Presentations
Posted on July 10, 2021 by David M Willis
Oh right I try to also put this below the strip itself too, don't I.  Whoops!  Anyway, June's second Dumbing of Age Patreon bonus strip went up!  This month, we get a peek at Joyce's JULIA GRAY comic strip!   And Julia Gray's R.A., who will go unnamed.   You can read this new bonus strip and the backlog of literally hundreds of previous bonus strips at the Dumbing of Age Patreon! Also, if you pledge $5 or more per month, you can read tomorrow’s strip a full day-and-five-minutes early, every single dang night!  You'd be reading tomorrow's strip right now.

208 thoughts on “Presentations”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Speed-Run

    Biology: Any% by Beckasaur

    1. Schpoonman

      Never gonna beat that WR.

      1. Regalli

        I dunno, the latest TAS runs suggest it is possible to shave several seconds off the run time if you can perform the critical Doc Skip. Granted, the trick is frame-perfect and no one’s gotten it yet, but with enough tenacity, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until some runner figured it out.

        … Why yes, I have been watching a lot of SGDQ this week, why do you ask?

        1. Jon Rich

          SGDQ? TAS? What do these mean?

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Slutty Games Done Quick and Tool Assisted Slut, respectively.

        3. Needfuldoer

          “TAS” is “tool-assisted speedrun”, where the player uses an emulator running at a fraction of the game’s native speed to play as perfectly as possible, with precision down to the frame. The idea is to find the limit of the game itself, not just what’s achievable by human reaction time. This can lead to some hilarious videos when played back in real time depending on the tricks they pull. Just look at the Super Mario 64 speedruns where they exploit bugs in the game’s physics engine to skip the star doors instead of collecting stars from finishing levels.

          https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iUt840BUOYA

        4. Regalli

          SGDQ, as Delicious Taffy sort of alluded to, is Summer Games Done Quick, an annual weeklong speedrunning marathon for charity. (SGDQ benefits Doctors Without Borders/MSF; it’s spun off from ‘Awesome Games Done Quick’ which runs in the winter and tends to benefit the Prevent Cancer Foundation, with occasional smaller marathons throughout the year for other causes.) As the title suggests, they play a lot of games, very fast.

        5. StClair

          The first time I heard of it, I was like “so, they just play Summer Games, by Epyx?”
          I am old.

        6. Ana Chronistic

          I was gonna make a reference like Summer School Done Quick but idk

        7. Ana Chronistic

          (I mean, it’s winter for them RN)

        8. Undrave

          If you hit the second microscope on the right at the correct angle you can no clip out of second mid-term and get an automatic passing grade and shave a few class hours.

      2. Beau Kirin Maysey

        You have to mash the ‘B’ button to evolve quicker, right?

        1. Casi

          I thought smashing B stopped evolution.

      3. Knuf Wons

        Right now, it seems like this speed run is actually going slower than irl time, but the timeskips on breaks are believed to eventually add up to being faster.

    2. RassilonTDavros

      A dinosaur is a dinosaur, you can’t say it’s only half.

      1. Radiance

        But first, we need to talk about college AUs.

  2. Wagstaff

    I knew she’d get it right!!!! Yeeeaaaaaahhhh!!!!!!!

    1. C.T. Phipps

      Professor: 10 points from Dina.

      Becky: Wait, what?!

      Professor: You too.

      Becky: Why?

      Professor: To teach you a lesson in unfairness.

      (It would be a Hogwarts joke but I no longer quote that series)

      1. Chris Phoenix

        “Daddy went to Eton, said I should go there too
        He said being beaten will maketh a man of you!”

        – Kit and the Widow, “Swing swing together”

        1. ValdVin

          By law I am required to mention Tomkinson’s Schoodays now.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXJRI8dzsEw

      2. khn0

        that’s older than television anyway, almost sure I saw it in a Vance novel…

      3. davidbreslin101

        ? I am not aware of any series involving house points and something called “hogwarts.”

  3. Schpoonman

    Did they just beat his angry eyebrows?

  4. Joe Moose

    Well then!

    1. I am Nothing

      Guess that’s that!

  5. RassilonTDavros

    DINA/BECKY WINS

    GIRL-FRIENSHIP

    1. Jamie

      Lack of D strangely appropriate.

  6. Cattleprod

    “That’s obviously the one and only correct answer, but to fill time I’m going to need everyone else to give their wrong answers as if you think they might be right.”

    1. Nayann Martinelli

      “Believe me, I will find it as much unenjoyable as you all”.

