Put a couple of illustrators together to draw superheroes, each one able to defeat the previous one, and what do you get? Weirdness. Especially when one of the superheroes is…The Creationist.
The ability to make evidence disappear sounds powerful, until you realize that all it really is is the ability to close his eyes very tightly.
Hmm.. The Creationist looks vaguely like PZ’s blog photo – a twisted form of “socratic irony” perhaps?
The apparent lack of a navel is a nice touch.
Unfortunately, his other power is the ability to convince his fellow ignorami to shut their eyes ever tighter.
If there is no navel, that really is funny, but I think he might just be old and fat, possibly with cardiac problems.
The right hand reminds me of Michaelangelo’s Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Although the physical form of The Creationist may vaguely resemble PZ superficially, we shouldn’t overlook the superhero that obviously captures his, er, idiom…
He was defeated by “Time traveling monkey”
Funny, I would have had him done in by “Pope Rat-Slinger… the rodent tossing terror! Makes anyone embarassed to be associated with religion…”
The “evidence/smevidence” bit makes me think he’s not promoting Creationism, except then I don’t understand the author’s comments:
…and…
(all bolding mine)
So…he means what now?
You seem to have missed The Floor Kraken:
http://www.thesuperest.com/archives/2007/11/19/k25_floorkraken/
He was defeated by “Time traveling monkey”
It seems you’ve been assimilated by the Creationist … chimpanzees aren’t monkeys.
http://www.thesuperest.com/archives/2007/12/13/k40_timetravelchimp/
Indeed — and it is followed by the unfortunate circumstance that ignoramus is not a noun. It’s a verb: it means “we do not know”. I have no idea why this was borrowed as a noun into English; other languages use “ignorant” as the noun (which is as least a participle: “unknowing”).
Indeed — and it is followed by the unfortunate circumstance that ignoramus is not a noun. It’s a verb: it means “we do not know”. I have no idea why this was borrowed as a noun into English; other languages use “ignorant” as the noun (which is as least a participle: “unknowing”).
So…he means what now?
I think his meaning is made more clear by his “additional comments”:
“What did Dinosaurs evolve from? Oh… right… they just appeared… and then evolved into dead.”
Yup, PZ seems to have highlighted a run-of-the-mill ignoramus.
Indeed — and it is followed by the unfortunate circumstance that ignoramus is not a noun. It’s a verb: it means “we do not know”.
No, it is a noun, is not a verb, and does not mean “we do not know” … we are speaking English, and etymology isn’t meaning. As for “ignorami”, it’s what’s known as a “back formation”.
P.S.
I’m not aware of any language in which “ignorant” is a noun.
@10
Does it matter? We share a common anscestor, we didn’t come from them.
Comes from a satirical play lampooning lawyers, whose eponymous hero is named ‘Ignoramus’ after the usage of that term in the French legal system.
Someone should perhaps set the artist straight in the comments. :P Maybe with a few informative links.
I thought for sue Shelley, the efficient secratary was going to be defeated by “The Glass Ceiling”
So who’ll defeat The Time Travelling Chimp? I imagine “The Business Meeting” where time is stretched and ironed until all time is one tedious and pointless point.
So who’ll defeat The Time Travelling Chimp?
Triangle Man, of course.
Does it matter?
Only if ignorance doesn’t.
We share a common anscestor, we didn’t come from them.
We are apes, as are chimpanzees; monkeys are not. Chimps are our closest living relative; monkeys are considerably further away. Treating chimps and monkeys as the same thing is common among creationists and reflects their level of ignorance.
Noted. :P
It’s common mistake among just about everyone except primatologists and human evolution specialists (of which I am neither). I don’t know why people cake this mistake so frequently nor do I know why it pisses me off so damned much more than other common displays of lack of knowledge but it does.
Speaking of which did anyone here watch “Pushing Daisies” last night. They carried this monkey/ape disinformation to logical and bizaar results. A woman carrying a rather small (about two feet tall and maybe thirty pounds) and long-furred monkey referred to it as a Bonobo and claimed the Bonobo was considered the most sensitive and emotional with caring and socialability closest to man of all the monkeys. Well, this *does* follow if you deduce a Betrand Russel if-one-plus-one-equals-two-than-it-logically-follows-that-I-am-the-pope[*] type proof. If monkeys are the same things as apes then the Bonobo Chimpanzee (also known is a pigmy chimp; a smallish ape and a popular candidate for man’s closest relative and are currently enjoying an almost fad popularity as the “loving” ape with social customs based on sex and cooperation rather than their more hierarchical plain ol’ chimpanzee) would be a monkey and could be considered the most sensitive and human of monkeys and its acceptable for tv producers to replace one species or even order (as with seal lions as seals) with another. Except Bonobo is an *ape* and one of the two apes *most closely* related to humans! It’s *not* a small silky monkey!
