237

Glomp
Posted on March 21, 2019 by David M Willis

237 thoughts on “Glomp”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    that’s a very specific fetish

    1. Pablo360

      I’m growing more and more convinced Cerb hit the euphemistic nail on the metaphorical head in describing their dynamic as dom-sub.

      1. butts

        aw jeez i see it now

      2. drs

        Didn’t Becky have a line about how if girls like Billie had stuffed her into lockers she would have figured out her orientation a lot sooner?

        I remember some strong sub indication like that.

        1. ValdVin

          Becky did say that about Billie.

        2. butts

          Well.

          That explains why she wanted to work at Galasso’s.

        3. Rowen Morland

          And why rebe,l bad girl, Joyce really does it for her.

        4. tropicalfreeze

          Galasso’s Pizza (and subs)

        5. das-g

          Huh. :-O

      3. MatsuoTanuki

        Lord I miss her commenting on these strips…

        1. Dana

          yeah, me too.

        2. alice

          oh no what happened? is she ok?

        3. wwwhhattt

          she turned up occasionally last year, just not the daily in depth analyses

        4. Clif

          I’m not sure why now, but I was under the impression she had largely moved onto the patron forum for those who read a day in advance. But I really miss her point of view.

        5. Inahc

          Me too. I hope she’s doing well, haven’t seen her on Patreon for a while.

        6. Geneseepaws

          Yeah, most of us. What a great mind, and the soul of a Teacher!

      4. Sporky

        Oh shit you’re right

      5. Emperor Norton II

        To be even more specific, I’d call it a CGL type relationship.

    2. Yotomoe

      I have more specific ones.

      1. butts

        *cough*

        1. MatthewTheLucky

          You don’t count, that’s one of the most general of all.

        2. motorfirebox

          Once you beat all the other fetishes, you have to beat their leader, General Butts

        3. butts

          man i don’t even *have* an ass fetish, i just think they’re funny

    3. NelC

      I saw some pictures of the fetish model Masuimi Max in a rubber dinosaur suit last week. That’s a very specific fetish.

  2. ValdVin

    Panel four: Becky with the sweet talk!

    1. Yet_One_More_Idiot

      Also panel two: that sweet Dina smile; my heart. 🙂

  3. Doctor_Who

    Dina: Now say “They’re Grrrreaat!”

    Becky: …

    Dina: I have interests outside the dinosaur thing!

    1. Pablo360

      Becky: …

      Dina: …Okay, I have an interest outside the dinosaur thing.

      1. Doctor_Who

        My original idea was to have Dina request that Becky say she was going to take over the world with her pizza (and subs), but the thought of that ship was too horrifying.

        Dina being into Tony the Tiger is somehow much more rational.

    2. Yotomoe

      Have you heard the good word? Frosted Flakes are the cereal choice of champions. Did you know that Tony perfectly frosted flakes for your sins? For he saw the delicious part of a balanced breakfast before him. And it was good. Nay. It was more than Good. Praised be the tiger.

    3. Tawdry Quirks

      Would that side interest eventually balloon into an interest into all things Thurl Ravenscroft, or can it only ever be for Tony the Tiger?

      1. Roborat

        That has to be one of the coolest names ever, and it wasn’t even a stage name.

  4. AnvilPro

    Daw, the first roadbump in their relationship

  5. ShinyNeen

    I am extremely here for Becky’s sheer enthusiasm to learn actual factual science.

    And apparently so is Dina. Panel 4, wowza.

    1. butts

      Yeah, not gonna lie, I can relate to that one. Science is hot, yo.

      1. abysswatcher1993

        Literally and figuratively. Science can give us nuclear fusion, and also better understanding of sex.

        1. ShinyNeen

          Wait, are you telling me that science has been hot this entire time? I had no idea!

          No, seriously. I’m not much of a science-y type. … Dang, yo.

  6. Nono

    Two contractions in one strip? Dina’s evolving!

    1. Dana

      I think Dina would argue that she is adapting, but evolution is a way groups adapt, not individuals.

  7. Stellar

    Okay, Hello to the new security system…

    1. MatthewTheLucky

      Should keep Mary out, good enough.

  8. BBCC

    Having fun you two? 😛

    I just love how enthusiastic Becky is for learning! Reminds me of when I was younger, when my favourite characters were always the smart, responsible nerds.

    Nowadays I lean more towards snarky, generally mature but having their moments badasses. 😉

    1. BBCC

      HA! I realize he’s probably joking because alt text, but I HOPE Dina’s new system is actually based on pseudoscience and the calling out thereof. I mean, it wouldn’t keep Sal out (though considering they never DID sort her toys, that may be a feature, not a bug) but it’d keep Joyce out just because of all the creationist cobwebs.

    2. Yotomoe

      Dr. Stone made me regain my love for the super smart characters because his intelligence is so very grounded in reality.

      1. BBCC

        I think it’s more as my own personality changed, so did my preferences.

    3. Doctor_Who

      I’m always into the smart ones. Particularly if they actually act smart, and we’re not just told they are smart.

      1. BBCC

        Case in point – when I was younger, Blossom was always my favourite powerpuff girl and Michiru was my favourite on sailor moon.

        Michiru is still my favourite on SM, but nowadays I skew more towards Buttercup. 😉

  9. Stephen Bierce

    Don’t know much about History
    Don’t know much Biology
    Don’t know much about the Science book
    Don’t know much about the French I took…

    1. ValdVin

      Well I don’t know how to tell the weight of the sun / And of mathematics I want none

    2. Rectilinear Propagation

      I actually recognized this one!