    2. zaratustra

      they can start arguing what “evolved” means, a terminology debate is always good to keep everyone busy for a couple of hours

  7. William Leonard Reese Jr.

    Doc: Shit now I have to make up a lesson plan for the class. Was hoping the presentations would take up most of it.

    1. Yumi

      If he hadn’t said the last panel aloud, he could have tried to be like, “Anyone want to challenge that?” and see if that went anywhere. And then at the end circle back around to it like, “Actually the first thing.”

      1. Rose by Any Other Name

        Yup. Getting a class to discuss a topic is a better result than any presentation.

      2. Keulen

        Yeah I’m sure Dina and Becky gave the answer he wanted, but he could’ve gotten the rest of the class to still give their presentations for most of the class time easily.

      3. Exarch

        And this is why Leslie is an excellent teacher and brock is not

  8. Kyrik Michalowski

    Oh Becky, you are on your way to being a real scientist. Now if only we could remove the political part.

    Also if the class has free time, then just tell them homework and let them leave. It’s the best feeling.

    1. SuperZero

      It’s a good feeling to leave a little early. It’s not a good feeling for the professor to walk in and immediately tell you that you shouldn’t’ve bothered.

  9. BBCC

    Okay but that alt text is literally a thing some of my profs would do if we wrapped up early. Some just went along and let us get ahead and maybe cancelled class at the end.

    And it’s the second class and Becky and Dina have already impressed the professor. Love that for them.

    1. Yumi

      Impressed, but maybe also annoyed slightly

      1. BBCC

        Eh, he’ll live. If he can’t, Dina will go raptor on him.

        1. Eldritchy

          She will usurp his position as the Biology Teacher Trial by Combat style.

        2. Demoted Oblivious

          You might say, “survival of the fittest,” (to teach).

      2. Regalli

        Yeah looks like he was in fact hoping no one would get it (or at least, not until the end) so that he could either get out of needing a lesson plan for this session or Outrage Them All With The Truth at the end.

        Glad to have my suspicions confirmed that he is a bit of a dick, and the first session wasn’t all a show to weed out the ones who were unlikely to listen. I guess. … Eh, ‘asshole professor, but in ways that provoke interesting reactions from the main character’ is better than nondescript for the narrative.

        1. Yumi

          I was going to say that he could have still gotten out of it if he invited debate right now, but with normal participation levels… not sure how that would go.

        2. Regalli

          I mean, they were all supposed to give presentations apparently, so he could have said ‘give your full argument, everyone gives theirs as prepared, after this we can discuss in more detail.’ Even if some of them phoned it in, it should get SOME degree of response that wasn’t just ‘well they were right, so.’

          Then again, I’d also expect he’d want them to submit their notes digitally or something ahead of class starting – a school this size almost certainly has a system like Canvas or the like by now, and that’s fast becoming a normal method of assignment submission. But I also read the guy as ‘tenured and doesn’t give a shit’ so maybe he wouldn’t want to learn how to use that particular system. (They tend to be… less than ideally user-friendly.)

        3. Sirksome

          I don’t think he’s an asshole…because machines aren’t capable of being assholes….yet. But seriously this probably wasn’t a gotcha moment so much as a way of provoking conversation or pivoting toward a lecture. It’s still the first week of class. In my experience no teacher really gives super heavy and in depth assignments the first week when students are still sorting out if they’ll even stay in the class.

        4. Regalli

          He starts out saying ‘they don’t have much time to waste’ and referring to presentations, plural, and then ends with calling students ‘annoyingly’ correct and saying they have time to waste now. I think he really did assign actual presentations (if only short ones) for the second class session and was expecting them to take up a substantial portion of class time until someone gave something resembling the ‘correct’ answer. The tone here is not neutral or even a ‘well, that was fast.’ It’s a bizarre choice for an assignment in the SECOND SESSION OF CLASS, but every indication is he went for the bizarre one.

          It is probably also worth noting that I’m bringing cross-universal knowledge to the table, and Professor Doc was DEFINITELY an asshole. So I’m maybe not being charitable based off that, but he’s not acting like a professor whose intent was to springboard a discussion off this. Or a lecture, for that matter, since now he has time to waste.

    2. Yotomoe

      I had an animation history class in college that I found fascinating. So I’d constantly ask questions and have discussions about what we went over. Years later one of my best friends told me that he and the rest of the class used to hate me because the class COULD’VE ended early each day but I was so engaged that the class lasted the entire allotted time. And like I was like “This is an art school that costs like 100 thousand dollars. Am I the only one who is really excited about this stuff?” I dunno I assumed art school students would be as hype about the history of cartoons as me.

