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."

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.

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. [channel4.com]

duh! missed the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

huh? did the author miss a little bit of history here? The original King Kong idea WAS based on the knowledge of isolationistic giant evolution. KK would not exist had it not been for a bit of science fiction with background knowledge. that the story has been rewritten slightly for modern tastes is not a point for discussion.

Sad...

[kripkenstein]

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

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:Not 'evolved' just better fed.

[Anonymous Coward]

it's only about the size of an elephant and smaller than a mammoth.

Komodo Dragon == Island Dwarfism != Gigantism

[Anonymous Coward]

Komodo dragons appear to be close relatives, or an offshot of Megalania prisca, which was up to 23 feet long (and lived in the continent of Australia) - in other words Komodos would be an example of island **Dwarfism**

They only appear big, because their bigger continental cousins became extinct (BTW in relatively recent times - approx 19,000 years ago or less)

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:Limit on size?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is completely true because our weight is determined by our body's density and volume. However, our strength is more or less determined by the cross-sectional area of our muscles. So, if you quadruple a creature's dimensions, it's volume and weight increases SIXTY-FOUR times! However, its muscle strength only increases about SIXTEEN times. Imagine you are 150 lbs and can easily walk around with 50 lbs on your back. If you were sixteen times stronger, you could weigh 3200 lbs, and you would be fine (but you couldn't carry around any weight). However, this is nowhere close to a weight of 9600 lbs (4^3 times 200 lbs) that you would be if you were four times your size. This is why it would be impossible to have creatures on the scale of the creatures in King Kong. Their own weight would crush them.

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.

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