Dippy Darwin Doodles
Don’t take evolutionary stories so seriously.
They’re intended to be funny.
Darwin fairy tales are not told in the forward direction; they’re told in reverse. Instead of saying, “Abracadabra, mishikaboola, bibbity bobbity boo!” and getting a toad to emerge into a prince, Darwinists tell their fairy tales in reverse. Seeing a prince, they visualize Deep Time. Then they shout, “Oob ytibbob ytibbib aloobakihhsim, arbadacarba!” and see a toad. Squealing with delight, they shriek, “It evolved!”
Why do we laugh? New study considers possible evolutionary reasons behind this very human behaviour (The Conversation, 22 Sept 2022). Carlo Valerio Bellieni speculates about selective value that laughing had for our ancestors. After reviewing 100 papers on the evolution of laughter (!) he decided that the best explanation is, “laughter is a tool nature may have provided us with to help us survive.” Yes, warrior: when the fists don’t work against the competition, and he comes at you with his newly-evolved MMA and UFC skills, just laugh at him.
In contemporary times, of course, we don’t think twice about laughing. We just enjoy it as an uplifting experience and for the sense of well-being it brings. From an evolutionary point of view, this very human behaviour has perhaps fulfilled an important function in terms of danger awareness and self-preservation. Even now, if we have a brush with danger, afterwards we often react with laughter due to a feeling of sheer relief.
The high perhapsimaybecouldness index in Bellieni’s tale means it doesn’t need to be taken seriously. He didn’t think twice about it himself. One thing is clear, though, from the embedded Charlie Chaplin video in the article: humor has evolved – downward.
These male hummingbirds evolved to be tiny so they can do cool dives (New Scientist, 22 Sept 2022). Jake Buehler says, “Male bee hummingbirds evolved to be much smaller than females, possibly because their diminutive size allows them to make faster and more elaborate courtship flights.” Jake feels no necessity to explain the origin of aerodynamic wings, rapid sensation in the eyes and brain, or anything hard like that. His job is safe, so he takes the easy route: just dream. “The findings suggest discerning females may be driving the evolution of males’ flight athletics, and their diminutive size along with it.”
Had to Evolve from Somewhere
Shaking the dinosaur family tree: how did ‘bird-hipped’ dinosaurs evolve? (University of Cambridge, 21 Sept 2022). Evolutionists are perfectly fine with overturning long-held beliefs within Darwinism. Here’s an example. One conundrum about dinosaur evolutionary theory is that bird-hipped dinosaurs (ornithischians) did not evolve into birds; lizard-hipped (saurischians) did. So do evolutionists know where those groups of dinosaurs came from? No, writes reporter Sarah Collins. This has been a long-standing problem. But a new suggestion has come from the Darwinist experts at the prestigious University of Cambridge: they evolved from each other!
In a study published in Nature, the researchers suggested that bird-hipped dinosaurs and lizard-hipped dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus evolved from a common ancestor, potentially overturning more than a century of theory about the evolutionary history of dinosaurs.
Well, they had to evolve from somewhere, didn’t they? Sure. If more than a century of speculation had to be overturned, that’s OK. As long as you maintain “a Darwinian perspective,” anything is possible.
“So, the very earliest ornithischians were, technically, saurischian,” said Norman. “From a taxonomic perspective, classifying silesaurs as early ornithischians seems counterintuitive. But, taking a Darwinian perspective, the unique anatomical characteristics of ornithischians had to evolve from somewhere, and where better than from their nearest relatives: their saurischian cousins!”
Since the Stuff Happens Law is infinitely malleable, Darwinism is never really in trouble.
Bite Me Kangaroo Down, Sport
Why do humans grow two sets of teeth? These marsupials are rewriting the story of dental evolution (The Conversation, 21 Sept 2022). Why do we grow 20 baby teeth then 32 permanent teeth? Because of wallabies, says Qamariya Nasrullah at Monash University. After sharing the complexities of tooth development from the embryo, shown in an embedded video, Nasrullah has a ready answer: it evolved.
It has been long assumed modern mammals all replace their teeth the same way. However, advances in 3D scanning and modelling have revealed mammals with unusual tooth replacement, like the tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii) and the fruit bat (Eidolon helvum).