      1. Wagstaff

        Might I say I highly admire your attitudes in education! Your experience actually reminds me of my own when I took US History among other things.

      2. Geneseepaws

        Is THIS a possible explanation for why we like the DYW’s comic so much? Is it a selection effect, or do we truly represent an accurate cross-section of the population?

        1. Clif

          I believe that there are several selection effects going on.

  10. Lanie

    Like Dina wasn’t going to get a question on evolution correct- the girl modified her attack call when peer reviewed research called for it.

    1. Regalli

      Right? Her interest in dinosaurs has always been entirely grounded in the understanding they were once living creatures, who inhabited an ecosystem, and were basically normal animals and not sci fi movie monsters where the only consideration is how cool they look/are. She recognizes evolution doesn’t have an end goal beyond ‘live to reproduce.’

      That said, I wouldn’t mind if she and the professor DO come into conflict over some sort of scientific philosophy matter, but I’m talking the kind of questions like ‘Is species a useful concept, given lines are frequently more flexible than our attempts to classify and categorize would suggest or care for?’ Or having strong but mutually exclusive opinions on the ecological niche of Spinosaurus, given the current debate. (Was it a wader? A semiaquatic ambush predator, a la crocodiles? An active aquatic hunter? Who fucking knows, man, it’s Spinosaurus, I half expect the next fossils we find to have fucking membraneous wings.)

      1. Chris Phoenix

        Species is a useful concept for some organisms, not so much for others. Clearly it’s not universally applicable, but a definition like “A group of organisms that has most reproductive success by breeding within the group, and makes reproductive selection accordingly” is pretty useful, even (especially!) when you have to study carefully to discern where and whether the boundary exists.

        1. Regalli

          I’m kind of expecting him to have fallen into a ‘pick the most reductive and incendiary argument that has any degree of truth to it’ rut with this probably 100-level class, honestly, so that would be the kind of nuance I could see him not being open to. Or believing, but being annoyed when students actually bring it up.

          That lowkey assumes he’s primarily research faculty as well, but you definitely get college faculty who act affronted that they actually have to teach the freshmen. That’s time they could be spending doing actually important things!

  11. Yumi

    Peace to that one guy who wanted this class to be frustrating for Dina or whatever

    1. Needfuldoer

      They got what they wanted, just backwards.

  12. Stephen Bierce

    *plays “Surfin’ Bird” on the hacked Muzak, specifically the singer “wretching” part*

    You’ve got a PROJECTOR in the classroom, don’t you? Show a movie!

    1. Wagstaff

      Would have gone with “Infotain Me” by Ochre.

  13. Geneseepaws

    I thought the answer was “people.” Cause we’re animals. But Dina and Becky got it best.

    1. SuperZero

      That was the answer Joyce thought was most obvious and therefore clearly wrong.

    2. Shade

      While yes humans are animals, we aren’t considered any more evolved, we’re just very good at out niche.

      1. Jamie

        Eh, not really. We figured out how to leverage tools in such a way as to defy niche partitioning, which, as far as I’m aware, is unique to us. Our niche, as I understand it, is really just being hunter/foragers on the African savannah.

        It doesn’t mean we’re “most evolved”. Just that we’re abnormal, as a species.

        1. Shade

          I don’t think we defied niches at all, what we’re doing I consider to be our niche.

        2. Tan

          Can you define what you feel our niche is? Because we do a lot of things, many of which we are not strictly biologically suited for.

        3. thejeff

          Using tools to avoid being confined in niches. That’s our niche. It’s kind of meta.

        4. Wagstaff

          Actually, what allowed us to break those confines is the ability to use tools to make other tools. It’s a uniquely human ability (at least according to a world history textbook).

        5. Yumi

          I recently read about birds doing that, though I can’t remember the source now to see if it was solid. Lots of articles about New Caledonian crows and the multipart tools they build, though, which is still pretty cool.

      2. Demoted Oblivious

        We have not even the biggest homo brains. Neanderthals had us beat there, but (iff irc) the theory is that our smaller brains gave us a reduced caloric need and thus a higher survival chance. (Plus the fact that we bred them in, rather than wiping them out).

        1. thejeff

          It’s not entirely clear what did in the Neandertals. There was certainly some admixture, but there’s little reason to think that had anything to do with their extinction.

          It’s looking like there were a lot more late homo species than originally thought, with fairly minor inbreeding between them.

        2. SuperZero

          I feel like “inbreeding” is the opposite of what you mean there.

  14. Kitschensyngk

    So just like everything else in the world, it’s all about sex.

