Written by John S. Wilkins

A little while back I linked to Sahotra Sarkar’s review of Steve Fuller’s Science versus Religion. Now Fuller has put up a defence at the Intelligent Design website, Uncommon Descent, under the gerrymandered image of a bacterial flagellum (if you want to know what a real flagellum would look like at that scale, see this).

While I haven’t yet read the book (I’ll be reviewing it for Metascience), a couple of points that Fuller’s post make clear:

1. He has a really casual dismissal of factual accuracy so long as the “spirit” is right

2. This explains why he’s allied himself with ID.

Intelligent design is (as the link above showed) very cavalier with details and facts. The “impression” of design is reason enough to ride roughsod over the details. In fact, as the flagellum indicates, mostly their argument is argument ab cartoon – if you squint hard, then it looks like a machine. Imagine a physicist doing that and coming up with a cartoon physics!

Fuller derides Sarkar for caring about factual claims in detail, when the point is that… what? That you can make history say anything you like if you ignore historical data? Here is his defence of a few claims:

Let me take the following two criticisms together:

“Logical positivists, and not just Popper, are supposed to have labeled Darwinism a “metaphysical research program” (p. 133). I am not aware of a single logical positivist (or logical empiricist) text that supports this claim. Given that for the logical positivists (in contrast to Popper) “metaphysical” was a term of opprobrium, it is unlikely that any of them would have embraced this formulation. The logical positivists may well have believed physics to be of more fundamental importance than biology, but the latter science nevertheless belonged to the pantheon. The foundations of biology were intended to be part of their Encyclopedia of Unified Science.”

“Around the same time, Lamarck is supposed to have held that “lower organisms literally strove to become higher organisms, specifically humans, who at some point in the future would be Earth’s sole denizens” (p. 146), a view to be found nowhere in the Lamarckian corpus.”

These criticisms illustrate what I have called the ‘New Yorker magazine view of the world’ that afflicts some analytic philosophers. (I originally made this claim against a philosopher who actually began his career as an editor. Oops!) It basically reduces the history and philosophy of science to checking for facts and grammar, respectively. However, as so often is the case when dealing with editors, the fact-checker goes astray when he decides to venture opinions of his own. So even if it is strictly true that only Popper called Darwinism a ‘metaphysical research programme’ and the official logical positivist line was anti-metaphysical, it is equally true that the positivists themselves did metaphysics in everything but name (e.g. Carnap’s Aufbau), not least in the IEUS volume on biology that attempted to lay down the discipline’s axiomatic foundations. Perhaps it comes as no surprise that Popper wrote the obituary for its author, Joseph Woodger, in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science in 1981.

On the point concerning the ‘Lamarckian corpus’, again I am happy to concede that the man himself never explicitly stated the thesis I attributed to him. As it turns out, the passage Sarkar quotes refers to Lamarck and Comte together as representatives of a pro-human line of evolutionary progress that was opposed to the more ecocentric line taken by Darwinists attempting to influence British sociology in its early years. Whatever Lamarck’s actual views on the ultimate fate of humanity (which are up for debate), it is clear that the Lamarckian tradition has been generally committed to what the historian Charles Gillispie called an ‘escalator of being’ on which all creatures were moving, with humans currently on the top floor. A clear expression of the view I attributed to Lamarck can be found in his most visionary 20th century follower, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who envisaged the Earth as someday becoming one ‘hominised substance’.

Now anyone who has studied logical positivism and Popper knows well that Popper resiled from the LPs’ claims to be metaphysics free. They held that metaphysics was something one ought not to do, in favour of positive knowledge. They held the famous Verification Principle, which Popper among others used as a reductio of the LP program. To say that they “were” doing metaphysics is to fundamentally mischaracterise what was going on. They claimed not to be. It was the critics, including Popper, who said they were. And so when Popper called Darwinian evolution a metaphysical research program, he clearly did not intend that as a criticism, even before his retraction. The positivists thought that was a criticism, but they didn’t make it. Post hoc assertions that they were one and the same is to completely mischaracterise what was going on then.

Fuller is well read. He should and probably does know this, so only two other interpretations are possible: carelessness, which undercuts the veracity of the argument, or mendacity, which also does. I like to think that Fuller is being careless rather than trying to deliberately mislead. But if that is his approach to the history of ideas, then I think there is a problem, Houston. Of course Popper wrote Woodger’s obit – that’s what victors do if they can. It doesn’t mean they get amalgamated with their former opponents. To say otherwise is to completely misunderstand the nature of dialectic.

