“Dear evolution” letters: animals bemoan their lot

April 18, 2013 • 4:06 am

UPDATE: The deadline for entries, as I’m travelling today, will be midnight tonight (i.e., Friday night) Chicago time.

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The Scientific American “Brainwaves” site has a group of really funny letters (written by Mara Graunbaum and Ferris Jabr) called “Dear evolution: letters of gripe and gratitude”.  In most of them, animals write to evolution to carp about their genetic bequest, but at least one beast is thankful.

There are several; all hilarious, but I’ll reproduce one. It includes a video, which I reproduce as well. But go read them all.

Dear Evolution,

Let’s start with the wings: did you really have to turn them into flippers? Don’t get us wrong—we appreciate the swimming and diving talents. But couldn’t you have come up with some kind of compromise so that we could still fly? Maybe a 2-in-1 special, a wing/flipper hybrid? After all, there are fish that can fly. Some squid can fly. And they don’t even have feathers. We know we’re not alone in being flightless, but you made ostriches, emus and cassowaries total badasses, what with their powerful legs and deadly claws. We’re more like large tuxedoed kiwis.

At least kiwis get to roam lush New Zealand. We’re stuck on the coldest, driest, windiest continent on the planet. We live in Earth’s deep freezer—way at the back, with the pack of peas encrusted in ice. Speaking of ice, where are our retractable keratin crampons? That doesn’t seem like a particularly complicated adaptation. You showed a lot of foresight with snowshoe hares and you found the time to decorate gecko feet with bazillions of sticky microhairs. Can we get a little traction too? We’re pretty good at waddling, but we still slip and fall over—a lot.

Finally, there’s the matter of our voices. There seems to be something of a musical imbalance in the bird world. Thrushes, finches, warblers, Lyrebirds and the like—you gave them all your acoustic gifts. What about the rest of us? Considering that we live somewhere so barren—where the only ambient sounds are calving glaciers, furious frigid gusts and the creepy distended whistles of Weddell seals—it would be really nice to entertain ourselves with some songs. Unfortunately, our best attempts at melody sound like a car struggling to start.

We may live at the bottom of the world but we think it’s time you moved us to the top of your priority list.

Sincerely,
Emperor Penguins

(Be sure to click on the linkes, especially the last one about the voice of the emperor penguin. Oy!)

Oh, and I’ll provide an autographed copy of WEIT (I’m getting a new supply) to the reader who posts the best “Dear Evolution” letter below along the lines of the ones in the Scientific American piece.  I’ll also draw the animal you chose to highlight.

In the comments below, reader Jaxkayaker has highlighted a related and equally funny site, “WTF, Evolution?” This one is ongoing.

h/t: SGM, Jim E.

49 thoughts on ““Dear evolution” letters: animals bemoan their lot”

  1. Dear Evolution.
    Why did you give me a mouth which is also a goddam anus? Still, looking on the bright side, you didn’t give me any sense organs to tell the difference, and no hint of a brain to worry about it.
    Regards,
    Sea Amemone aka Clueless Gobshite.

  4. Dear Evolution,

    thanks for the cool name, Jewel Wasp, or even the rather less attractive Emerald Cockroach Wasp. The metallic blue paint job with sexy crimson highlights is neat too. I’m even glad that I don’t have to live in a hive with lots of others – that buzzing can get on your nerves.

    Laying an egg is a bit of a chore though. First I have to find a cockroach, then sting it carefully to temporarily paralyse it, sting it carefully again to destroy its escape instincts, chew off part of its antennae, and then lead the zombie cockroach to my nursery where I lay the egg on its abdomen. I mean that’s a lot of fuss to provide my egg with live food when it hatches, but at least I can bury the cockroach and egg and get on with other things.

    What really irks me though is when I was a larva I had to eat my way through my cockroach’s organs in the right order to keep it living as long as possible. Is a bit of dietary choice too much to ask for?

