Nationally syndicated cartoonists have a wide audience of readers. That means that they have tremendous explicit as well as clandestine influence over the minds of those who read their cartoons. The advent and power of the internet along with the demise of printed newspapers have diminished somewhat the reach that existed for these cartoons in the 20th century. However, the cartoons are still available today to millions online.
As with all people, cartoonists have worldviews that are formed by their presuppositions. And those presuppositions are foundational for what they take to be the truth. Over time it is usually not difficult to determine the worldview of a particular cartoonist if one knows how to look for it. Often people miss the projected worldview of a cartoon because they are only looking for the humor in it. Nevertheless, the cartoon reader may still be in a position to accept the underlying worldview of the maker of the cartoon.
A number of the most successful and popular cartoonists have shown a propensity for offering evolution-based cartoons. In this article I plan to evaluate some of the cartoons of these cartoonists and make clear to the reader the worldview projected by a number of their cartoons. I will be evaluating each cartoon from the position of my worldview as a biblical creationist. For those who think this may be unfair, there are many secular evaluations that already exist online and in books that extol the intrinsic worth of these cartoonists and their cartoons.
For each cartoon I will provide a rating (from zero to 100) for my evaluation of the power for promoting the evolutionary view as well as a rating for its humorous value if any. Sometimes an evolutionary view can still be funny. The humor ratings will be in a per cent with the higher being a better rating. I will also make comments on each cartoon. Again, all of this is from my biblical creationist worldview.
Cartoon number 1: Cartoonist Mike Peters.
I assign this cartoon a 100 evolutionary rating. The Bible tells us that only God has the power to create living things. True science tells us that the law of biogenesis has never been observed to fail. That is, life only comes from life. Only an evolutionist would suggest that man could create a living human from the parts of dead humans. Only an evolutionist would think that a theologian would have difficulty answering the question that Frankenstein’s monster asks in the cartoon bubble. From the standpoint of a biblical creationist, there is nothing funny about this cartoon and it gets a zero percent humor rating. The cartoon is an insult to the creator and sustainer Jesus Christ.
Cartoon number 2: Mike Peters.
I have assigned this cartoon an evolutionary rating of 100. The cartoon insinuates that only a ranting creationist would think that evolution is not true. The standing evolved fish even has the ability to wish the reader with a “nice day.” The fourth and fifth panels do speak truth since the Creator is the only one who can create or change the shape of a fish having allowed for variation within kinds in the beginning at the time of the 6-Day creation. This is an internal ability set up at the time of creation in the DNA of each creature. The cartoon gets a 50% rating for humor since, while it is certainly not evolution, the Mrs. Paul fish company does indeed change the shape of the fish when it makes fish sticks.
Cartoon number 3: Mike Peters.
I assign an evolutionary rating of 50 for this cartoon. It does show Noah with his ark and the reality that dinosaurs would have been sent to the ark along with the other animals, and that is positive. There is only one door shown in the ark which is correct. The downsides of the cartoon are that the people coming to the ark would likely not have been riding dinosaurs, and all eight people who did accept God’s offer for salvation were indeed creationists. This cartoon rejects God’s description of the massive ark and insults biblical creationists as a group, so it only gets a 25% humor rating.
Cartoon number 4: Wiley Miller.
I assign an evolutionary rating of 100 for this cartoon. While it properly displays man and dinosaurs living together, it depicts man as a stupid brute not capable of comprehending the danger in front of him. Mankind was created perfect in the beginning and devolved over time due to the Fall and God’s imposed curse, the stress of the Flood, climate change, and the worldwide travels from Babel. Ancient man was not stupid and early on had great capabilities in metallurgy and musical instruments (Genesis 4:22). The assumption that man evolved long after dinosaurs is not what the Bible tells us. Both mankind and dinosaurs were created by God on Day 6 of the creation in the beginning. I give the cartoon a 25% humor rating only because I am not a professional editor. An editor might not think it very funny.
Cartoon number 5: Wiley Miller.
