UFC fighter and “The Ultimate Fighter” alumnus Phillipe “The Filipino Assassin” Nover (6-2-1) suffered a seizure in the locker room just before his scheduled lightweight bout with Sam “Hands of Stone” Stout (14-5-1) at the UFC's "Ultimate Fight Night 19." This is not the first time Nover has suffered neurological symptoms as he famously fainted in the opening moments of "TUF" season 8, earning the nickname “faint-boy.” Nover quickly recovered from the incident and was seemingly fine just minutes later, however the fight was called off out of concern for the fighter's safety.

I'm the type of person who learns more about my beliefs by challenging them. I'm an atheist, and I feel I learn more about atheism speaking with religious people or theists than speaking with atheists. I dunno, maybe it's part of my crusade of "atheists are not a group, by definition we're individuals defined by our lack of involvement in a group."

I've heard too many people lately say things like "I don't believe in evolution." Usually this is coming from an argument between creationism and "evolution." I get so frustrated with this, and would like to try to work through why.

EVOLUTION IS AN UNDENIABLE FACT.

I'm sure I lost some readers with that proclamation, but hear me out. Evolution is the process of exacting large changes through small incremental changes over time. Nothing more than that. If you liked the Lakers when they had Shaq, but you didn't like them after he left, your fandom for the Lakers EVOLVED. If you used to hate red wine, but over the years learned to like it and now are snobbish about it, your taste in wine EVOLVED. If over millions of years single celled organisms developed through mutations into more complex species, those organisms EVOLVED.

Evolution is a process, but it is not a path. It defines the major points or the end points on the path, but has no influence in where the path leads. What is important to understand with evolution is that when working backwards, you can only try to piece together the path from what you can discern from the points you find evidence of. We find a fossil of a fish, then we find a fossil of a similar fish with flippers that split at the ends, then we find a similar fish where the fin narrows at the base, then we find a similar fish where the muscles were a little more developed to make more control. We deduce the fish evolved arms.

You may disagree with this perception, but I believe that much of evolution's bad rap comes from the idea that "evolution means humans came from apes." Please ignore anyone who believes this. First, evolution encompasses MUCH more than just human development, and second this statement reinforces the idea that everything that currently exists comes from something else that currently exists. That's not how it works. What scientists have found are enough fossils to create enough points on a path to suggest that humans and apes had a common ancestor. To support this theory, the evidence is available for additional review, and if you find additional evidence to support new points or a new path that's fine, the path is not set in stone.

This is the difference between "evolution" and "the theory of evolution." Evolution is not a theory, it's a process that has been demonstrated widely enough to be considered fact. The "theory of evolution" is really the "theoretical path which human evolution took." This path is not set in stone and is not proven, but the evidence is pretty solid. We've discovered enough points that the path is pretty clear at this point. Actually, I've heard this attacked as a weakness, that if the theory of evolution is true how come it keeps changing? Well, the path may change a bit, but the beginning, the end, and the major points don't really change. We may find that arms developed before lungs, we may find that the tail rescinded before the brain formed, but it's clear we came from single celled organisms, into complex ones, into sea creatures, into land creatures, into ape-like creatures, into humans.

So the question of belief again returns: Do you believe in evolution? I think there's many answers to this, but in my experience there's three clumps of people: the "duh, it's a fact" people, the "la la la I can't hear you god did it all in a minute and Adam named them then there was an ark." people, and the "well, that's pretty good evidence for the path of evolution, but I have my beliefs, let's try to resolve the 2." I had a high school biology teacher who believed in "theistic evolution," that evolution clearly existed and that god must have designed it.

I think I'm kind of rare in that I truly "believe" in evolution; rather than just regard it as fact, my primary paradigm through which I understand the world is evolution - I consider it in everything all animals do. Evolution isn't just change over time, it's change to make something best adapted to its environment over time. A sports team may go heavy on defense if other teams are heavy on offense, becoming better adapted to the conditions of the time. An ocean may get hotter, so fish that can better stand the temperature change survive, thrive, and can split into offshoot species. Everything exists and changes to better fit its environment. As an organism, the mechanism through which evolution happens (correction: is supposed to happen) is reproduction and then survival. Some authors I like postulate that the simplest unit of life is the gene, and that the organism is the gene's way of making a new copy of itself. I choose to interpret this system to mean that the biologically defined purpose to life is to breed, and nothing more. Everything outside of this is ancillary or contributes to that goal. This interpretation says we work to attract a mate, we are creative to attract a mate, we value image because it attracts mates, we seek power because it attracts mates. I hate this conclusion, but I believe it to be accurate.

Look at our society. Look how we have to hammer it into people's heads to practice safe sex. Look at how many people have unwanted pregnancies, look at how much abstinence education fails, look at how many people have way too many kids, look at the lengths people go to to execute sexual perversions. As a species, we can't stop ourselves from breeding, and whereas in the past predators and hostile environments took out a certain number of us, we as a species have crossed (or are close to crossing) a tipping point where we don't adapt to the environment but instead force the environment to work with us. We drive animals extinct or domesticate them, but animal predators are rare; we build habitats in hostile environments (space, the arctic); we climate control indoors when it gets slightly unpleasant. Humans have no predators and as a result we just breed uncontrollably with no regard to who or what is the fittest.