      I am super hype, I usually can’t.

  10. wynne

    If Becky doesn’t get to be a scientist (or otherwise on the road to being a scientist) by the time DoA ends, will there even be a point?

  11. DailyBrad

    Dina’s reaction when Joyce said that is still one of the funniest faces in the entire webcomic, and that’s really, really saying something.

    1. Bagge

      That’s very, very true.
      Especially coupled with Joyce’s happy face. She really thought she was contributing, poor girl

      1. ShinyNeen

        That entire strip was gold, I swear. Such an incredible rise and fall. It’s like “oh my gosh, Joyce is connecting with Dina about dinosaurs this is so amazing she’s trying so hard wait no HOW DID THIS GO SO WRONG!

  12. Yotomoe

    What manner of scientist, though Beckster? Recent years have made me realize that there’s like…100 different areas of expertise. If you become anything that has nothing to do with History, archeology or biology there’s a good chance that you don’t have to know jack squat about dinosaurs.

    1. BBCC

      I believe Dina wants to be a palaeontologist so likely something similar.

      1. Yotomoe

        It’s always dangerous forming your interests in the heat of a relationship. It can be hard to separate your love for that thing and your love for that person. Part of me worries Becky is just using it to fill the void overt religion has left.

        1. butts

          Honestly, it strikes me more like a middle finger to her dad, which is… probably not great, but significantly better.

    2. Reltzik

      …. wait, only 100? I thought it was at least 1000.

      1. Yotomoe

        I wouldn’t know. I’m not a part of the “categoring sciences” science

      2. Marsh Maryrose

        Courtesy of the twitter account of Rosemary Mosco, behold this wonderful example of Butts Syndrome in nature.

        Two people are watching army ants in the field. They notice something is a little odd about one ant’s derriere. They discover it is a bug masquerading as an ant’s derriere. They don’t know what it is, so they find a beetle specialist, who realizes it’s a new species.

        This is how deep it goes. Imagine: someone finds a beetle on an ant’s butt, and they don’t know what it is, so they come to you, and the three of you have discovered a new species. THAT IS SPECIALIZATION, AND IT IS GLORIOUS, AND IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME IN SCIENCE.

        1. Reltzik

          ……..

          I’m sorry, but did you just use the word “glorious” to describe highly trained and intelligent people devoting their time and effort to beetles riding on an ant’s ass?

          ….

          I mean I don’t DISAGREE, but the cognitive dissonance is still there.

        2. Marsh Maryrose

          Exactly.

          Frans de Waal has spent his life so far watching primates, and in doing so immeasurably improved our understanding of our own lives.

          (Spoiler alert: “alpha male” doesn’t mean what you think it means.)

        3. Bicycle Bill

          And then since you found a new species, you get to name it.  Since we’re talking about mimicking an ant’s butt, the new species becomes Anthelephila mixalotii.

        4. McBogue

          Wow. That is literally one fake-ass beetle.

        5. thejeff

          A fake ass-beetle?

        6. Reltzik

          No, it’s a real ass-beetle, but it’s also a fake-ass beetle. More formally, it’s a real fake-ass ass-beetle.

    3. JetstreamGW

      She doesn’t necessarily have to have that figured out yet. She’s gotta take at least a couple sciences as requirements for anything anyway, so she could slap out a couple 100-level courses to figure out what she likes.

    4. Reltzik

      Also, it’s probably best if Becky takes some general science classes before she decides on a major. Just to get an idea of what she really likes.

    5. Marsh Maryrose

      She doesn’t have to decide now. Proto-scientists fall into all kinds of specialties for the darndest of reasons. Just ask Mary Roach.

    6. Fart Captor

      ALL OF THEM

    7. Bagge

      A FUCKIN’ scientist

      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/unlimited/

      1. butts

        Hey, that’s a legitimate field of research. Just ask Masters & Johnson.

    8. Keulen

      Becky will study all the sciences… and eventually decide on one she likes best.

  13. Andr3wtime

    Becky become Ms. Frizzle confirmed.

    1. Doctor_Who

      I was gonna say that she has access to an iguana, but I don’t think she and Fuckface have actually met face to (fuck)face yet.

      I now want that to happen. And for Becky to horrify Joyce when she speaks the reptile’s name without hesitation.

      1. Bagge

        And Dina to be pissy because it’s not a REAL dinosaur

  14. Lily

    Mmm sexy science

  15. SailorCakes

    Dina version of foreplay lol

  16. Beef

    Dina’s face in panel 4 is gold

  17. mrnoidea

    Oh my God, Panel 4 Dina face is the greatest Dina face.

  18. Yotomoe

    I hate to say this, but Dina if you were a true scientist you would accept that there is a distinct possibility that that indeed took place. I mean there’s no way to fact check it and it most likely didn’t but like…science, by definition, isn’t absolute. For all we know that’s true. Science is pretty stupid sometimes.

    1. mrnoidea

      I had a biology teacher who said “Nothing can be proven, only failed to have been disproven.”

      1. mrnoidea

        But yeah, some things are really hard to disprove. Not sure how 2+2 doesn’t equal 4 somewhere in the universe. *Insert 1984 reference here*

        1. Reltzik

          I’ve worked with a number system where 2+2 = 1, and it does have real-world applications, so nyeh.

