369

Inerrant
Posted on February 25, 2013 by David M Willis

369 thoughts on “Inerrant”

  1. someguywithakatana

    Am I going crazy, or was there a conversation to this effect back in “It’s Walky”?

    1. Regalli

      I believe there was one after Dina’s death where Joyce said since Dina was an atheist that meant she ended up in Hell? And then Walky got angry. I’m not sure about evolution.

      1. someguywithakatana

        No no no. like… Walky’s line about Dinosaurs not being friggin chickens. I am so sure Willis wrote that at some point prior to this.

        1. Wack'd

          This may be the comic you’re looking for.

        2. Tucker

          Walkypedia strikes again.

        3. Groove

          I’ve been spoiled by the modern comics, I’m not sure I’ll ever enjoy the old ones now.

        4. Gordon Blvd

          on the flip side, for me being the noob on all this, it’s pretty
          friggin cool when y’all share the history =)

        5. Punk Thug

          I DON’T get it!!! Are these the same people as in the other comics?!?!

        6. Mal

          They look alike, and they have the same names, but it’s a different universe. You don’t have to know the other stories David Willis has done with these characters, and in fact, you may be better off (in some cases) not knowing.

        7. Rideps1

          They are the old ones that Shortpacked! is the current iteration of, which is Willis’ other comic. In a parallel dimension. The same characters are used but it is a different story, and Shortpacked! is a lot later than here, since Roomies was in college and that was… Years back.

        8. Josh

          Same Multi-Verse, different Universe. 😉

        9. Samuel Larkin

          Wack’d, can you please provide an updated link to that particular Walky strip, the link you provided does not work anymore.

        10. David M Willis

          All you have to do is replace “itswalky” with “joyceandwalky.”

        11. David

          Feathered dinosaurs being likened to mere chickens is a pretty common epithet.

        12. Animal

          As opposed to crocodiles, which are likened to my ex-wife’s mother.

        13. Khrene Cleaver

          Sorry to say but thats watcha get for marring into a family of ‘gators man.

          You might’ve gotten into a fresh water family but there always one whose gonna be a little salty.

        14. Volkai

          Oh, Animal. *snerk* You’re- you’re just the best.

        15. Tenn

          On the one hand, that’s just stupid. Like “ha ha, look at that silly giant chicken with its huge fangs, razor-sharp claws and lightning reflexes”.

          On the other hand, it’s understandable but still stupid. Yeah, a feathered raptor might not immediately make you run away screaming like an unfeathered one, but from the raptor’s point of view, how is that a bad thing?

          And you tell me what’s scariest: Freddy Krueger, or Freddy Krueger wearing full makeup and a feather boa?

        16. Khantalas

          If anyone has enough confidence in themselves to go out in public wearing full make-up and a feather boa, it automatically marks them as a dangerous mofo.

        17. Gears

          And now I have my next Halloween Costume.

        18. lokitsu

          I demands pictures.

        19. Gears

          You’ll be waiting a while, but when I do it, sure.

        20. Somebody

          Velociraptors were small…

        21. Narf

          Note: OP said “Raptor,” not, “Velociraptor.” There’s more than one kind of raptor.

        22. Khrene Cleaver

          Freddy… Make up and a boa… DEAR LORD

        23. Narf

          I would still run screaming from a large creature with teeth and claws that ate meat, feathered or no.

        24. Bill M.

          Oh, but think of how many McNuggets you could get out of one dinosaur chicken…

        25. Reepicheep-chan

          People who feel that way do do not know shit about chickens. Chickens are fucking monsters.

      2. thelastnerd

        Holy spoilers, Batman, some warning would be nice. Willis, what happened to keeping discussion of the other universes OUT of the comments?

        1. Regalli

          Sorry!

          To be fair, though, the comments when she first appeared were going something like “It’s Dina! SHE’S ALIVE!” back then. I thought it was one of those things that was no longer a spoiler because everyone knew it.

        2. Gaiash

          Well in my case I didn’t start reading the comments until I was up to date unless it was a comic I wanted to see what people said about. I’ve only been up to date for a few pages now hence me not really being a familiar face (well ok, Rayquaza is but I’m not).

      3. Gaiash

        Whoa, careful with those spoilers. Some of us haven’t got around to reading the rest of David Willis’ comics yet.

      4. Somebody

        If Dina is just going to die, I’m never reading that comic. And I’m pretty sure only certain dinosaurs are believed to have had feathers. There’s no reason that a triceratops would have them.

        1. JesseS

          Not feathers no, but very possibly hair-like bristles.

          Early ceratopsians had bristle like quills covering their tails and some of their boddies, and while there isn’t, yet, evidence of this in Triceratops it isn’t hard to imagine.

          http://www.livescience.com/23655-fanged-dracula-dinosaur-fossils.html

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psittacosaurus#Integument

      5. me

        I’ve thought a lot about that (is it any wonder I can’t remember anything important?). Sacrificing your life for those you care about? I know of a pretty well connected guy who would identify with that. And his opinion pulls a lot of weight.

      6. Heavensrun

        I actually liked that conversation. It highlighted an aspect of religious belief that doesn’t get addressed much. I know a lot of people in the atheist community that take it very personally that people believe they are going to hell, but Joyce made the point that she doesn’t -choose- to believe they go to hell, or -want- them to. She just thinks it happens, and she doesn’t understand why or agree with it. It’s just the way things are, in her mind, not the way she wants it to be. It’s why I try to be patient with people who proselytize, because they believe they’re trying to save people from a legitimately horrible fate.

        I think they’re -wrong-, but I appreciate the good intentions.

        1. L.K. Crocuta

          I’m patient up to the point they start insulting me personally. (I don’t consider saying I’ll go to hell an insult, FYI, to me that’s more mindless babbling than anything.) At that point, I react poorly. In one case, a dude called me evil, so I told him he was evil, flipped him off and cussed him out before moving away as quickly as possible.

  2. NCP19

    Man, Walkyists should be more prevalent whenever this subject is argued.

    1. George

      I actually kinda agree with Dina on this… Joyce at least has a consistent philosophy behind her position, even if it is anti-scientific and not really suited for the modern world. Rejecting proven facts because the alternative is “cooler” is just pointless and arbitrary.

      1. Resne

        Rule of Cool, yo.

      2. Josh

        To be fair, Walky is very smart. I doubt he believes it, he just wants it to be true.

      3. HEYOUGUYZ!

        FALSE> rejecting proven facts because they are not cool is not pointless: it makes the world seem cooler. rejecting proven facts because they are not cool is not arbitrary: in fact it it highly conditional. Logic, George.

        Also, walky is wrong. Feathers need not be uncool. If dinos have dino fuzz, then carnivorous dinos can have gore soaked dino fuzz. like a milk moustache, but redder, and all over.

        1. gangler

          Seriously. Look at a hawk swooping down to grab a tiny creature from behind, break the creature’s spine with its talons and carry the limp, numb, but still very much living and fearful creature off to be eaten is peace and solitude and tell me that feathers aren’t badass.

          Owls poop skeletons. They poop. Skeletons. Bird predators are the most badass kinds of predators. It makes perfect sense that they are descended from dinosaurs.

        2. Somebody

          Sharks have been known to eat license plates and other junk. Orcas throw prey around and are capable of biting giant holes in great white sharks.

      4. sun tzu

        But I doubt Walky actually believes dinosaurs had no feathers “just because it’s cooler”. The actual facts about dinosaurs are irrelevant to Walky’s life – to him, they might as well be dragons. Fantasy creatures that he likes for the sake of imagination, not because they’re part of reality.
        Joyce, on the other hand, genuinely believes evolution never happened.

        1. Andiemus

          Exactly. He was asked his position on dinosaurs having feathers. I’d be shocked if he even understood that Dina was asking because Joyce actually believes it’s untrue.

  3. Khantalas

    Walky, you manage to make Joyce happy and Dina sad.

    Why are you such a horrible monster?

    1. Andiemus

      It’s becauze his caramel physique has no heart. He’s like a caramel version of clayface.

  4. David Herbert

    And there goes another old pairing out the window.

  5. littlespeck

    Isn’t there a relevant xkcd?

    1. littlespeck

      http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/feathers.png

      1. TacosForever

        Man, somebody should tell Walky that little tidbit about raptors.

      2. zakrael

        Was juuuust about to post that. >.>

    2. Josh

      There is ALWAYS a relevant XKCD.

  6. Aizat

    I agree with Walky. Feathered dinosaurs doesn’t look awesome when you get down to it.

    1. someguywithakatana

      http://www.sdnhm.org/archive/exhibits/feathered/images/dei_head.jpg

      Your argument is invalid.

      1. Mark

        Dude I was in a dark room when I clicked that, nearly jumped out of my skin.

      2. an ancient indian burial ground

        Actually, that picture just made me gain an unwavering belief in the validity of Aizat’s opinion.

      3. Aizat

        Looks better without the feather.

      4. Regalli

        And that’s like the third thing that comes up on a Google Image Search for “Feathered dinosaurs”. HOW IS THAT NOT BADASS?

        1. Aizat

          Because somehow, dinosaurs can’t seem to rock the feathers look thant and I have a preference to dinosaurs without feathers.

        2. JustDucky

          I think you’re looking at it wrong. Keep in mind that only a tiny percentage (the estimate is around 2%) of species are preserved in the fossil record. So we don’t actually have anything like a complete picture of the full extent of what was alive back then. Given that and the fact that dinosaurs evolved into birds…

          Flying velociraptor.

        3. Jacob

          Then again, remember when everyone said T. rex could see based on movement and was a hunter? Now they say its smell was its primary sense and that it could also be a scavenger. Just because a hypothesis is popular doesn’t mean it’s the correct one.

          That being said, I reserve judgement on feathered dinosaurs until there is undeniable proof besides impressions that could be feathers or collagen spikes caused by compression of the tissues. However, I still accept Archaeopteryx with feathers since its anatomy undeniably proves it.

          My biggest gripe is how pop science wants to stick feathers on every dinosaur.

        4. Kintrex

          Not all of them! We still think Carnotaurus was unfeathered. That’s pretty good, right?

        5. insomniac

          The “t-rex hunts by movement” thing was never a real theory, as far as I’m aware. It was something Chriton made up for his book. Jack Horner was a proponent of the “scavenger tyrannosaurus” theory for years before Jurassic Park came out.

        6. Li

          Not only is that untrue, Criton went out of his way to correct the science in The Lost World.

          He really made an effort to get the science as real as he could, and I think he obviously would’ve done it right the first time if he could’ve.

        7. insomniac

          Where can the hypothesis be found that suggests tyrannosaurs could only see moving objects?