  5. Apologies for posting off-topic but I thought the latest words of wisdom from Peter Hitchens might be of interest to readers. On April 17th he wrote about the MMR issue (concerns about vaccine safety in Britain a few years ago which lead to reduced uptake and a predictable epidemic of measles) and included the following statement: “I yield absolutely to scientists on matters in which they are expert.”

    Understandably he was challenged on this by a contributor over his opposition to evolution and in reply, also on April 17th, he had this to say:

    “As I’ve said many times before, the theory of evolution by natural selection is speculation about the remote and unobserved past, which cannot be confirmed or disproved by the normal scientific tests of observation and prediction.
    It may be correct. It may not be. The fact that scientists take views on it (and those views have altered substantially since it was first propounded, and even now vary markedly even among those who support it) does not indicate that it has the same status as theories with which it is often compared by its supporters, such as gravity. Prof Coyne and Prof Dawkins are welcome to their views (as was the late Professor Gould, who differed from Richard Dawkins). But views are what they are. The validity of these various views is complicated by the importance of the theory in the unending argument between theists and atheists, which is the main cause of the tedious, intolerant, inquisitional, saliva-stained fury of so many evolutionists.
    The theory of theistic evolution, which I am often urged to embrace, is, as it happens, not the theory which Professor Dawkins and most supporters of the Darwinist theory support. In fact, it contradicts its central planks, thus resolving nothing. I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. I don’t know if it’s right or not (whatever it is), and nor does anyone else. That’s all.”

    After receiving further criticism he responded later the same day with this:

    “Those who cannot debate in a civilised fashion usually have something to hide, about their case or about themselves. Thus ‘Paul P’ writes: ‘No reputable scientist working in this field in any university faculty in the modern world denies evolution as the principle of biological development’.
    Well, this is circular. As he or she well knows, any scientist (one thinks of Michael Behe) who breaks ranks on this subject is immediately hosed with slime, suffers severe career damage and is declared to be non-reputable by the guardians of current intellectual fashion. It is also intolerant through its use of the word ‘denies’. The word, now used by all orthodoxies to attack dissenters, suggest a parallel with ‘Holocaust Deniers’, National Socialist apologists who deny the truth of established fact.
    This is dirty pool. First of all, dissenting scientists do not necessarily ‘deny’ the truth of the evolutionary theory. But they do cast doubt upon its claims (as indeed did Karl Popper, until forced to ‘recant’ by the power of orthodoxy). Secondly, such scepticism is not in any way to be equated with the lies of the Hitler apologists. Mr ‘P’ either knows this, in which case he ought to be ashamed of himself. Or he doesn’t know this, in which case he isn’t really qualified for civilised discussion.
    And then Mr ‘P’ writes: ‘evolution is as close to a scientific truth as science can possibly attain.’ Can this possibly be true? Many scientific theories can be and have been tested through repeated observation and their ability to predict events. How can evolution by natural selection be said to be equal to them? And if it is not, how can this statement be correct?
    I repeat. All I ever say about the theory of evolution by natural selection is that I don’t know if it is true or not, which is not a specially bold pronouncement, since the theory’s own proponents cannot agree among themselves about what it is, and have no idea how the process which they posit actually began. Yet even this gentle admission calls down intolerant rage. I only make it, only ever have made it, because it would be cowardly to stay silent in the face of such intimidating behaviour. Nothing but total acceptance (though of exactly what is not made clear – is equilibrium punctuated, or isn’t it?) is permissible. Why?
    As another contributor correctly points out, a total ignoramus, who has never thought about the matter for an instant nor studied it, can endorse the theory of evolution by natural selection and be entirely safe from any kind of criticism. That is the nature of all conventional wisdom and fashionable orthodoxy. It is a safe place for unthinking dogmatists to hide.”