        2. mrnoidea

          Ooh, what is it? Honestly curious to find out for myself.

        3. butts

          Mod 3?

        4. mrnoidea

          *Looks at wiki for modular arithmetic* Oh wait, is that like a base system? Like binary, which is Base 2 and only contains “0” and “1” as digits?

        5. mrnoidea

          *facepalm* Wait, 2+2 = 11 in that system, I think.

        6. butts

          Nah it’s where numbers loop back around. So modulo 3 goes 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, etc.

        7. Reltzik

          Kinda. But base systems are positional, meaning you have carries and multiple-digit numbers. In binary, the count goes 0, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, and you can keep counting up forever and never loop back around. Bases are more about different ways of representing number systems, rather than different number systems.

          In Z3 (which is close enough to “mod 3” for me to say that Butts identified it correctly), counting goes 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, looping on forever. Count 2 past the number 2, and you get to 1. If you imagine a clock you’ll get Z12, where 7 hours after 8 is 3. Just imagine a 3-hour clock, and that’s Z3. (At least until you get into multiplication and division, which are… funky for non-primes.) A real world application might be “I’m traveling around a circle with a circumference of 3 miles. I go 2 miles and then 2 more miles, and I’m now 1 mile past my starting point.”

          The thing is, astrophysicists don’t know if space is flat overall. It’s close to flat, but there’s always a margin of error. So space could be curved, and that could be a closed curve. If so, go far enough in one direction and you could end up back where you started. (Ignoring things like the expansion requiring you to go faster than the speed of light to overcome it and what does “where you started” even mean when every frame of reference is moving anyway.) So it might be possible that 3 quadrillion light years in any given direction (at the present moment, not peering back in time thanks to light speed) … is this very same spot we’re in right now.

        8. Reltzik

          Addendum: Though admittedly that would be less Z3 and more of a…I’m trying to remember what it’s called. You still have 2+2 = 1, though.

        9. Clif

          I’m not sure what you call it either, but you’re really moving out of number theory into topological spaces there. The fact that multiplication and division are wonky modulo composite bases is actually fairly important when you go to factor large composite numbers. While my general area is machine learning, one of my particular interests has been the application of artificial intelligence techniques to factoring. Which turns out to be real world important due to cryptography.

          That’s one of the fun things about science. You have all these narrow specialties where you can understand and keep track of everything that’s going on. And then you have all these unexpected links between completely different area of study. And when it comes to anything outside your area, you’re really an amateur scientist. But anyone, regardless of background can become an amateur scientist for any field they want to spend a little time following and dabbling in. There are even some opportunities here and there for amateurs to make a solid contribution, but the main thing is that it’s fun.

        10. poofdepoof

          02 in base 3 + 02 in base 3 = 11 in base 3 = 04 in base 10
          I guess base 3 is useful according to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_numeral_system#Practical_usage but I don’t think they use it with only one digit

          Another idea is perhaps they Reltzik’s system uses a different + operator?
          let’s see…

          OR: 10 or 10 = 10
          AND: 10 and 10 = 10
          NOR: 10 nor 10 = 01
          NAND: 10 nand 10 = 01
          XOR: 10 xor 10 = 00

          so I guess if + is either the binary operator nand or the binary operator nor then 2+2=1, but that’d be a weird thing to call + haha

          lowkey hoping that like the pun thread, people continue looking for ways that 2+2=1?

        11. Kryss LaBryn

          2+(-2)=0, at least?

        12. Catman

          Or you could just use one of the 0 = 1 proofs. Multiply both sides by 3, add one to both sides, write it a little funky… Bingo bongo, 2+2=1. Granted those tend to be frowned upon because they involve algebra trickery to pull a sneaky and avoid following some basic math rules.

      2. Agemegos

        I’m less than impressed by such Popperism. When someone discovers a new species of beetle, for example, “this sort of beetle exists!” is not falsifiable, but it is a scientific discovery.

        Karl Popper wasn’t actually a scientist himself, and I don’t think his statements about science consisting of falsifiable statements are even true, let alone definitional. What he says about un-provability applies to universal statement (∀ statements and ~∃ statements), but science also includes particular statements (∃ statements and ~∀ statements). Also, provability is a matter of primary importance for mathematics and philosophy, but science is really more concerned with discovery and prediction than with proof, and is very comfortable with limited precision and limited confidence.

        The heavy emphasis on Popperism in US schools and courtrooms is, I think, a disservice to science.

        1. thejeff

          “This sort of beetle exists” is data, not theory. Mostly.
          That this particular beetle is a new species is theory and falsifiable. Mostly, since species is partly just human definition.

    2. MatthewTheLucky

      There’s also a possibility the Earth will spontaneously explode, doesn’t make people who expect it any less idiotic.

      1. Yotomoe

        I mean, it’s only idiotic if it doesn’t happen. If it does happen then they’ll have a satisfying, yet fleeting, victory. Off the top of my head I could think of several reason for that event to happen anyway.

        1. Reltzik

          If there’s a reason for it, then it’s not spontaneous.

        2. Yotomoe

          Spontaneous just means that the cause need not be apparent, not that it need not exist. If Mike Tyson walked through my door right now, that’d be Spontaneous, but I mean, he certainly has the means to do that.