    1. Shade

      In terms of evolution, the important thing is viable offspring that also produce viable offspring, because if you don’t have that a species dies.

      That includes non-sex related methods for ensuring a higher survival rate, such as in some species where previous children stay with the parents for a while to care for the next generation increasing how many survive.

    2. SuperZero

      Evolution’s not a moral force, it’s just a logical consequence. If a thing is more likely to reproduce, then it’s more likely to reproduce.

      Being better at sex can do that, but so can being better at survival. Or other factors.

  15. Nayann Martinelli

    Here hoping that someone answered the question using Pokémon as an example.

    1. Regalli

      Objectively, Eevee is the most evolved Pokemon. So much so we have a word for its evolutions. Obviously.

      1. Kyrik Michalowski

        “Eevee is the most evolved Pokémon” not technically accurate. Eevee is the most /evolving/ Pokémon due to it’s evolutions

        1. Regalli

          But since Pokemon only have a maximum of three stages (four if you count Mega Evolution/Gigantamax, but those are both temporary states,) we’d end up with a pretty similar answer but for completely different reasons.

      2. Uly

        I have no idea why we say “evolutions” when obviously they’re “metamorphoses”.

        1. Wagstaff

          That’s interesting. Why are they referred to as “evolutions”? What was the original Japanese word used?

        2. Yumi

          I don’t know how accurate it is, but I found this interesting: https://www.avclub.com/a-reader-tries-to-explain-the-thinking-behind-pokemon-1798249684

        3. Regalli

          Low space limits were definitely an issue for the Gameboy family, so that’d make a lot of sense. The anime was localized before the games, granted, and that’s likely what locked ‘evolve’ in as the term forever, but if they were looking for something biological- and permanent-sounding (rather than ‘transform,’ which doesn’t necessarily imply either) that fit two syllables/mouth flaps, I can see ‘evolve’ being the best option. Especially if Nintendo did have an eye for localizing the games if it did well – and they probably did – and was already thinking about cartridge space and word boxes. Add in the ‘this is how this word is usually translated’ or ‘okay, this one doesn’t really translate when applied to this context’ issues and yeah, everything about this sounds plausible.

        4. Chris

          Because “evolution” is the usual translation of 進化.

        5. Nayann Martinelli

          I’ve gotta say you are all a bunch of lovable dorks for indulging me like that. Thanks 😀

        6. DinaJoyce

          Thank you all for this discussion because my husband has been playing Pokemon Shield lately and I’ve been annoyed that Pokemon evolving obviously makes no sense in terms of actual evolution. Translation issue/software issue is an explanation I can accept, even though it will still bother me

        7. Shade

          There’s also just the fact the word evolve is easier even if metamorphosis is more appropriate its a bit of a mouthful if you need to say it frequently.

        8. Delicious Taffy

          Power Rangers solved that problem long before Pokémon was even around. Just say “morph” for short.

        9. Demoted Oblivious

          And copyright/trademark easily explains why “morphing” was off the table for pokēmon.

        10. Shade

          Morph doesn’t hold the same degree of permanency in one’s mind thanks to power rangers.

        11. Wagstaff

          If you think that’s annoying, you haven’t seen the sheer abundance of science translation issues in Dr. Stone.

  16. Wagstaff

    Looks like I was wrong about Professor Brock wanting to scope out the deepest thinkers in his class.

    1. Clif

      Not necessarily. He immediately found them.

      But then Dorothy isn’t in this class.

      1. Wagstaff

        I meant that it wasn’t his original intention, evident by his surprise (and mild annoyance) that someone actually got it right.

  17. Delicious Taffy

    It’s nice to see Dina in her element like this.

  18. Shitbird

    Told ya’ll

    1. Yumi

      The answer Dina gives seems too “generally the conscious” of the comments for this… if you want to get into people’s specific challenges of your wording yesterday, those still seem to stand; it was different enough from what Dina said that those things weren’t really addressed in comic.

      But I will agree the spirit of what you, like many, figured to be the answer matches the spirit of what Dina’s saying.

    2. He Who Abides

      It’s spelled “y’all”.

      1. Fist_of_Life

        Technically, I think Shitbird spelled it correctly. It was definitely miscontracted, though. “Miscontracted” apparently isn’t recognized as a word, but I’m leaving it in because I feel like it should be.

        1. Demoted Oblivious

          Guess I been filtered. Sorry for the post spam.

        2. He Who Abides

          Fair point, it was a miscontraction.

          Still wrong, though.

  19. Dark

    That’s not how this would go at all, but okay.

