2012-08-24
Explanation
This comic mocks the "adaptationist" school of evolutionary thinking by having a bespectacled woman deliver increasingly absurd claims about the adaptive purpose of male genitalia. She argues that the penis can be used to tell time when erect and perpendicular to the earth'''s surface (functioning as a sundial), and that testicles thermoregulate and can therefore be used for thermometer calibration. She then claims male genitalia are "perfectly adapted to determine the current season" and probably evolved into their current form around the time agriculture was developed.
Her companion points out she could have simply said "I think your ideas are too adaptationist" -- referring to the legitimate scientific criticism that some evolutionary biologists over-attribute adaptive purpose to every biological trait (the critique famously articulated by Gould and Lewontin in their "Spandrels of San Marco" paper). She responds with the self-aware quip: "Sorry, my vocal chords are only evolved for sarcasm," turning her own adaptationist logic against herself in a recursive joke.
The comic satirizes how adaptationist reasoning can be used to construct seemingly plausible but ultimately ridiculous "just-so stories" explaining any trait as an adaptation. By choosing deliberately absurd examples involving genitalia, Weinersmith highlights how easy it is to invent post-hoc evolutionary narratives that sound scientific but are essentially unfalsifiable.
The votey continues the joke with the woman'''s companion saying "Now, lie down and think of boobs so I can see if we'''re late for the opera" -- playfully taking her sundial theory at face value and attempting to use the proposed "adaptation" for its supposed practical purpose.