    2. Amphicoelias

      What sources have you been looking at, they look badass as hell. Besides, feathers does not detract killing efficiency and they look more interesting and like animals than monsters.

      1. begbert2

        I’ve seen pictures of ’em looking fuzzy. A tyrannosaurus in his mink coat.

        The ‘giant plumes’ version seems a bit unlikely given the scale of the animals. Some three foot long raptor, sure, it can be plausibly plumed up. But I’m not certain that a tyrannosaur is likely to have feathers big enough to alter his outline much. He’s got a big outline.

    3. adrien

      Many felt like Walky at first : http://english.bouletcorp.com/2012/12/20/when-chicken-ruled-the-earth/ And then they read that strip from xkcd.

      (Make sure to check the mouseover text and the bonus in the comment section.)

    4. |Agent

      I don’t know about that. Feathered dinosaurs would probably be very much like Terror Birds, which were well-named.

      1. Jacob

        Is that the 9′ flightless bird from Australia or Oceania or somewhere around there?

        1. Narf

          South America, I believe, but yeah.

        2. L.K. Crocuta

          You’re probably thinking of dromornithids, sometimes referred to as “demon ducks”. The above mentioned terror birds, or Phorusrhacids, are considerably more badass, by virtue of having sharp talons, ripping beaks, a carnivorous diet and in some cases meathook-like claws on their wings, as opposed to the demon duck’s hoof-like nails, crushing beak and unknown diet that even if carnivorous likely didn’t include much active predation. On the other hand, there was actually some timeframe overlap between humans and the most recent species of demon duck, so…

  7. Regalli

    Well, it’s progress at least.

  8. Milosh

    3rd panel Dina is best Dina.

  9. Mkvenner

    Why I am getting a sense of déjà vu?

  10. Aizat

    So, Joyce is kinda like that one fan that agree with the Word of God but kinda open to new interpretation?

  11. Sensedog

    I can foresee potential complication.

    Well, further potential complications, at any rate.

  12. Thores

    Oh no Dina’s favorite picture is tainted now 🙁

  13. TPman

    I love Ethan’s face in panel 3.
    That is the exact face I would be make while praying to be struck by lightning.

  14. Wonder Wig

    Why does the last panel hurt my feelings somehow??

    1. Doctor_Who

      Perhaps you were a giant chicken in a previous life.

      1. Wonder Wig

        What are you talking about? I’m a giant chicken now. Bawk.

        1. ArkhamTexan

          SEE! THAT’s WHAT I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO TELL EVERYONE ALL ALONG! HE’S A CHICKEN, I TELL YOU! A GIANT CHICKEN!

        2. Wonder Wig

          I used to work at the Chicky Licky restaurant until the microwave exploded. And now… I am Chickenfoot! A freak! And I’ll always be a freak!

        3. Regalli

          Awk! Awk! It comes! IT COMES!

        4. Roborat

          Oh no, they are on to you Boo, run!

  15. Bryy

    So, okay, yeah, whatever.

    Sums Joyce’s character arc back in It’s Walky up perfectly.

  16. Tylertlat

    It was Joyce. Then it was Dina. Now it’s Walky. New favorite character now.

    1. Aizat

      HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER: ENTER LUCY!

  17. Uniqueantique

    I’m not sure Joyce is open to new interpretation of anything. As she says, there is nothing in the Bible saying that dinosaurs did or did not have feathers…”so I suppose I can technically believe that right? So okay, yeah, whatever.”
    This does not sound so much like open as brush off.

    1. George

      I don’t think it’s “open” but I do see it as progress. It sounds to me like she’s only a Biblical literalist because that’s what she’s been taught and it’s not a strong part of her worldview, so she doesn’t see a need to defend more than what she likely parroted from a teacher or priest. A lot of literalists that I know would keep the argument going because learning new things from fossils is “evolutionist” and/or because they saw it as a chance to keep pushing against evolution in general.

      1. Dr.Z

        “I don’t think it’s “open” but I do see it as progress. It sounds to me like she’s only a Biblical literalist because that’s what she’s been taught and it’s not a strong part of her worldview,”

        Does it matter if she believes in evolution or not?

        She’s not stuffing her beliefs down other peoples’ throats.

        She’s upfront with why she believes something and is trying to exit a tense discussion.

        It seems like you have this big hope she can be converted and “corrected.”

        Why does that matter?

        1. George

          It mostly matters (to me at least) because Biblical literalism as a philosophy carries some nasty baggage, like homophobia and sexism. I’m also generally concerned about what happens to society if too many people reject scientific thought for any reason, as scientific inquiry leads to a great deal of beneficial technology but tends to need either government support in early stages or a large number of willing “early adopters” to make new tech commercially viable.

        2. Kryss LaBryn

          This, with a side of “My stupid country uses American textbooks so get it right, dammit.”

        3. insomniac

          She carries around Chick tracts. It’s out of good intentions and honest ignorance, but she still peddles the worst parts of the fundamentalist worldview.

          And, you know, it does make a difference that there’s a significant portion of the US electorate that sees ignorance and denial of science as a positive, and even a requirement, in elected government officials. This is harmful.

    2. Ragnal

      Does the bible even MENTION dinosaurs?

      I mean, I know what I said a few days ago, but…anyone? Are they ever brought up? Old testament? New testament? Anyone?

      1. George

        Some people choose to interpret it as doing so in a desperate attempt to protect their literal view of it from reality. I don’t remember the most common passages but I’m sure someone does.

      2. LazerWulf

        There’s a mention of a “Leviathan” in Job 41. I think that’s as close as it gets.

        1. insomniac

          And Behemoth, also in Job. The Bible mentions a couple of giant monsters that were a part of the myths of the day, and people like Hovind (*spit, bite thumb*) parade those out as evidence of dinosaurs.

      3. Plasma Mongoose

        The word dragon pops up from time to time, the word dinosaur didn’t even exist before the 1800s.

        1. Darkflame

          I think its quite likely that the myths of dragons (at least, if its a western idea of dragon) were based on Dinosaurs.
          I mean, its not like Dinosaur bones wouldn’t have been around all over human history. They must have invented storys to explain them.
          [/kinda offtopic]

        2. Jacob

          As far as I’ve read, that’s exactly what is was.

  18. thomas0comer

    If feathered dinos are not awesome to you then either
    a. You are not looking at the right arts, or
    b. You are stupid. Possibly both.

  19. Romanticide

    there will be blood… there will be blood.

    1. Wack'd

      It might be yours.

      1. thomas0comer

        So go kill someone.

        1. Regalli

          Signed, Bad Horse!

        2. thomas0comer

          I got really worried for a bit that nobody would get that and I’d come across as a crazy person.

        3. Andrusi

          Nah, we all saw the operation you tried to pull today.

        4. Cybersnark

          But your humiliation means we still vote neigh.

        5. cookie1995

          And now assassination is just the only way

          (yes I’ve already referenced this song but it is awesome enough to be referenced twice)

      2. cookie1995

        So go kill someone signed Bad Horse

  20. Joe H

    If you’ve never seen a hawk or eagle or vulture rip open the flesh of it’s prey or didn’t think that it was completely balls to the wall friggin awesome, then I feel nothing but pity for you.
    I’m okay with dinosaurs having feathers.

    1. thomas0comer

      Exactly. It makes them MORE badass, even. What’s cooler, some pokey lizard thing that has to sit in the sun every day to live, or a fast, dynamic predator?

    2. Rook

      I never understood why chickens always seem to be people’s go-to model for birds. Chickens are kinda the inbred hicks of the avian world (somewhat literally) and should hardly be used to represent the species as a whole.

      1. begbert2

        It’s probably because chickens are familiar and spend a lot of time walking around on two legs, as the obviously flightless dinos did. Flying birds seem much less like dinosaurs because they don’t act like dinosaurs must have: they are poor walkers because they fly all the time.

        Yes, there are other birds that would be even better parallels to dinosaurs, ostriches being the most obvious candidate, but when you say “flightless bird” to the average person, the first thing that pops into their head is what they had for dinner last night. Which doesn’t exactly inspire fear.

  21. Mark

    I still hate Joyce. Her character just pisses me off, though I understand why it’s needed for the story. Every college has their religious fundies. Dina makes me smile in this comic.

    1. someguywithakatana

      I don’t know that I hate Joyce necessarily, but I’m not really a fan of the way she’s been characterized in DOA. In the original comics, she was a religious conservative, sure. But she was a lot more multi-dimensional than that. She had problems and motivations that stemmed from things other than her religious beliefs and she just seemed a lot more human. In DOA, she has quirks, sure. Not every moment of her life is defined by religious fundamentalism. But it seems like every time she’s on panel, if she’s not there to have a really quick joke, like in the shower scenes, she’s there to take a potshot at religious fundamentalism. She doesn’t really have any major moments for herself that aren’t defined by that, and it’s difficult to really like a character if the only time she gets to really ‘be a character’ is so that a contrast can be drawn between the ludicrous nature of her beliefs and the rational nature of the beliefs of those around her.

      1. someguywithakatana

        On the other hand, I’m comparing 1 version of a character that had years of characterization to one who’s only had a few months, and that’s certainly part of the discrepancy, but I feel the basic point still holds true. DOA Joyce just seems a bit… flat compared to her predecessor

        1. Kelly

          She seems way more filled out than Roomies! Joyce (I really notice since I am reading Bring back Roomies).

          IW! Joyce had had a lot more experiences than DOA Joyce, so that is a whole different comparison

        2. Notebooked

          I agree with you, but I think it’s partly because there’s such a big contrast between the environment she grew up in and the environment she is in now. She’s in an unfamiliar climate and being confronted with lots of other viewpoints, so I think she’s bound to get defensive or self-concious.

          Also, IW!Joyce really started getting fleshed out more when she got kidnapped by aliens and thereafter mind-wiped, right? So her religion would have to be a smaller part of her for a while, since she wouldn’t even know she had it.

        3. Tenn

          To me, DoA Joyce is a lot more realistic than early Roomies! Joyce.

          Early Roomies! Joyce was Danny’s self-proclaimed future wife (read: creepy stalker) who loved all things cute and was mortally afraid of “premarital hanky-panky”. That’s all there was to her. Then character development happened, and Joyce eventually turned into one of the most complex and likeable characters in the Walkyverse.

          DoA Joyce takes what little personality early Roomies! Joyce had and adds everything that was missing to make R!J a believable character. Perhaps not complex and likeable, but believable.

        4. someguywithakatana

          Well apparently I’m in the minority on this, so I’ll go ahead and surrender.

        5. MichaelHaneline

          You’re not in the minority. I don’t find her particularly believable either.

