OMG: I’m a homie!

July 29, 2013 • 8:28 am

Crispian Jago, renowned illustrator of all things atheist, skeptic, and debunkable, has a new set of comics called “Creationist Zookeeper” on his website, The Reason Stick.

And—OMG—the latest one:

CZK009And now I must become one of those curmudgeons who say, “I don’t mean to nitpick, but. . . it’s Drosophila (with caps)!” On the other hand, the research description is spot on, as is the damn creationist’s reaction: “Well, they’re still flies aren’t they?”

Thanks to Mr. Jago for the honor of being a HOMEBOY!

36 thoughts on “OMG: I’m a homie!”

    1. “Though I object against personality cults…”

      Does that mean I have to throw out all my Jerry Coyne action figures?

  3. Years of study then decades of academic, field and lab work takes him to the top if his profession – Homeboy!

  4. Yup, they’re still flies.

    And we’re still primates. And we’re also still mammals. And tetrapods — that’s us, too. Vertebrates, even, and animals.

    No animal has ever given birth to a non-animal.

    Silly Cretinists….

    b&

  9. I don’t mean to nitpick either (was there a rule against using this phrase on this website?), but about the research description: doesn’t it come straight from your U of C website? So of course it’s going to be spot on 😉 !

    This doesn’t detract from it being a cool cartoon. Quite the opposite, it shows that with a little bit of [i]research[/i], you can get things right!

  10. Us pedants think alike, regarding the capital “D”. (small ‘m’ for melanogaster 😉

    That’s an excellent shout-out cartoon. Big smiles here.

        1. Yes you have. He fixed the capitalization and spelling, but is still adding an ‘s’ to Drosophila.

    2. That would be “We pedants think alike”. If you’re going to be pedantic, you have to be grammatical as well, methinks!

  12. Jerry, this cartoon (well, the word creationist really) brought this post to mind and I thought you might like to read it:

    Is Debating Creationists of the Mind Worthwhile?

    It’s written by Robert Kurzban who is an evolutionary psychologist and is explaining the benefits of engaging in debate with PZ Myers and his ilk. It’s really kind of interesting and you get a favorable mention.

    Link: http://tinyurl.com/ls7woea

    Anyway, I think it’s a good read and it serves as a counter-point to similar-issue posts by Richard Dawkins, Barbara Drescher and Sam Harris who are sick and tired of the willful BS and (now) refuse to deal with dishonest skeptics of the PZ Myers sort.

    1. I have nothing to say to the spat between PZ Myers and his detractors, except that I have learned a lot from both. However, I want to underscore this quote from the beginning of Kurzban’s post, which I think deserves wide currency:

      “To me, the benefit of discussing creationism is limited because my sense is that on this issue, there is little room for persuasion and therefore little value to continued discussion. People who adopt supernatural beliefs, it seems to me, tend to adopt them for reasons other than their evaluation of the relevant evidence and logic, so presenting evidence and logic has limited persuasive value. This debate really ended a century ago, when the Enlightenment teed up supernaturalism and Darwin spiked it. The discussion is, to my mind, over, and dissenters are simply history’s stragglers less interested in discovering truth than defending a worldview.”

      Beautiful.

      1. Exactly.

        As Jerry and I and others have been trying to explain, “teach the controversy” and “have a debate” are meaningless, because there is neither controversy nor debate.

        Larry’s suggestion that we should have old-fashioned USENET flamewars in the public schools so the teachers can put the students in their place is as absurd with respect to biology and creationism as it would be with respect to gynecology and storkism.

        b&

  13. The spelling is all fixed now, but shouldn’t Drosophila be italicized? (Yes, even in word balloons, because you have to say the italics.)

  14. Maybe the point of “Drospilias” is that he still talks (very) intelligently about them whatever he calls them. My first attempt (aet. ~6) at “dinosaur” was “dinnazwozza” but I was quite clear what they were.

  15. By using the anglicised plural “drosphilas”, he shows that he is using the vernacular rather than technical nomenclature, so the minuscule “d” is acceptable.

  16. He haz rizen to sweatshirt and toon character status, but how long will it take to rize to bobblehead status?

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