Comments

  1. Paguroidea says

    The cartoon is funny, but those of us with kids in conservative US communities know it isn’t always easy for them being in the minority in their belief in evolution. I wonder if the artist experienced ridicule or his/her kids did in school because of their evolution beliefs.

  2. Mike says

    Up until ‘By beating the fuck out of her, obviously.’ I thought Jack Chick’s drawing style was evolving.

  3. Aerik says

    And I’ve submitted the picture to Digg and Reddit, naturally. It will surely earn me many points. Many, delicious points.

  4. scott says

    Paguroidea: I don’t mean to target you, but your comment above uses language that I frequently see on these sites that I wish would be avoided…. that is, “belief in evolution.” Belief sounds like something that you choose to have faith if. It is much more accurate to say, “acceptance of evolution” or “acceptance of the theory of evolution” or “acceptance of evolution as fact.” This semantic argument is relevant because it helps illuminate that rationalists’ have a methodology that guides their worldview, unlike the religion-driven opposition.

    Not picking on you…. really.

  5. Paguroidea says

    Thanks, Scott. You’re absolutely right. I didn’t even think about it when I wrote it. One of the other choices you mentioned would have been more accurate.

  6. says

    Even though I wasn’t really “out” about my godlessness/evolution-acceptance back then, I used to catch snakes and scare the other girls.

    I highly recommend it.

  7. JJR says

    Hmm…none of my circle of friends in High School ever expressed any skepticism about evolution–then again most of us were all fairly scientifically literate, and most of my friends were National Honor Society members (I was not). I really aced High School chemistry, but was too intimidated of science courses at Texas A&M to take any further Chemistry courses–kind of regret that now, on some level.

    We did come up with a corny joke in High School, a retort to someone stupidly asking “do you need a hand with that?”, when it was obvious that we did…we’d say “oh, no, I’ll wait until my species EVOLVES another one–OF COURSE I NEED A HAND, GET THE HECK OVER HERE…”

  8. Torbjörn Larsson says

    I used to catch snakes and scare the other girls.

    Precocious, not surprisingly.

    I used insects (you just have to learn who bites back), but a snake or a spider would have scared me too. Would you guess that my mother was afraid for these? And her mother in turn. Let’s see, I had to overcome their implant fears for mice, snakes and spiders.

    Only I did it too well instead – when I was visiting in Brazil, the native guide was more attentive when showing us the giant tarantulas in pits in the forest floor than I was initially. Since it didn’t seem to be just an act for us tourists I slightly upgraded my alertness to err on the safe side when ‘natives says a spider is bad’.

    (Where I live the most poisonous spider is only slightly worse than a wasp and lives only in wet lands, and so does the insects which gives the most painful bites. And wasps have never bugged me. So unfortunately I tend to forget about the risks with insects.)

    One day evolution will catch up with me. The risk is far greater than that creationists with their sticks for argument will do. :-)

  9. Torbjörn Larsson says

    I used to catch snakes and scare the other girls.

    Precocious, not surprisingly.

    I used insects (you just have to learn who bites back), but a snake or a spider would have scared me too. Would you guess that my mother was afraid for these? And her mother in turn. Let’s see, I had to overcome their implant fears for mice, snakes and spiders.

    Only I did it too well instead – when I was visiting in Brazil, the native guide was more attentive when showing us the giant tarantulas in pits in the forest floor than I was initially. Since it didn’t seem to be just an act for us tourists I slightly upgraded my alertness to err on the safe side when ‘natives says a spider is bad’.

    (Where I live the most poisonous spider is only slightly worse than a wasp and lives only in wet lands, and so does the insects which gives the most painful bites. And wasps have never bugged me. So unfortunately I tend to forget about the risks with insects.)

    One day evolution will catch up with me. The risk is far greater than that creationists with their sticks for argument will do. :-)

  10. quork says

    Paguroidea: I don’t mean to target you, but your comment above uses language that I frequently see on these sites that I wish would be avoided…. that is, “belief in evolution.”

    Dewd, get yourself a dictionary. “To believe” means ” to hold something to be true.” I believe in evolution. I believe in it based on evidence though , not based on faith. Faith is belief without evidence.

    Belief OK, Faith bad.

  11. quork says

    we’d say “oh, no, I’ll wait until my species EVOLVES another one

    Too bad we are trapped in the tetrapod body plan.

  12. scott says

    quork,

    you’ll notice that I said that “belief SOUNDS like something that you choose the have faith [in]” My point is you can use rhetorical tools to better illustrate that there is a methodological difference in how scientists develop a worldview as compared to creationists. Creationists already like to equate evolutionary biology to a faith based belief system. I think it helps not to use the same language that the creationists use.

    Then again, I suppose you could say that you, “THINK that evolution is true.” This would illustrate a fundamental difference between scientific methodology and creationism :-)

    S

  13. scott says

    BTW quork – do you say you “believe” in gravity? Regardless of what “belief” means, its statistical usage is more closely allied with a “feeling” or “impression.”

    S

  14. ben says

    we’d say “oh, no, I’ll wait until my species EVOLVES another one

    Too bad we are trapped in the tetrapod body plan.

    But we might be ‘frontloaded’ to evolve more hands! Isn’t ID fun? You get to just make shit up!

  15. beccarii says

    This is “Lord of the Flies” in fundamentalist form. Horrifying, really, despite the possible satirical intent.