2011-09-22
Original: 2011-09-22 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
(A woman with long hair stands at a podium on a debate stage, gesturing. A man in a suit and glasses stands at a second podium across from her, against a red curtain backdrop.)
Woman (at podium): "Evolution isn't a "theory" in the common sense. Evolution is as well understood as the "theory" of gravity."
Panel 2:
Caption banner: SOMEWHERE, IN A THEORETICAL PHYSICS LAB...
(A man in a yellow shirt and glasses stands at a chalkboard covered in physics equations, chalk raised in his hand. On a desk nearby, a monitor displays the debate scene from Panel 1. He turns toward the screen, alarmed.)
Physicist: "What the... is she saying we don't understand evolution?!"
Votey:
(A hand-drawn line graph. The vertical y-axis is labeled "HOW MUCH THE UNIVERSE MAKES SENSE" and the horizontal x-axis is labeled "PHYSICS KNOWLEDGE." The curve rises jaggedly upward as physics knowledge increases, climbing to a high peak — then suddenly plummets straight down to near zero at the far right end.)
(A woman with long hair stands at a podium on a debate stage, gesturing. A man in a suit and glasses stands at a second podium across from her, against a red curtain backdrop.)
Woman (at podium): "Evolution isn't a "theory" in the common sense. Evolution is as well understood as the "theory" of gravity."
Panel 2:
Caption banner: SOMEWHERE, IN A THEORETICAL PHYSICS LAB...
(A man in a yellow shirt and glasses stands at a chalkboard covered in physics equations, chalk raised in his hand. On a desk nearby, a monitor displays the debate scene from Panel 1. He turns toward the screen, alarmed.)
Physicist: "What the... is she saying we don't understand evolution?!"
Votey:
(A hand-drawn line graph. The vertical y-axis is labeled "HOW MUCH THE UNIVERSE MAKES SENSE" and the horizontal x-axis is labeled "PHYSICS KNOWLEDGE." The curve rises jaggedly upward as physics knowledge increases, climbing to a high peak — then suddenly plummets straight down to near zero at the far right end.)
Alt text
A two-panel SMBC comic. Panel 1: a woman at a podium on a debate stage tells a man at an opposing podium, "Evolution isn't a 'theory' in the common sense. Evolution is as well understood as the 'theory' of gravity." Panel 2, captioned "SOMEWHERE, IN A THEORETICAL PHYSICS LAB...": a physicist standing at an equation-covered chalkboard watches the debate on a monitor and reacts with alarm: "What the... is she saying we don't understand evolution?!" — the joke being that to a theoretical physicist, gravity is the famously NOT-fully-understood thing, so equating evolution's certainty to gravity's is an insult to evolution. Votey (aftercomic): a hand-drawn line graph with the y-axis labeled "How much the universe makes sense" and the x-axis labeled "Physics knowledge." The curve climbs jaggedly upward to a high peak as physics knowledge grows, then suddenly crashes straight down to the floor at the far right — implying that deep physics knowledge ultimately makes the universe stop making sense.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.