      2. ASmellyOgre

        Are you forgetting the entire part where she was nearly raped only a few days ago (in-universe time) and is suffering from that psychologically, hence immediately jumping into a relationship with the least threatening guy she knows in a desperate attempt at normalcy?

        1. someguywithakatana

          Not entirely. I don’t view that as being a necessarily separate issue given that a big part of her behavior leading up to and during said attempted rape and subsequent attempt at normalcy is largely attributed to her extreme innocence and naiveté, which we’ve established is largely due to her religious upbringing. Yes that is an issue she is going through that isn’t directly a result of her beliefs, but it’s been punctuated by traits of hers which are.

          Plus, it’s a bit of an exception that proves the rule sort of deal. It’s THE thing she’s been used for that wasn’t a strip or series of strips that weren’t about fundamentalism.

          Don’t interpret anything I’m saying all that literally mind you. I’m not saying she hasn’t had any characterization outside of commentary on religious fundamentalism. I’m just saying that as a general feeling, she doesn’t seem to have many qualities that don’t relate to it in some fashion or another. And this probably wouldn’t bother me if not for the fact that I can’t really help comparing her to the original Joyce who was just a lot more fleshed out of a character.

          All of the characters are going to feel a little flat compared to their originators. Mike doesn’t have the heart of gold we got from his marriage and the birth of his child. Walky hasn’t had a struggle to come to terms with his responsibility for the lives of others conflicting with his lack of a desire to mature. And Sal hasn’t had her struggle to find her identity and sense of self-worth. But those characters all still feel very human, whereas Joyce just kind of… doesn’t… She seems a bit more like a caricature than a character.

        2. George

          Ironic, then, that she’s based on 1997 Willis.

        3. David

          To me, she’s the realest character. Maybe some folks just don’t know what being a fundamentalist is like. The things I believed in and the pervasiveness of those ideas might seem to stretch credibility… unless you lived it.

          Believe me, I lived it.

        4. George

          I know what you mean… Didn’t grow up in it but was around it for years. Took me about a month to realize some of the people around me were serious.

        5. someguywithakatana

          That’s a fair point. In honesty, I think I may have miscommunicated what I’m trying to say.

          It’s not that I don’t think it’s believable or credible for someone’s religious views to pervade every aspect of their life. It’s that Joyce is so often used so that the comic can have an excuse to talk about some kind of real-world issue (political, religious, etc.), and usually so that she can take the place of the “wrong” person in the discussion that its difficult to really have a sense of her having an identity outside of that.

          If I could use an admittedly imperfect analogy, in DOA she sort of reminds me of the people who come into the Shortpacked store to complain about toys so that Ethan can reprimand and/or mock them. Except there it works because those characters legitimately only exist so that they can come in when you feel like talking about X and then leave. Whereas Joyce is one of the protagonists. Or at least one of the central characters. And she has an identity and role in the narrative separate from being a mouthpiece for a set of ideas. But it’s difficult to appreciate that when it feels like half the time she just kind of showed up so that she can look foolish or naive in comparison to the rest of the cast.

          Honestly, I don’t know if that’s quite right or not. What I’m certain about is that DOA Joyce just kind of bothers me in a way Walkyverse Joyce didn’t, and I’m giving my best attempt at articulating exactly what it is about her that’s throwing me off.

        6. David

          Read this: http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/10270379367/some-people-who-read-roomies-and-its-walky

        7. JustDucky

          I think maybe you haven’t been around very many fundamentalist Christians. Especially in the south, and especially when they are teenagers, their beliefs are a huge portion of what they talk about with outsiders. They have to be. Think about it:

          With regards to your personal life, every fiber of your teenage being wants sex but you are told that it is dirty and wrong and (if you are female) it makes you dirty and it makes you worthless. Your ONLY value lies in your “purity” and your fidelity to God. Popular culture, on the other hand, tells you that your primary value lies in your sex appeal – your appeal as a dirty whore.

          With regards to your education, if you are home schooled (and a lot of these kids are because their parents distrust public education and can’t afford private schools) then every single subject you are taught has a religious aspect. History is about God. Literature is about the Bible and books written about the Bible. Social Studies are about the deterioration of the world around you because people are shutting God out. Science is about creationism. Even math books take on a religious tone (no, I’m not kidding).

          And with regards to your public life… Well, you spend all of your time around people who believe the same thing you believe. And you are taught that anyone outside your delusional circle jerk is going to burn in the fires of hell for all eternity. God loves you and He is going to -torture- all of them For All Eternity. Period. Full stop.

          Oh, and the End of Days is coming. In your lifetime. Possibly next Tuesday.

          Add to this the call to proselytize. You are going to Heaven because you are Saved. You accept Jesus Christ. All of the people around you who don’t accept Him (specifically, your church’s version of Him) are going to hell. Part of serving Jesus and being a good person is to convert others. They have books and DVDs and seminars dedicated to teaching their flocks the best ways to do this.

          Fundamentalist Christianity is all consuming. It is all consuming by design. You can’t leave the church if you have no place else to go and no one else to turn to.

          For a more journalistic perspective on it (I’m speaking largely from personal experience) pick up a copy of American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America by Chris Hedges.

          Joyce is very, very real. I went to middle school with her. I went to high school with her. I even met her a few times after I fled to a college far away from the South. And I see her every time I visit family.

        8. JustDucky

          Oh geez that was long. Sorry about that. >.<'

        9. Quinctia

          There are people that are just THAT into their Christianity, and since Joyce seems to be raised in that sort of household, that most everything she does is punctuated with that belief system isn’t surprising. I don’t know that this is something that’s common with the majority of Christians in western society, but it’s quite common in the fundamentalist communities that do home schooling…the situation that Joyce was described to have grown up in.

        10. Lu

          I keep reading that Joyce is partially autobiographical, and you used to be a fundamentalist christian. I’d actually got curious enough to google it. First time I’ve read it “from the horse’s mouth” so to speak.

          On one hand, I’m really, really curious and on the other, I’ve never been the nosey type (in people anyway). I feel compelled to ask, what’s the deal with the change?

        11. Dr.Z

          I, too, would be curious for further enlightenment on this change of perspective.

        12. Kryss LaBryn

          We might find out when Joyce goes through a similar transition. After all, she is mostly autobiographical, at least for the fundie bits.

        13. Pinja

          @Kryss LaBryn: Willis also has big tits

    2. Pinja

      I much prefer Joyce. Dina is far too one note. Joyce is more complicated.

      1. begbert2

        In the last three comics Dina developed a ton more notes (and several new facial expressions). Before she was just “autism girl in funny hat”; now she demonstrates that she has the brains and active opinions that, well, it would take to actually get into college.

        Sure, Joyce is a bit more developed, but she’s had about ten times as much screen time. Dina still has a lot of potential.

  22. otusasio451

    Willis, just stop approaching these so-called “controversial” topics. We all know which side is right. Clearly…feathered dinosaurs are far more awesome than dinosaurs without feathers. It’s a one-sided debate, really.

    1. Dr.Z

      Your Gravatar is very appropriate.

  23. Sir Robin

    Poor Ethan, what’s he got himself caught in?

    1. Aizat

      A foursome?

  24. Dierna

    Technically there’s nothing in bible about dinosaurs period, Joyce.

    1. JA

      One could really reach and say that Leviathan and Behemoth were actually dinosaurs.

      As in, really, really reach…

      1. Aizat

        Well, if that’s the case, we could also reach that Kaijus are also dinosaurs. I don’t know where I’m going with the Bible and kaijus but….

        1. Totz the Plaid

          Well, Godzilla/Gojira at least is a mutated dinosaur (at least that’s the original idea, I don’t know if it still holds up in canon) and _some_ others, like Anguirus can be interpreted the same way, but then come others like Mothra (clearly a giant magical insect), Mecha-Godzilla (clearly a robot), and Ghidora (clearly a three-headed dragon alien from space) and even Jet Jaguar (clearly a size-changing android)… Well, if you still think all kaiju are dinosaurs, you’re missing the mark completely, my friend!

        2. Aizat

          Gorosaurus, Rodan, Varan, Titanosaurus, Baragon, and Godzillasaurus(yes it counts as a separate entity thanks to time travel)

        3. Aizat

          Well, in GMK:Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, King Ghidorah is the protecter of the Earth.

    2. David

      Depends on who you ask. I grew up believing certain passages were talking about dinosaurs.

      1. thomas0comer

        Like everything about Jesus?

        1. David

          Answering your joke with a serious reply:

          Job 40:15-24 and Job 41:1-34

        2. Amphicoelias

          Hippo and Crocodile

        3. David

          It’s the specific passage (sometimes translated as) “tail like a cedar” that makes folks think it’s a dinosaur. Because cedars are pretty wide, and hippos have these little dinky tails, while a brontosaurus has a huge trunk-like tail.

        4. Stormrunner

          But did Brontosaurus really exist as anything other then a genus of Apatosaurus? Personally I prefer the Pastor I grew up with interpretation of it all.

          Dinosaurs existed b/millions of years ago. We don’t know how long a day is to God. Could be that many years plus.

          Course he also believed in evolution of a type as well. AKA didn’t believe humans came from apes, but was pretty sure we didn’t stand completely straight at the beginning and probably don’t have as much hair as before.

          I was very fundamental – VERY.

          Course going to art school opened my mind – it was scary the first 6 months XD.

          Sorry for random sentences trying to convey thoughts is hard at midnight XD.

        5. John

          You know, I think it’s kind of a moot point now.

        6. HiEv

          “Brontosaurus” is actually the old name for the Apatosaurus due to an early mistake where they thought that the Brontosaurus was a new species of Apatosaurus, but later discovered that they’re the same species. Since the Apatosaurus was named first, that is the scientifically correct name for that species.

          Feel free to use your “paleontology snob” card now to point that fact out whenever someone incorrectly says “Brontosaurus”. 😉

        7. Totz the Plaid

          Technically the brontosaurus was the apatosaurus… just with the _CORRECT HEAD_. “Apatosaurus” even means “deceptive lizard” referring to the false head.

          So, technically the brontosaurus is correct, but science decided to make the first, inaccurate name official for reasons that I cannot fathom.

          (I also like the name “brontosaurus” more, but that’s not the main reason for my distaste for the naming choice.)

        8. Raen

          You’ve got it backwards. The apatosaurus has the right head. “Deceptive” is because it was initially thought to be aquatic.

        9. Andrusi

          The reason you can’t fathom is that scientific names are one of the few places where “First!” is actually worth something.

        10. Jacob

          Technically, Apatosaurus was the first discovered, as a juvenile. Later, the same guy discovered the adult version w/o head and called it Brontosaurus, found a Diplodocus head a mile away and said it was correct even though it didn’t fit. (Fun fact: Brontosaurus is still correct because of a big deal concerning PO stamps, and it was decided that since many people know it as Brontosaurus it is its ‘Common name’, like how we don’t call a Red-tailed hawk a Buteo jamaicensis)

        11. JA

          Brontosaurus didn’t exist period…they and apatosaurus are one and the same.

          Dina would be very disappoint in you 🙁

        12. John

          Cedars, in my experience (which may not be the same as experience with Middle Eastern cedars, admittedly), are little scrubby trees. I’ve got one here by the corner of my house that’s at least 50 years old, and the main trunk is still less than a foot in diameter. It’d hardly make a brontosaurus tail. The branches are kind of remniscient of a hippo tail, though…

        13. John

          Oh damnit, I meant my moot comment to go to this one. It’s late! I just had to deal with Seth MacFarlane for five billion hours. Everything hurts.

        14. Andiemus

          I thought Leviathan was some kind of like pre-creation abomination.

        15. JA

          Well, in Supernatural they are.

          Loved the concept, but that turned out to be a rather weak season 🙁

  25. Eskay

    Hooray for Dina!

  26. Nexev

    There isnt much on the bible about evolution either, I had a theory that if God did write the bible he was intentionally vague on a lot of shit so he wouldn’t have to explain everything.

    1. ASmellyOgre

      Yeah, just imagine trying to explain the origins of the universe, Earth, life, and man to a bronze-age nomad. It isn’t going to come out right.

      1. Lu

        If you must take up that reasoning, maybe the origin WAS explained and all the insane gibberish in the bible is merely misinterpretation.

        I personally find it funny to imagine God (as a disembodied voice) trying to explain the big bang in terms of singularity mechanics and quantum superposition for the 18th time to a protorabbi and the guy just going “Fuck it, god did everything in six days”.

        1. Jacob

          ^ This. This I like.

        2. Narf

          One of the many dozens of reasons why faith and science don’t have to try and destroy each other like so many militant religious folks and militant atheists are TOTALLY CONVINCED they do. Good show, Lu. 🙂

  27. Cabooceratops

    Heresy! Dina, DESTROY HIM.

    1. Aizat

      Heresy grows from idleness.

  28. Doctor_Who

    I support feathers on dinosaurs because it makes them look more like Talon from Primal Rage, and he was always my favorite character to play in that game.

    1. Dr.Z

      Feather mohawk = win. 🙂

  29. Count Dracula

    Tomorrow: Dorothy comes in, and gives her opinion on feathered dinosaurs.
    Wednesday: Sarah comes in, and gives her opinion on feathered dinosaurs.
    Thursday: Jason comes in, and gives his opinion on feathered dinosaurs.
    Friday: Ruth comes in, and gives her opinion on feathered dinosaurs.
    …..
    January 23, 2035: Tony comes in, and gives his opinion on feathered dinosaurs.
    January 24, 2035: Galasso brings the table their pizza.

    1. thomas0comer

      …and gives his opinion on feathered dinosaurs.

      1. Doctor_Who

        “Galasso’s assembled an army of predatory chickens!”

        1. Geegles

          January 25, 2035: A feathered dinosaur comes in and steals their pizza.

  30. Wack'd

    I spent the weekend finally reading the Understanding Comics sequels and will therefore lose it if Walky puts on glasses.

  31. Shay Guy

    Has Joyce Brown ever read all four Gospels?

    1. George

      That was a really interesting article. Nice to know there are people willing to not only acknowledge that the Bible can’t be literal but challenge others of their faith to read the darn thing before trying to teach/preach it.

      1. insomniac

        It’s true, but people taught in Joyce’s tradition have some truly mind-bending explanations for how it’s still all literally factual.

  32. Ryan

    I dislike you, Joyce. I dislike you very much.

    1. Dr.Z

      So you don’t like people who disagree with you & are polite about it?

      1. The1exile

        The concession about dinosaurs is okay, but she’s needlessly bongoy about Walky’s arrival IMO. It’ll probably sail over his head, though.

        1. Pinja

          How soon we forget:

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/06-strange-beerfellows/skywizard/

      2. insomniac

        Everyone has the right to their own opinion.

        That does not entail the right to their own facts.

        The position that up is down is not, in fact, worthy of respect.

  33. nena

    People like Joyce make my ass tired.

    1. ridtom

      You should really see a doctor about that

    2. Dr.Z

      So you don’t like people who disagree with you & are polite about it?

      1. begbert2

        Joyce’s politeness varies.

        And I don’t like it when people “disagree” about fundamental and rather obvious facts of reality. Especially when we’re not supposed to treat these people like the mentally handicapped for it.

      2. Li

        Kindly stop pretending Joyce’s opinions exist in a vacuum. Lots of us have lots of real world buttons that are pushed by someone a lot like Joyce shrugging off reality just like she does here and then proceeding to legislate based on that.

        Some of us are not allowed to marry the people we love because of Joyce’s “opinion”. It doesn’t matter how polite SHE is about it — and I’m with others who say her politeness varies. Her original response to Dina was positively snarky and superior, just with a sweet tone of voice.

        Joyce’s right to her own opinion is somewhat hampered by her insistence on judging other people because of it (Joe springs readily to mind, not to mention Dorothy and Walky), but also by her real-world counterparts who loudly want their provably-wrong version of young Earth creationism to be actively taught in schools alongside evolution because they don’t understand evolution or science in general well enough to understand why the difference between the colloquial “I’ve got a theory” is different from “the theory of evolution”.

        Once an “opinion” is being literally forced on others — limiting their medical decisions and their rights to marry — it ceases being an innocent opinion, and the politeness of its delivery ceases to be a relevant factor.

  34. ridtom

    Wow Dina is really starting open herself up to people, and all it took was an argument with Joyce!

    1. Aizat

      Well, it began with an arguement and ends with friendship for some people.

      1. Cybersnark

        Like Nanoha.

  35. Amphicoelias

    If anyone wants a badass feathered dinosaurs I got two species for ya, Therizinosaurus http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Therizinosaurus-cheloniformis-105733823 and Yutyrannus http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Yutyrannus-huali-297548408 which is a relative of tyrannosaurus rex

    1. spaceinvader42

      Ironically, as badass as therizinosaurus looks, it was actually a peaceful herbivore that used its massive claws for stripping leaves off branches, instead of disemboweling prey.

      1. Amphicoelias

        I’m aware, they also helped to defend it from the likes of Tarbosaurus when that encounter ever happened or Tyrannosaurus if the recent Alaskan and Canadian trackways are to be believed.

      2. Kelly

        Maybe. Last I heard (The Dinosaria 2nd ed., 2004) we still did not have a clear idea what Therizinosaurus was up to with its weird morphology. The whole of Therizinosauroidea is pretty oddball and a lot of question marks remain.

        Though whatever Therizinosaurus was about, hypercarnivory was probably not it.

        1. Amphicoelias

          New complete Dinosauria released in 2012. At this point herbivore status is confirmed. Claws helped it bring down leaves and could be used for defense. Big gut to help it digest food and teeth shows they are ideal or plant grinding but not chewing so most likely might have employed gizzard stones. More species of Therizinosaur have been found, Nothronychus and Beipeosaurus

        2. Kelly

          Ah, thanks for the info. But what 2012 book are you referring to? From what I see, The Dinosauria 2nd ed is still the newest, though a paperback(!) version was published in 2007 it seems. There was the Princeton Field Guide in 2010…

        3. Amphicoelias

          The Princeton Field Guide by Gregory Paul? As for what book I’m referring to, it is the Complete Dinosauria Second Edition by Thomas Holtz, M.K Brett-Surman and James O. Harlow which was published in 2012 by the Indiana University Press

        4. Baroncognito

          Apparently you’ve got that title wrong. The book you’re referencing is titled “The Complete Dinosaur, Second Edition”

        5. Kelly

          Oooh, THAT one! Yeah, I should have realized! Darren Naish of Tet Zoo even has a chapter in there (on birds), so I really should have… Reminds me I really need to get it. Hm, down to about $50 on Amazon…

          Kind of odd that a BANDit (Ruben) gets a voice, but I guess it is probably just to smack the crazy down and get it out of the way.

      3. Animal

        Herbivores can be badass. Examples in the present-day are not lacking; see: Cape Buffalo.

        1. Kryss LaBryn

          Also: Moose.

          Given the choice of running into a black bear in the woods or a moose, I’ll take the bear, thank you very much.

        2. L.K. Crocuta

          Also-also: Hippos. Just friggen’ HIPPOS.

      4. Marcos Dantas

        So … a vegan ninja?
        Prety badass to me.

  36. LazerWulf

    When talking about whether or not Christians believe in evolution, it’s important to point out that there are actually two types of evolution, micro-evolution and macro-evolution. Micro-evolution deals with small changes within a species, i.e. the beaks of Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos were all different, depending on their preferred food source, but they were all still finches. Macro-evolution is the change of one species into another, i.e. monkeys to humans. Most of the “evidence for evolution” that Dina talks about is for micro-evolution, and as a Christian, I can believe in micro-evolution. Macro-evolution is what I have a hard time believing (two words: “transition forms”). Could dinosaurs have had feathers? Sure, why not? Did some dinosaurs have more in common physiologically with birds than reptiles? Possibly. Is the reason we don’t have dinosaurs nowadays because they all evolved into birds? That’s a little bit too much.

    1. LazerWulf

      To Quote Neil DeGrasse-Tyson (one of my personal heroes): “The great thing about science is that it’s true whether or not we believe it.”

      Truth cannot contradict truth, but nothing science has “proven” has contradicted the bible.

      1. Stormrunner

        All of them no – but smaller ones like Raptors and Archaeopteryx definitely. There is plenty between Archae and birds today that show the evolution of just one claw instead of 2 and then the disappearance of it (there are actually 2-5 claws still in a birds wings just very small or fused – depends on the bird). In fact the whole Oviraptorosauria line links to birds.

        Then you have Crocodiles and Turtles and komodo dragons on the other end of the spectrum.

        Not all Dinos evolved into birds.

      2. Bekah

        *You* quoting Neil DeGasse Tyson like that seriously just broke my brain.

        1. Kelly

          That level of cognitive dissonance is impressive really.

        2. Raen

          Especially since I’m pretty sure this was exactly what he was talking about.

      3. wynne

        Tell that to a geologist.

        Seriously though, in a geology class one of our assignments was to write an essay explaining just how wrong a creationist “scientist” was when he tried to claim that the Grand Canyon holds a record of the great flood. Sediments don’t work like that.

      4. Marcos Dantas

        … Because this isn’t the science job. Science isn’t about attacking beliefs. This is a collateral damage.