I believe that it is our responsibility to then CHOOSE the direction in which we as a species are to evolve, seeing as our environment is not providing a useful filter anymore. As Idiocracy put it, "Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most, and left the intelligent to become an endangered species." Thus, it is my personal opinion that our evolution should be directed towards intelligence; if we reach interstellar travel, how big, strong, able to withstand heat, etc. will be so inconsequential as places will either be so controlled it won't matter how we adapt (think on space ships) or will be so hostile it would be impossible to adapt to them at all (think other worlds). What is important should no longer be our bones, skin, and muscle, but instead our thoughts, culture and ideas. Let me put it this way: if you could load my brain into a computer and allow my mind to live forever after my body died, I would do it in a second even knowing I would sacrifice my biological goal of reproduction. I consider the meaning of MY life to produce ideas and cultural contributions that will exist forever, and to become as intelligent as I possibly can.

As a result of my beliefs, I get frustrated by people who live in such a way to compulsively act to execute their biological purpose. I know that's wrong, I know they have a right to do that, but it angers me. You have the right to have 19 kids, but that's disgusting, dogs can do that and in my mind you're no better than a dog. You had the opportunity to learn but just drank beer and painted your face for football and slept with sorority girls for 4 years? No respect. It's bad, but I find myself being super judgmental of my fellow humans: you should be better than this. There was a point when our nation's best and brightest put men on the moon and unlocked the secrets of the atom; now students text in class, have sex in school bathrooms, and all of our scientists are coming from other countries. As a country, and much more as a species, in my eyes we are DEvolving; since we can adapt our environment to our species our species just breeds regardless of what traits get carried on. To top it off, we create moral issues out of things like the death penalty and abortion; our society seems to just be fixated on keeping everyone alive as long as we can, regardless of what they contribute or can do. Hell, look at the Terri Schiavo case. Natural selection and survival of the fittest DEPENDED on the environment eliminating the outliers, and 200 years ago 50% of all pregnancies ended in miscarriage, people only lived to 40-50, and many people just didn't survive the environment.

There is no solution to this. Simply put, the human species has become complacent with no serious threat to ourselves and we're striving for nothing. As we're fighting tooth and nail to stave off death, I believe that evolution will come to be less about the species evolving genetically (people will live even longer thus requiring less reproduction) and be more about the evolution of our ideas. Keep this paradigm in mind as you go through your life; watch how people behave, watch our society's sexual frenzy, and watch how so many people seem to just exist over trying to better themselves. People may ask if you believe in evolution, my answer is a resounding "YES, and we need to be paying attention to which direction we are driving it."

This is going to have MAJOR spoilers, including my thoughts on a new ending, so don't read if you don't want to know.

9 was awesome, for sure. Make no mistake. The visuals were stunning, and the world was amazing and beautiful. The characters were AWESOME. The thing that made them great was that each one had a purpose, but on their own they had no purpose, only once they came together did they have a real purpose...

But this was the problem in the end, 2 of the characters DIDN'T have a purpose. 1 and 2 didn't have a purpose, in fact, I learned more about them reading the wikipedia page than watching the movie, which isn't true of other characters. This was the flaw of the story; the buildup was great, and the action was INCREDIBLE, and then the story left you unfulfilled. 1 and 2 were poorly executed, and the ending was abrupt and lame. Come on: Everyone stays dead, but their spirits create microbial rain that repopulates life? Bullshit.

We need to talk about the relationship between 1, 2, and the scientist. To do this, you need to examine the part of the scientist's soul, the sense of purpose, each of the others have. 3 and 4 are the academics, the catalogers, the librarians, the foundation of their knowledge. This has a purpose in my new ending. 5 is the protege of 2, in theory, so you can say both were the builders, engineers, and healers, yet 5 had less of a sense of adventure, and with a more developed 2 could have filled out the part of the scientist's personality that was the student as much as 2 was the teacher which would have been a GREAT angle. 6 was clearly the artist and dreamer. 7 was the fighter, and the part of the scientist that leaps before thinking. 8 was the defender, the one who wanted to protect, and if 1's personality was more flushed out, we could have maybe understood what part of 1 8 was compelled to protect; think one part of the scientist's personality defending another, more important, deeper part. Finally 9 was the leader, the visionary, the one with the power to bring them together.

So who were 1 and 2? 2 was like 5, but more adventurous. I talked about it above and how the teacher/student stuff would have been interesting. Nonetheless, it's a moot point, he was in the movie for LITERALLY 4 minutes then he died and that's the end. Totally worthless, and from the trailer you almost got the sense he'd have a fatherly relationship with 9. Also, from the press stuff, you thought the conflict between 1 and 2 would be more prominent, almost like 2 would lead 9 to challenge 1, saying he himself would be unable. Which brings us to 1. What was 1's purpose? According to the Wiki page, "1, the oldest of the stitchpunks and their self-proclaimed leader of the tribe. He is clever and sly, but also domineering, irritable, quick-tempered and slow, if not unwilling, to trust 9. The Scientist described 1 as struggling out of his hands after his creation, and being stubborn and defiant." WTF is that, some kind of "he is the bad side of the scientist?" He's a crappy leader, an ass, and provides no help to the group except from keeping them away from everyone and thus alive. Only when 9 shows up does he occasionally deviate from his ways, with the barrel of oil and the cape. There's so much obvious depth to him that was left out I can't type it fast enough: He was the first of the characters who were to be tasked with saving humanity, his drive to protect them all would make sense except he lets like 4 of the ones there die (they weren't dead but he thought they were) and he did nothing to save humanity. Pointless! What was his purpose?