I assigned an evolutionary rating of 75 to this cartoon. The idea projected is that the actions of Adam and Eve caused the Fall by sin alright, but that the extinction of dinosaurs was caused by being immediately hunted to extinction by man. The true story is that mankind’s sin did indeed result in nothing but evil on the earth and the change of some dinosaurs from herbivores to carnivores, but the extinction of dinosaurs was primarily due to the actions of the global Flood at the time of Noah. Some dinosaurs came off the ark and were common until a few thousand years ago. But most that survived the Flood on the ark went extinct because of their inability to adapt to post-Flood conditions. It is true that some dinosaurs were likely killed to extinction by man but most just could not adapt. There was nothing “left on the biblical cutting room floor” since there is no such thing. I give the cartoon a zero per cent humor rating because Adam and Eve would not have had any such feelings about the dinosaurs in the garden.
Cartoon number 6: Wiley Miller.
I assigned an evolutionary rating of 100 to this cartoon. That is because it projects the secular view of millions of years. The cartoon idea is that the oil (fossil fuel) we get today is made up of dinosaurs that died at least 65 million years ago. It is very clear scientifically that oil is the result of the burial of plant matter in the global Flood and not from the bodies of dinosaurs. For more on this subject read my article on Sinclair Oil by clicking here. This cartoon is just dumb and gets a zero per cent humor rating.
Cartoon number 7: Wiley Miller.
I assigned an evolutionary rating of 100 to this cartoon. This cartoon is a play on the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles where many animal fossils have been discovered and recovered from the tar pits that were a result of the global Flood. It was not a location where dumb Neanderthals were stuck in tar as they hunted mammoths. Neanderthals were humans and their DNA is still found in people of today. They buried their dead and lived much the same as other humans of their post-Flood time of existence. They were not stupid. For more on the La Brea tar pits click here. As one who knows that Neanderthals deserve none of the derision they often receive, I give this a zero per cent humor rating.
Cartoon number 8: Wiley Miller.
I assigned an evolutionary rating of 100 to this cartoon. Many secularists promote the idea that an asteroid that landed in Mexico 65 million years ago caused the extinction of dinosaurs. This speculation is not true since dinosaurs were created alongside men on Day 6 less than 7,000 years ago, and some lived until fairly recently. The question that must be asked about this speculation is why only the dinosaurs? Why not lizards, mammals, birds and insects? Creationists know that dinosaurs did not go extinct due to an asteroid. The only schmucks are the evolutionists. This is another dumb cartoon that gets a zero per cent humor rating.
Cartoon number 9: Wiley Miller.
I assigned an evolutionary rating of 100 to this cartoon. The idea is that fish evolved legs and climbed out of the sea onto the land to become amphibians. There is no evidence of this in the fossils. According to the Bible, fish were created on Day 5 and land animals on Day 6. The cultural message is that some people who work to get ahead in life are thought to be elitists by those who are left behind. That point is sometimes true in today’s society so I will give this cartoon a 50% humor rating.
Cartoon number 10: Gary Larson.
I assigned an evolutionary rating of 100 to this cartoon. The idea is that a fish saw some land, held its breath and ran over the land to be back in the water. It was therefore an evolutionary action that later developed to where the fish could live on land. Just like with cartoon number 9, there is no biblical or scientific evidence for anything like this ever occurring. This cartoon is another one to which I give a zero per cent rating for humor
Cartoon number 11: Gary Larson.
I assigned an evolutionary rating of 25 to this cartoon because it shows cave men hunched over indicating the usual idea that cave men were not too smart. At least in this cartoon they have a teacher to help them learn to stay alive when in the presence of a Stegosaurus dinosaur. Most people would find it interesting to learn that the word “thagomizer” that Gary Larson invented in this The Far Side cartoon in 1982 is now often used to describe the arrangement of spikes in stegosaurs. It has even been adopted as an informal term that is sometimes used within scientific circles. This cartoon rates a 100% rating for humor.
Cartoon number 12: Gary Larson.
I gave this cartoon an evolutionary rating of 100. This cartoon is about the same topic as is cartoon number 8, the supposed extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Here is a portion of how I addressed this topic in my book, Guidebook to North American Dinosaurs According to Created Kinds: “While it was generally accepted in the secular world that all dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, the general public was allowed to ponder a plethora of secular hypotheses for the supposed extinction, including some that were humorous or even wacky. A few of the weirder hypotheses commonly discussed in popular science explanations were:
- Mammals ate all the dinosaur eggs before they could hatch.