      5. Raen

        There’s a saying – “proof is for math and whiskey.”

        The world we have is not the one we would expect if the Bible were true. That’s all that can really be said.

      6. Andiemus

        Except for snakes not talking, women not being made out of men’s ribs, 2 animals not being enough to start a species after near-extinction, the entire concept of bacteria, and the earth and humans being much older than an allegedly infallible book says. But really, other than that.

        1. Pinja

          “2 animals not being enough to start a species after near-extinction”

          Not impossible I think, just improbable. Moreso over several million species.

        2. begbert2

          You reduce the entire animal population down to two members each, and then run your maths again. Protip: improbabilities multiply. Each time.

          I’m pretty sure all we’d have left would be the bugs that may-or-may-not have gotten seven members each. If them.

        3. John

          There’s also the problem of actually fitting two representatives of each of those species into a boat about 450′ x 75′ x 45′. I date my solidification into a non-Christian back to when I was about six and the Sunday School teacher could not or would not give me a satisfactory answer as to how that happened.

        4. begbert2

          This is funnier when you add in the dinos, as young!Willis was apparently wont to do.

        5. Marcos Dantas

          “Not impossible I think, just improbable. Moreso over several million species.”

          Impossible.
          Think isolated villages and the incidence of idiots.

      7. MontyPla

        Two things:
        1. Finch is not a species. It’s a type of bird. Darwin’s finches were still finches, yes, but they were different species of finch. Which was the entire point. They were related, but different.
        2. You’re using that quote entirely wrong, and I don’t think Neil would appreciate that.

    2. BigCheese

      No. When talking about this it’s important to point out that macro-evolution is micro-evolution over longer periods, and the only people who make that distinction are creationists who can’t actually deny observed evolution without displaying their full ignorance.

      The fact that you say”two words: transitional forms” as if that were any sort of argument, shows that you don’t actually know anything about evolution, as we have THOUSANDS of transitional fossils, everything from primates linking humans to apes, to archaeopteryx which links dinosaurs and birds and even insect transitional fossils. They’re on display at countless museums. Please, educate yourself.

    3. David

      Believing in microevolution but not macroevolution is exactly like believing you can add 2 + 2 but not 4 + 4. The distinction between the two terms — nay, the terms themselves — are awful psuedoscience on the level of thetons and unicorns. The very reason the terms exist is because evolution is demonstrably true, and a bullwark was needed.

      1. Darkflame

        Indeed. Not only would god need to not use evolution – god would need to actively prevent it for the distinction to make sense.

      2. Andiemus

        /)*(\

    4. Crumplepunch

      The distinction between micro and macro evolution and your apparent disregard for transitional form evidence can be dealt with in one.

      First, it is important to understand that every form is a transitional form. Distinct species are a convenient for purposes of taxonomy, but the distinction between evolution within a species and evolution into another species is ultimately without a hard definition. It is simply a matter of time and scale.

      If you expect to find transitional forms halfway between one modern animal and another, you will of course not find them, because that’s simply not how evolution operates. All modern creatures have been evolving for the same amount of time and share, when you go back far enough, common ancestry. As we would expect, we find transitional forms between ancient and modern animals, including evidence of divergence from recent common ancestry to multiple modern species, such as, for example, the very robust examples of some dinosaurs evolving into birds, or a hippo-like land mammal to modern whales.

      As for science contradicting nothing in the bible… well, I’d start at Genesis, and go from there.

    5. Carlos Futino

      Everybody already pointed out the problem with th “macro-evolution” thing, so I’ll focus on a different thing.

      Lot’s of creationists use the “monkey-to-human” example. I’ve even heard something like “if humans evolved from monkeys, how come there are still monkey nowadays?”. thing is, humans DIDN’T evolve from modern monkeys. No one ever said they did. What’s been said is humans and monkeys have COMMON ANCESTORS. There’s a big difference there.

    6. Totz the Plaid

      Everything everyone else said to tear apart your arguments is also true, but let’s boil it down to something simple that you’ll find easier to swallow:

      Selective breeding.

      Chihuahuas and sheepdogs are both dogs.
      Both were specifically bred for specific traits.
      Both ultimately come from wolves.
      I couldn’t think of two breeds that are more different (there probably are, but none came to mind in the 30 seconds I spent thinking before typing this).

      That’s evolution, just actively guided instead of nature taking its own more _seemingly_ random course.

      Also: plant breeding. Discovered and practiced by Christian Monks.

      Yes, Christian Monks were using EVOLUTION for their own practices long before Darwin made his voyages.

      Evolution: it’s a thing.
      Deal with it.

      1. Raen

        DFTBA.

    7. Marcos Dantas

      The process of speciation is ocurring right now with a species of buterflies here, at (Central) Brazil.
      There is three populations of these butterflies and the northern and southern groups aren’t compatible anymore. The middle populations proofs they are still related somehow.

      1. insomniac

        Ring species are awesome.

    8. Raen

      The issue is that you can’t really define where the line is.

      Don’t come back and say “information,” because you can’t define that, either. There are two definitions in use by most: one (Shannon information) is observer-dependent, and one observer-independent. An observer-dependent definition begs the question, since who was there to observe the evolution of modern life? For the observer-independent definition (by which, as you’ll mockingly say, “dafhdaggburiewb” indeed has more information than “cotton”), we can see it all the time. Neither works.

      Don’t say “UDI” in response to that, either, because that’s not a mainstream scientific concept as it’s often presented, but rather an exclusively creationist concept set up for this purpose. That wouldn’t matter if it actually could be useful, but to say that life has “purpose,” “meaning,” or “intended action” again begs the question.

      “Created kinds” so obviously begs the question I don’t have anything more to say.

      And finally, don’t try to turn it around and say “but you can’t define where the line is to say it can happen” – I don’t need to. The point is that there is no line, at least for that purpose. A difficult definition of “species” across time is exactly what should be expected if they came about by slow divergence setting up barriers.

      One last thing – once they look into it enough, the “microevolution” most creationists end up accepting cuts off the tree of life at a few million years back in lines other than our own – and they put it in the space of a few thousand, from the Ark to antiquity. In other words, your “microevolution” is more powerful than any biologist would ever dream of.

      1. insomniac

        Right. “Species” isn’t a discrete or intrinsic property of a living creature, it’s a category of convenience for studying them.

        Every organism is completely unique in all the world. All life on earth is a slight variation on adulterated carbon. Species is part of a useful classification between the two perspectives.

    9. Kryss LaBryn

      http://laelaps.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/horseevosimple.jpg

    10. Axel

      Is the reason we don’t have dinosaurs nowadays because they all evolved into birds

      Wait, what? Who said that? Of course that’s not the reason. Some dinosaurs evolving into birds that survived a worldwide climate shift has nothing to do with other dinosaurs dying out after that shift.

      That’s like saying, “I don’t believe anybody ever wins the lottery, because I don’t think it’s plausible that there are no poor people because of the lottery.” Taking two independent events and tying them together with an implausible relationship doesn’t make either event implausible.

      1. tahrey

        Ah, the good ol’ “evolution happens to all members of a species equally at the same time” nonsense argument. Otherwise known as completely and quite possibly deliberately misunderstanding the process being described.

        It acts on each individual separately, and each individual can go on to have descendants who may then themselves number in the millions, after enough generations, each one carrying that advantageous (or at least, neutral) mutation. Over time, with enough geographical separation or competitive factors, the subgroup carrying a certain bunch of mutations will find they have decreasing and eventually no success crossbreeding with what counts as the “original” flavour (more likely a group that was undergoing a similar amount of entirely different mutations, though it’s possible they didn’t change appreciably), and you have a new species.

        A new species has appeared, but the old one hasn’t vanished in the process. PART of it has been altered, but then both the altered and unaltered parts reproduced enough across a great enough span of generations that this loss was no longer noticed and did not in itself contribute to the decline of the original.

        Or, tl;dr —
        Dinosaurs were just big lizards, and we still have both birds AND lizards today. They both, however, reach certain size limits for flying and land-bound species which is dependent upon physical bioengineering issues of oxygen transport (and therefore energy generation rate) for the muscles that move them around and keep the blood flowing. Back when megasaurs were common, the air was a lot more oxygen-rich than it is today, and so comparitively larger animals could survive (also, much larger insects, and pretty large flying animals) without needing to give over 95% of their body volume to lungs. The modern survivors of that period are relatively small compared to dinos, but are some of our largest reptile species, e.g. the Crocodile, Komodo Dragon…

        1. tahrey

          hmmm that tl;dr went a bit wrong.

          Let’s try again.

          Birds BRANCHED OFF FROM *Lizards*, of which Dinosaurs were merely the biggest members. They then died out when global oxygen levels fell (presumably as a result of a meteor killing off a great deal of flora), leaving only the smaller ones that we know today. Evolution branches and splits, it doesn’t make wholescale changes. It’s natural selection that sees to the removal of things from the gene pool.

          tl;tl;dr;dr
          Srsly how dum r u

        2. Raen

          Not lizards.

        3. Raen

          Actually, reading more thoroughly, you’re wrong in a lot of ways: the dinosaurs branched off from crocodiles about 245 million years ago, and the birds, by lineage at least, are a subset of dinosaurs, of which all the others are simply now extinct. The crocodiles and dinosaurs had split off from the ancestors of lizards and snakes about 5 million years before their own split. It is true that the oxygen-poor environment has favored smaller land species, but that’s about it.

          So, bottom line, a crocodile is a lot more closely related to a heron than either to a komodo dragon.

    11. Alex

      Yes, it is technically correct that nothing in science can be proven with absolute certainty to be true; the idea is to make the leap of faith required to accept something as short as possible. Finding the answers in an ancient religious text is no good; we want to understand the answers.
      So we can choose to believe that all the evidence for evolution is being misinterpreted( which, for all we know, could turn out to be the case some day) and all life was created by a supernatural entity independent from any known laws of physics, or we can choose to believe the evidence is showing we’re on the right track and, if organisms can change a little in a small amount of time, then organisms can change a lot in a large amount of time. From a scientific perspective, accepting the latter takes a much smaller leap.

    12. JustDucky

      Wait… “Transition forms?”

      So, do you acknowledge the existence of metamorphosis? As in, do you understand that tadpoles turn into frogs and that caterpillars turn into butterflies? These are processes that you can observe with the naked eye over a very short period of time.

      Given that a single animal can become a completely different animal in a matter of weeks, how on earth can you assert with a straight face that a species cannot evolve into a different species in a matter of generations?