  20. DailyBrad

    Makes sense. Reminds me of when someone said there is no best weapon, just one best for its time, circumstances, and doctrine. Like, you can’t bring a howitzer to a duel.

    1. Keith

      HA! That’s what YOU think…depending on the rules agreed upon. Yes, indeed one can duel with howitzers. 🙂 Oh and while I’ve forgot most of it, the Code Duello is a fine piece of rules and a sure fire way to reduce actual violence.

      1. AbacusWizard

        “and a sure fire way to reduce actual violence”

        Did somebody say fire??
        *ratta-tatta-tatta-tatta-tatta*

        1. annarchy

          Little drummer boy play me on.

      2. Tawnee

        Surely the best way to reduce actual violence is to be in The War Room, you can’t fight in there.

    2. Wizard

      Sure you can. You just have to bring one for the other party, too. Seems fair enough.

    3. Reltzik

      Yes you can.

    4. davidbreslin101

      “You will stand back to back, and on the count of 3 walk ten paces away from each other before hitting a big red button that fires a nuclear missile to your opponent’s location.” (Nuclear Duelists’ Society Code of Honour, 1947.)

  21. Keith

    Darwin approves.

  22. Wagstaff

    Care to place your bets on what actually happens next?

    1. Yumi

      I’m not betting, but I will wildly speculate.

      Perhaps some rando will object to what Dina said, and Professor Brock will get to drag this out after all.

      1. Wagstaff

        And all without having to lift a finger!

        Just in case of this, I’ll make some popcorn! And prepare some rather fitting music!

  23. C.T. Phipps

    I hope he becomes Dina’s archenemy. One of the rites of passage in college is signing up for a subject you’re passionate about and then finding out the professor teaches the exact opposite of what you love about it. Possibly being completely wrong and nothing to do with reality.

    It teaches you much about the real world and power imbalances.

    1. AbacusWizard

      I took Intro to Metaphysics from a really annoying professor; I disagreed with him about pretty much everything and frequently said as much in my essays. Fortunately the essays were all graded by a T.A. who also disagreed with the professor about pretty much everything.

  24. AbacusWizard

    well that escalated quickly

  25. Sirksome

    “Adapted to it environment”….”Produce offspring”….Machines don’t do either of those things! Way not to pay attention to the material! Also you’re the only one who passes this class because this one trick question was worth 50% of the classes grade!

  26. drs

    How surprising, that Dina gave an answer easily found on various biology books or in popular evolution books. No professor could have ever foreseen this.

    1. Wagstaff

      Curious. How many students actually use their textbooks in those kinds of classes, anyway?

      1. drs

        I dunno. In *grad* school, computer theory class, I came across as superintelligent because I would read the text chapter before the (very fast-paced lectures) and would start the weekly homework (basically 100% proofs, i.e. something that takes creativity[1]) earlier than “the night before it’s due”.

        [1] Checking proofs is fairly mechanical. Discovering them is an art, with results often coming on waking up, or in the shower. Something that wants time and relaxation, not last minute stress.

        1. Wagstaff

          Thank you. But it doesn’t quite address the original intent of my question. Were you being sarcastic when you remarked that “no professor could have ever anticipated this”?

        2. drs

          Yes I was being sarcastic.

        3. Wagstaff

          Well considering where this is taking place, perhaps there’s a reason why Professor Brock doesn’t expect much from his students? *hint* *hint*

  27. Bagge

    Stop laying traps for students, you smug fuck!

    Like, the assignment was great. But don’t go in expecting students to fail (and don’t tell them) – and when they nail it you don’t get into a huff about it. You ‘yes and’

    1. Bagge

      Like, just imagine how Leslie would have followed up on someone giving the correct answer. She’d be all ‘awesome! Now let me explain in more detail and with more examples and we’ll all actually learn something today’ (when she did that marriage division of household chore thing with Joe and Walky comes to mind)

    2. Regalli

      I was willing to entertain the possibility that he wasn’t an ass and was intending to ‘yes, and’ it yesterday despite my established bad vibes, but it’s definitely validating to know my immediate ‘jackass who doesn’t give a fuck because he’s tenured’ impression was, if not spot-on, at least close.

      1. StClair

        10 points to Regalli.

        and -10 points because I said so, fuck you.

        😛

  28. Some1

    Honestly, I feel like the Professor dramatically overestimated how difficult the question really was. Like that’s a question I would give to middle or early high schoolers. Did he honestly expect an entire class of college students (even freshmen) to not immediately figure out the trick?

    1. Yumi

      Maybe it worked once and so he keeps trying it

    2. Regalli

      You’d be surprised how little some faculty think of freshmen.

      Or undergraduates as a whole, for that matter.

      Or having to teach, because they’re REALLY here to do research.

      Some professors really suck at their jobs.

    3. RassilonTDavros

      Eh, depends on the educational system they’ve grown up in. I’ve known plenty of relatively-smart people who would almost certainly get this wrong, simply due to never having been taught about the subject properly. (For reference, I’m from Texas, the state of people poorly-educated enough to elect “Cancún Ted”.)

      1. JBento

        Ah, the Goldilocks state. Doesn’t work when it’s too cold, doesn’t work when it’s too hot, and when it’s just right it exploits people who aren’t white.

    4. Lexi

      I think if it had been first term, you may have still caught the freshmen with not enough critical reasoning to consider the prof would give a trick question where the answer is “That’s not a thing.”

      A lot of kids (myself included) would have spent an annoyingly long time searching for the “right” answer that I assumed the figure of authority was looking for. And there’d be a lot of cursing as I came to the conclusion that the question was horribly vague and non-specific, but it would never occur to me that the answer was actually “this question is dumb and not how we think about it.”

      1. Clif

        If you simply google it, you would find the answer fairly shortly. What are the odds no one in class would do that in their annoyingly long time searching.

    5. Keulen

      I’m guessing he didn’t expect any of these freshmen students to actually give him the answer he wanted on the first try.

    6. thejeff

      Well, Joe and Joyce had decided on dolphins, so at least some of them would have not figured it out.
      Beyond that, lots of people here were discussing various other approaches to answers. I’d guess the odds were pretty good that he’d get at least a few wrong answers before getting the real one.

  29. Owlmirror

    I started watching “Crash Course Zoology” (a PBS/Nature Youtube series, about 15min/episodes), and the very first episode covered exactly the topic of Brock’s question: no species is more (or less) evolved than any other. So, as noted above, easily discovered by anyone paying attention to actual biology.

  30. Reltzik

    So the question for Panel 4 is whether Joeyce has adapted enough to reproduce yet.

    …. well if you weren’t thinking it earlier, you are now.

    1. Yotomoe

      Hanky Panky for the express purpose of procreation.

    2. Jamie

      Obligatory “that’s not how evolution works”.

      1. Wagstaff

        Evolution works on the population level. Natural Selection works on the individual level. A LOT of people don’t get that.

  31. Huehuetotl

    ok, but pandas are carnivores that eat grass and have to sleep all the time because it doesn’t give them enough energy from it. And they get distracted from sex so easily, there’s less than 2000 of them left in the world. And they do handstands to pee.

    The correct answer is everything except pandas.

    1. Wagstaff

      The saddest part is that even if a panda had a baby, she’d probably kill it immediately simply because she’s never seen one before.

      That said, had they been allowed to die, pandas would have gone the way of the dodo a long time ago.

      1. Darastrix

        See also: Koalas. If you put eucalyptus leaves on a plate, they won’t eat it because they can’t recognise them out of context (and it’s really bad nutritionally, which is why they sleep up to 22 hours/day). Their brains are basically smooth and they have no real capacity to learn, because all they’ve evolved to do is digest about 50 out of 600 types of eucalyptus, sleep, and mate. Plus most of them have chlamydia, which can’t be cured because the way their systems have developed to digest and filter out the toxins from their food also cause medication to be filtered out the same way (and the medications that have been tried that don’t do that affect the bacteria in their gut so they can’t digest the only thing they eat).

    2. Darastrix

      wrt panda sex, in the wild, they have three-or-moresomes, and mate repeatedly. It’s just hard to breed them in captivity because females are only fertile once per year for less than two days.

      Zoologist George Schaller in 1981 actually observed wild panda sex after having been tracking a female called Zhen-Zhen. She was pursued by a small and a large male, the larger one attacked the smaller multiple times, and finally mated with her 48 times, about once every 3 minutes, and more recently, a long-term study of pandas fitted with radio collars in the Qingling Mountains showed that females give birth reliably every other year, and 60% of cubs survive their 1st year.

    3. Eldritchy

      Also koalas, just… koalas.

    4. Yotomoe

      I mean, they’re dying out for a reason. There’s a very real chance they’ll die out in our lifetime. Its partly us pesky humans keeping them alive.

      1. eh, whatever

        Oh bullshit. What’s endangering them is the loss of habitat. Pandas have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, there’s absolutely no reason for them to die out now – other than us cutting down the bamboo forest.