Likewise the point about Lamarck. Lamarck, in what I have read (hey, the Zoological Philosophy is online in French and English; check for yourself) held that there was an impetus driving evolution “upwards” (a physical impetus, by the way – since Vance Alpheus Packard’s 1901 work, we have known that Lamarck did not mean “will” by “besoin”) but that individual lineages could not enter a filled “rung” on that ladder. And so far as I know, he never said anythign even remotely like that view that only humans would remain. Appealing to what others might have thought after Lamarck is in no way a justification of that very bad claim. And even Teilhard did not think there would be nothing but the Omega Point, merely that humanity would become one at that point in a kind of cosmic salvation.

This disregard for facts, so far from being a corrective to the “New Yorker” approach, is merely a Marvel Comics form of philosophy and history, and it’s the only kind that can support ID. I think the less of Fuller just for this one claim. I can only imagine what the full work will lead me to think of him.

Packard, Alpheus. 1901. Lamarck, the founder of evolution: His life and work. New York: Longmans, Green and Co.

Written by Meowza Katz

Almost all of us have our own weaknesses when it comes to illustrating particular subjects. I, personally, can not draw a horse to save my life. I can’t imagine a situation where the difference between my life and death depends on my ability to draw a horse, but still, it’s haunted me for years.

I’ve talked about my lack of ability to draw horses to many of my artist friends and peers. To my surprise, many of them recounted me their own secret, shameful inabilities to draw all sorts of subjects including hands, proportions, machinery etc…

I then realized I was not alone in this. We all have our Achille’s heel, and I wanted to help all of us.

So a while back, I asked users here to email me illustrations they just could not finish due to their own personal weaknesses, or to send me any illustrations for general critique on areas that could use improvement. So that maybe I could find a common thread in all of our inabilities.

And it dawned on me. All of our problems could be solved with one simple technique:

Practice? No.

How To Draw Anything in One Step

You may be asking, “How could you possibly learn how to draw anything and everything in just one step? Are you a moron?” And if you are, there is no need for childish name-calling. Let’s be civilized adults here.

Follow along as I teach you how to draw everything, in this tutorial.

Step 1. Draw a dog covering the thing you can’t draw.

Don’t believe this works?

Remember how I asked users to send me their problem illustrations? Well, let’s test it out firsthand, shall we?

Brandon Kobayashi from Burnaby, Canada sent me this email and his illustration of a woman sitting on a tree stump:

“I often find myself having difficulties drawing human feet. Do you have any tips on how to improve my ability (or lack thereof) in that department?”

Sure there is, Brandon. Just follow my tutorial and you will be set.

Step 1. When finding you can’t draw feet, conveniently enough, a dog decided to rest at the woman’s feet the day the portrait was painted.

Melanie Goode of Auburn, WA, wrote me asking for help on this particular image:

“I don’t seem to have problems drawing bodies, but I am mystified when it comes to getting the proportions of a human face just right.”

Well, Melanie, I see you’re off to the conventional start by adding in the guidelines for the facial features. Most art instructors teach this very method. But I find it’s a lot easier if you follow my tutorial.

Step 1. Pretend a dog ran across the woman’s face the day she decided to lay in the grass.

At this point you’re probably wondering, “Wow, this is great! But will this technique work in different illustrative styles, as well?” Why, thank you for the compliment! And yes, it will work in all illustration styles.

For example, Ken Tanaka from San Diego, CA sent me a cartoon image of a solider he wanted depicting an M-16 machine gun.

Step 1. I have never personally been interested in drawing weaponry, but even with my lack of experience I was able to use my own tutorial to complete the image of a soldier holding an M-16 machine gun. (Who just happened to be walking along the direct path of a leaping golden retriever.)

And people of all ages can do it, too.

Wendy Lee of (address undisclosed) sent me a drawing by her 6 year old son and told me how he loved to draw dinosaurs and wants to learn to draw them more realistically.

Well, first off, dinosaurs do not talk, smile, nor has there ever been (in any official documented report) a dinosaur that existed labeled a Kevinsaurus.

So how will my system work on a 6 year olds drawing? Very well, actually!

Step 1. As we can add multiple dogs to cover the child’s numerous, major technical flaws.

So, there you have it: The be-all, end-all of illustration tutorials.

With my method, I guarantee you’ll find yourself with a newfound ability to draw anything and everything you can imagine on this big, round Earth. Including the Earth.

Q: “What if my weakness IS drawing dogs?”
A: It’s time to change hobbies.

Written by Neatorama

Water, good ol’ H2O, seems like a pretty simple substance to you and me. But in reality, water – the foundation of life and most common of liquid – is really weird and scientists actually don’t completely understand how water works.

