Digital Films?

As an old fart in the world of film and video (17 years in the industry) I always find it odd that people say digital film and digital film making when they are really referring to video. Movie film is chemical process. Video is an electronic process. Video used to be strictly analog, now it’s mostly digital. All the arty filmmaker types would never think of using video back in the day. When video cameras were almost exclusively of the analog component type as exhibited in Sony’s ubiquitous BetacamSP product line, film makers would never use it. To them, BetacamSP was for TV news only. Then miniDV came along. MiniDV is a consumer format of digital video that is, in the very best cameras, equivalent in quality to BetacamSP. In most cameras, miniDV produces a lower quality image than BetacamSP. But because it was digital, and because of the hype and the price, it was embraced immediately by arty, indie film makers. It was given the stamp of approval which BetacamSP never got. But it could not be called video, God forbid. Because video was for hacks and film was for artists. The same people that dissed BetacamSP for its lack of imaging resolution and latitude when compared to film wholeheartedly embraced a technology with even less imaging power than film. I always chuckled at this.

When some one would invite me to watch the “digital film” they made, I’d always respond with a smart-assed “you mean your video”. I was surprised at how many confused and dirty looks I would get. It as if the person really did think that the DVD they where about to show me was actual something other than a standard NTSC video signal. As if it was really film in digital form.

To me, for a program to be called a digital film, it needs to have been shot on film and scanned digitally into a computer using a real film scanner (not a telecine film-to-tape transfer method) at either a 2K or 4K file protocol. That’s digital film, as it has never been converted into a video signal, standard, or protocol. But again, I am an old fart, old school moving image purist who sticks to the old nomenclature. I know that the word “film” nowadays means any kind of motion picture, especially a narrative one. I know it’s a semantic issue. But film still is an imaging technology that really has no other name to use for it. A motion picture camera that shoots on actual film, is called a film camera, not a chemical video camera. There is no other term for a film camera other than film camera. So I kinda feel we still have to respect the differences between film and video cameras.

If you shot your motion picture with a video camera, it’s a video. If you shot it with a film camera, it’s a film. In fact, the only true circumstance where you can actually say you are truly watching a film is when you are in a movie theater watching a movie that was shot on film and is being projected with a film projector off a film print. Everything else is video: TV, DVD, HD TV, HD-DVD, Blu-ray, Apple TV, Windows Media, Quicktime, etc., these are all forms of digital video.

I also found it odd that YouTube decided to use the word tube in its name. Tubes have been gone from video cameras since the 1960’s, and new computer displays and TVs have abandoned CRTs. Again, a semantic issue. But nostalgia rarely finds a place in high tech these days. Also, until I actually went to the website for the first time myself, I assumed it was uTube, and still often type it that way.

Anway, this is what is going through my head right now in these early hours of leap year day.

Fuck off Florida!

The idea that evolution needs to have “the theory of” tagged before it in an attempt reduce its legitimacy is ignorant. The Florida board of education wants to teach evolution in its schools — which it has not been doing — and is voting as to whether calling it “the theory of evolution” will appease those who favor the teaching of creationism in Florida schools. Here’s the thing: evolution is actually called the theory of evolution by scientists already. That Florida’s board of education is not educated enough to know that this is true, and what the true definition of a scientific theory actually is, is down right frightening. It is shameful. There is a vast difference between scientific theory and common theory and one has to be educated in science and the English language to know this. If the people we entrust to teach our kids do not know this, we should no longer allow them to teach our kids. Fire them all and replace them. Creationism is a religious story, it has no place in a science classroom. Also, the US Supreme Court ruled it is illegal to teach creationism in public schools as doing so violates the US Constitution on many levels. Many other lower US courts have ruled similarly. The Florida board of education is ignorant of the scientific method and of US law. This is inexcusable. Ignorance is no defense.

Here’s a refresher course on the scientific method and its definitions of theories and laws; I wrote it a while ago:

Please catch up!

If you are too lazy to click and read the above link, here’s the takeaway:

Four Important Definitions Used In The Teaching Of Science:
Working Group on Teaching Evolution, National Academy of Sciences (1998)

1. Fact: In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed.
2. Law: A descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated circumstances. Laws can be very useful in supporting hypotheses and theories, but like all elements of science they can be altered with new information and observations.
3. Hypothesis: A testable statement about the natural world that can be used to build more complex inferences and explanations, such as a scientific theory.
4. Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.

When people argue that evolution should not be taught until it is proven to be 100% accurate as fact, they are wrong. See the above. No scientific theory or law is ever claimed to be 100% factual as theories are refined and improved as new observations and experiments are conducted and new knowledge is gained. Scientists are not dogmatic and closed mined; they seek truth all the time. That’s what learning and education is all about, by the way. Why is it that religious people get the latitude to interpret and refine their views and the teachings of their leaders and gods, and it is considered positive and enlightening, yet when scientists do this in their circles it is written off as abject failure? Any one who does this is not well educated. One of the reasons evolution is taught all around the world is to try to further understand it so more practical applications can be derived from it: like the prevention of birth defects, the creation and refinement of vaccines, antibiotics, and antivirals, the control of pests and parasites, and so many, many other things.

To see evidence of evolution among human beings, all you have to do is look around you. That there are fair skinned Americans and Europeans, dark skinned Africans, and sallow skinned Asians is proof of evolution. If God created us in his own image, then why do some of us have black skin and some of use have white skin? Why do some of us have blue eyes, and some brown eyes? Why do some people have blond hair, some brown, and some red? Evolution is why. (Just what image does God have anyway, with all these variations in humankind???)

