«

»

Nov 19 2010

My own contribution to the War on Christmas

Categories:

biology, evolution, merch

by Jen

I have a new geeky Christmas card design available in my store. The Christmas Tree of Life:And don’t forget my Darwinian design from last year:If you’re going to send Christmas cards to scientists or freethinkers, why not do it with a biological twist? Discounts are available if you order in bulk, so go check them out!

This post has no tag

13 comments

Skip to comment form ↓

  1. 1
    BEG

    November 19, 2010 at 10:29 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Oh so that’s what the “Santa” one looked like. I saw your cup, but couldn’t see the reverse so couldn’t see the whole design. Cute!

  2. 2
    BEG

    November 19, 2010 at 10:30 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    OK… not that I’m complaining, since I speak spanish, but the comments here seem to be listing the time posted in … spanish?

  3. 3
    Adam Gordon

    November 19, 2010 at 10:31 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    How confident are you in the clade with Santa and Elves with Reindeer as the outgroup? I need some bootstrap values, please.

  4. 4
    Three Ninjas

    November 19, 2010 at 10:52 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Jesus Christ this is brilliant. This is one of those ideas that makes me angry I didn’t think of it myself.

  5. 5
    Jen

    November 19, 2010 at 11:09 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    I actually wasted way too much time looking up the evolutionary relationship between firs, poinsettias, holly, and mistletoe. Though I ended up having to effectively estimate the branch lengths, which bothered me for a while until I realized no one would probably care :P

  6. 6
    RdeG

    November 20, 2010 at 12:14 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Nice! I wonder how we could fit /Homo toymakerus/ into the homonid family tree, and how we could reconcile its small size, pointy ears, and other characteristics with its apparent polar habtat? Santa at least has an unusually large surface area to volume ratio for a hominid, which would be useful in that climate, but elves’ ratios are abnormally small. And their ears would be susceptible to frostbite.However, I can’t resist the urge to nitpick: your reindeer appear to have horse-like hooves, and your first proto-reindeer appears to have three toes. Reindeer are cervids, which are /even-toed/ ungulates!

  7. 7
    RdeG

    November 20, 2010 at 3:57 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Bah. Santa has a /small/ surface area to volume ratio; the elves have a large one.

  8. 8
    Ian Andreas Miller

    November 20, 2010 at 10:34 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    “Homo toymakerus”Oh, come on. Surely, Homo ludicrifex (ludicrum = toy, -fex = maker) would have worked!All still cute, though.

  9. 9
    The Artful Nudger

    November 20, 2010 at 7:31 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Shouldn’t Santa be “Hoho” sapiens?

  10. 10
    Jen

    November 20, 2010 at 7:34 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    WHY DIDN’T I DO THIS O.O

  11. 11
    JN122

    November 21, 2010 at 11:50 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Irrefutable Proof! Evolution impossible!Congressman John Shimkus Quoted the Bible to prove that there is no global warming.”The Earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth..” I’m not sure what this says about global warming, but it does prove that evolution never happened.As created by God 6,000 years ago his brain has never ‘evolved’.Congressman J. Shimkus is never left the Garden of Eden.

  12. 12
    chicagodyke

    November 21, 2010 at 8:19 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    it’s why we blog. stealing from the comments = almost as good as “stealing from the Masters.”

  13. 13
    Gus Snarp

    November 22, 2010 at 4:20 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Actually, according to “Twas the Night Before Christmas”, Santa is an elf too.

Leave a Reply

:)