      As an aside, you might want to take a peek at the Farm Fox Experiment. Within about 10 generations, silver foxes lost their scent glands, started going into season twice a year instead of once a year, were considerably larger, had tails that curled and ears that lopped and coats and eyes that were completely different colors than those of the animals from which they descended. None of these changes were adaptive. They all just manifested as scientists selected for a single trait: willingness to take food from the hands of researchers. So, umm… What would you call that?

      1. David

        god wants to give us pets

    13. insomniac

      Micro-evolution isn’t a thing. It’s just a way that creationists say “LA LA LA LA DOESN’T COUNT”

    14. tahrey

      I’m not going to get into a big meaty discussion here, I’m just going to point out one … no, two rather important facts, which will probably conflict rather badly with your deeply held beliefs in other ways:

      1/ Microevolution x Deep Time = your beloved Macroevolution

      2/ The fossil record is EXCEPTIONALLY patchy.

  37. Kernanator

    Walky still has a superpower in this universe: the power to make any awkward situation infinitely worse.

  38. arjay2813

    your vote should have ‘friggin sweet monsters from a 93 film’ though i say that b/c of the contrast between jurassic park (probably my most favorite book, and one of my most favorite movies despite all the various errors), and jurassic park III….the only thing good about that movie was they brought back Grant, and Tea Leoni. the feathered raptors compared to the non-feathered everything else was just silly

  39. dontpressenter

    I know I should probably comment on something more significant than Dina’s facial expressions, but…Dina’s facial expressions.

    1. George

      I know, right? They’re just great.

      1. Kirt Dankmyer

        It’s also nice to see her with an expression other than “blank”. 🙂

  40. Focka

    I… honestly do not get Walky’s POV (which, going by the comments, is apparently a common one in the US?)? How does ‘having feathers’ = ‘dorky chicken’? Do feathers somehow negate all the bloodthirsty facts about the raptors/dinos (aka the things that made them ‘awesome monsters’ to him, before)?

    Walky’s position actually reminds me very strongly of the 1800-anti-Darwin cartoons/discussion. (“Our ancestors are monkeys!”)

    1. David

      Check out this thread for, yeah, folks bein’ butthurt about dinosaur feathers, solely because of Jurassic Park: http://www.allspark.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=92082 That thread didn’t inspire this story thread, as I work really far ahead, but it was weird to see it spring up after having written it.

    2. Andrusi

      Walky is used to associating badass monster dinosaurs with a reptilian appearance. Giving them a more birdlike appearance makes them cease to match his mental image.

  41. LittleWyvern18

    all religious bulwarks aside, this comic also makes me wonder what dinosaur might have tasted like.

    1. David

      Probably closer to chicken than alligator.

      1. Kelly

        Or like ostrich or something… And the Ornithischia (duckbills, triceratops, et al) and Sauropods might have tasted rather different from the Theropods.

      2. Heavensrun

        And…have you eaten alligator, Willis? 0_o

        1. Viktoria

          I have, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he did. Travel to states on the Gulf of Mexico sometime, alligator isn’t all that hard to find. It’s white meat, not as good as boar, but fairly flavorful.

      3. Marcos Dantas

        If the situation come to be, it would more probable that the dinosaurs wondres how WE taste.

    2. JoeMerl

      Fish, according to an old “Animorphs” book I read ten years ago.

    3. Darkflame

      The problem is we lump all Dinosaurs together.
      Its like saying Cow,Chicken,Duck would all taste the same. Dinosaurs wernt one species.

  42. John

    Dina is being so emotive! It’s awesome.

    1. John

      I’m Ethan as my gravatar now! I suddenly feel so… beardy.

      1. John

        Nah, Joyce is the beard here.

        1. John

          There’s a beard somewhere, at least, fellow John.

        2. John

          I’m just glad you didn’t get Billie. That would’ve been inconvenient.

  43. YggiDee

    Anyone who thinks feathered dinosaurs can’t be awesome has never seen footage of a Cassowary about to go for the lungs.

  44. Plasma Mongoose

    When I think of feathered dinosaurs, I think KFT (Kentucky Fried T-Rex).

  45. Crumplepunch

    Dina is secretly shipping.

    Oh yes.

  46. Plasma Mongoose

    With all this talk about dinosaur feathers, has anyone actually found any preserved dino-feathers or do they only have feather prints?

    1. Shade

      Due to the nature of feathers they can’t fossilise the way bone does, so they will look like prints yes. But besides that there have been discoveries of preserved protofeathers in amber. Because amber is awesome at preserving things.

      http://news.discovery.com/animals/dinosaurs/dinosaurs-feathers-amber-photos-110915.htm

      1. Kelly

        They have found the pigments from feathers as well. Microraptor apparently had iridescent black feathers, for example.

    2. Amphicoelias

      True pennaceous feathers are known in both oviraptorosaurs (specifically Avimimus, Caudipteryx, Similicaudipteryx, Nomingia, and Protarchaeopteryx) and deinonychosaurs (specifically Microraptor, Jinfengopteryx, Rahonavis, Anchiornis, Velociraptor, and NGMC 91 “Dave”), either from actual fossilized feathers or feather attachment points on bones.

      1. Kelly

        I wish we could “friend” users on here. Well, consider yourself friended! Are you in the field or “just” an amateur? Either way, awesome!

  47. wynne

    *slow whistle*

    Daaaaaaamn Walky, in that third panel you’re lookin’ fiiiiiiiine.

    1. Greenygal

      Oh, wow, he’s wearing his nice new non-hoodie shirt, isn’t he? I was so distracted by all the dinosaur drama I missed this historic event.

      1. George

        I did too!

  48. tahrey

    Daw … poor Dina.

    But at least it’s got her talking a little rather than just spacing out.

  49. Anonymous

    “Sorry, I believe that two plus two is five, so I can’t really give in on the whole ‘square’ thing (like the one you’re holding up in front of my eyes).”

    1. Anonymous

      (Alternative approach: “But…! These are two groups of two peas, right?” “Yep.” “And this is one group of four peas, right?” “Yep.” “And when I bring these two groups of two peas together, they end up exactly the same as the group of four peas, right!?” “Sorry, I believe that two plus two is five, so I can’t acknowledge that.”)

      …there’s a line someone gave once about approaches which behave differently in the presence of truth and falsehood, with ‘faith’ not doing so while ‘making hypotheses and testing them experimentally’ doing so, and the relevance for deciding which approach to rely on to know the true form of reality…

  50. Zaxares

    Feathered or not, a T-Rex is STILL not something I’d want to run into in a dark alley. Or even an open street.

    1. begbert2

      A dark alley might be interesting, on account of the whole ‘the t-rex doesn’t fit in there and can’t move’ angle.

  51. Barabajagal

    Everyone seems to be talking bout religion and evolution and stuff so here’s my thoughts, for which everyone owes me a penny. each .
    As a child I believed in God and Jesus because I wasn’t told anything else. At 5 I figured out Santa wasn’t real and it didn’t bother me, I suppose I’ve never really enjoyed having wool over my eyes. So at school around 8 or 9 years old I found a book saying ‘the big bang created the universe’. Obviously now I understand that there are a lot more intricacies to it and that the Big Bang theory is under scrutiny, but to my 9 year old brain, this was it. I thought God was another charade like Santa, and the last one that you shed off as you grow up. When Mum told me people actually believed in it I was shocked.

    So now, older and armed with a slightly finer knowledge I still find that to every argument or proof of God, there is a counter argument and disproof. I generally follow the idea in science that it takes all the evidence in the world for something to be scientifically right, and just one bit of (reliable) evidence to the contrary to cancel out one theory or another. With that you see the ideas of what a God is being stripped back. Naturally there is a place for religion, though to me I put it (somewhat Marxist-ly (sorry)) as a comfort for those needing it. I believe that religion and the idea of a deity can be separate things, and that religions are separate moral codes.

    I digress. On the idea of evidence there is plenty of fossil proof yadda yadda for dinosaurs to have feathers. And evolution is not ‘just a theory’, it is a fact like gravity. What people refer to as the Theory Of Evolution, is the theory as to how or why evolution actually happens. We can see evolution happen on a tiny scale within a day, and we must assume that what goes on on a smaller scale, happens on a bigger scale. That’s the same philosophy that helped us understand Geo-morphology.

    TL;DR: God – Not a fan, got my own ideas on him. Evolution – it happens. Dinosaur Feathers – Rocken the massive chicken.

    1. Barabajagal

      So. I’m one of those people. Damn.

      1. Heavensrun

        You can have all my pennies. They’re worthless anyway.

    2. Kelly

      >Dinosaur Feathers – Rocken the massive chicken.

      Now I want there to be a band called “Dinosaur Feathers”, and they need to have a song called “Rockin’ the Massive Chicken”

      1. Kelly

        Though, I suppose that is as open to misinterpretation as Dina’s “Dig It” shirt…. Oh well!

  52. Dr.Z

    Am I the only one who thinks giant chicken mosters would be awesome?

    1. ender1200

      Too bad, because they looked more like voultures anyway.

    2. James

      That’s right. Rule of Cool makes Palaeontologists cry.

      So super mega chicken can go away!

  53. Darkflame

    I wouldn’t mind people not believing in evolution if they had more interesting hypothesis as alternatives.
    Or, at least, if your going to say “God did it”, at least describe or think about “how” “he” did.
    Creationism isn’t just wrong, its boring and uncreative too.

    1. James

      OR it could be aleins that look like mice hire a planet disigner to build this planet to find out the ultimate question and put the bones in for something for us to do.

      1. Alyssa

        At least the mouse-aliens hypothesis is creatively… impossible to disprove.

        1. James

          Soooo aleins is good
          but an omnipotent being creating the universe with a snap of his fingers is not.

          Clearly you need to watch TNG.

          ( also Adams did have God exist at one point.)

        2. Li

          I don’t know what point you hope to make here, but God’s existence in THHGTTG was heretical: God exists until the existence of the Babelfish proved his existence, at which point he “vanished in a poof of logic”.

          Additionally the books have an amused aside about Jesus, “approximately 2000 years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be for everyone to be nice to each other for a change”. Note the reference to him as “a man”, not the son of God.

          Seriously, this book series is NOT Christian or particularly theistic at all. It uses our presume familiarity with certain religious tropes and uses them rather irreverently.

          Likewise TNG was very irreverent in their portrayal of the Q, which are explicitly NOT gods, just very advanced life forms — and which are furthermore childish, spoiled, and petty. Q is much closer to a Zeus-type deity than to a Christian one.

          But hey, at least it’s easy to picture Q screwing with Job, isn’t it? He’d make that bet in a heartbeat out of pure boredom. 😀

        3. James

          God left a message to all existince in so long and thanks for the fish
          (“We apologise for the inconvenience”) So he existed however the proof of his existance destroyed the faith of him existing thus he was unmade and then Universe disappeared and was replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

          Now on to Q
          Go watch the episode Tapripcy where Picard dies and Q gives him one chance to undo any mistakes or regreats he made. It end up saving his life but it changes his past were he never became the man he is.