    I have to say I am surprised. I thought that after the thorough beating Mr. Hitchens took from Professor Coyne recently, from which he appears to have run away, he would at least have the good sense to stay silent about the subject. Far from it – he continues to parade his ignorance as though the exchange never took place. He repeats all his previous mistakes, accuses others of having something to hide when it is he who chose not to respond to Prof Coyne, and appears to consider himself thoughtful rather than ignorant because he challenges something that any thinking person recognises as a fact.

    Mr. Hitchens usually draws attention on his blog to disputes he has had with prominent figures but he has failed to do so in this case, perhaps understandably. Thus many of his regular blog readers may remain unaware just how stupid he was made to look here on WEIT. What a pity that is.

    1. Oh dear.

      the theory of evolution by natural selection is speculation about the remote and unobserved past, which cannot be confirmed or disproved by the normal scientific tests of observation and prediction.

      Typical YEC. Throw out written history, archaeology, paleontology, geology, planetary science, astrobiology, astronomy and cosmology in order to get rid of evolution.

      I note in passing the paraded ignorance in how well tested evolution is, and the YEC notion that you need to know how an ancestral population came to be in order to study evolution in descendants.

      But this –

      a total ignoramus, who has never thought about the matter for an instant nor studied it, can endorse the theory of evolution by natural selection and be entirely safe from any kind of criticism. … It is a safe place for unthinking dogmatists to hide.

      – is funny.

      Let us use PHitchens own comments:

      ‘A total ignoramus, who has never thought about the matter for an instant nor studied it, can endorse the theory of “gravity […. with which it is often compared by its supporters]” and be entirely safe from any kind of criticism. It is a safe place for unthinking dogmatists to hide.’

      He really isn’t looking in that mirror, is he?

    2. “Unobserved”?!

      We can observe the fossil record; we can observe genetic evidence; we can observe that predictions (yes, the ToE does too make predictions) are fulfilled.

      People who make this claim apparently want to see an animal actually morph into something different right before their eyes.

    3. “Mr. Hitchens usually draws attention on his blog to disputes he has had with prominent figures”

      This is not unusual for those whose arguments are weak and unscientific. They think that they gain credibility by association with real experts. This is why Dawkins and many other refuse to debate idiots like Peter Hitchens.

  8. Dear Evolution
    I really love being a Praying Mantis! You gave us a really cool look and I just love ambushing other insects with my forelegs. It’s the sex thing that bothers me though. I want to be a faithful dad and look after my kids but I just know that my wedding night’s not going to end well. Couldn’t you have made our females just a tad less feisty?
    Regards
    Praying Mantis
    P.S. who am I supposed to be praying to?

  9. Dear Evolution:

    Thanks for the big brain and opposable thumbs. Rockin’ good stuff, I’d say.

    But what’s up with the external genitalia in the males of our species? Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep your junk from getting knocked about in trivial and not-so-trivial ways? Gird my loins, indeed.

    Then there’s the whole thing about fur. How come we have so little of it? My dog loves to bask outside in the sun when it’s about 40 degree out. Me, I have to wear four layers of clothing. Seriously, would a little insulation be that big of a bother for you?

    And thanks for giving me a perfectly good biological system for making my own vitamin C — and then disabling it. Wow. Just. Wow. What, do you hate sailors? Or just love the orange juice industry?

    Finally, can we talk about this appendix thing? Apparently a useless piece of gut that can suddenly KILL US without warning. What’s up with that?

    All-in-all, though, nice job. But really, more fur would be way better.

    Regards,

    Human beings.

    1. Foul play! Trying to influence the judge. This is a paraphrase of Section VI, paragraph 1 of JAC’s New Republic essay on ID…

  11. Dear Evolution

    Thanks so much for the hands. They’re amazing! Especially for guitar pickin’, hernia operations and dental surgeries.