Here are 5 really weird things about water:

1. Hot Water Freezes Faster Than Cold Water

Take two pails of water; fill one with hot water and the other one with cold water, and put them in the freezer. The hot one would be frozen before the cold one. But wait, you say, that’s counterintuitive: wouldn’t the hot water have to cool down to the temperature of the cold water before proceeding to freezing temperature, whereas the cold one has “less to go” before freezing?

In 1963, a Tanzanian high-school student named Erasto B. Mpemba was freezing hot ice cream mix in a cooking class when he noticed that a hot mix actually froze faster than a cold mix. When he asked his teacher about this phenomenon, his teacher ridiculed him by saying “All I can say is that is Mpemba’s physics and not universal physics.”

Thankfully, Mpemba didn’t back down – he convinced a physics professor to conduct an experiment which eventually confirmed his observations: in certain conditions, hot water indeed freezes before cold water*.

Actually, Mpemba was in good company. The phenomenon of hot water freezing first, now called the “Mpemba effect” was noted by none other than Aristotle, Francis Bacon and René Descartes.

But how do scientists explain this strange phenomenon? It turns out that no one really knows but there are several possible explanations, including differences in supercooling (see below), evaporation, frost formation, convention, and effects of dissolved gasses between the hot and cold water.

*In reality – of course – it’s much more complex than that: hot water freezes first (it forms ice at a higher temperature than cold water), whereas cold water freezes faster (it takes less time to reach the supercooled state from which it forms ice) – see discussion on our previous blog post about this topic.

2. Supercooling and “Instant” Ice

Everybody knows that when you cool water to 0 °C (32 °F) it forms ice … except that in some cases it doesn’t! You can actually chill very pure water past its freezing point (at standard pressure, no cheating!) without it ever becoming solid.

Scientist know a lot about supercooling: it turns out that ice crystals need nucleation points to start forming. These nucleation points could be anything from gas bubbles to impurities to the rough surface of the container. Without these things, water would continue to be a “supercooled” liquid well below its freezing point.

When nucleation is triggered, then a supercooled water would “instantly” turn into ice, as this very cool video clip by Phil Medina of MrSciGuy shows:

Note: Similarly, superheated water remains liquid even when heated past its boiling point.

3. Glassy Water

Quick: how many phases of water are there? If you answer three (liquid, gas, and solid) you’d be wrong. There are at least 5 different phases of liquid water and 14 different phases (that scientists have found so far) of ice.

Remember the supercooling we talked about before? Well, it turns out that no matter what you do, at -38 °C even the purest supercooled water spontaneously turns into ice (with a little audible “bang” no less). But what happens if you continue to lower the temperature? Well, at -120 °C something strange starts to happen: the water becomes ultraviscous, or thick like molasses. And below -135 °C, it becomes “glassy water,” a solid with no crystal structure. (Source)

4. Quantum Properties of Water

At a molecular level, water is even weirder. In 1995, a neutron scattering experiment got a weird result: physicists found that when neutrons were aimed at water molecules, they “saw” 25% fewer hydrogen protons than expected.

Long story short, at the level of attoseconds (10-18 seconds) there is a weird quantum effect going on and the chemical formula for water isn’t H2O. It’s actually H1.5O! (Source)

5. Does Water Have Memory?

In the alternative medicine of homeopathy, a dilute solution of a compound can have healing effects, even if the dilution factor is so large that statistically there isn’t a single molecule of anything in it except for water. Homeopathy proponents explain this paradox with a concept called “water memory” where water molecules “remember” what particles were once dissolved in it.

This made no sense to Madeleine Ennis, a pharmacologist and professor at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Ennis, who also happened to be a vocal critic of homeopathy, devised an experiment to disprove “water memory” once and for all – but discovered that her result is the exact opposite!

In her most recent paper, Ennis describes how her team looked at the effects of ultra-dilute solutions of histamine on human white blood cells involved in inflammation. These “basophils” release histamine when the cells are under attack. Once released, the histamine stops them releasing any more. The study, replicated in four different labs, found that homeopathic solutions – so dilute that they probably didn’t contain a single histamine molecule – worked just like histamine. Ennis might not be happy with the homeopaths’ claims, but she admits that an effect cannot be ruled out.

So how could it happen? Homeopaths prepare their remedies by dissolving things like charcoal, deadly nightshade or spider venom in ethanol, and then diluting this “mother tincture” in water again and again. No matter what the level of dilution, homeopaths claim, the original remedy leaves some kind of imprint on the water molecules. Thus, however dilute the solution becomes, it is still imbued with the properties of the remedy.

