10 Scientific Errors In Movies That Really Need To Stop

4. Speedy Evolution

Charles Darwin's On The Origin Of The Species is the most widely misinterpreted book of modern times, except maybe The Bible. Or Being Jordan. It's especially ripe for misuse in the hands of Hollywood screenwriters, who have so thoroughly mucked up the general public's idea of what evolution actually entails that we just accept the sort of bad science which suggests that, after a few years of living in Waterworld, Kevin Costner's protagonist will have grown gills. People are not in any danger of growing gills any time soon. Or, like, ever. Since evolution is actually a process that occurs over not just generations but centuries, a slow crawl towards "perfecting" the Earth's population - or at least adapting them to survive in our ever-changing world. In fact that's something of a myth amongst people in general, and another one that films have widely disseminated rather than completely making up themselves, so we'll let them off a little. Still, the likes of the X-Men movies - where homo superior are seen as the next step in evolution from us boring homo sapiens - are a load of gubbins. For one thing, they suggest that a simple change in genetics would let you shoot lasers out your eyes or control the weather. Evolution isn't necessarily about "improving" a creature, either. It takes place slowly, over thousands or millions of years, and is more about adapting lifeforms to be better suited to living in their environment. How do knives in your hands help you live better? Plus the sort of mutations that appear in the likes of X-Men and other comic book and sci-fi films are incredibly rare, and almost invariably harmful. Basically, Stan Lee is not a scientist. Don't trust him.