  12. Dear Evolution,
    Why did you make me so flat? Is it too much to ask for a body shape that would allow me to run swiftly away from potential predators? I suppose an erect stance and parasagittal limb position would be too much to ask for. It must, for some unfathomable reason, be important for me to drag my belly on the ground. I can live with that, but why do I have to run with a laterally flexing spine that causes me to compress one lung at a time rather than a vertically flexing spine that fills and empties my lungs simultaneously like the stately mammals that try to eat me. Heck, I can’t even acheive a bipedal sprint like my relatives the zebra-tailed and collard lizards can. Even the whiptail can manage this on occasion, though they look pretty silly with their front limbs mere millimeters from the ground.
    I hate to harp on diet too, but ant specialist, really? Where’s the meat on an ant? Have you notice that when their heads exit my rear end they are still identifiable, to the species level! Some scientist was out here picking up my scat just the other day. Gross! If I could eat something that wasn’t mostly exoskeleton maybe I could have a little more time for mating.
    Thanks for the horns though, they look cool.

    Your friend,
    The Flat-tailed Horned Lizard

  13. Dear Evolution:
    What’s with this mouth? Just try slurping spaghetti with this bill you gave me. Sure, try to get out of this by telling me to stick to soft gunk from the river bottom – terrible stuff! And it smells like hell. And this stupid pouch, always getting filled up with junk.

    Get back to work! I mean it!!

    Platypus.

  14. Dear Evolution,

    What’s up with giving vertebrates a post-anal tail? Why not stick the anus at the end like you did with worms and insects? Why make many vertebrates plop and splash from considerable heights off the ground when we could have just had an anus at the end of a tail from which to make neat deposits on the ground? (Granted, dogs are likely to wave their tails about while doing their business…) And while you’re at it, most mammals might appreciate being able to wee out this opening at the end of their tail. Imagine how happy be-tailed humans would be to not have to partially disrobe and sit on filthy toilet seats!

    A. Vertebrate

  15. Dear Evolution, thanks for giving humans cool things like a brain that makes us really good at understanding crazy things like quantum mechanics and Justin Bieber but did you have to make us recognize patterns (especially faces) in everything? Now a good bunch of us are super religious and it’s getting kind of annoying because now the cool part of our brains (the part that understands quantum mechanics and such) is getting over run with the nonsense part (the part that believes in ghosts, alien probes and Lady Gaga) which means fewer and fewer understand and believe in you – this is madness evolution and while I appreciate irony, seriously this is getting self defeating. Also, speaking of brains: the big brain and small birth canal thing – that’s not cool. Why not speed things up – give women super flexible birth canals or really ginormous hips?

    And hey, while we’re on craniums and heads, what’s with this mouth/nose combo? It really sucks that we don’t have a separate orfice for breathing and eating – do you know how embarrassing it is to die from choking on a cracker? Dolphins have a whole separate breathing hole – so do whales so what’s up with the sharing of the breathing hole – not cool evolution, just not cool.

    Sincerely,
    The Humans who still understand and accept you.

    1. Nice comment. Mentioning that *singer* is gonna cost you votes though…

      🙂

      1. Ha ha which one – I mentioned two which will probably be very polemic 😀

        1. Well it’s forbidden for me to mention the Scottish Play in name

          So by a process of elimination ~ will you agree that “Bloody Mary” is the dog’s bollocks? A genius concoction?

          🙂

  16. Dear Ebolution.

    Srsly, oai didst u mke oomans hip wit bng ouned bai cats?

    Dey serve grait noms. But do u not no how emberasing lollkittehs are for kitteh diggnity?

    Sncrly,

    Felis catus

  17. Having had my whine about PH I’ll add a post on topic. Here is my effort…

    Hey Evolution,

    It’s really great that you have made us salmon such great swimmers by giving us gills, tails and fins. Having such a keen sense of smell to enable us to find our way back to where we were born is really cool too, but why did you give us such a strong urge to travel all the way back there just to spawn? Not only is it a long way to swim but there are all kinds of hazards along the way: strong currents, waterfalls, hungry bears. I mean, is it all worth it? Sometimes I think it would be better to stay right here and just have a w..k instead.