You can understand why Ennis remains skeptical. And it remains true that no homeopathic remedy has ever been shown to work in a large randomised placebo-controlled clinical trial. But the Belfast study (Inflammation Research, vol 53, p 181) suggests that something is going on. “We are,” Ennis says in her paper, “unable to explain our findings and are reporting them to encourage others to investigate this phenomenon.” If the results turn out to be real, she says, the implications are profound: we may have to rewrite physics and chemistry. (Source)

So far, other scientists failed to reproduce Ennis’ experimental findings (throughout, Ennis herself was skeptical of the result’s interpretation that water has a “memory” but maintained that the phenomenon she saw was real).

See also Jacques Benveniste’s Nature controversy | Louise Rey’s thermoluminescence study

More recently, a team of scientists at the University of Toronto, Canada, and Max Born Institute in Germany, studying water dynamics using fancy multi-dimensional nonlinear infrared spectroscopy did find that water have a memory of sorts – in form of hydrogen bond network amongst water molecules. Problem for homeopathy was, this effect lasted only 50 femtoseconds (5 x 10-14 seconds)!

Bonus: Ice Spikes

photo: SnowCrystals

Ice spikes are, well, spikes that grow out of ice cube trays. They look like stalagmites found in caves, and you can make ’em yourself using distilled water. Kenneth G. Libbrecht of SnowCrystals explains:

How do Ice Spikes Form?

Ice spikes grow as the water in an ice cube tray turns to ice. The water first freezes on the top surface, around the edges of what will become the ice cube. The ice slowly freezes in from the edges, until just a small hole is left unfrozen in the surface. At the same time, while the surface is freezing, more ice starts to form around the sides of the cube.

Since ice expands as it freezes, the ice freezing below the surface starts to push water up through the hole in the surface ice (see diagram). If the conditions are just right, then water will be forced out of the hole in the ice and it will freeze into an ice spike, a bit like lava pouring out of a hole in the ground to makes a volcano. But water does not flow down the sides of a thin spike, so in that way it is different from a volcano. Rather, the water freezes around the rim of the tube, and thus adds to its length. The spike can continue growing taller until all the water freezes, cutting off the supply, or until the tube freezes shut. The tallest spike we’ve seen growing in an ordinary ice cube tray was 56mm (2.2in) long. (Source)

Bonus 2: Make Instant Snow with Boiling Water

What do you get when you throw boiling water to the air in subzero weather? Instant snow. Interestingly, it only works with boiling hot water:

[YouTube clip]

These aren’t the only things weird about water. We didn’t talk about how water density changes with temperature (ice, for instance, is less dense than water so it floats – a key property of water that made life possible in the oceans and lakes). Nor did we talk about the weirdly strong surface tension of water, ordered clustering of liquid water, and so on. If you are interested, check out the Anomalous Properties of Water article by Martin Chaplin

Written by lifehacker

Summer’s ending, and with it goes a certain sense of taking it easier, relaxing a bit at the office–you know, caching up on all that YouTube browsing you skip when there’s real work to be done. The popular video sharing site is a great resource (and source of entertainment) that gets better with the right add-ons, plug-ins, third-party tools, and clever usage. Let’s take a look at the best ways to get better video, download clips, and just find the video you’re looking for at YouTube, so you can get more from your guilty pleasure.

10. Paste together YouTube clips, no editor necessary.

Even without iMovie or another paid-for editor, you can use the ridiculously vast realm of YouTube videos to patch together funny/poignant/clever projects. Free tools like Yahoo’s JumpCut can take in the FLV and other format video clips you downloaded using the other tools in this list. Want to patch together your own clip-sing-along in the style of BarackRoll? Creator Hugh Atkin says he used Google’s political video search tool to find all the relevant words and copy them. Now it’s just a matter of finding the time to pull it off…

9. Sort all your YouTube links in Gmail with Xoopit.

If your inbox is anything like ours, you get a regular stream of YouTube links from friends, relatives, friends-of-friends, friends-of-relatives-of-friends … and you only occasionally click through. Gmail add-on Xoopit lets you sort and run through all those links, playing them right from within Gmail. It’s an easy way to avoid hurting that avid linker’s feelings the next time they ask you if you saw that hilarious Amy Winehouse parody.

8. Get baked-in improvements with Better YouTube.

You’ll have to excuse the horn-tooting, but we’ve put together a Firefox extension that combines some of the best JavaScript we’ve seen for YouTube and makes them all in check-on, check-off usable for any Firefox browser. The Better YouTube Firefox extension empowers you to keep videos from auto-playing, put clips in a wide-screen, no-distraction background, and embeds download links on every clip. If you’re a serious YouTube user, there probably isn’t something here you’ll find useful.