Monkeys, by the way, usually have tails (apes never do), and have four cusped molars (apes have five cusped molars, as do humans but humans *are* apes). Apes are generally larger (althogh the babboon, a monkey, and the gibbon, an ape have overlap). Apes have greater upper body strength and have a bi-pedal to semi-bi-pedal locomation whereas monkeys are quadrapedal to mostly quadropedal. I can’t remember if there was anything about the opposability of thumbs and/or toes or not, but basically if you take the utterly out-dated idea of evolution as a progessive spectrum[**] with say arboreal squirrel like animals on one end and eridute straight postured humans on the other apes are “more evolved” than monkeys in general.
There’s also a distinction between new-world (south america) monkeys and old-world (africa and asia) monkeys. New-world monkeys have prehensile tails (usually). Old world monkeys don’t.
Well Triangle Man beats Particle Man but I don’t remember how Time-Traveling chimp placed. It’d be funny if Triangle Man, Particle Man, and Universe Man somehow get into this.
Sigh, I once invented a super-hero called “The Trick or Treater” (except she was a transexual and only stole candy from bullies). My sister once invented a super-hero with the same powers as Lariat Lucy. My sister called her “Whipping Wanda”. I considered using her in a short story as “Hair Girl” where she’d keep company with two incompetent and free-will lacking seraphim, an excedingly minor muse named Rueben (who despite being the Muse of Russian Dressing failed to come up with the Rueben Sandwich to his everlasting shame), an indifferent dog, a dim boy, and the lat-long-time coordinates for the one true leaf (it’s on a tree in the music concourse in golden gate park an May 17, 2009 10:53 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time)
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[*] Bertrand Russell was “logical positivist” and according to symbolic and/or systametic logic given a false hyposthesis one can validly reach any conclussion. (“If X, then Y” is true if X and Y are both true; false if Y is true but X is false; and is true if X is false whether or not Y is true or false.) People used to ask him “Well, sure systamatically but c’mon, can you really prove anything from a false premise? I mean, if you assume 1 + 1 = 3 cany you prove that you are the pope?” To which the answer is of course, 1+1 = 3 is equivalent to 2 = 3 which is equivelent to 1 =2. The pope and Betrand Russell are two and as two is equal to one, the pope and Betrand Russel are one so Betrand Russell is the pope. And that small sharp-fanged silky furred, long tailed monkey was a bonobo.
[**] Yeah, yeah. I know. Evolution doesn’t have a result or goal in mind. But somehow intuitively monkeys are just more “monkey-like” than apes and apes are more “ape-like” than monkeys. That sentence makes sense to me but the only way I can explain it is to imagine squirell-like arboreal lemurs and tree shrews on one end and lumbering across the savannah proto-hominids on the other. “Monkeys to the left, apes to the right”
I don’t know why it pisses you off so much either. I don’t understand how people can say “humans are apes” without also saying “apes (and humans) are monkeys”. From a “common usage” definition, or based on webster’s, humans are not considered to be apes. But from a cladistic point of view, of course, they are. Same thing goes for apes being considered monkeys…if there is a monkey clade, apes are in it. (although webster’s actually defines apes as “monkey; especially: one of the larger tailless or short-tailed Old World forms”).
I just don’t see why it is such a big deal if someone refers to a chimp as being a kind of monkey. It’s just arbitrary naming anyway, it in no way indicates a misunderstanding about ancestry/relationships.
And as for the “humans evolved from monkeys” question, I say we indeed did. I’d certainly call this guy a monkey, and that may well be a direct ancestor (being very close to the common ancestor of new world monkeys and old world monkeys).
I don’t understand how people can say “humans are apes” without also saying “apes (and humans) are monkeys”.
Uh, taxonomy is not arbitrary. Sea Lions are not seals. Apes are not monkeys. Monkeys have tails, quadro-cusped teeth, fully quadrapedal, and there’s something about the radial extent of the wrists which I can’t remember. Likewise a lemur is not a monkey despite “common usage”. “Animal” is not restricted to mammals. Birds and insects are animals.
I mean, no, I’m not trying to be anal and I know common usage of “animal” usually precludes humans. (“No animals allowed in store”) and I know words like “beasts” and “bugs” have no taxonomy. But we have to draw the line somewhere. “Panda Bears” and “Koala Bears” look like bears so I can live with that. But for eff’s sake whales and dolphins are not fish! They just plain are not. Maybe I’m being petty. Does it matter if people don’t know that apes don’t have tails and are not as closely related to monkeys as they think they are. Maybe not. Does it matter that people don’t know that whales have lungs, are warm blooded, and do lay eggs? Well, *I* certainly think it does! Does it matter if people call raccoons “dogs” or bears “cats” or don’t know the difference between a lion and a tiger, or a sheep and a goat, or a pig and a cow? I certainly hope so.
Apes are not monkeys. I may be irrational in the extent of my irritation that people don’t seem to know this, (as opposed to my much more mild irritation when people don’t know koalas and pandas aren’t bears) but I am justified in being irritated. (Just perhaps not that irritated.)
Woozy, why isn’t a panda a kind of bear? Wikipedia says “the giant panda is a mammal classified in the bear family, Ursidae. If it’s not a bear, what is it?
Woozy, why isn’t a panda a kind of bear?
Because my personal authority and knowledge is thirty years out of date.
Wikipedia says “the giant panda is a mammal classified in the bear family, Ursidae. If it’s not a bear, what is it?
Common belief in the 70s was that the Panda was not a true bear and more closely related to racoons. In the eighties I heard that they were doing some biological research and there were some who thought it may be close to a bear after all but I kind of dismissed it. I think I heard ten years ago or so that it had been reclassified as a bear but it didn’t really stick in my brain. Tonight I just plain forgot and blew it. Sorry.
(more from wiki)
For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the panda was under debate as both the giant panda and the distantly related red panda share characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, genetic testing suggests that giant pandas are true bears and part of the Ursidae family,[citation needed] though they differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The giant panda’s closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. Disagreement still remains about whether or not the red panda belongs in Ursidae, the raccoon family Procyonidae, or in its own family, Ailuridae. The giant panda has been referred to as a living fossil.[9]
For what it’s worth, I’m not in any way and have never claimed to be a biologist. I just believe the average man on the street should know that whales are not fish and chimpanzees are not monkeys. … and I guess that Pandas are bears…
At least I was right about the Koala Bears. (I …was right, about the koala bears, wasn’t I?)
Yep, you were still correct about the koala, but check out what I learned from Wiki:
“The Koala has an unusually small brain, with about 40% of the cranial cavity being filled with fluid, while the brain itself is like “a pair of shrivelled walnut halves on top of the brain stem, in contact neither with each other nor the bones of the skull. It is the only animal on Earth with such a strangely reduced brain.”
WTF???
I’m not sure we are talking about taxonomy here….we aren’t talking about their scientific names after all.
Apes are indeed members of the infraorder Simiiformes, which is the smallest clade that includes all monkeys. There is no taxonomic/scientific term for monkeys that doesn’t include apes.
Anyway, all of what you say applies to the question of whether humans are to be considered apes. Some people like to call humans “apes” now, to emphasize the monophyletic relationship of humans to the other apes. But if suddenly we have to go with monophyletic naming because it is “more scientific”, we’d be stuck calling apes “monkeys” (and, for that matter, calling whales “fish”). So which is it?
By the way sea lions, like fur seals, are eared seals.
There is no taxonomic/scientific term for monkeys that doesn’t include apes.
I did not know that.
The question is whether monkeys have a common ancestor that is not our ancestor. (Or perhaps two questions, one for “old-world monkeys” and one for “new world monkeys”; I don’t know whether those two have a common ancestor that isn’t also ours.) I had the impression that they did, which would indeed make us not-monkeys; if so, the lack of a name for the monkey clade(s) surprises me, but is not essential to the distinction.
Conversely, there is no ancestor for all the non-human apes that is not also our ancestor. Though there is one, not ancestral to gorillas, for us and chimps; and if it weren’t much too late at night, I could probably run down a name somewhere for this clade. Anyway, cladistically, we are apes.
Well I guess all the trained biologists must be asleep or something
IIRC apes split from the old world monkeys after the split of the new world monkeys and so probably should be classed as monkeys.
Alternativly, we could all start speaking French, which doesn’t differentiate between apes and monkeys; or, (my preferred option) just claim anything with an endoskeleton is merely another type of fish.
Goatboy’s got it. Down with paraphyletic clades! If you say monkeys you mean apes, but if you say apes you don’t mean monkeys. If you say fish you don’t mean sharks, and unless you want to mean humans too you probably only mean Actinopterygii, which excludes the coelacanth! And if you say reptiles you’d better mean to include birds.
/ranty cladist
Wow, the next thing that you guys will be telling us is that worm holes don’t actually have teeth!
Triangle ALWAYS wins.
That question is easy and uncontroversial: no.
The name for the monkey clade is Simiiformes (a.k.a. “Simians”), but that includes apes and humans. The name for the old world monkey clade is Cercopithecidae. Again, that includes apes and humans.
Actually, I should correct my comments above. Old world monkeys/Cercopithecidae does not include apes. Catarrhini is the clade that includes Old world monkeys as well as apes.
However, I would argue that the common ancestor of old world monkeys and apes was itself a monkey, as it is well within the clade which includes all monkeys (i.e. both new world and old world).
Ultimately, I’d say its pretty clear that we have a direct ancestor that by any reasonable definition would be called a monkey.