        1. Yotomoe

          Oh we’re playing a big part, sure. But also the reason their habitat is so integral to their lifespan is because of their really inefficient food source. Bamboo takes almost as much energy to digest as it replenishes, so they gotta eat a shit ton to sustain themselves. And they refuse to eat anything else. Which causes them as a species to be rather lethargic, especially compared to other bears.

  32. He Who Abides

    Is it just me, or does Panel 4 Joyce look like she’s trying to emphasize her chest to anyone else?

    1. Loki

      Just you.

      1. Clif

        She’s trying to evolve.

    2. Reltzik

      Joyce trying to emphasize her chest would look 30x as awkward and self-conscious and just completely bonkers.

    3. Yotomoe

      Trying to distract Becky with her jiggling. How underhanded!

    4. Regalli

      Almost certain it’s just how the plaid pattern’s going.

    5. Demoted Oblivious

      Just you. Joyce may have her head pulled back in shock/surprise, but contrary to male opinion and hollywood, apparently women rarely flaunt or emphasize their body parts to attract our gaze. It’s almost like they’re independent beings with their own thoughts and motivations beyond finding a man, getting pregnant, and raising kids. (but that’s taking the argument much further than I think you intended).

      1. He Who Abides

        I sincerely hope that your extra argument was an attempt at humor.

        1. Demoted Oblivious

          Any sufficiently advanced form of parody is indistinguishable from the real thing.

  33. Eldritchy

    Dina looks kinda like a prophet delivering the Enlightened Truth…

    1. Wagstaff

      What she espouses can actually be falsified via observation — an essential tenet of real science.

      She’s the opposite of a prophet. And that is a good thing!

      1. Eldritchy

        Unless she becomes a member of Adeptus Mechanicus… Imagine, Cyborg Dinosaurs.

        1. Wagstaff

          Personally, I’d rather become a Planeswalker. That way I don’t have to spend over $400.

  34. Rainhat

    I’ve had classes where the instructor clearly wanted to blow some class time on a Journey For Truth, only to have a student nail it right away. It’s always fun.

  35. Rabisch

    Joe and Joyce look so amazed. I wonder if anyone in the class had found the correct answer or just Dina and Ruth. What will they do now?

  36. Barf Ninjason

    Ain’t no correct like annoyingly correct

    “Bureaucrat Conrad, you are technically correct – the best kind of correct!”

  37. Friendly Frankenstein

    …which seems to indicate either the prof didn’t MEAN it as a trick question, or assumed no one would get that. I’m leaning towards the latter.

    1. Friendly Frankenstein

      I am also so, so happy I got this icon. Correct Vibes.

    2. Keulen

      I’m also betting he didn’t expect anyone to get that it was a trick question. Or at least, certainly not the first pair of students to give their presentation.

    3. Makkabee

      I concur.

    4. Daibhid C

      Yep. The point of the exercise was for everyone to explain why it’s octopodes, or humans, or beetles, or humans, or those things that can survive in the Antarctic but also in volcanoes, or humans, and then Professor Brock gets to say “Everybody is WRONG, and none of you understand how evolution works!”

      Professor Brock is not a great teacher.

      1. Segnosaur

        A bit early to conclude he is “not a good teacher”.

        The ideas of evolution and biological niches is a rather important one. Had he started the class with “nothing is more evolved than anything else”, he would have instructed the students but they might have forgotten soon after. Perhaps with the “tell usvwhat you think… Nope you are wrong” the message might register in their brain better.

        After all look at joyces and joe’s face… They look like they are both shocked and are undergoing some realization.

  38. Geneseepaws

    Just want to say that you cannot blame the porpoises for global warming, they might have done, but without opposing thumbs, just not gonna happen.

  39. darkoneko

    Great Scott

  40. Zaxares

    Called it! 😉

  41. Makkabee

    SCIENCE, bongoES!!!

  42. MrSmith

    Why do the characters always look a bit arrogant and smug when their eyes are closed, like in this strip or Becky in the previous strip or even Danny in this strip: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/05-as-long-as-its-free/bicycle/

    (Of course it might also be my interpretation of the facial expressions)

    1. RassilonTDavros

      Probably because we all subconsciously associate that facial expression with Faz.

      1. MrSmith

        I never considered that but it makes quite a bit of sense

  43. Julez

    …I’m not sure I want to admit that I realized today Julia Grey is a play off Joyce Brown. Like… I knew she was a self insert but the name didn’t click til just now.

  44. Segnosaur

    Here is a question…

    From the class participants this appears to be an intro to biology class. I assume Dina is in a B.Sc.(biology) program… Would she have not taken the intro course earlier (in the fall semester)? Or does that university not offer that course in the fall? Or are there multiple science courses she has to take and this was the time she had to fit it in her schedule?