    Then when we’ve done our duty to the species we just seem to fizzle out. Why can’t we salmon enjoy some retirement? It would be great to be able to take up painting (water colours, obviously) or maybe play a little golf.

    Also, why did you have to make us so tasty? It’s not just the bears – everything seems to eat us, even those funny two-legged creatures. It would be so much better if life were pointless, rather than the point of it being to provide something with its dinner.

  18. Dear Evolution,

    You really gave me the short end of the stick, didn’t you? First, you put us in one of the hottest and driest places on Earth. Then you have the audacity to have us gather up dung and roll it into balls. And we have to do it BACKWARDS! Not only that, but we have to use this smelly mess to attract mates! And then we EAT it! Geeze, you really have it in for us, don’t you?

    Sincerely,

    Dung Beetle

  19. Dear Evolution,

    First of all, thank you. We look awesome, we’re so happy to be naked, it defines us. We don’t need to see it, our eyes are bad, we know we’re beautiful on the inside too. But that’s because we gain superpowers from devouring our enemies and then show off about it, some of us eat jellyfish (how we catch them is our secret) and some eat plankton. Then we are solar powered or have stingy bits! And it makes us look beautiful too, we then parade about in front of our enemies, they know what we did, they know we can get them too.

    Thank you for making cucumbers and those other mollusc people ugly, it’s how we know you love us, some of those people use the same hole as a mouth and an anus, that’s just cruel, we know you did it to amuse us.

    And our relationship with those ape things is good too, we try to help them with their science and medicine, they don’t know how to absorb their enemies properly yet, they’re looking in the wrong places. Tell them it’s not in our nervous system. But we make them smile anyway, which looks kinda weird, not even their eastern ones eat us, we tricked them into eating the cucumber people instead, they still don’t know!

    Sincearly,

    Nudibranch.

    P.S. Our sex lives are amazing, thank you, again. X

      1. Maybe it was intentional. Alex could have just been trying to show that Nudibranches are not perfect.

  21. Dear evolution, This whole food chain concept sucks! Not I suppose for your obvious favorites on the top like those hideous mutated sea cows with such a fondness for us , but from our perspective it reeks. Being a krill is no picnic on a good day. And thanks to you about the best we can hope for on any day is to not be digesting in a baleen whales tummy along with tens of thousands of our peers. Ok we get that you like these complex warm blooded creatures who are squishy on the outside instead of the inside as was always intended. But that warm blood that makes them so active and interesting to you makes them awfully hungry all the time. First of all, why’d you have to have sea mammals at all? It’s not like we didn’t have fish in all those niches to begin with and they were hard enough on us. Why’d you indulge their ancestors’ little forays into the water? Sure, now they look like they belong in the sea, but they are still posers! They can’t even breath underwater! You let them off the hook on that one. They wanted out of the sea so bad before, why let them back in? They’re total flukes!

    Adding them to our already crowded little would be bad enough but you just had to make them huge didn’t you. It would have been hard enough if they would have stayed the size of a hippo. But NOOOOOO. You had to go and make them bigger than a sea mound. I guess you just didn’t think it sucked enough to be a krill before.

    Could you at least given us a sporting chance? Make them chase us down one by one? No, you had to give them row after row of stringy filaments so that they could just open up their grotesquely over sized maws and filter us out by the bushel full.

    Ok, I have to stop now because if I waste any more time on this rant I won’t be able to squeeze out the thousands of eggs I need to produce so that maybe one of them will last long enough to produce a single grandbaby krill to keep this cycle going so that all your favorites don’t have to work so hard for a meal.

  23. Dear Evolution

    Yeah, you know us. Felis silvesterus domesticus. You gave us a lot, but we’re greedy. We want more.

    You gave us the ability to shit wherever we want, and have somebody else clean it up. Could it be done sooner? You know, make us cute enough that somebody is constantly following us around just to clean up our mess? We’ll also take somebody that is willing to claim it as their own, and accept all responsibility for cleaning it up. We could look a lot cuter.