7. Download audio from videos.

There are a lot of great live performances lurking around YouTube, many of which have never seen the light of day in the recorded audio realm. To jump those jams into your playlist, use a web-based converter like VidToMP3, or follow one intrepid LH reader’s guide to recording and converting YouTube vids into MP3. It may take a few more steps, but Matt’s guide will still work, while many web-based hacks end up on the pile of dead-end links.

6. Get around international video restrictions.

This summer’s Olympics has been a good lesson in the necessity of working around networks’ and video providers’ often ridiculous restrictions based on location and timing. On YouTube, there’s often a simple work-around, as explained by the Google Operating System blog. Most YouTube links look like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEOID

You’ll find a string of characters where VIDEOID is. Copy that string, and paste it like so:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEOID

You’ll get a copy of the video meant for embedding, one that doesn’t care as much about where you’re watching from.

5. Search YouTube videos on a timeline.

Free video timeline creator TimeTube is one of those tools that you should never head to while on deadline. Those without willpower issues, however, can find fascinating looks at the evolution of trends, organize TV and news clips for a wider view, and even get a little research done on current or net-related topics. It also definitely helps narrow down your searching when the results list is enormously unmanageable.

4. Get videos delivered TiVo-style with Miro.

You could, if you wanted, keep track of all your favorite net-based video shows in a feed reader or just wait to hear about them a week after they’re released. Or you could use the free, cross-platform Miro player to turn your computer into a TiVo for net video. As Gina detailed in her look at Miro, the software keeps track of what you’ve watched, auto-recycles stuff you probably won’t get to, and otherwise does a smart job of handling video streams. And if you want to hook Miro up to your real TV, it’s got the chops to go full-screen with any format.

3. Turn YouTube searches into vidcast feeds.

YouTube offers up a few RSS feeds of videos-“Recently Featured,” “Top Favorites Today,” and the like-but not for inpidual searches, the kind you’d make if you were keeping up with The Guild or keeping on top of the latest Xbox 360 hacks. YouTube Podcaster, a free service from vixy.net (who also provide a nifty converter you’ll see below), makes YouTube videos as easy to grab and watch as podcasts. Enter in your search URL, copy the iTunes link, and you’ll get an on-demand feed of videos that meet your criteria. You’ll want to be specific, but skipping the comments and stream loading time are your rewards.

2. Watch YouTube on TV.

Many web videos are perfect for quick desktop scanning, but YouTube also contains entire series and longer clips-especially those with higher resolutions available-that make for great couch fare. If you’ve got a classic Xbox or a Windows Media Center hooked up to the tube, you can flip your Xbox into a YouTube-friendly media center, or add YouTube capabilities to that Microsoft-built box with free plug-in Yougle. Now you can force your already-sitting friends to catch up on Chad Vader and all your other I-swear-it’s-funny-just-watch memes.

1. Make videos easy to download.

If you want to stash a YouTube clip away for editing or watching without the net, you’ve definitely got options. Internet Explorer users might appreciate YouTube File Hack, which grabs FLV files for you. The Better YouTube Firefox extension, crafted by our own site editor, adds a simple “Download this video” link to any YouTube page, and the All-In-One Video Bookmarklet is a nice cross-browser conversion tool. If you’re away from your own setup, Vixy.net and Viddownloader are your go-to sites for downloading clips. As for watching FLV files, we like and use the cross-platform VLC player.

What are your favorite tricks for getting the most out of YouTube? Post ’em up in the comments.

Collected by Toxel

Creative Adidas “Impossible Is Nothing” campaign for 2008 Beijing Olympics by TBWA advertising agency.

Adidas “Together” Olympics Ad

Adidas “Zheng Zhi” Olympics Ad

Adidas “Hu Jia” Olympics Ad

Adidas “Feng Kun” Olympics Ad

Written by Jacob Cass

Do you still use Microsoft Outlook or Eudora for your emails, or maybe something else? If you do, you probably are not having the most productive and user friendly experience that you could be having.

Up until about a month ago I had been using Outlook entirely for my emails, then I trialled Gmail (Google’s Free Email service) for 2 weeks and since getting to know Gmail, I have not turned back… there are just so many more features that make Outlook (and other similar email programs) seem just unworthy. Even Darren Rowse from Problogger has made the switch.

Although it may take a week or two to get used to gmail, over the many years to come, it will literally save you weeks of your time. I highly recommend to switch to Gmail and below I give 10 reasons why.

