2012-05-31
Explanation
This comic satirizes the "teach the controversy" approach to education -- a phrase most associated with efforts to present creationism alongside evolution in science classrooms. A teacher announces she'll "teach the controversy" about evolution, but a student immediately applies the same logic to the spelling of the word "controversy" itself, insisting it's spelled "C-O-N-N-T-R-U-H-V-E-R-S-E-Y" and that the dictionary is wrong. When the teacher corrects him, he argues that "me and some other kids got together and decided it's probably spelled C-O-N-N-T-R-U-H-V-E-R-S-E-Y, so there's a consensus right there."
The teacher is forced to concede that the dictionary writers and "Bobby and his consensus" spell it differently, perfectly illustrating the absurdity of treating all disagreements as equally valid controversies. The student then extends this logic to pronunciation, claiming the word is pronounced "tee-ack," at which point the teacher kicks him out of class. The final reveal -- "Here's your ten dollars" -- suggests the student was put up to this as a bet or demonstration. The comic is a reductio ad absurdum argument against the "teach the controversy" framework: if having a dissenting opinion is sufficient grounds to treat something as a legitimate controversy, then every established fact -- including how to spell and pronounce words -- becomes debatable. It highlights how "teach the controversy" selectively applies skepticism to scientific consensus while relying on the same type of expert consensus in every other domain.