        3. MatthewTheLucky

          Not with regards to explosions, for which spontaneous has a specific meaning, and which is far more relevent to the conversation.

          Words have meaning, and you’re arguing in favor of literal insanity. You just said that people who believe in random impossible stupid crap are actually smart because the random impossible stupid crap could happen, even though it can’t. There is a difference between an event not being specifically forbidden by the laws of physics and it being within the bounds of possibility.

        4. Yotomoe

          I was mostly jokingly playing devil’s advocate. If I’d realized people were gonna take me so seriously I’d at least done more research so I didn’t sound like a dummy.

        5. MatthewTheLucky

          I’m sorry to get all serious, but this shit is why cults still work.

        6. Clif

          Thor will smite you for that.

        7. MatthewTheLucky

          Oh look, it’s not happening.

        8. Clif

          But is it spontaneously not happening?

    3. Tacos

      I think it’d be pretty easy to prove whether Parasaurolophus could breathe fire was true or not. Laser death beam eyes however…

      1. Reltzik

        Hmmmm…. well one approach would be to look for fossilized cinders and char and see if there’s a higher-than-expected correlation between their locations and the locations of Parasaurolophus finds. Correlation isn’t causation, but it’s a start.

        1. Clif

          Well lasers require a crystalline structure in which to laze, and their presence in Parasaurolophus skulls would be notable. Firebreath is a bit more difficult, but if you have cavities that hold flammable gas or liquids secure from oxygen, that has to be reflected in the morphology. The cavities would have to be supported and protected by the skeletal structure.

        2. Reltzik

          …. wait, do they have to be LITERAL lasers, or just something a layman would see and call a laser?

      2. butts

        You’d have to propose a mechanism for laser death beam eyes first.

        1. Reltzik

          Hrrrm…. okay….

          … let’s start with a shark that migrates ever-lower over generations and eventually evolves to live in the abyssal trenches. It doesn’t really need its eyes to hunt, relying instead on scent and electoreception.

          Somewhere along the line it gets infected with (and develops a hereditary symbosis with) bio-luminescent plankton of some sort. This makes its eyes glow, rendering them useless as eyes (not that they needed their eyes) but makes prey more likely to approach them to investigate the light.

          Over successive generations the eyes’ lenses morph to better focus the light on distant prey detected through electroreception, first to draw them closer, later generations strong enough to overwhelm their senses and stun them, and finally strong enough to do damage to flesh at the point. This lets the sharks cook their food, aiding digestion and increasing calorie intake.

          Sharks with freaking laser beams in their heads. Every creature deserves a warm meal.

        2. Reltzik

          Oh, wait, laser beams in Parasaurolophus.

          …… I got nothing.

        3. Sunny

          The only problem I see with that is that the shark and plankton will be cooking themselves well before they’re able to heat up any prey.

        4. Reltzik

          Not necessarily. First, both would have selection pressure to develop heat-resistance. And second, the focal point of the beams might be a lot smaller than the eyes, resulting in a higher intensity at the target than at the source.

        5. Inahc

          What would happen to the water in the path of the lasers?

        6. Reltzik

          Not much. Water is almost perfectly transparent in the blue and green wavelengths (a typical color for deep-sea bio-luminescence), and so would not absorb much of the laser as heat. (And anyway, water can absorb a LOT of heat before undergoing a significant change in temperature.)

      3. Chris Phoenix

        Heh. Sentenced to Prism by Alan Dean Foster.

        A hotshot corporate troubleshooter, from a planet that makes super-duper exoskeletal suits (due to truly nasty weather), goes to figure out why the company’s base has fallen silent on another planet where the life forms are a dazzling (literally) array of mineral crystal structures.

        His suit was supposed to make him invulnerable and invincible. Its last words: “I was not programmed to defend against life forms that lase.”

        (That and Nor Crystal Tears are my two favorite Alan Dean Foster books, and I re-read them occasionally.)

    4. butts

      Falsifiability is a basis criterion for all scientific inquiry. If there’s no way to fact-check it, it’s inherently unscientific. And anyway, while there are multiple plausible hypotheses as to the primary purpose of Paurosaurolophus’ crest, there’s no motivation for the idea that it “shoots flames from its nostrils like a bombardier beetle” other than “because dragons”.

    5. insomniac

      “Distinct possibility” is kind of a stretch, here.

      All we have to go on are bones, sure, but the bones suggest a natural resonating chamber in the crest, that could be used to make a noise a little like a brass horn.

      Suggesting that they were used in the same way a bombardier beetle expels chemicals from its anus (not fire) is… well… nonsense.

    6. newllend(henryvolt)

      And plus scientific “facts” can change on a dime given what new information comes up. At one point it was a scientific fact that Pluto was a planet until it wasn’t, the earth was flat until it wasn’t, and I think I remember someone claiming that it was scientifically established that milk from cows don’t actually make you stronger or help you grow.

      And some scientific facts that are stated are obviously not true, bumblebees aren’t supposed to be able to fly because their weight is too heavy for their wings to carry them and yet there they are flying and giving science the metaphorical middle finger by defying physics and gravity. I like to see the importance of science myself but come on.

      1. David M Willis

        the “we don’t know how bumblebees fly” thing is not actually true

        https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bumblebees-cant-fly/

        1. butts

          ahh damn it you sniped me with snopes

      2. butts

        Pluto’s status as a planet isn’t a case of facts changing, it’s a case of a definition changing. It’s only not a planet because we redefined “planet” in a way that made it not a planet, because otherwise we would have had to classify dozens or hundreds of other objects with similar characteristics as “planets” also (or else give up on the idea of an even somewhat rigorous definition of “planet” entirely).