10 Reasons To Switch To Gmail

1. Gmail spam filters block 99% of the spam that usually makes it to your inbox. Although Outlook 2007 had a good spam filter, I still usually got around 2 or 3 emails a week sneaking into my inbox… not with Gmail.
2. With Gmail you get to keep your old email account, and all incoming emails will be forwarded to your new Gmail account . Also, emails that you send from your new account will have your old email account in the from area.
3. You can create Word docs, PDF’s and spread sheets with Gmail via the use of GoogleDocs.
4. Gmail allows you to schedule events with the Google Calendar that will notify you by email to remind you of an appointment or meeting. It can also send a reminder to the person or persons that you will be meeting with.
5. Gmail has something called ‘Stars’ and which allows you to tag emails you find important. You can actually do a search for ‘Starred‘ emails and they all pop up, and as quick as a normal google search!
6. Your emails are tabbed into a thread, which means you no longer have to look for old emails… it is more like a conversation window.
7. You can archive old emails or whole conversations so that you can keep your Inbox clear.
8. You can set up filters and labels to keep your Inbox organised and clutter free.
9. It has a fast, easy search function which means you will never lose an email again. The search is as fast a normal google search which is ace.
10. All your emails are online which means that you access your emails from anywhere, not just one computer.
11. Update: Forgot to mention how much space there is with Gmail… you will never have to delete an email again.

Learn About Gmail

Below are some great videos to get you started with Gmail. If you have a website and an email related with your website you should be using Google Apps to set up your Gmail Account… the videos below will explain.

Using Gmail – Part 1 (5m 38s)- Learn about the basic features of gmail in this video.

Using Gmail – Part 2 (7m 50s)- Learn about how to retrieve other (ie. your old email address) email into Gmail, setup labels and filters, explain the Archive function and Gmail conversation.

Using Gmail – Part 3 (4m 39s)- Explore the more advanced settings options and some of the features coming out of Google Labs

Further Email Tips

• Want a rich text signature in your gmail account? Now you can.
• Are you getting too much email? Learn how to get a grip on email.
• Not getting enough email from clients? Learn how to get more email.
• 10 Tips to writing effective emails.

Anyway I hope you give Gmail a try… it really is worth it. What other email programs / sites do people use and why?

Written by Jeff Lester

5 Manga Movies We Want to See After Akira Blows Everyone’s Mind

Just a temporal hop, skip and a jump away is 2009’s live-action big screen version of Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira, but if the American adaptation of the manga/anime phenomenon that launched a thousand otaku is a smash success, what treasured classics of Japanese culture will Hollywood choose to to adapt next? Below the jump, we put on our robe and cultural raider hat and pick five golden temples of science-fiction manga and anime for studios to pillage and plunder.

Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Well, yeah. Big ass robots are pretty much a given, what with the success of Transformers. And while the mecha of SDMF don’t transform into cool cars or panty vending machines, they have a secret weapon in the battle for big money franchises: this epic tale of war between humanity and an alien race was adapted as the first segment of the Robotech cartoon. That series, which ran in the U.S. in 1985, gave many Americans their first crucial taste of anime action filtered through a sweeping storyline. As if that wasn’t enough, Super Dimension Fortress Macross features a love triangle between two military officers and a pop idol, enough twists and turns to put Battlestar Galactica to shame, and characters with big, big hair. Like, “hey, I could skydive onto that,” big. Once he’s through having his way with Watchmen, we want to see Zack Snyder take Super Dimension Fortress Macross and make it the big screen franchise of cheesy awesomeness most of us have been waiting for without even knowing it.

Parasyte: Hitoshi Iwaaki’s manga is the strangely satisfying marriage of Spider-Man and Invasion of the Body Snatchers: a failed attempt by an alien invader to take over the brain of Shinichi Izumi has left it in control of his right hand, and teen and alien must form an uneasy alliance to avoid being found out by Shinichi’s culture or killed by the aliens that have infiltrated it. Blending paranoia, frenzied fight scenes, and meditations on what it means to be human, Parasyte takes the most painful subtext of puberty-that your body has become something strange and not quite in your control, and now you’re an outsider as a result-and serves it up as delicious, delicious crazy. (No wonder Del Rey’s current adaptation is the second time the series has been brought to the USA.) Rumors abound that Jim Henson’s studio and producer Don Murphy are already working to bring it to the big screen, but screw that noise: let Peter Jackson get his hands on the material, and make it as a bloody bookend to his adaptation of Alice Sebold’s The Lonely Bones (and a loose companion piece to his classic Braindead (or Dead-Alive, as it’s known over here)).