Finally, in the end, there's the fact that 5 of them die. This was a poor ending. First, the technology is THERE AND DEMONSTRATED to put parts of a soul into a stitchpunk. Second, we know they were all trapped inside the talisman. The decision to leave them all dead only to float into rain squanders several opportunities: the chance to give it a "happy ending" where they're all alive again, and the chance to let them work together in one more big display to drive the point home that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Which brings me to my alternate ending. Start at the point where 1 sacrifices himself and 9 gets the talisman. Here's what should have happened: With the BRAIN dead and nothing left alive but the punks, they should have taken the talisman and ventured out to repair their comrades. Cut to a scene where some time has passed, they've collected the bodies in the scientist's lab, repaired them (leaving much visible damage) POSSIBLY using the twins' knowledge to put them back together as they'd have scanned everything in there. They set up the talisman and everything and BOOM everyone is back. Cut to 7 doing a "what do we do now?" as she's the fighter, but has no purpose now that there's no real enemies. Here's where 1 and 2 can shine: 1 understands the purpose, when the scientist created him he was the first when the scientist had just begun saving humanity and 1's purpose is to have the tools to revive humanity if all else fails. It sets up the fact that he made himself the de-facto leader and that his goal was to protect all the other punks knowing they were needed to save humanity, choosing to hide rather than fight. It helps to explain 8 as well; if the punks started to get damaged the scientist would make a punk to protect 1, seeing as how 1 would be the key to reviving humanity. 1 finds some sort of contraption built by the scientist that's purpose is to revive humanity somehow, but it's broken. Cue 2, who has been compulsively collecting parts based on 6's earlier prophecies (makes sense, 2 being an engineering type, 6 being the one with more knowledge about what is needed). A better writer could make more details of this scene, but start to picture them all working together to put together some sort of device, you have a chance to see 2 and 1 work together and have 9 smooth out their relationship. Finally, the device is built again, and 1 begins to operate it. Throw in some drama and intrigue: an arm on the device almost breaks as a cable snaps and 8 quickly uses his strength to hold it together; they need a wire quick and 2 remembers finding some way up on a shelf and 7 hops from object to object to go get it; The device isn't working and 6 draws something showing it needs sunlight or something and 5 quickly fashions a mirror to shine some down. Point is, BIG DRAMATIC WORKING TOGETHER. Finally, the machine almost works, and 1 orders them all to put their faces into slots, and it sucks the green soul out and the machine succeeds; It causes time travel back, or it revives the scientist, or it operates an embryo machine to make babies, or brings someone out of stasis, I don't know, some kind of plot device where the result is a group of human beings are walking around. The point is, ALL the stitchpunks are dead, not a select group, and instead of stupid rain microbes, actual humanity is saved. A real writer fills in the details.

I know much of the decision to keep the ending how it was with the little cemetery scene was motivated by keeping in line with the short; this can still happen by having the revived human burying them all and having their green souls rise up and walk around, like they did in the short (where they did NOT ascend into the clouds). Also, part of me fears that the reason they let 4 stitchpunks live is to set up a sequel, which SHOULD NOT happen. ALL OF THEM NEED TO DIE.

So there's my ending. It fleshes out the characters, provides a more satisfying ending what with humanity being revived, it closes the story of the 9, it provides a cathartic action scene at the end, and we see that 1 wasn't a crazy old fart, he actually had a purpose (other than reluctantly helping the group, being ornery, and then suddenly sacrificing himself). Shane Acker, Tim Burton, make this an alternate ending on the DVD!

Mixed martial arts legend and former UFC champion Don "The Predator" Frye (20-8-1, 1 NC) was quickly defeated by Dave "Pee-Wee" Herman (15-1) at"Shark Fights 6: Stars and Stripes" on Saturday, September 12 to become the new Shark Fights Heavyweight champion. While Gerald "Hurricane" Harris became the new middleweight champion in a rather quick night of work. The event, held in Amarillo, TX, featured the two title fights in a night full of quick finishes and great action.

Popular UFC veteran Rich "No Love" Clementi (33-14-1) will return to fighting against Peter "Slam" Duncan (4-5) at Cage Wars Championship's "Nightmare" event on November 29th in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Cage Wars Championship is a UK based promotion that has been holding events since 2002 and has featured such fighters as Seth Petruzelli, Shonie Carter, Dan Severn and Jeff Monson. "Nightmare" will be the promotion's 12th event and the 7th to be held in Belfast, Northern Ireland.