        And the bumblebee thing’s fake. It’s based on one dude in the ’30s who didn’t take into account nonlinear and viscous effects of fluid dynamics, which are incredibly important at the scale of an insect’s wings. We know how bees fly.

        More generally, the problem is thinking of scientific fact as binary. People like to think of things as “fact” or “not fact” based on scientific evidence, but it’s all a question of significance— how much evidence do we have that something is the case, and more importantly, how significantly would the universe have to differ from what we observe for that thing to not be the case. One study can easily be disputed; overturning two hundred years of dinosaur paleontology would require a proportionally massive amount of contradictory evidence.

        1. BBCC

          Fucking THANK YOU for the Pluto thing. I’ve taken ONE astronomy class in my life and I still understood the hows and whys of the Pluto reclassification. It’s not that tricky – it doesn’t clear it’s orbit, and frankly there’s a zillion other objects in the solar system that Pluto has more in common with than actual planets. This is not some ‘scientists are dumb and mean and excluding Pluto’ bullshit, it’s a ‘Pluto never really fit with the other planets, but now we’ve found all these things it has way more in common with, so we’re classifying it with them now’. It’s a dwarf planet that hangs out in the Kuiper belt!

        2. Chris Phoenix

          They could have found a way to grandfather it in. Just define “planet” as “Anything big enough and close enough to have been discovered by ancient naked-eye observation or by its gravitational effects on other planets.”

          In my opinion, they should have done that. Demoting Pluto was unnecessary bad PR.

        3. Chrissy

          Pluto was discovered in 1930, certainly not by the naked eye. And asking scientists to worry about PR is exactly how Galileo got excommunicated and why Turing had to be closeted.

        4. Chris Phoenix

          I said, naked eye OR gravitational effect. Pluto’s existence was deduced – prompting an intense telescopic search – due to its effects on Uranus’s orbit.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#Discovery

          Galileo and Turing are off-topic.

        5. drs

          Pluto isn’t visible to the naked eye, and while it was found as part of a “explain this anomaly” search, it isn’t massive enough to explain the anomaly. So pretty much fails on both counts.

        6. King Daniel

          To add to that, they later discovered that the “anomaly” in Neptune’s orbit which had led to the search in the first place was nonexistent – Neptune’s orbit could be perfectly explained by normal mechanics without positing the existence of an additional planet (and Pluto, being about the size of some of Neptune’s moons, is far too small to affect Neptune anyway).

        7. BBCC

          By that logic, the moon is a planet.

        8. King Daniel

          To be fair, at least some ancient cultures did consider the Moon a planet, I believe.

        9. BBCC

          Well, sure, but that was before we had a working scientific definition of a planet.

        10. 3oranges

          Why should scientific terminology reflect what the universe is like, when it’s better PR to reflect what boomers want it to be like? 😛

        11. Seregiel

          If you are worried about PR, think about a solar comic book. Among other dear planets is a dwarf planet called The Goblin. The same team that helped reclassify Pluto is still looking for another planet, and as of 2018 at least, The Goblin might be evidence of another planet too. Pluto isn’t a demotion. It’s part of an entire “cosmic” universe that we team switch based on understanding and it retcons it’s own characters ever time a star becomes a red giant and meets the inevitable “shortly” after.

      3. insomniac

        Okay, like, those examples? Like all of them are nonsense. All of them.

        No scientific “facts” were established as to whether or not Pluto is a planet. Pluto was discovered in 1930, making it the ninth planet we’d found until then. Except that, back in the 1850s, we’d gone up to 23 planets until we decided we needed to call the smaller things ‘asteroids’ or it would get unmanageable. And now that we’ve found something like a hundred things that might have to count as planets if Pluto does, we’ve come up with a name for these sorts of orbital bodies.

        The earth was determined to be round around 300 BCE, well before ‘science’ was a thing at all. A “flat earth” was never any sort of scientific fact.

        Milk has protean and calories. Children who get protean and calories grow more than children who don’t. This isn’t… this isn’t super controversial.

        The ‘bumblebees can’t fly’ thing was literally just someone doing some parlor math on the back of a napkin that, somehow, became part of the public discourse. The mechanism for bumblebee flight is well understood. They are not giving anything the middle finger.

      4. Emperor Norton II

        1: Pluto’s status as a planet had to do with a vagueness of the definition of planet to begin with. Once a more precise definition was accepted, it was obvious Pluto wasn’t going to be part of it.

        2: It’s practically never been a scientific fact that earth has been flat. Sure, people may have believed it, but all over the world, natural philosophers (which are sort of like a proto-scientist) managed to understand that the world is round, all independently of each other.

        And as for the bumblebee thing… Yeah, what DYW said. I’m actually honestly a bit surprised that myth is still alive; it should have died about ten years ago.

        1. Emperor Norton II

          Well, that should teach me to make a bathroom break in the middle of making a post.

        2. thejeff

          And even in the myth form, it’s not really that science said bumblebees can’t fly, it would be that science didn’t understand how bumblebees flew. Which would be cool – then scientists could study it and learn more about flight!
          There’s an old joke about scientific breakthroughs not starting with “Eureka!”, but with “Hmm, that’s weird.”