Scientists do not believe in theories, they either accept or reject them. Accepted scientific theories include: atomic theory (the basis of modern chemistry), the theory of gravity (a major component in physics), the theory of electricity, germ theory, cell theory, and number theory, to name a few. Evolution has been an accepted theory for over 140 years. The basic ideas of evolution have existed since at least the 6th century BC.

Intelligent design is not a scientific theory and is not based on any sort of science whatsoever; scientists categorize it as an “argument of ignorance”. For thousands of years religion has attempted to accurately define the physical world around us and try to improve the health of people. It has by and large failed to do so. True understanding of the the natural world and the advancement of the quality of life amongst humans has only come when people have applied the scientific method. Religion has usually been wrong in its its attempts to explain the physical world around us. Keep in mind The Vatican only recently acknowledged officially that the sun was the center of our solar system in 1992 by Pope John Paul II.

It is accepted and respected that religion and science are two very different things. They use different rules and nomenclature. Floridians need to enter into the world where this is understood. And right quick!

PS: Genesis says man was created from the dust of the earth. Evolution says we are descended from primates. Dust or primates: which would you rather be related too?

Oranges of Species:

Theories and The Theory of Evolution

Non-scientist, like me, often misinterpret the terms scientist use. This sometimes causes people, like me, to come to incorrect conclusions about what the scientific terms actually mean, and to the extent to which an idea has been proven. I was forced to check out a few things to get my shit straight.

Let’s look at the word theory, which is used in casual conversation in a far different way than scientists use it. Conversationally, when someone says, “it’s just a theory” or “theoretically speaking” they usually mean they are just guessing, they don’t expect things to follow in the manner they just described to you, or they are questioning the validity of something. A scientist would use the word “hypothesis” to convey such meanings, for theory packs more punch in the scientific world than it does out on the street.

“Scientific Law”, “Theory”, and “Hypothesis” are often used interchangeably, but are three very distinct things.

A Scientific Law is a statement of fact used to explain in concise terms an action or a small set of actions. It is generally accepted as universally true, and often can be expressed in a single mathematical equation, or often closely resembles a mathematical postulate (remember those from geometry class?). Scientific Laws do not need complex external proofs or data; they are accepted at face value since they have always been observed in real-world experience as being true.

An example is the law of gravity. Bits of matter are attracted to other bits of matter, with the attraction being greater the greater the mass of the bits. (Sorry Isaac, I know it’s not the most eloquent sentence.) There is a mathematical equation, which expresses this dynamic. And we see it occurring out in the real world all the time, as things fall to the ground, as the moon creates tides, as the earth orbits the sun, etc.

An Hypothesis is an educated guess (remember that term from junior high?) based on observation. It is a rational explanation of a single event based on what is observed, but which still remains unproven. An Hypothesis is tested by applying the scientific method; by continued observation and experimentation to attempt to prove or disprove the hypothesis.

A Theory is more like a Scientific Law than a Hypothesis. Theories generally explain events that are too complex and broad to be summed up neatly and mathematically like a Scientific Law can. A Theory is rational explanation of a (usually large) set of similar events or observations based upon proven hypotheses and verified many times by independent sets of research scientists. (A single scientist cannot create a theory, but rather only a hypothesis.) To be created, a Theory requires multiple scientists or multiple groups of scientists from multiple research facilities to agree based on shared and extensive experimentation and/or observation. It’s hard to make the cut.

A Scientific Law and a Theory are both accepted as true by the scientific community as a whole. Both are used to make predictions and advance technology. The only real difference between the two is that a Scientific Law explains a single action or a small set of similar actions whereas a Theory explains a large series of related actions.

An example of a theory is the Atomic Theory, which is used to explain a wide variety of physical events (including the nature and makeup of all matter, which includes you and I) and forms the foundation of chemistry. Chemistry being an extremely large field of study. Atomic Theory also expalins Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, & Three Mile Island!

So when we talk of the Theory of Evolution, we are not talking about a best guess or an unsure thing. It is not an hypothesis. It has been proven time and again by many different scientists over a broad spectrum of time. It is not something that Charles Darwin merely speculated as being a possible reason to describe all the various permutations of life on this planet. It is something he put forth that has been proved and expanded upon by generations of scientists. Today the Theory of Evolution is about as sound as science gets, with Darwin’s natural selection being the underling mechanism driving Evolution.

Evolution exists and can be observed in species over long expanses of time, or in very short periods of time as one watches bacteria and/or viruses mutate in a Petri dish. Species evolve and adapt to their environment; it is a fact that we observe. There is no denying that this mechanism is in effect. Apples fall from trees; this is a fact that we observe. And the apple falls from the tree under the law of gravity, not by magic. A recessive gene in a species will become dominate if environmental conditions enhance the survivability of the particular organism(s) within that species with that trait, and the species adapts to the environment over subsequent generations because of the Theory of Evolution, not because of magic.

Today the modern theory of DNA based Evolution has been tested and proven time and time again and forms the core of modern biology, grounded by thread upon thread of evidence and observation that connects it to nearly every area of human knowledge, including: Agriculture, horticulture, aquaculture, zoology, animal husbandry, hybridism, medicine, biopharmacology, genetic engineering, ecology, archeology, paleontology, etc.

So the big question is this: Given the facts that we observe day in and day out, is there really any room to debate the validity of the Theory of Evolution?

And the big answer is: No. The debates have been played out to the fullest by application of the scientific method and the conclusions have been drawn. To refute these findings is to disgrace the power of the human intellect as well as to part ways with logic, reason, and sensibility. But if you feel that you must, can you please keep it to yourself and not ask our woefully under-educated youth to believe you?

Of course theories can evolve themselves as new observations and experiments are made! So keep an open mind!!!! No one said knowledge was easy to obtain or understand!