FLCL: An Original Video Animation (OVA) from 2000, FLCL has a lot in common with Akira: you’ve got people hollering and jumping off motorized two wheelers while strange growths shoot out of the foreheads of pained adolescents. But whereas Akira takes creator Katsuhiro Otomo’s memories of growing up during the turbulent period of 1960s Japan and transmutes it into a serious sci-fi epic, FLCL stems from the shock contemporary culture can bring to a lonely kid growing up in a small town, whipping the story into a wild-eyed froth of rampaging robots, crazy vespa-riding women, and bass guitar centered fight scenes. Benjamin Button, Shmenjamin Shmutton: we want to see David Fincher in full-on Fight Club mode try to match the brio of this series’ animated anarchy.

20th Century Boys: The toast of scanlators worldwide and a huge hit in its native Japan, 20th Century Boys is the most ambitious work Naoki Urasawa has undertaken, spanning more than forty years, dozens of characters, and twenty-two collected volumes. (His previous work, Monster, was no slouch either-a crime thriller set in Eastern Germany that reads like a cross between The Fugitive and Silence of the Lambs, Monster ran for six years and was collected in eighteen volumes.) While 20th Century Boys takes its name from a T. Rex song, its hook seems like a Stephen King novel on steroids: a group of old friends in the ’90s try to figure out the link between a destructive cult leader and their forgotten childhood fantasies. Meanwhen, in 2014, a young woman tries to figure out what happened to them. While Lar von Trier has the chops to keep so many characters and so many stories moving along, he lacks the warmth and affection Urasawa brings to his characters. Let Best of Youth‘s Marco Tullio Giordana give it a shot-his five hour epic from 2003 covers a similarly vast swath of time.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: Finally, if Hollywood is crazy enough to tackle such a groundbreaking classic as Akira, why not let it try other works of manga that’ve had an indisputable impact on the medium? Hayao Miyazaki may rule the world of Japanese animation now, but his anime adaptation of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, his own manga, was only able to cover approximately the first quarter of his tale. As long as Hollywood wants to bite off more than it can chew (for the profit to be garnered by pre-chewing material for the masses), why not have it mount a Lord of the Rings style cycle, covering the entire tale of a princess’s adventures a thousand years after our modern-day civilization has destroyed itself. Epic battles, environmentalism, more opportunities for CGI than you can shake a fistful of sticks at-they’ll eat up Nausicaä in the cineplexes, particularly if you get Alfonso Cuarón on board. Having directed such diverse work as Chldren of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Y Tu Mama Tambien, Cuarón’s got the right amount of razzle-dazzle, hippie-dude humanism, and child-eyed wonder. To the extent such a thing can (or should be) attempted, Cuarón is the one to do it.

Written by Yankee Pot Roast

Recently, we noticed that our old friends from Yankee Pot Roast had written a book called Underrated: The Yankee Pot Roast Book of Awesome Underappreciated Stuff. At first we assumed that they’d misspelled overrated, and that their book making fun of lame stuff had an insanely ironic title. But as we got deeper into the book (or rather as our interns read more of it to us while we lifted weights), it became increasingly clear that they had gone and done something totally and utterly insane. They were writing about things they … liked. In a daring move that will probably break the internet (which is overrated anyways) we decided to let them try it on our website. Behold, for maybe the first time on the internet: nice things being said about stuff.

If you’re thinking Comic Book Guy or Moe are underrated, you’re obviously not a Simpsons fan. Wacky supporting characters of that sort are cult-classics, universally recognized and beloved. They’re rated exactly where they should be. We’re running down some of the truly underrated Springfieldians: those who remain underused and are still rife with potential for unexpected hilarity.

#5.

Gil Gunderson

Aw, c’mon, do it for ol’ Gil! Essentially a parody of Jack Lemmon’s desperate, beleaguered real-estate agent from Glengarry Glen Ross, poor old Gil is the ultimate sad sack: A salesman whose only asset is his expired charm. The poor guy’s an inch away from losing his job, wife, house (that is, his shitty job, cheating wife, and whatever roof he currently calls home). All he needs is one more sale–just one sale, please, pretty please?–but he is completely unable to seal the deal. He practically sweats desperation.

Gil is great because he makes you feel good about yourself. No matter how miserable your life, at least you’re not that guy. Like many of The Simpsons‘ finest characters, Gil fills a niche you didn’t even know was empty till he appeared. He’s like a grownup version of the Squeaky-Voiced Teen in that he pops up any and everywhere, never holding the same crappy job twice. He sells shoes, used cars, doorbells, even Coleco computers (“Now, let’s talk rust-proofing. These Colecos’ll rust up on ya’ like that, er … shut up, Gil. Close the deal … close the deal!”).

