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 By Jack Lepiarz May 22, 2006 Many people are already familiar with the comic strip, "Big Daddy?", and possibly even its author, Jack Chick, who has written a number of creationist/anti-evolution cartoons. For those of you that are not familiar with it, here's a quick explanation: The story starts off with a picture of a fat, balding, and otherwise ugly college professor asking his students who believes in evolution (All of them say yes, except for one). Behind him, hanging on the wall, is a large picture of an ape eating a banana. Under the picture reads a small caption reading "Our father." The teacher proceeds to ask if anyone does not believe in evolution, and one boy stands up, saying, "I do, sir!" The teacher reacts by screaming at the boy (who, by the way, is an attractive young man that looks like the perfect child--the perfect foil for the bald fat man teaching evolution). The teacher insults the boy, screams at him, and calls him ignorant and rude. As teacher goes through the numerous piles of evidence for evolution, the student calmly and systematically refutes just about everything that the teacher throws out there with the usual creationist arguments against evolution. However, "Big Daddy?" throws out some new arguments that go above and beyond the usual arguments against evolution, and become increasingly absurd. For example, the cartoon tries to pass off as fact the idea that "Nearly all experts agree Lucy was just a 3-foot-tall chimpanzee." I am not sure where Mr. Chick is getting his information, but virtually no scientist views Lucy, the 2.9 million-year-old Australopithecus, as a pygmy chimpanzee. But alas, that is only one of the gross factual inaccuracies/blatant lies of the comic strip. The strip also displays a diagram of human evolution from Lucy up to modern man (Homo Sapien). Under each picture, it displays a small description of the species in question, once again making more and more mistakes that suggest either an extraordinary misunderstanding of evolution, or just more blatant lies. It tries to pass off each species of hominid as a fictitious dream of scientists, and that all of those species were simply pieced together from different skeletons. Of course, most of Chick's data does come from old, out-dated sources, dating as far back (ward) as 1874. Chick tries to pass off Neanderthals as simply "an old man who suffered from arthritis." So, all the skull, skeletons, and fossils of Neanderthals, showing significant difference from Homo Sapiens in bone structure, skull shape and size, and general appearance were simply old men with arthritis. Sadly, it gets worse. One part that should raise alarm bells for anyone with any comprehension of evolutionary science should understand is as the professor explains how "Vestigial organs like the human tail bone prove we evolved from animals with tails." The student replies by arguing that the tailbone is not vestigial because it has muscles surrounding it. Yet again, backwards logic. Simply having muscles around an organ does not imply that it is used for anything. There are muscles surrounding the human appendix, and it is, by all accounts, utterly useless to the modern human body. However, the student proceeds to ask that "Even if there were 'vestigial' organs, isn't losing something the opposite of evolution?" No, dear student. It is not. This is actually an argument that many people try to use when arguing against evolution. Vestigial organs actually show development in a species--eliminating unneeded body parts, such as the tailbone or the appendix when they are no longer needed. Evolution is simply a species' adaptation to suit its environment. That can mean gradual elimination of unneeded organs, such as the human appendix. Furthermore, if God had created humans, as the comic strip argues in its final pages, why would he have created useless body parts in humans and animals? It seems like a waste of time. Naturally, there are dozens of other mistakes in the comic strip, some of which are obvious, and some of which are not. The comic's gross misrepresentation of data leads any logical human being towards the conclusion that Mr. Chick is either seeking to advance an agenda by painting his characters in specific lights, or just an arrogant buffoon who has never properly researched the topic of evolution. For a copy of the comic, you can visit this website: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp ------------ About the author: Jack Lepiarz is a senior at Madison High School. Born in Waco, Texas, he lived with the Big Apple Circus for much of his early childhood, eventually moving to Madison, New Jersey, where he now resides. Although he is often described as stubborn and egotistical, he tries to keep an open-mind towards new ideas and treat people the way he would like to be treated. Email: Jackwuzhere42@aol.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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