          More generally, science isn’t really about “science facts”. It’s about theories and models to make sense of observed facts and to make predictions about future observations. “Bumblebees fly” is an observation. “How bumblebee flight works” is a scientific theory. Theories do get stuff wrong regularly and are revised to match new observations and failed predictions, if generally on the cutting edge not on the level that lay people think of with “science facts”.

        3. JBento

          That’s… not a joke? “Eureka!” is how scientific breakthroughs END, though fortunately they are no longer accompanied by the breakthrougher running stark naked through the streets.

        4. thejeff

          It’s a joke because it’s true, but it conflicts with how many non-science people think about how science is done.

        5. Bathymetheus

          It wasn’t really a joke. Isaac Asimov pointed that out many years ago (the discovery of Penicillin is a prime example). RIP Isaac. In related news, his wife Janet died recently at age 91.

      5. newllend(henryvolt)

        You know it’s weird, actauly appreciate the number of people lining to up call me out on my shit. Not in a sense of me being a troll and getting attention but more so that I like being humbled.

        1. butts

          Hey man, no worries. We’re not here to call you out, we’re just very enthusiastic about science apparently!

        2. Emperor Norton II

          Science and butts. Our two top enthusiastic subjects.

        3. butts

          I’m gonna let you in on a little secret… I’m more into science than butts.

        4. Schpoonman

          What about science studying the subject of butts? Posteriology?

        5. Emperor Norton II

          I like that you are staring disapprovingly of butts’ butt while discussing butts.

        6. ShinyNeen

          Those two avatars are gifts that keep on giving, especially when used together like that. It keeps happening!

        7. Emperor Norton II

          And in turn, I appreciate that you are one of those people that are capable of others correcting you without getting mad about it.

          I’ll tell you a secret… I’m not always graceful when that happens to me. I should be, and I try to…. but it’s not always happening.

      6. Sporky

        I’m resisting the urge to post the entire Bee Movie script

        1. Emperor Norton II

          Come on, they’ve already admitted their mistake.

          Plus, even if they didn’t, would you really be that cruel? Like, this is Mike-level cruel. Or Carol-level cruel. You’re better than Mike and Carol, aren’t you?

      7. Mokurai

        Pluto’s status did not change because of new facts. The definition of “planet” was changed.

        The nutritional value of milk has been known since forever. You hearing a denial of this fact from some random bozo does not constitute a new fact.

        Science never denied that bumblebees could fly. An aerodynamicist correctly stated that he didn’t know how they flew, using the theory prevalent at the time. Then we found out, using a new theory based on new facts.

      8. Agemegos

        We don’t actually know of any time at which well-informed people thought that the world was flat. Widespread knowledge (i.e. well-founded true belief) that the world is a globe is two thousand years older than modern science.

    7. 3oranges

      A true scientist would accept there is a technically non-zero possibility of Parasaurolophus shooting flames, but they should also recognize it is so close that it is effectively zero. Science is about following evidence to find the best models you can, not throwing up your hands and saying “well, anything could be true”.

      1. Chris Phoenix

        Very well stated! And a great rebuttal to Marcelo Gleiser, a physicist who just won a religion prize and who claims atheism isn’t scientific.

    8. AGV

      That’s not how it works…

      By that logic, we could propose that a dinosaur whose head is missing could have insect mandibles and we’d have to consider that this idea is just as plausible as it having an ‘average’ dinosaur head.
      Another example: we don’t have direct evidence of Smilodon fur, so the idea of it being scally is just as plausible (obs that isn’t the case, but it follows the same train of thought).

      In science there’s plausibility based on evidence. In the fire-spitting Parasaurolophus’s case, we’d need any indication that it could do that, and considering that it is a vertebrate with a totally different anatomy from that of insects, it couldn’t have the same mechanisms as the bombardier beetle so it isn’t even a good analogue even if we assume that Paras could spit fire.

  19. Tacos

    RE:ALT-TEXT: So what you’re saying is that a flame-snortin’ Parasaurolophus is the new security system, correct?

  20. Cass

    Does anyone else wonder whether Becky realizes she’s gotta get more specific than that at some point, or just thinks that the sciences are just all wrapped up in one catch-all job? Since the type of people who treat science as a dirty word don’t tend to differentiate between them I can imagine she was never taught much about their being different types of scientists

    1. Doctor_Who

      Since the comic will likely get beyond freshman year (and Becky isn’t even enrolled yet), I’d say she has time. I didn’t declare until midway through my sophomore year, and there’s plenty of core stuff like math that she’ll need regardless to keep her busy for a while.

      1. Doctor_Who

        *will likely NOT get beyond freshman year, forgot a word.

      2. Regalli

        And given the volume of UnScience she has in her brain, she’ll probably need to restart with the 101s anyway.

        She definitely seems to enjoy evolutionary biology in particular (‘corn looked like what 8000 years ago?’) but that may just be because she’s been exposed to more of it than, say, astronomy. (Which I don’t trust the fundie books to have taught her much of either.)

        1. Leorale

          Taking a whole bunch of 101s would be a great way to decide what types of science interest/match her the most.

        2. Regalli

          Becky will audit SO MANY classes.

        3. BBCC

          Pfft, no, astronomy teaches you how planets formed and how many millions of years it takes and how physics helped life form on earth. I almost guarantee it was not allowed.

    2. Roborat

      She just thinks it means you get to wear a white lab coat.