Gil is best when used sparingly; the perfect one-joke cameo. Pop up, make us laugh, disappear. Of course they gave him a starring episode–even Crazy Old Cat Lady is due her leading role–where he moved in with the Simpsons (and who hasn’t yet stayed at that house?), but we like Gil best when he’s tried to sell us something obsolete, failed, and limped away, dejected but eternally optimistic he’ll nab the next one.

#4.

Arnie Pye

If you’re saying “Who??,” Arnie Pye in the Sky is Springfield’s traffic-copter newsman with the perfect closed-nose news voice. (“Look out at the corner of 12th and Main because I’m going to be sick!”) Arnie is hilarious as a second-rate reporter with an inferiority complex and a chip on his shoulder; he’s jealous of Kent Brockman and so desperately wants his job. (In fact, Arnie once got to take over the anchor’s desk, whereupon he instantly dropped the nasally newscaster voice and adopted the smooth tones of trustworthiness.)

Arnie Pye’s best moment (fleeting as it was) was an early sign of the budding rivalry. Flying above Homer’s disaster with a van full of kids, Kent asks him “How are the children, Arnie?” to which he snaps “I can’t see through METAL, Kent!”–yes, it loses something on paper, but old Arnie Pye spits it out with such venom, such acidic hatred, you get years of professional and personal contention in those seven syllables. Kudos to Dan Castellaneta’s greatest vocal performance. We want more Arnie Pye in the Sky and we want him now.

#3.

Lou the Policeman

Springfield can be a dangerous place to live. Between the two-bit criminals (Snake), organized crime (Fat Tony) and the random shysters that swing through (monorail guy?), there’s a veritable Rogue’s Gallery of Villains inhabiting the town at any given time. And that doesn’t even include some of the normal citizens who seem to regularly commit felonies, like Homer, Moe and Mr. Burns.

Keeping the order and protecting the town is a woefully understaffed and ineffective Springfield Police Department. They’re essentially a three man show: Chief Clancy Wiggum, the rotund blunderbuss with extremely poor marksmanship and a talent for making clever, on-the-spot puns; Eddie, the white patrolman who barely utters a word, presumably there to make the Springfield Police Department look slightly more robust from a personnel standpoint and an underdeveloped recurring character if there ever was one.

And then there’s Lou: rock steady, the man that keeps the whole thing going. He’s fully aware of Wiggum’s incompetence and is constantly angling for his job, going so far as to write letters to the editor of the Springfield Shopper (under the pen name “Worried in West Springfield”) calling for the chief’s resignation. Lou has no reservations about making fun of the chief to his face either, insulting his poor deductive skills and making fun of his ill-fitting pants.

#2.

Luigi Risotto

He’s the chef that looks like he jumped off the pizza box, constantly belittling his staff and conversationally berating his customers, doing it all with a misleading smile and sing-songy Italian accent. Being an asshole isn’t confined to his restaurant, either: when Marge entered a cooking contest with her “dessert dogs,” Luigi sabotaged her oven with “how do you say, malice of forethought.” He’s a complete jerk, but he comes off as lovable because he sounds happy and he’s kind of roly-poly.

He pops up in episodes here and there. During the Springfield Mayoral recall election, Luigi threw his hat in the ring, promising to “make you the good government, just how you like it.” Luigi’s character works because he’s used often enough that you know who he is, but sparingly enough that his “Italian chef as Italian stereotype” act and his being a total dick don’t get stale.

But in the end, there’s only one thing to know about Luigi: his English isn’t bad because Italian is his first language. He doesn’t even speak Italian. Luigi’s first language is “how do you say, fractured English. It’s what [his] parents spoke at home.”

#1.

Lisa Simpson

Bart and Homer are the crowd-pleasers, no arguing that: their misadventures dominate the show, and their faces hog the merchandise. But it’s Lisa, the second-grader reading at a 14th-grade level, who is the heart and soul of both the family and show.

We love Lisa because she yearns for something greater. She wants to better herself, her family, her town. Sure, she’s a nerd–who among Simpsons fans isn’t? And without this little overachieving genius and hopeless do-gooder saving the day (on a weekly freaking basis!), our favorite family would’ve been killed a dozen different ways, the town of Springfield would’ve been destroyed, the very earth itself lost.

Let’s hear it for Lisa! Nobody’s favorite character, but the most UNDERRATED SPRINGFIELDIAN OF THEM ALL.

For an obscenely long rant on the lovable lil’ Lisa’s underrated quotient, check out the Underrated blog here.

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Written by The Man in Blue