Divergence

Posted 20 July 2010 by PZ Myers

↗ The current version of this post is on the live site: https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2010/07/divergence.html

This is a sweet little story of evolutionary divergence, and a reunion. Of sorts.

8 Comments

Form&Function · 20 July 2010

HAH! I love this! I love how effectively it shows the splitting of two lineages, by representing it with real creatures, real members of a population of animals that don't look like arthropods or like chordates. Most text diagrams (of course) depict this as just a fork between two lines, and it can be hard to get the point across that the fork represents a population somewhere in the deeps of time. I'll use this in my classes.

Emily · 20 July 2010

Fantastic, thank you for sharing.

Shebardigan · 20 July 2010

The fact that I had no knowledge of Abstruse Goose until a few weeks ago makes me wonder what other gems are out there.

James · 21 July 2010

I just checked out some more cartoons, and Abstruse goose seems like a painfully "me too" wannabe XKCD.

Peter Henderson · 21 July 2010

I'm surpised Dan Lietha hasn't piched up on this one P.Z.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/media/image/cartoons/after-eden/animal-rights

MrG · 21 July 2010

Peter Henderson said: I'm surpised Dan Lietha hasn't piched up on this one P.Z.

I looked over those cartoons. They appear to be typical Creationist-posting soundbites with a cartoon attached. And clearly have the Ken Ham seal of approval. "We have now demonstrated there is something even more bizarre than fundy science: fundy humor." Somebody needs to tip off Stephen Colbert. It just PLEADS for parody.

MrG · 21 July 2010

James said: I just checked out some more cartoons, and Abstruse goose seems like a painfully "me too" wannabe XKCD.

And, astoundingly, has worse production values.

D. P. Robin · 28 July 2010

This is appropriate, considering the apparent common ancestry of phylums demonstrating segmentation.