Today's Bizarro is brought to you by the Kansas Board of Education.Cartoonists have long explored various renditions of the "fish walking out of the sea" and other evolution motifs, and I'm no exception. There is just so much you can do and say with this subject.
I'm not entirely sure what this one is saying, but I think it might be about how some people can't believe we evolved from single-cell organisms because they are trying to see the entire picture at once. They imagine a fish got legs one morning, walked out of the ocean, bought a suit, and showed up at the office that afternoon.
Richard Dawkins uses a good metaphor in his book, "The God Delusion," saying that if you stood at the bottom of a huge, sheer cliff, you could not imagine how a person could possibly get up to the top without help. But if you go around the other side and walk up the slow incline to the top, it's quite easy. (If I've got the wrong book here, somebody let me know.)
Evolution vs. Creationism is sort of a favorite subject of mine, both in Bizarro and in my personal life. I love documentaries about the subject and have read a number of books about it, both scientific and political. I believe in being polite and diplomatic, but I admit I find it very difficult not to be condescending to supposedly well-educated people who believe in creationism in the face of so much evidence of the relative accuracy of Darwin's theory. It's as though they were born a thousand years too late.
11 comments:
The metaphor is from Dawkins’ book, Climbing Mount Improbable, but I’m fairly sure he mentioned it in The God Delusion as well.
No, I think it's saying, "Don't rush it, because you're a cancerous moron who will destroy the very planet you need to survive, and trust me, we can wait."
i am also interested in why 46% of the people in the usa do not believe in evolution, because that really means that they do not believe in dna. there is a museum in kentucky dedicated to the creation as told in the bible as literally true. it is so silly it is almost funny....or am i crying?
Maybe there's a cartoon in there somewhere... like the person who believes in creationism just hasn't evolved enough to understand evolution...
i'm really glad you incorporate your own beliefs into your comics.. it's very admirable when artists really make their work not only mean something to their fans, but also to themselves. your ideas are simple and not too abrasive, which makes them likeable even by those people who reject your opinions. can't remember if i sent you a link to this article i found the other day, but it's about a british study that proves people with higher IQ's are less likely to believe in a higher power. i know it's like "duh!" but it's always nice when you see public justfication for things you SWEAR are true but the majority continues to walk around with their fingers in their ears.
craig zablo...I actually did a cartoon a few months ago about that very subject. A woman is about to introduce her presumed new boyfriend to an older relative and says something like, "I have to warn you, Uncle Jimmy doesn't believe in evolution." In the next room you can see a chimp in a lazyboy watching TV.
Nicodemus,Shortcake...I agree, it is maddening when college educated professionals believe in creationism. But there is a natural proclivity for people to fit facts to what they believe, instead of the reverse. Science is about the opposite process – using facts to form beliefs – but even they (as a community) will often reject a new idea that turns out to be right, because it doesn't fit their beliefs. We all do it to varying degrees. As aggravating as it is, I try to remind myself that it's a natural function of our minds and it takes extra effort to defeat it.
Still, the world is swirling down the toilet because of this mindset of ours. Try finding 19 atheists willing to fly planes into buildings. We make lousy suicide bombers.
Yeah, now that you do mention it, I do remember the cartoon. Probably where I got the idea. LOL!
Believe me, I did not understand Creationism for a long time. I started to study it after joining the church I currently attend. When you study the articles on answersingenesis.org, it makes a lot more sense than evolution. To start with, there still have been no fossil evidence of transitional forms.
To Doug, how can you claim the such a complex system like DNA just happened? I would say that it is really you that can't believe in DNA. DNA is the building blocks of all organisms. Without it, our bodies would not know how to maintain themselves or correct insults to our bodies. So, such a system must be fully in place before it could work at all, a property called irreducible complexity. This means that it is impossible to be built by natural selection working on small changes.
I've seen a lot of weird stuff here on California beaches, but nothing so far resembling that. If I do, I'll air it on YouTube.
If there is an original intelligence, purpose, or what-have-you, I can only guess it's chuckling at philosophical discourse that basically amounts to this. I find it easy to laugh at both sides, and Bizarro helps there too.
I have an idea: all the "more highly than others" intelligent people, who read this blog, could read Michael Behe's newest book: "The Edge of Evolution". Absolute MUST for anyone who is really serious about the discussion. Do it!
There are things that look impossible (like Climbing Mount Improbable) and there are things that are indeed impossible--that should be acknowledged. Behe shows very clearly and mathematically what is impossible.
Mr. Piraro, if you are really that arrogant, you clearly haven't read as many books as you claim you have. Try Darwin's Black Box.
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