“Kids”, the new Jesus and Mo cartoon, whose reproduction got this website entirely banned in Pakistan for “hurting the sentiments of Muslims” (WordPress did the banning at the behest of the Pakistani government), is about evolution. As the author said in the accompanying email, “If humans are evolved from animals, how come there are still animals?”
I think this is one of the better strips, and not just because it’s about evolution!
Yes, we are all animals. All to be instinct some day.
Instinct and extinct.😓 A bit off topic, but some behaviors, (,e.g.: when a river otter encounters a well stocked pond) might disagree with the bartender’s comment in the second panel.
I have no instinct for editing. Would the otter kill more fish than it could eat? I know of a few cases when dogs would do this.
Please don’t give the details of the otters in the pond. I am sure it is gruesome!
It seems clear that animals do not avoid mass murder through some sense of morality. They avoid it because (a) it’s a waste of energy, (b) they want to keep the creatures alive for future meals, or (c) it just didn’t occur to them.
The otters are not indiscriminately killing other otters, any more that the fish are doing the same.
Sometimes it’s also because they don’t have the means. A marauding band of chimps could kill alot of foes if they had AR15s. Instead they are only able to capture and kill a few.
Yes. I meant to have that one in my list but it slipped my mind.
The only thing stopping bad otters is good chimps with guns.
Many animals will kill other animals en masse, but we are a bit of an outlier in that we do it our own species. But humans kill other humans en-masse because we have the means to do it. Many other animals will kill members of their own species, even their own kin (cats are specially known for this trait). It is technology -advanced tool use- that makes mass killings possible. If chimpanzees had machine guns I think there is little doubt that they would have mass killers among them as well. We are animals. We may be outliers in some ways, but we are not specially created.
If we’re not “animals,” then that just leaves “minerals” or “vegetables.”
Ah but creationists can weasel out of anything. There’s a fourth one: Man. Ha ha ah.
“yet all things man, animal, vegetable and mineral are completely dependent upon and sustained by Him.” –T. J. Milam
If vegetables are restricted to plants, then maybe we’re fungi!
We are more closely related to fungi than funghi are to plants
I know a number of decent self-respecting fungi who would be dismayed by that little factoid. 😉
cr
Yup. Thank Dawkins’ _The Ancestor’s Tale_ for finally answering the question I asked several of my biology teachers!
Mo should have said: “That’s just as bad.” Reminds me of the Hitler joke, coming back to kill all the Jews and 33 geese. God forbid we lay a finger on a non-Christ killing goose. And clearly geese never masturbate. Sinful humans.
“If humans are evolved from animals, how come there are still animals?” That’s actually kind of brilliant lol. If there are any creationists left who ask about the monkeys thing (of course there are) then throw that one at them.
In their minds scientists “forgot” that there shouldn’t be any monkeys left. So that would increase in their minds to scientists “forgot” that there would be any animals left. Which would make scientists even dumber. So forget it, don’t throw that one at them because it would only backfire big time.
correction: would be any/wouldn’t be any
If humans came from stardust, why are there still stars?
If Adam was made of clay/mud why is there still mud?
If Jesus died to forgive our sins why are there still sins?
Oh no! Bad table manners!
Which seem to be much more culturally-relative than ethics proper, as it happens. There are places where belching at dinner is rude and places where it is *required* (rude not to, in other words). Places where one should never slurp and places where you should, etc.
Surprisingly, masturbation and extramarital sex is decent evidence for our common ancestry with other primates. Not sure about bad table manners.
What sort of parties are you going to?
Jesus’ opening line doesn’t make much sense here in the USA because children are not taught about evolution in schools.
Panel one: encrourage
YOu know, even in ancient Greece, humans were classified as animals, special and unique in some ways, but animals nonetheless.
That just proves how far we’ve evolved since the Greeks, doesn’t it?
cr
Oh, obligatory 🙂
There’s somewhere in Aristotle (I’d have to hunt to find it) where he even asserts that god is an animal. (One without a body, which is a bit weird, but …)