Evolution of Language
Explanation
The Joke
A man is praying and asks: "Dear God, why did language evolve?" God (depicted as a glowing figure) responds: "Language was designed by evolution to allow every person to independently produce the same incorrect opinion on President's topics, food, sex, and everybody's position." The man asks: "What about science? Poetry? Mathematics?" God replies: "Hahahahaha! Every request to take an intrinsic look at these is just a prestige display. It's a byproduct, a sort of too-large peacock tail on an evolutionary snail." In the final panels, the man sits in darkness and says: "God, every time we talk I feel worse about myself." God responds from above: "That's called clarity, Mr. Clark."
The comic presents a cynical evolutionary account of language. Rather than being a tool for expressing profound truths, art, or scientific discovery, God explains that language evolved for the mundane purpose of letting everyone generate the same wrong opinions about everyday topics. When the man hopefully suggests language's higher uses — science, poetry, mathematics — God laughs and dismisses them as mere byproducts, like an oversized peacock tail: impressive-looking but not the actual evolutionary purpose.
The Humor
The comedy derives from God cheerfully dismantling humanity's pretensions about the nobility of language and thought. The idea that science and poetry are just accidental byproducts — "a sort of too-large peacock tail on an evolutionary snail" — is a wonderfully absurd metaphor that captures the deflationary tone. The final exchange is the real punchline: the man's complaint that talking to God always makes him feel worse, and God's matter-of-fact response that this feeling is simply "clarity," implies that understanding the truth about human nature is inherently depressing. It is a classic SMBC God comic, where divine omniscience is used to deliver uncomfortable truths.
References
The comic references several concepts from evolutionary biology. The peacock tail is a classic example of sexual selection, proposed by Darwin and elaborated by biologists like Amotz Zahavi (the handicap principle) — the idea that extravagant traits evolve because they signal genetic fitness despite being costly. The concept of language as an evolved trait is explored in evolutionary linguistics, with thinkers like Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker ("The Language Instinct"), and others debating whether language is an adaptation or a byproduct (spandrel) of other cognitive abilities. The "spandrel" concept was notably articulated by Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin.