Comments

  1. Lilly de Lure says

    Lovely watch, but to be truly great it needs a trilobite on there somewhere (OK, OK I’m a trilo-fangirl – sue me).

  2. says

    Witchily, watchily,
    P.Z.’s chronometer’s
    Lovely to look at, but
    What are the odds

    He could get rid of the
    Anthropocentrism?
    Nature’s epitome?
    Cephalopods!

  3. says

    Does the transition from noon to 1pm represent World War 3?

    My first thought was, “human-centric.” They had to pick a spieces, though. It would be more interesting to see it with a constant time scale. Still, I want one.

  4. Duvenoy says

    I want one! I don’t wear wristwatchs, but want one anyway.

    As to the gaps, the watch is merely symbolic but makes the point nicely.

    [8]

  5. Carlie says

    “Sorry I’m late for work – I couldn’t work the pedals on the car until half-past bipedalism.”

  6. Buzz Buzz says

    Tony:

    Hey, don’t worry. The chances of a resonance cascade is a billion to one.

    But… no…. nevermind. It’s running well within acceptable margins.

  7. Feynmaniac says

    Stupid evilutionist! Clearly this pro-evolution watch required a watchmaker. Therefore, if a watch requires a maker so does teh entire universe and all the life in it. This watch clearly didn’t “evolve” from an hour glass. If it did then why are there still hour glasses??!?1

    i’m going to stick with my Jesus clock. The arms are stuck at human and don’t move. Sure, it’s not a good way to tell time and doesn’t accurately reflect reality, but it makes me happy to think that it’s always lunch time. i’ll pray for you.

    /obvious joke

  8. says

    If it was accurately scaled, shouldn’t it just be entirely prokaryotic life until about 11:30, and only human for the last few microseconds?

  9. says

    Josh,
    There’s no need to start midnight at the formation of the Earth. They could start at the end of the single-celled era in order to get more variety of pictures. Still, I think it’s short on invertebrates.

  10. says

    hmmm… I’m likeing the tetrapod theme, but I was hopeing to evolve down the theropod dinosaur line into a bird by midday, not into some “dammed-dirty ape!”
    Even if it’s a bipedal ape that makes cool (if self-centred) evolution themed timepieces.

  11. Whololo says

    What, does it show time in logarithmic increments? The distance between unicellular and multicellular life is as big as the distance between the Neandethal and the Cro Magnon o_O

  12. Adam Cuerden says

    You know, just once, I want to see a museum or zoological gardens exhibit on evolution set up as a maze or bush, letting the person end up at a wide variety of goals – or extinction. I’d suggest, for health and safety reasons, that the extinction be figurative, and not a death laser. =)

  13. says

    I read Pharyngula every day because I love it. However, this post is the first in a long time that actually made me laugh out loud. “Looks like it’s a tetrapod past a sponge.” Too much.

  14. Andreas Johansson says

    If it was accurately scaled, shouldn’t it just be entirely prokaryotic life until about 11:30, and only human for the last few microseconds?

    Assuming the clock to start at 4 billion years ago, 11:30 would be about 167 million years ago, by which time our ancestors were already shrew-like proto-mammals. Eukaryotic life probably arose 1-2 billion years ago, or sometime 06:00-09:00 on the clock.

    Taking “human” to mean genus Homo, it goes back about 2.5 million years, or about 27 seconds on the clock.

  15. Brachinus says

    I’m not all that familiar with vertebrate evolution — can someone fill me in on the role of “Swiss Movement” in the transition from semi-aquatic to land animals? It’s apparently important, since they labeled it and everything.

  16. changcho says

    Mmh, I don’t think Gould would have approved; he was never a fan of the linear approach to pictorial descriptions of evolution…But I like it!

  17. Robster, FCD says

    I went looking for one, and it appears to be from a Japanese designer collection from a couple years ago. I may ask my nephew (teaching English in Japan) to keep his eyes out for one…

    If he can’t find one, then blastosphere it all!

  18. says

    What Mrs. Tilton said! I would so buy that, and copies for all my friends and half my enemies.

    Hey, Changcho (#48), the thing does nicely combine time’s arrow with time’s cycle.

  19. Dahan says

    You silly Darwinists, you’re not doing anything more than bringing to light all the gaps in Evil-lution! Where’s the transitional species, huh?!

  20. Tim H says

    in reply to #42
    I’m guessing that the “6” position is some form of mammal-like reptile from the Permian or Triassic. Obviously this implies that mammal-like reptiles moved in a “Swiss-like” fashion- their nests were neat and timbered, they lived in picturesque mountainous environments, they had fearsome reputations as warriors but rarely took sides in the arguments of other animals, and they ate good chocolate.

    When did chocolate evolve?

  21. DiscoveredJoys says

    Just as well its not a Genesis watch as it would only tell the time 6 days a week and rest on the 7th.

  22. Bride of Shrek OM says

    Better keep that idea away from the Catholics or they’ll steal the concept

    Twelve positions on a clock face…twelve stations of the cross…coincidence, I think not. For $49.99 you too could have Jebus suffer twice daily on your wrist.

  23. Phil says

    hey I want an Evo watch too! You could make a ton of dough selling them on your website. PZ. Big hint.

  24. C Barr says

    Maybe not a watch, but looking at my cheap K Mart wall clock, it would be really easy to make a new face out of paper and glue it on the thing. Would make great Xmas presents.

  25. Arnosium Upinarum says

    Yep, that sure looks gappy. It’s sorta charming as an evolutionist’s yank.

    But that’s appreciating it only from a (rather dull-witted) evolutionary viewpoint. This is a watch for class-conscious creationists too!

    If shown to them without any context, most creationists would react to the thing first as a scale of class, you know, which critters are inferior to people. They would be quite delighted with a bauble that stroked their substantial egos, until it dawns on them that it could be construed as an example of evilutionist temptation.

    It’s potentially cute to both sides, and considerably more valuable to the creationist market. As any kind of showpiece for Darwinians, it’s horribly simplistic, with the time-scale ridiculously distorted. (Say, where 12 hours = 4.5 billion years; according to the watch, for example, primates appeared well over a billion years ago).

    A good representation would have more stromatolites than this one has primates. And impertinant fish hadn’t even conquered the land until the final hour (News At Eleven).

    The only problem a creationist might have with it is that it does not finish telling their story.

    A class-conscious creationist might prefer to have people placed at 9, followed by the figures of a saint, an angel, and Christ/God, at 10, 11 and high-noon, respectively.

    In that future-conscious vein, a proper creationist clock would be rather more like the “Doomsday Clock” that the Union of Concerned Scientists exhibit.

    Because the creationists not only know all about how things have happened in the past, they’ve also got the future well-rigged.

    Preserve the class. Know your place. Your chance will eventually come if you are good (obedient), and if you are, you will be Chosen by the Fellow who sits up at the top of the day.

    Now, THAT watch would really have some balls!

    Then the lying hypocrites can all celebrate THEIR version of evolutionary transformation into successively “higher beings”, on the way to becoming one with some infinitely elevated “godhead” every year when the clock strikes midnight at New Year’s.

    I’d love to see the transitionary forms between a human and a saint, a saint and an angel, or an angel and the father-god-whiff-of-immaterial-pulchritude-guy.

    Hey, wait a minute – how about a real test that demonstrates something we can all actually test, something that isn’t squirreled conveniently away in an impossible to consult dead-state “afterlife”?

    They constantly speak of “tranformation”, and the seminal weirdness they refer to as “transsubstantiation” (in which even one of the most unprepossessing and mundane of all imaginable foodstuffs – tasteless crackers – may achieve godhood).

    Well? Let’s taste – uh, test – it.

    According to THEM, something HAPPENS to it when it is “consecrated”. Obviously, it EVOLVES from an unconsecrated state into a consecrated one, with the end-product possessing much more than stale gluten. The rumor has it that there is some guy called Jesus in there.

    So, EVEN ACCORDING TO THEM, things transform from one thing to another. Isn’t THAT their “evolutionary” story?

    What time is it!?