These mammals have given us important clues as to how humans and other mammals have evolved from ancestors with continuous tooth replacement.
There weren’t any wallabies in Africa for humans to evolve their teeth from, but that little detail doesn’t shake up Darwinism. Since the story of evolution itself evolves, Qamariya is free to rewrite the story, like a scribe in the Ministry of Truth. The wallaby gives her a clue:
This gives us a clue about how we have evolved from ancestors with continuous tooth replacement: by modifying and reducing a system that is hundreds of millions of years old.
Isn’t this exciting? “This is exciting because, together with the tammar, it shows there may well be a wealth of tooth replacement diversity across mammals happening right under our noses – or our gums!” Stuff is happening, and that’s exciting!
A Cockamamie Case of Co-Evolution
An arms race over food waste: Sydney cockatoos are still opening kerb-side bins, despite our best efforts to stop them (The Conversation, 15 Sept 2022). Australian trash collectors are at their wit’s end. No matter what devices they contrive to put on trash bins to stop the Sydney cockatoos from getting inside and making a mess, the birds figure them out. It’s a literal arms race: human vs bird, and it’s been escalating for years. Rubber snakes don’t work. Bricks on the bins don’t work. Multiple levers don’t work. In the online videos, watch the birds outwit the humans and get past the locks: it’s hilarious!
The birds, furthermore, can learn by watching other birds do it. Social learning was unknown outside of humans until recently, overturning another long-held belief. This can only mean one thing, says Phys.org (Sept 17): humans and cockatoos are evolving together in an “evolutionary arms race.”
Their new research shows that humans, frustrated at having their garbage spread across the street, learned to adapt. But then so did the cockatoos.
“When we first started looking at this behaviour, we were already amazed because actually the cockatoos learned how to open the bins,” said the study’s lead author Barbara Klump, a behavioural scientist at the Max Plank Institute in Germany.
As humans responded, though, “I was really astonished by how many different methods people have invented,” she said.
As the cockatoos learned to defeat some of the humans’ protections, the two species appeared to be engaged in a “stepwise progression and reiteration“, said the postdoctoral research fellow.
Evolution was a good enough explanation for one hapless chef at a Sydney cafe:
“They’re evolving. Yeah, like if you go back like five-ten years ago, they didn’t know how to open bins so they’re figuring stuff out,” said the cafe’s chef, 42-year-old Matt Hoddo.
Matt didn’t get the joke. Evolution can only benefit the offspring, not the hungry bird. Only if a random mutation conferred knowledge of bin opening to its chick could it be called evolution, and then only if the mutation spread through an entire population of the birds. Otherwise, everything Matt learned in school, including in life’s school of hard knocks, is evolution: the result of blind, purposeless, unguided processes.
Quick Chuckles:
- Why yawning evolved: tells others to stay alert (Phys.org, June 6).
- Why did guys evolve to get sleepy after sex? It’s hard to explain (Live Science, Aug 24).
- The evolution of naming babies and dogs (University of Michigan, May 9).
Our laughter at Darwinists is a bit like poor laborers in Russia watching the elites in the Communist Party getting drunk and making fools of themselves. The list of Soviet Jokes is a study in itself about survival of the fittest.
A regional Communist Party meeting is held to celebrate the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. The Chairman gives a speech: “Dear comrades! Let’s look at the amazing achievements of our Party after the revolution. For example, Maria here, who was she before the revolution? An illiterate peasant; she had but one dress and no shoes. And now? She is an exemplary milkmaid known throughout the entire region. Or look at Ivan Andreev. He was the poorest man in this village; he had no horse, no cow, not even an axe. And now? He is a tractor driver with two pairs of shoes! Or Trofim Semenovich Alekseev – he was a nasty hooligan, a drunk, and a dirty gadabout. Nobody would trust him with as much as a snowdrift in wintertime, as he would steal anything he could get his hands on. And now he’s Secretary of the Party Committee!”
Humor under the current Darwinist tyranny doesn’t make our lives easier trying to be heard in a one-party system, but it gives us hope in the eventual triumph of human nature. Thank God for a created ability to laugh.