    Now, you did do us a favor in making the only thing we really have to worry about is each other and dogs. We can’t ask for something that’d bite us in the ass, so, about these dogs. Can we have yet another advantage over them? Size and strength would be excellent additions to speed, reflexes, and claws, and dogs being stupid. We’re not asking for too much in our opinion. Just about an average weight of thirty more pounds, enough weight to break a leash made of steel chain, maybe just the hind brain in dogs. We’ll do the rest.

    And quit making only a few of us really cute. That grumpy cat bitch (pause, look cute for a few seconds until everybody forgets what was just said) is an exception, not standard. Or that one that got on TB (I mean TV, Freudian slip) by having its belly scratched and then raising its paws like as though somebody decided to arrest it, mimicking the owner? I know this is related to what I said earlier, but we don’t have a lot to worry about, so we kind of obsess over this.

    Insincerely, your favorite

    the house cat

    P.S. We don’t wish ill will on other cats, unless they’re not us.

  24. Dear Evolution,

    We were really awesome, so why’d you have to go and make us extinct? And what’s up with all these freaky huge mammals?

    Sincerely,
    Microraptor

  26. Dear Evolution,

    How about a rewind button? I am often told you have no goal, but I sometime wonder if making a joke out of me was deliberate. I see formerly small deer-like mammals suddenly taking to the sea and becoming the largest animals ever. What once were furry funny-looking primates suddenly spread all over and delude themselves into thinking they are in charge on this world. And me? My ancestors and their relatives used to rule this earth! A single roar and those upstart mammals would squeak in fright and scamper off to their burrows. Now look at me, I inspire no fear, my name is used to indicate cowardice, and all I got from you for surviving the Chicxulub asteroid are a wattle and a comb.

    Granted, strictly speaking I am a success, with over 24 billion of us around the globe, but that is simply the consequence of another of your jokes: did you really have to make me so tasty? How about some proper wings that actually work instead? So please, even just for a day, how about reversing your mistake and make me into, say, something like an Allosaurus? Just for the fun of seeing the farmer’s face when he comes to collect the eggs? Please?

    Sincerely,
    Gallus gallus domesticus

  27. Dear Evolution

    How come the humble banana has a haploid number of 11 & I’m stuck at 4?

    The amount of time my forcibly drunken cousins have spent in the lab you’d think at least one of those poor boys would be a shoo-in for a Nobel ~ but not a whisper

    Please make our genome a lot less tractable to those Harvard types

    Kind Regards

    Curly stubble 37615 Gen83
    Of species Drosophila melanogaster

    1. But the humble banana was directly designed by god for us humans! I am sure its haploid number has something to do with the fact that it was designed by him to so easily fit in our hand. Or to curve toward our mouth, for ease of consumption. Or something like that. I’ll ask Ray Comfort, I’ll let you know.

      1. If you do catch hold of Ray can you ask him how close exactly he is to Kirky Wirky? And are bananas involved?

  29. Dear Evolution,

    I had an awkward encounter with a wasp today. All my friends laughed at us.

    Confused and sticky,
    Tongue Orchids

  30. Dear Evolution,
    Thanks for the enormous brain, but did you really have to stick it right out at the end of my head where it is so exposed & vulnerable, let alone that entire birth thing. Even the liver (which can regrow, thanks for that how about some other organs too ??) is better protected. How about you move my brain inside my rib cage to give it some protection & put it next to the heart getting rid of that carotid artery Tarrantino blood spray thing. Yeah I know some of your apologists will say nerve impulses from the eyes,ears & mouth would take too long reach the more distant brain , but really you have been fiddling with nerve conduction for over 500 million years don’t you think you could extract some improvement by now ?

    Yours H Sapiens

    P.S. Whats with the cats as cuckoos on humanity thing ?

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