      1. thejeff

        She’s basically right. That’s the most important part.

  21. Beef Jerky

    Oh gods, I had that flamethrower parasaurolophus/bombardier beetle book.

    1. mrnoidea

      Wait, the book is real?

      1. Tacos

        It is. I believe Willis put up a picture of it on Twitter before.

        1. mrnoidea

          Guess that shouldn’t be surprising, considering the hymnal video is real.

        2. Reltzik

          When it comes to plumbing the depths of evangelical stupidity, do NOT assume there is a bottom.

        3. oh no

          I’ve hit rock bottom and I saw a tunnel going straight through it.

        4. Bathymetheus

          Ouch! While not sharing any religious beliefs, I try to be respectful of those who do.

          I will acknowledge that this is sometimes difficult.

      2. Emperor Norton II

        While you were just genuinely surprised/confused for a second, and then immediately accepted the fact of the realness, I’ve seen a few times where people are pissed off at DYW for not portraying fundamentalism realistically, calling it caricature beyond belief.

        These people tend not to stick around for long once they’re hit with a few facts.

        1. Reltzik

          Poe’s law strikes again.

        2. Emperor Norton II

          Yeah, but… Even before moving from Norway to USA, I knew a fair bit about tele-evangelists and other rather… unsavory elements of organised religion, to say the least.

          You’d think that (about 68% likely) actual ‘Murricans would be aware of these things too.

        3. Regalli

          Some levels of Fundie Weird insulate themselves against the outside world. Also the US is so damn BIG people in some regions might not know the particularly skeevy sects because they’re just not around.

        4. Reltzik

          I’m not entirely willing to buy that P(know about televangelists) and P(want to move to another country) are independent probabilities.

      3. Kamino Neko

        Yep…it went up (or made it to the Twitter widget, at least) just as I was making a post asking if it was real in the comments on the strip where Joyce mentioned it. This was a hilarious coincidence to me.

      4. Roborat

        Sadly, yes.

  22. Bagge

    Wow. Um… I feel that maybe we should not linger after panel 4. They might require some alone time.

    Awwww, Dina. That trauma will stay with her a LONG time.

    1. Emperor Norton II

      It just shows how much she cares for Becky.

      I mean, really, it does. When you get more upset about what happen to someone else than if it had happened to you, then you care about them.

      And the level of upset Dina got on Becky’s behalf was… over 9 000.

      1. Bagge

        Very, very true.

        She knows that creationists lie to children about dinosaurs. She has seen the damage it has done to Joyce. But to realize that up until a few weeks ago her sweet, perfect, rad Becky never had reason to question fire breathing dinosaurs…

        “Please, tell me one more time that you don’t think parasaurolophus shot flames from his nostrils because of bombadier beetles”

  23. Tarnagh

    Sounds like Becky was another casualty of the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum. :/

    1. Chris Phoenix

      Wait, you mean PACE, the Program for Accelerated Christian Education? Those self-paced self-study booklets? I had those back in the 70’s. I remember really enjoying them, in contrast with traditional schooling which was not self-paced.

      (Fortunately, my parents told me “They’re wrong about evolution, just nod and smile, and learn the rest of it.” But I still remember the phrase “Similarity of design indicates a designer.”)

  24. Dafydd

    Oh gods I want the title of their Slipshine to be “FOR SCIENCE!”

    1. Reltzik

      ……. but who’d be in the control group?

      1. Emperor Norton II

        Two of the most anti-science people in the cast, I suppose.

        So Mary and Peter.

    2. ValdVin

      Isn’t that a different red-headed scientist? Say, with glasses?

      1. butts

        …Becky/Dina/Carla is not a ship I expected to hear but I’m not about to complain

        1. ValdVin

          Hee hee. I meant Agatha Heterodyne, to whom For Science nearly functions as a mating call.

          But I can see Carla too.

        2. butts

          …I didn’t expect to hear Becky/Dina/Agatha either, but I’m sure down for some cross-universal shenanigans

        3. thejeff

          Well, Dina’s been over to visit, so anything’s possible.

        4. ValdVin

          Ah, the call of my fellow shippers: “Anything’s possible”.

    3. Bagge

      Or possibly “experimentation”

      1. ShinyNeen

        Wait, “experimentation” is still acceptable sexy-science type innuendo? It’s not unbearably cliche? I totally could have used it in my stupid fanfic without looking like a dang fool!?

        I can’t believe I talked myself out of it.

  25. Tenzhi

    I hate to even think it, but when Becky mentioned hearing back about the student loans I had the horrible notion that she might be shattered by bad news on that front.

    1. Emperor Norton II

      Pffft, as if Willis would ever do that to us!

    2. Reltzik

      *googles “what does it take to qualify for a student loan”?

      Okay, so the following are required for a federal loan:

      Valid Social Security Number. Check…. probably. She’s got her birth certificate and can get the SSN with that, I think.

      Registration with the selective service. This is only for men, except a federal court just ruled that male-only requirement to be unconstitutional, but there’s room for appeals and comic time and… screw it, Becky probably qualifies.

      Be a citizen or eligible noncitizen. Check.

      Let’s see… fill out paperwork… enroll in school… maintain a certain course load…

      …. crap. She needs high school diploma or equivalent, like as a GED or homeschooling certificate. And she DIDN’T GRAB HER CERTIFICATE WHEN SHE WAS RAIDING HER OLD HOUSE.