- Too many males or females were born to allow propagation.
- The dinosaurs developed extreme allergies.
- The dinosaurs died of constipation.
- Dinosaur eggshells became structurally too weak.
- Dinosaurs ate foods that poisoned them.
- Dinosaurs could not compete for food with mammals.” [Pages 45-46.]
Today the most popular secular explanation is the asteroid strike with the second most popular being that the dinosaurs died due to extreme volcanism. To creationists who know that the dinosaur fossils in the rock record are from the global Flood, that dinosaurs were on the ark and may even be alive today in remote locations, the above two most common secular explanations are nuts. Larson’s cartoon is also nuts but rates my 100% humor rating.
Cartoon number 13: Gary Larson.
I assign an evolutionary rating of 100 for this cartoon. Cartoons involving dinosaurs and cave men millions of years ago commonly include the theme of time travel. Perhaps the most famous of those is the long-running comic series Alley Oop. In this cartoon Larson proposes that this time machine ran on gas. If one accepts the idea of time travel anything is possible, and therefore a gas-driven time machine might indeed run out of gas. The concept of time travel is so foreign to my sensibilities that I can only give the cartoon a humor rating of 10 per cent.
Cartoon number 14: Gary Larson.
I assign an evolutionary rating of 100 for this cartoon. It is another cartoon attempting to ride on the idea that cave men were stupid. Evolutionists have this concept backwards. Ancient man was not stupid, and the human race is devolving not evolving. This cartoon gets a humor rating of zero per cent.
Cartoon number 15: Gary Larson.
I assign an evolutionary rating of 100 to this cartoon. Aliens from outer space and flying saucers are another fictional genre that requires evolution to be true. Many science fiction movies, TV shows, books and cartoons present odd morphological features that according to various evolutionary fairy tales must have evolved. If humans had three eyes instead of two eyes, then eyeglasses would need three lenses. But humans normally do not have three functional eyes, and I haven’t heard of any mutations of that sort that have ever occurred. Since I have needed to wear glasses most of my life and have been subject to the insult myself, I rate the humor of this cartoon at just ten per cent.
Cartoon number 16: Gary Larson.
I assigned this cartoon an evolutionary rating of 100. It is almost identical to the previous cartoon number 15 and would have acquired similar comments as that cartoon if I wanted to take the time. A six-fingered hand in humans occurs in one of every 500 to 1000 births, is a genetic mutation called polydactyly, and can be an advantage or a disadvantage to any particular individual with the condition. I am sure this cartoon would not be funny to most humans with the condition and so I give it a humor rating of zero per cent.
Cartoon number 17: Gary Larson.
I assign an evolutionary rating of 100 to this cartoon. This cartoon gets the science regarding the variation in dogs all wrong. Lifeforms do adapt and can have tremendous variation due to breeding programs for example. But it would not be possible to “evolve” back to a beginning type as seen in this cartoon. It is pretty clear that the dogs of today all came from a dog created kind that looked much like the wolf of today. Highly bred dogs like the wiener dog and the poodle could never be bred back to the original wolf kind because they have lost too much needed genetic information. In any case, in the breeding of dogs there is nothing but dogs at the start and nothing but dogs at the end. Dogs cannot be bred to be anything but dogs. Because the cartoon gets the science so wrong I give this cartoon a zero per cent humor rating.
Cartoon number 18: Gary Larson.
I assign an evolutionary rating of 100 to this cartoon. It is based on the familiar but incorrect evolution of man series commonly promoted by evolutionists. The idea in the cartoon is that man evolved from a fish over long periods of time and now catches the same exact kind of fish as a sport. Of course, this series is not based on science and is not what the Bible tells us about the creation of fish on Day 5 of the creation and the creation of humans on Day 6. It is of note that in many cases fish found in the rock record that supposedly was laid down millions of years ago, those same fish can still be caught in the rivers of today. These fish and many other lifeforms are called “living fossils” and are strong evidence that the theory of evolution is false. There is nothing funny about saying that mankind evolved from fish, so this cartoon gets a zero per cent humor rating. Click here for an in-depth discussion of the ape-to-man progression series.
Cartoon number 19: Gary Larson.