          Anyway the punchline is Q tells Picard he is God and Picard our right refusses it belive because , and I qoute ” The universe is not so badly Designed”

          Then we have Kirk tell Apollo that the Universe is Fine with the One God they have and ond day he will kick his ass.

          Sisko being the son of the Bojoren Gods. And thus the one comandment is “Thou shall not F*ck with the Sisko”

        4. Li

          “There’s only one God, Ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.” — Captain America, The Avengers

          Guess what? Joss Whedon, who wrote that line, is still an atheist. Any creative person worth their salt is capable of portraying characters who do not share their beliefs. So, seriously. Stop making this assumption.

          1.) I don’t think God, the singular Christian entity, would ever leave a message with the plural “we”. Just because something exists for a brief point in time in a sci-fi series does not mean that something is the Judeo-Christian God.

          2.) I don’t think Picard is actually a Christian. I think his beliefs and behavior throughout the series is much more consistent with an agnostic, and that his rejection of Q as God because he thinks Q sucks too much to have made such an awesome universe does not necessitate his belief that the Christian God made it, or even that it was made by any deity at all, your capitalization of the word “design” notwithstanding. (Honey, TNG predates ID, I seriously doubt Picard was referencing it.)

          What’s coming to me most strongly in this moment is a lengthy speech he makes during the Generations movie, where he talks about how Time is a friend who goes with you on the journey of life, reminding you to savor every moment because it’ll never come again. To me, that statement is not at all indicative of a belief in any kind of afterlife: if anything, it is the opposite.

          I don’t think Picard is an atheist, but I do think he’s open to the possibility that there might be nothing after we die, and it doesn’t seem to upset him: he has pretty explicitly made peace with it.

          2.) Kirk, on the other hand, is almost certainly a Christian, and his portrayal throughout TOS is consistent with that. He’s also an unapologetic human-centrist who thinks humans are the most awesome race in the galaxy, so his belief that his personal gods are more awesome than anyone else’s would be consistent with that. (“You’re only human, Spock. :D” “…I believe I am insulted, Captain.”)

          3.) Again, that sure doesn’t sound like any kind of Christian god, unless you think Christians hold the copyright on sons and daughters of gods. Because, uh, they really, really don’t.

          So, again, not sure what point you are trying to prove. The existence of religious characters and religious tropes in a work of fiction has nothing to do with even the author’s religion (as demonstrated by my quote at the top), let alone real life.

      2. Darkflame

        Yes, although I always wondered why the Dolphins were there. They left by their own means, but did they come as well? Were they squatters or did they have some arrangement with the mice?

    2. Linkara

      Or you could believe God created the world and evolution was simply the way in which things progressed because simply snapping his fingers and creating us would be dull.

      It’s like in Sim City or any real-time strategy game. There’s plenty of fun to be had in watching stuff under construction and then become the final product.

      1. Jath

        Or when you turn on Zoo Tycoon, buy a million animals, and let them roam freely in a hellish deathmatch with no food and only one pool for water.

        (I can’t be the only done who did this?)

        1. L.K. Crocuta

          I did it in Zoo Tycoon 2; it’s easier to get more species happy in one area in 2. I seem to recall grasslands biome gets you the best variety of animals that are comfortable.

      2. bunivasal

        That sort of implies that there’s a final product, and we’re it.

        1. David

          We’re a pretty crappy final product, if so. We’re born with so many extra teeth that sometimes we have to yank them out to prevent problems. We’re born with an appendix, which does nothing but maybe kill us later. Our eyes are amazingly inefficient. We’re barely used to walking upright, and so we get back problems. We have reproduce and excrete out of the same holes. We breathe and eat out of the same holes. Our laryngeal nerve loops around our body in ridiculous ways because of how it evolved.

          God needs a supervisor or something.

        2. Regalli

          I imagine it’d be something like getting up for fifteen minutes to get a snack, leaving the free will on and forgetting to pause the game, and returning to find everything is now on fire.

        3. bunivasal

          God fired his QA department on the Sixth Day to meet crunch-time budget shortfalls, but it’s okay, they’ll be rehired during the next dev cycle with extra benefits, promise.

        4. Darkflame

          Not necessarily. Everyone assumes if theres a god he has to be human-focused. We might just be a bi-product of random him playing about with stuff. Maybe he has run billions of evolution sims messing with parameters each time.

  54. James

    both can be right.

    most of the Feather dino are found in colder evnioments

    while in they had scales in warmer envioments and young ones may have proto fethers to regulate boady heat until they mature.

  55. Charles RB

    See, THIS is why Dinah doesn’t talk to people. THEY ALL SUCK!!

  56. Random832

    The bible doesn’t say _how_ he created them, does it?

    DOES IT, JOYCE?

    1. Heavensrun

      It does say he created them in a single day, actually, so even if he used an evolutionary process, it would’ve been a magically accellerated evolutionary process whereby millions of generations occured within a 24 hour period.

      That’s a lot of birthing blood.

      Maybe Eden wasn’t so paradise-y after all.

      1. Darkflame

        Did it define what a day was? Before there was a solar system?

        1. Khrene Cleaver

          Thats one thing I always foud interesting, but people’s general interpretation does says its a normal Earth day. Also wasn’t the first thing God was create light? IE the sun and the stars?

        2. David

          And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

          I dunno, but things that aren’t literal days don’t tend to have evenings and mornings.

          God created light on the first day. He created the Sun, the moon, and the stars on the fourth day.

        3. Heavensrun

          If I recall, also, he created plants the day -before- he created the sun, moon, and stars. (checks) Yep. So if a “day” described using the word day and having an evening and a morning, wasn’t actually a literal day, then you have plants getting by without sunlight for indeterminate eons.

        4. Darkflame

          I like the idea of a god that forgets plants need light. Like a student given a plant by his parents.

    2. ajm5007

      Actually, the Bible does say how God created them – by speaking. God says stuff, and it happens.

    3. Pinja

      The Bible also gives a complete timelines of history, or at least an implied timelines that has been worked out quite accurately by a few people making the earth 6000 years old tops.

      I’d also add the Earth is a Libra but Good Omens maybe the most highly overrated book ever outside of religious texts and Harry Potter.

    4. James

      And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.”
      So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
      God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
      And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
      And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so.
      God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

      Genesis 1 verse 20 thrugh 25

  57. Arkadi

    Walky don’t take no shit about dinosaurs.

  58. Jeron

    Just going to leave this here… http://xkcd.com/1104/

  59. Neospector

    There’s another relevant xkcd comic, but I wont link it for fear of being dubbed a late bandwagoner.

  60. Alexx

    I fail to see how a giant chicken isn’t also an awesome monster.

    1. AckAckAck

      Agreed. I saw chickens able to swung their head really fast. We will get dizzy or neck injury if we try to move our head that fast. Imagine getting gored by giant chicken’s beak in a flash.

  61. ajm5007

    Dina gets awfully sociable when the topic is dinosaurs.

    1. AckAckAck

      Aggressively sociable?

  62. HD23

    Walky, are you implying that Chicken Boo is not an awesome monster?

    1. James

      He not he just some big checking that has not come to terms with his lifestyle.

  63. Jehosaphat

    I am ashamed to say it, but I think this might be the first (and hopefully only) time I have ever agreed with Walky.

    1. Amphicoelias

      Dude, they are animals, not monsters

  64. NoLast

    People hate Joyce because she is religious and love Dina because she is anti-social.

    Welcome to the internet?

    1. Amphicoelias

      Not because she is religious but because she is fundamentalist which is a different issue entirely, she is deeply entrenched and does not allow any new information to get in the way of her preconceived notions. People love Dina because she is adorable, wants to be social and is trying and is defending something she really cares about and studies which a lot of people can relate to.

  65. Pinja

    Gawd Ethan look uncomfortable in panel three. I wonder if he has a crush on Walky. Dat caramel…

    Also stop complaining about Joyce. She’s demonstrably wrong but she’s also unfailingly polite. She was rude to Walky but he’s rude to her too. Last time they met the first thing he said to her was to mock her faith without provocation. Some of you got powerful selective memories.

    1. begbert2

      My selective memory tells me that Joyce has been short with Walky since they first met, long before he’d done anything to deserve it. The only time she’s been close to nice with him was when she persuaded Dorothy to get back together with him – at which point it was promptly shown that she only did that because she felt that Walky was too much like scum to be the one allowed to do the dumping.

      Personally, I think that Walky’s been astonishingly polite to her, considering the circumstances. Including the last time they spoke.

  66. Amphicoelias

    Before anyone asks anything more about dinosaurs with feathers i have this to say

    Tyrannosauroidea
    – Dilong (filamentous proto-feathers on at least the upper and lower of the tail and the lower jaw)
    – Tyrannosaurus (scales on the underside of the tail. Undescribed patch of skin may show branching feathers)
    -Yutyrannus (covered in filamentus protofeathers all over the body)
    – Tarbosaurus (undescribed scales from the throat region forming a dewlap)
    – Gorgosaurus (undescribed scaly skin. Unknown where on the body)
    – Undescribed supposed Tyrannosaurid with proto-feathers on the tail.
    – Undescribed large, feathered, long-tailed carnivorous theropod is probably a tyrannosauroid. May be the same as the specimen above.

    Compsognathidae
    – Compsognathus (scales on at least part of the lower tail)
    – Juravenator (scales on at least the lower tail and at least part of the hind legs and end of the snout, proto-feathers on at least the top of the tail )
    – Sinosauropteryx (proto-feathers on at least the complete length of spine including the neck and tail and the lower tail from the tip to about three quarters of the way back towards the body)
    – Sinocalliopteryx (proto-feathers on at least the top of the neck, back, hips and base of the tail, the back of the thigh, the metatarsus and the tip of the tail . Some on the top of the tail base were 10 cm long)

    What we know from this: Early coelurosaurs seemed to have a mixture of proto-feathers and scales, with scales commonly found on the lower and deeper areas on the tail and on the legs. Proto-feathers seem to have covered at the very least the spinal cord, thinner parts of the tail and the neck/head area. Sinocalliopteryx does show that they covered the legs down to but not including the tarsometatarsus in at least some species. Yutyrannus however creates the possibility of much larger theropods having feathers.

    Ornithomimosauria
    – Pelecanimimus (naked skin on the throat pouch)
    – Ornithomimus (Fully pennaceous feathers found on adult specimens, protofuzz found on infant specimens)

    What we know from this: The bird mimics were clearly feathered and the transition from fluffy to fully featherd is now well known.

