete accuracy. Did she copy the animators, did the animators copy her, or did the director direct Layla according to what he wanted the animation to be? To have this consistency was a really nice detail and proves the talent of the actor and the animators.

            Tawaret had a hippo head. Her ears twitched in the same fluttering way as a real hippo’s would.

 

There were, however, several major setbacks.

There was a failure to understand DID. Marc said that Stephen was made so that Stephen wouldn’t remember the abuse. But the point of DID is that a person’s additional personalities are so the main one doesn’t have to experience and remember things. So, considering Marc is the main personality and Stephen is the additional one, the one that experienced the abuse, it should be Marc that doesn’t remember the abuse. If a show’s going to depict a condition, they need to present it correctly. The fact this show didn’t is quite simply a failure.

Whilst Stephen and Marc were both still on the boat to the afterlife, their scales wouldn’t balance. When Stephen went overboard, the scales balanced to Marc. Considering Marc is a murderer and Stephen is a gentle soul, one would have thought Stephen’s heart was the thing keeping the scales from falling unfavourably.

Marc had no problem killing anyone. As avatar of Khonsu, he is the protector of the night’s travellers and killed to punish people for their crimes. So even though Ammit and Harrow both individually caused loads of people harm, let alone together when they inhabited the same body, Marc wouldn’t kill them. This was completely against Marc’s previous behaviour and I’m not convinced he would have changed his behaviour. This change in behaviour was necessary to the plot to introduce the third personality in Marc-Stephen: so for it not to be convincing is a setback.

Ammit grew to a mighty size because she was feeding in souls. Khonsu grew in size to match her yet he wasn’t eating souls. So how did he grow? Considering he needed to grow to have that fight with Ammit, leaving the explanation out without even a hint wasn’t great.

 

This show was rewarding despite some terrible errors. It’s odd, feeling disappointed and pleased at the same time about the same thing. The prospect of a few more personalities within Marc-Stephen is interesting. (My brother suggested four in total to match the phases of the moon.) I’m intrigued to see this show’s future.

The Jury: Murder Trial (TV Series)

This programme was a social experiment, comparing how different juries react to the same case. The case was based on a real one, re-enacted by actors.

The jurors knew they were in a social experiment. Yet they were fretting as if their decision would determine an actual person's future. Why would a social experiment be allowed on an actual live case?

The defendant admits to killing his wife, but claims he should be charged with manslaughter (not murder) due to his lack of control.

     The jurors said the defendant was honest, a nice guy, he loved her. These were some of the reasons explaining why they thought it was manslaughter instead of murder. Yet none of these were reasons for loss of control and the jury knew it could only be manslaughter if there was a loss of control. Therefore as their conclusions didn't follow from their reasoning, their conclusions weren't valid.

     One juror said no parent should be apart from their children for the length of a murder sentence. From day one, he said this was why he'd vote manslaughter. This had nothing to do with the case and yet the juror knowingly decided his verdict on this. That's straight out perverting the course of justice.

The jurors believed the defendant's negative, abusive account of the victim without questioning it! 

     Just because the victim isn't there to question the narrative doesn't mean the jury shouldn't question it. This guy murdered his wife, so maybe don't take his word for it? As with any defendant, their testimony is to get them off the hook so it's most likely biased. 

     Her mental health conditions were verified by professionals, sure, but that doesn't automatically make her abusive like the defendant claimed. Not only is that outright discrimination but the judge allowed it to stand in his court room.

Watching the juries reach a verdict was frustrating.

     They kept on interupting each other. This is normal human behaviour but one would hope that people would be more civilised over something so important.

     One observer was surprised that cliques ganged up on the others. Considering that's a basic behaviour in group settings, I don't understand how it could be a surprise. 

Unanimous decisions for a verdict are such a bad idea. Even the 10/12 majority that the law allows for is an abnormal agreement rate (83.3%). 

     People gave in to the majority view out of peer pressure/ outright bullying) or just to get the process over with. This increases the chance of a miscarriage of justice. 

     Those decisions are not based on the case but are based on the jury. A verdict not based on the case is a faulty verdict. 

There are two main justifications for the jury system. 

     1: involving ordinary citizens is meant to maintain trust and transparency. The thing is, I wouldn't trust an ordinary citizen to be my doctor, so why would we trust ordinary citizens to be our jurors?