I have assigned this cartoon an evolutionary rating of 100. There are many evolutionary theories about how the giraffe got its long neck. Most theories start with an animal like a giraffe with a short neck that stretches to reach high branches of food and over time its neck gets longer and longer. This idea is called Lamarckism and is rejected today even by most evolutionists. In Larson’s giraffe cartoon, a very long-legged giraffe over time stays the same overall height but evolves to greater and greater proportion of its height in its neck. This is nonsense but a somewhat funny idea, and I give it a 75 per cent humor rating. Click here for an article on the Engineering of the Giraffe.
Cartoon number 20: Gary Larson.
I have assigned an evolutionary rating of 25% to this cartoon. The Bible in Genesis describes the greatest climate change event in history, the global Flood at the time of Noah. In that cataclysm all land animals including the dinosaurs (and many other kinds of life) were wiped from the earth except for those on the ark. It is true that in pre-Flood time there were mammals coexisting with the dinosaurs. We know this from the fossils found in the rock record that was formed by the Flood. It is also true that many vertebrates including dinosaurs have relatively small brains, but the brains were created in the beginning just the right size to allow for them to live as they were each engineered. Stegosaurus has gotten a bad rap for supposedly having a walnut sized brain. But many dinosaurs have relatively small brains given their large body sizes. This is in my opinion a very funny cartoon and I give it a 100 per cent humor rating.
Cartoon number 21: Gary Larson.
I have assigned this cartoon an evolutionary rating of 100. This is a depiction of the evolutionary paradigm that we creationists describe as “molecules to man,” “microbes to microbiologists,” “particles to people,” “goo to you via the zoo,” “fish to philosophers,” and other similar descriptive combinations. But the paradigm is not at all based on true science, it is the result of the existence of the philosophy or religion called evolutionary theory. The foundational reason for its existence is the desire of men to be God and to reject the true God of creation. There is nothing funny about this idea, and I give it a zero per cent rating for humor.
Cartoon number 22: Gary Larson.
I assigned an evolutionary rating of 100 to this cartoon. It is similar to cartoons numbered 15 and 16 but has gone to the extreme in mutational evolution of creatures from outer space. In this cartoon the aliens have evolved into arms and hands with feet. It is so ridiculous that I find it to be pretty funny, and I give it a 50 per cent rating for humor.
Cartoon number 23: Gary Larson.
I have assigned this cartoon an evolutionary rating of 100. It depicts God sprinkling life forms onto the earth at the time of creation from containers like saltshakers. God did not sprinkle. He spoke things into existence, and in the case of us humans, Adam was made from the dirt of the earth and Eve from Adam’s side. All of the variations in human skin color, size and personality came from these first two people (one male and one female) who sinned shortly after God had completed his perfect creation of the universe. There was no “jerk” saltshaker. Adam and Eve’s sin brought the death, disease, suffering and other terrible manifestations that we deal with today. Death did not exist over millions of years but came into being at the time of the sin of the first couple. But in Genesis 3:15 we read where God began his plan to redeem all those who believe in his Son, Jesus Christ, the one who died on the cross for our sins. As a Christian I find nothing funny about this cartoon. It gets a zero per cent rating for humor.
Conclusion:
I have concluded my evaluation of 23 cartoons from well-known cartoonists that have at least some of their subject emphases on evolution and millions of years. There are many others that I could have included but I think that these should be sufficient in number to provide the reader with the insight to see the worldview of the cartoonists and develop an ability to evaluate the ideas in cartoons in a manner that allows us to stay the course of our biblical creationist worldview.
Here are the average ratings for each of the three cartoonists for the particular cartoons that I have rated in this article:
Mike Peters: Evolution Rating = 83.3 and Humor Rating = 23%.
Wiley Miller: Evolution Rating = 95.8 and Humor Rating = 12.5%.
Gary Larson: Evolution Rating = 89.3 and Humor Rating = 38.9%.
Overall, for all three: Evolution Rating = 90.2 and Humor Rating = 25.9%.
Any evolution rating that is over 75, I would assess to be extreme. Any humor rating less than 50%, I would rate as pretty poor.
For part 2 of this analysis consisting of 23 additional evolutionary cartoon evaluations click here.
J.D. Mitchell