    Therizinosauroidea
    – Beipiaosaurus (body covered mostly in proto-feathers similar to that of the early coelurosaurs with longer examples arranged on the arm. No feathers on the head)

    What we know from this: Seems to probably be an intermediate stage between the early and more advanced coelurosaurs, as one would expect.

    Alvarezsauridae
    – Shuvuuia (poorly preserved examples of some kind of feathering)
    – Undescribed supposed alvarezsaurid which preserves feathers

    What we know from this: Alvarezsaurids where feathered. Exactly how we don’t know.

    Oviraptorosauria
    – Avimimus (quill knobs infer veined feathers on the forelimbs)
    – Protarchaeopteryx (symmetrical, veined feathers on the forelimbs and as a fan on the tail tip)
    – Caudipteryx (primary feathers on second finger and as a fan on tip of the tail. Secondary feathers preserved in C. dongi but not C. zoui. Short, simple feathers cover the body. Fingers are scaly)
    – Similicaudipteryx (primary feathers on second finger and as a fan on the tip of the tail. Secondary feathers on the ulna. Body covered in short, simple feathers. Juvenile shows no secondary feathers, showing that they grew as the animal matured)
    – Nomingia (fused vertebrae at the tip of the tail indicate possible presence of a tail fan)
    – Oviraptorosaurs found in the brooding position also suggests extensive feathering as brooding would be redundant without them.

    What we know from this: Oviraptorsaurians seemed to all show proper, barbed primary feathers on the second finger and proper veined feathers on the tip of the tail in the form of a fan. They all also seem to show a covering of simple feathers on the body. Similicaudipteryx shows that at least some had secondary feathers as well, and this likely was the norm.

    Pedopenna
    – Known only from the legs. Long barbed feathers on the metatarsal forming leg wings, including coverts. The feathers of the legs are more plumaceous than those of Deinonychosaurs, showing a decreased aerodynamic ability.

    What we know from this: It is unclear where Pedopenna stands, but more seem to place it a little closer to Avialae than to Dromaeosauridae. Either way it seems to be more primitive than either and the best evidence that the ancestor of both these groups possessed wings on both the arms and legs.

    Scansoriopterygidae
    – Scansoriopteryx (juvenile holotype shows a covering of down like feathers arranged in a similar fashion to down on avians. The lower tail is covered in scales and the tip shows a fan of veined feathers similar to that of Microraptor. It is theorized that adults had quite developed flight feathers on the arms and hands and may have been able to glide)
    – Yixianosaurus (poorly preserved impressions show feathers possibly similar to the avians discovered in the same beds)
    – Epidexipteryx (four extremely long veined feathers on the tail. Simple barbed feathers cover the body)

    What we know from this: Scansoriopterygids were weird. They appear to have been covered mostly in primitive downy feathers with advanced feathers on at least the tail and maybe the arms. Scales present on the tail of some and no real tail at all in others.

    Troodontidae
    – Anchiornis (large rounded wings formed of large veined and barbed primaries and secondaries on the arms and the legs and a fan along most of the tail as in Archaeopteryx. The neck, head, torso, upper legs and the rest of the tail were covered in downy feathers while the hands and feet bore simpler filaments. No area of body was bare or scaly except for the claws and tip of snout. Crest of pennaceous feathers on the head)
    – Jinfengopteryx (a vast covering of pennaceous feathers as in Anchiornis, but lacks the wings on the legs. Wings are folded against the body and indiscernible. Barbed tail fan like Anchiornis)
    – Possible undescribed Troodontids (possibly including Mei) showing leg wings

    What we know from this: Troodontids appear to be extensively feathered, similarly to avians. Strange that one species shows leg wings and the other does not. Apparently there is a reason to suppose leg wings were the norm in troodontids, and the loss in Jinfengopteryx is either an exception or taphonomic though I don’t know the details.

    Dromaeosauridae
    – Velociraptor (quill knobs infer fully developed pennaceous wings)
    – Deinonychus (“proximal lateral flanges are present on the first second phalanx of manual digit.” [Parsons & Parsons ‘Further descriptions of the Osteology of Deinonychus antirrhopus ‘] This is a ‘side shelf’ homologous to the shelf in birds that serves as the basis anchor of the primary feathers)
    – Sinornithosaurus (entire body seemingly covered in simple feathers similar to down. Wing feathers are not properly preserved but were almost certainly present. Possesses proximal lateral flanges likely for anchoring primary feathers as seen in Deinonychus. Fan of pennaceous feathers down the length of the tail similar to Archaeopteryx or Microraptor)
    – NGMC 91 “Dave” (Downy feathers cover entire body except for the toes and the tip of the snout. Longest over the thighs. Barbed feathers on the forelimbs and hind limbs. Tail shows extensive fan of barbed feathers similar to Archaeopteryx. Scales on the toes)
    – Microraptor (fully developed flight feathers on the arms and legs. Pennaceous feathers forming a fan along the length of the tail and downy feathers covering the rest of the body. Proto-feathers covering the fingers. Crest of pennaceous feathers on the head)
    – Rahonavis (quill knobs infer fully developed pennaceous wings)
    – Undescribed Dromaeosaurid which may be Sinornithosaurus shows leg wings. This could be a very large Microraptor though

    What we know from this: At least Microraptorinae were covered in fully developed feathers with wings on the arms and the legs. Quill knobs and possibly feather bearing flanges infer that developed wings were also present in Velociraptorinae and Unenlagiinae.

    Its not like all dinosaurs had feathers, currently the only dinosaurs with feathers are coelurosaurs. others like Heterodontosaurids and Psitaccosaurids/maybe ceratopsians only had quills on their tails and the rest of their body was scaly.

    1. MG girl

      This is one long-ass comment.

  67. Cherish Bloom

    interestingly enough, I discovered that the Bible never once contradict science concerning the age of the planet or about evolution. Still… loads of crazy Christians don’t seem to care.

    I’m always happy to explain my belief on this, but not everyone wants to hear it. And making Joyce have a similar epiphany might kill the story.

    1. Raen

      Sorry, it does. It says the animals were all created in one day, then that the first human was created the sixth day of creation, then that it was however many years it was from his death at whatever age it was to Joseph, and then so many years to the Exodus, then so many years to the building of the temple of Solomon, and from there we get numbers of years to things that actually happened.

      1. Li

        You can interpret the Bible non-literally, of course — or acknowledge that a book written by humans and then translated a million times will naturally be imperfect. But the words are still in there, for sure, and loads of Christian sects insist on not only a literal interpretation but also the book’s divine protection from errors.

    2. Galeus

      What about the part where the earth is only 6-8000 years old, and Evolution takes millions of years?

      1. Segnosaur

        Well, technically the bible never actually gives firm dates for things. The “estimate” that the earth was roughly 6000 years old came from an Archbishop named James Ussher, who came up with that number by looking at things like the supposed lifespans of early characters in the bible.

        Of course, its all still bunk. Even if you pretend the total number of years were wrong (maybe people lived longer back then), we know that the biblical account was wrong for many other reasons (such as the lack of evidence for a world-wide flood, a wealth of fossil evidence, etc.)

    3. Pinja

      It also makes out that humans are special rather than a well adapted ape that shares common ancestor with rats, pigs, toads, cod, dung beetles and bacteria. That tend to be the biggest issue a lot of fundies have with it. I’ve even had a Muslim say he thinks evolution happened except for humans. Allah only knows what sort of mental gymnastics are required for that.

  68. James

    God is on our side ofthe non feathers Dinos belivers

    Because the good Jerasic park movie is being re-release in movie theaters.

    That right a whole new generation will belive Feather dino suck and thus that think otherwise will be burned at the stake!!

  69. Koob

    Am I the only one who notices how happy Ethan is to see Walky?

    1. Bard

      Actually, after reading the comic after this one, I was going back to these comments to see if anyone commented on it – and I’m glad someone did, for some reason.

      1. Bard

        …and lo and behold, you’re not the only one…just a few comments higher up / earlier, someone noticed the look, interpreting it as uncomfortable, wondering about a possible crush :-).

  70. begbert2

    IMO most feathers, notably pictures of feathered raptors and tyrannosauruses, look ridiculous. Particularly Tyrannosauruses. Whether they be ludicrously fuzzy, or just bearing gigantic plumes on their heads and spines, they look farcical.

    Which raises another question – by gigantic feathers, I meant, five feet long feathers. That seems implausible to me. Of course that’s just artists going nuts and forgetting the scale of the beasties, but is there any reason at all to think that the feathers were huge rather than tiny/normal sized?

    1. ajm5007

      Feathers get pretty huge, dude. Like there are actual feathers of actual birds that exist now that are pretty friggin long.

      1. L.K. Crocuta

        Peacocks and many other male pheasants, for example, not to mention the resplendent quetzal. Notably, all examples I can think of, the enlarged feathers are exclusive to the males of the species.

  71. Shadow

    I… I just realized that I’ve been reading Dina in Fluttershy’s voice.

  72. ProjectXa3

    Somebody needs to show Walky this strip: http://xkcd.com/1104/

  73. Elliott Belser

    Compare dinosaurs to Emus instead. They will fuck you up. They will split you open with their razor sharp talons and not give a fuck.

    1. Elliott Belser

      I am very happy with the random avatar here.

  74. Hoboturtle

    Now kiss.

    Dina x Walky anyone?

  75. Pingback: Primitive Eggs | Eye on the ICR

  76. nothri

    …..I hate to say it, but…I agree with Walky.

    Not in the sense that I’m assuming Dinosaurs don’t have feathers. I believe that science. Just now Dinosaurs seem less cool to me. 🙁

    On the other hand, I suppose it evens out since I can now assume that Chocobo I’m riding in Final Fantasy is some kind of dinosaur remnant. Which basically makes my hero twice as metal as he was before.

  77. MG girl

    …Joyce does realize that the first few chapters of Genesis are symbolic, just like the Book of Jonah was a parable, right?

    1. David M Willis

      Joyce was raised believing both were literal truth. If you told her they were merely parables, she’d think you were some crazy liberal.

  78. AgentKeen

    I guess the alt-text was kinda wrong?
    http://www.shortpacked.com/blog.php

    (I’m mainly doing this cause I had to come re-read this excellent bit because of your review).

  79. Jon_Sered

    Until Dinobot Slash!!

  80. DarkoNeko

    Hey, nice shirt Walky.

  81. Mally

    Dina, you made a valiant attempt to impart SCIENCE to people with dedicated science blinders.

    It was the best you could do.

  82. BrokenEye, True False Prophet

    Praise be the Walky!

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