      1. Bagge

        Only one thing to do

        RE-HEIST!T

        1. butts

          HEIST 2: ELECTRIC STEALAROO

      2. Tan

        They do have Becky’s social security number, just not the little card (but the card wouldn’t be necessary).

        Her hometown’s school district should have records of her completing high school through homeschooling, or she could actually just ask Anderson to forward her records, as everything had to have been in order for her to be enrolled there in the first place.

        1. Bagge

          NOPE! RE-HEIST!

      3. dgmillo

        There is also the little matter of eligibility for grants and certain types of loans that are based off of . . . parent’s income. Requirements assume parents will actually support their kids financially, even if they don’t.

        A lot of kids cast out by their families are hit with that double whammy.

        1. Regalli

          Her dad is in jail, though, so that probably affects his income.

        2. thejeff

          There are ways around that, generally reliant on establishing that the family isn’t actually supporting them. Which can be difficult for those informally cast out, but having your parent jailed for kidnapping you will probably make it much easier.
          If nothing else, he’s got no income now. 🙂

      4. Needfuldoer

        Registering for Selective Service is part of the application process on the FASFA form anyway, even if female-born individuals have to register at some point in the future she’ll be covered.

        Fun fact: individuals born between March 1957 and December 31 1959 are exempt from Selective Service because Gerald Ford’s son neglected to register when he was supposed to.

      5. TheStranger

        I didn’t have to provide my diploma to either the feds or either of the universities I attended across ~20 years, either to get registered or to qualify for student aid. My high school transcripts were apparently sufficient for that as far as the schools were concerned, and my presence as a registered student was evidently sufficient along with the financial stuffs to deal with my aid eligibility.

        If IU wants her certificate to admit her, that might be a problem, but if IU extends an admissions offer, not having her certificate on demand isn’t gonna prevent her from getting aid.

        1. David M Willis

          Yeah, I just came across my high school diploma inside a bin of other random junk that my dad had in his office’s basement since the moment I got it, and I haven’t missed it. I remember pulling it out of its sleeve, realizing what it was, and thinking… wait, wasn’t this supposed to be important

        2. thejeff

          Symbolically important.

          May have been more important back in the day, before electronic record keeping and communication?

  26. BenRG

    And, unfortunately, Joyce was one of those kids who accepted anything as true if someone with sufficient authority in her eyes said it was!

  27. Meagan

    I have something hilarious to share with you all that involves pictures and I am not sure the best way to go about it. It involves searching for used copies of the Dumbing of Age books and getting hilarious suggestions for how I misspelled title words.

  28. abysswatcher1993

    Dinas isn’t going to have any pseudosciences in her home.

    “In this house we study experimental and theoretical works, no shit from fundies, racists, communists, capitalists, mysticists, and no bullshit from Tyler Durden fans.”

    1. MatthewTheLucky

      The first rule of Dina’s room is do not talk about Fight Club.

      1. abysswatcher1993

        The second rule of Dina’s room is DO NOT TALK ABOUT FLAT EARTH. The Third rule is that scientific arguments should be done by two people that have researched previously and don’t improvise with “intuitive” knowledge.

        1. abysswatcher1993

          Unless that intuition helps reach experimental results that can be repeated.

        2. BBCC

          Nah, third rule is ‘Evolution is a fact. Deal with it’.

          It USED to be about scientific arguments, but coming to college made her revise a few rules.

  29. KSClaw

    It might have FELT like flames though, because beetles in the nostrils. Ow.

  30. Cristiano P.

    Coming from an European country, I must say that, while I reckon that for Becky is going to be good news, I instinctively shiver inside thinking to the prospect of getting in debt just to get an education.

    That feels wrong to me on so, so many levels…

    1. Liquid Len

      I went to college in the US, and have been out of school for many years. My student loans felt wrong on so many levels. And it’s gotten exponentially worse since then…

  31. DarkoNeko

    Well that escalated quickly

  32. BarerMender

    Just for the record, Mr. Willis, you misspelled “bombardier.”

  33. wakeangel2001

    I can’t believe the crap that gets put in those homeschool books, it must violate some kind of standard to misrepresent facts so badly that they can ONLY be lies.

  34. Lucy Gillam

    God, I hope nothing gets in the way of Becky enrolling. I’d give just about anything for a student like her.

  35. BBCC

    Nice touch on Becky giving the double birds again when she says she’ll be a scientist.

    1. Poofdepoof

      She’s crossing her fingers

    2. David M Willis

      she’s crossing her fingers, actually

      so technically this might be a quadruple birds, i guess

      1. BBCC

        Yup. Noticed as soon as I posted it. Goddammit.

        Although, my childhood is insisting she’s doing it wrong – crossing fingers on both hands was bad luck where I grew up – you only crossed one hand.

        1. Nelly Dreadful

          Mine too. A double-cross means your luck will double cross you. You sometimes cross multiple fingers (and toes), but you always have to make sure there’s an odd number of crosses! That’s just SCIENCE!

        2. Catman

          You’d think she’d know that trying to be a scientist and all.

  36. Catman

    More lesbian energy than Captain Marvel

  37. Falcon

    Brains are sexy.

    Maybe that’s why zombies can’t get enough of’em.

  38. Tobias

    I can say with certainty that I had the EXACT book Willis had and is referencing.

  39. Micki

    Mmm.

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