    (My university had intro zoology , microbiology and botany classes running every term.)

    1. thejeff

      She had some kind of biology class last semester, but I don’t think we know what it was. Becky mentioned sitting in on it with her.

      It may be there are two low level bio classes that she needs, that aren’t requirements for each other.
      Looking at IU’s classes, it looks like Willis is on top of this. 🙂 For a BS in Biology, the first semester is Biological Mechanisms and the second Evolution, Diversity and Ecology, which sounds like this one.

      1. Geneseepaws

        Willis is always on top of his game.

  45. RowenMorland

    “I was looking forwards to making most of you look like idiots by having you publicly answer a trick question and then bashing your answer in front of the class, but I picked the wrong group to lead with.”

  46. Beau Kirin Maysey

    AND ALL THE BIOLOGISTS IN THE COMMENTS SECTION CHEERED

    (… um, I’m assuming… )

  47. Deanatay

    “Blast. I was hoping the team most eager to go first would, of course, have the stupidest theory. I suppose I should have known that, when the project itself is a trick question, that the stupidest theory would of course be the correct one. I had hoped to spend the entire course laughing at each report behind my sullen mask, but now it seems I must find other ways to torment my students. Perhaps have them report on how Lamarckian genetics affects DNA sequencing…”

  48. Jammy

    Panel three Dina just made the longest book title in the history of DOA.

  49. Daniel M Ball

    Now, see, here we see the proof that Dinah is a true scientific mind, and that Becky is learning from her the correct way to look at both scientific, and pseudo-scientific discourse.

  50. Pylgrim

    Annoyingly correct is the best kind of correct!

  51. JediMB

    Every other student who wasn’t going for that answer, screaming their heads:

    “SAFE!”

    1. JediMB

      screaming in* their heads

      I swear the “in” wasn’t missing when I hit the post button.

  52. RassilonTDavros

    A minor detail I only just noticed, but Brock has sclera now.

  53. Spencer

    Awaiting the reveal for Professor Doc being Joyce’s uncle.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      I think I made a similar comment a while back, actually! He changed his name from “Brown” to “Brock” because he got really tired of people calling him “Doc Brown.”

      Or maybe he’s Hank’s half-brother from a different father, I dunno. Maybe as Carol became more controlling she forced Hank to stop speaking to him because of his eeevil-utionism.

      1. Regalli

        Pre-character development, Hank said ‘Hitler was an atheist, too, you know’ when meeting Dorothy and her parents. I don’t think he would have needed forcing so much as convincing.

        1. Wagstaff

          Hitler’s religious views are actually a matter of debate even today. Honestly it’s hard to tell what he was the years prior to and during WWII because half the time he was on crystal meth and seventy other drugs.

        2. thejeff

          It was actually that Hitler was maybe partly Jewish – which is worse in context.

        3. Wagstaff

          Major oversimplification as usual for this topic.

          His expressed views were characteristically chaotic throughout his years, especially the ones just prior and during WWII.

          His extreme drug problem likely played a major role in that regard.

        4. BBCC

          That is what Hank said though and it is super shitty.

        5. Wagstaff

          Wait, what did Hank say?

        6. Yumi

          That Hitler was maybe partly Jewish.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/moral/

        7. Wagstaff

          Christian, Jewish, doesn’t matter.

          Weight of authority, supernatural or otherwise, ensures compliance to ANY instruction, moral or immoral.Instructions to withhold lifesaving medical treatment from children. Instructions to mutilate their genitals.

          Beliefs that ensure raw compliance have no intrinsic moral value.

        8. Yumi

          Okay. I think some people were just trying to speculate and talk about the comic, but okay.

        9. Wagstaff

          Sorry. What Hank said was so shitty that I just couldn’t help myself. If I don’t say it, who will?

  54. Tsath

    They’re right. But the most correct answer is “Prof, you’re a schmuck for asking the question.”

    1. Tarnagh

      Yes, but possibly not if they want to pass his class. 😉

  55. mrnoidea

    Huh. Just the other day I was pondering a similar idea—“The purpose of humanity is to adapt.”

    Also, awesome job, Dina and Becky. You saved plenty of students’ bacon today.

  56. walterw

    just spitballing here but what if the most “highly evolved” things are the things that have been around the longest? constantly evolving the whole time?

    wouldn’t that make basic bacteria that have been at it since before there was oxygen on earth the “most evolved” and relative noobs like humans the “least evolved”?

  57. Kelly Chase

    Its Doc from Back To The Future

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