     2: judges prevent jurors from seeing faulty material. So, this is biased, irrelevant or untrustworthy evidence. If the jurors can't see faulty material, they can't be improperly influenced by it and thus reach a faulty conclusion. But this reason for a jury is not the same as a reason for jurors being ordinary citizens.

All-in-all, this social experiment was an interesting insight into the UK jury system. Given the same evidence, the two juries reached different verdicts. It's also slightly scary to see all the flaws play out so clearly. Having professional jurors would eliminate, or at the very least reduce, these issues.

Critique: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Most Transformers films are too long, overstuffed with padding whilst dragging out moments and music and dramatic pauses. This one was NOT like that. It wasn’t longer than it needed to be. Really, I can’t express what a relief this was.

 

In this film, Noah and Elena get caught up with the Maximals and Autobots who have to stop a giant space robot from eating Earth. The Maximals are alien robots who transform into animals whilst Autobots transform into cars.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

The name of the film is rather misleading. Rise to situation

            ‘Rise’ implies gaining power. They didn’t. All the Maximals did was win a fight and then go on their merry way back to normality. So ‘Rise’ is misleading. There is that saying where people ‘rise to the occasion’. Yet this implies they weren’t worthy or capable before but they are now. This doesn’t describe the Maximals. It describes Noah and Elena, sure, but the title is ‘Rise of the Beasts’, not ‘Rise of the Two Humans who are Assisting the Beasts’.

            Considering the title specifies ‘Beasts’, one would expect the film to be about Beasts. The film started out this way on an alien planet with the Maximals. That was a promising start. But most of the film was bout boring humans and the even more boring Autobots. It’s like how the franchise introduced dinosaur and dragon transformers but these were hardly present, either. This is a disappointment.

 

Noah makes a good point about why an alien has a Mexican accent. Expanding this idea, why does one have a Chinese accent? Why would most have American accents?

This could be justified by saying they learnt English from a specific group with a specific accent so they have that accent. That would make sense.

But most of the Maximals live in the wild, only having contact with a native tribe in Peru. My theory therefore falls apart because the Maximals have American accents and the native tribe most likely don’t even known English in the first place.

 

There were six main positives.

One was that the transformation looked clearer and more precise than in previous movies. The process was thus more convincing than it has been before.

When Noah and Elena are pushing on a heavy stone tomb lid, Elena almost screams. “Are you even pushing?” That cracked me up.

Calling the leader of the Maximals ‘Optimus Primal’ is clever, considering the leader of the Autobots is ‘Optimus Prime’.

Optimus comes out with one of the best lines: “I’m going to take his key and then take off his head.”

At one point, a missile is launched at a van-shaped Autobot. They slide sideways and open up both sliding doors so that the missile passes through. This was a great detail.

When Noah assumes the Mexican Autobot knows Spanish just because of his accent, the Autobot calls him racist. This had me laughing because Noah is Hispanic and even he’s taken aback with confusion by this.

 

There are some problems with consistency.

The Maximals say they moved the second half of the key. This lacks consistency. Considering the cave and passages the key had been in were too small to fit the Maximals, how could they have done this? Yes, they have a bond with a human tribe. But surely then they would have said ‘our tribe moved it’ or at least ‘we had the key moved’. Such a simple fix.

Noah had no bruises. Then the bad robot picked him up, not touching Noah’s face (thus being unable to bruise his face). Then he lands on his face with enough impact to bruise his face. Yet we see Noah’s bruises as he’s being dropped. He has bruises before he’s experienced the only thing in the sequence that could even bruise him. This lacks consistency.

My brother didn’t want to watch this film with me because apparently the timeline doesn’t fit with the original films. This would be quite a severe consistency absence. I don’t remember much of the lore from the previous films (their length distorted my memories) and their too long to rewatch just so I can comment on my brother’s comment. So I have to leave it open.

 

Optimus Prime called the Decepticons evil. I don’t remember him describing the Decepticons as evil in the other films (which take place after this one).

If he doesn’t call them evil (to which I’m convinced), that means something drastic happens between the time this film is set and the rest of the films. If something that drastic happened, why wasn’t it important enough for it to be mentioned in the other films?

Also, Optimus talks about having new allies, even though we see neither Noah nor the Maximals in the other films. That also suggests something drastic happens, important enough to change perceptions but never spoken about?

 

This was a good film. It wasn’t amazing. It’s not something I’d sit down to specifically watch again. I did enjoy it, though, and I’ll anticipate the rest of this series of films.