Here’s a little comic idea I came up with while driving Cristina to the dentist. I made myself laugh out loud so I figured I better draw it.

A poo is standing and gesticulating, saying “I did not ‘evolve’ from a chimichanga with a side of beans. God CREATED us in his own image.” Another poo sits calmly reading a book from his chair. The title beneath reads, “Evan makes the mistake of trying to explain Darwin’s On the Origin of Feces to his religious friends.” (yes, I’m simply typing this out for SEO purposes).

This comic attempts to express my frustration with the fact that so much of the United States population still denies the fact of evolution. An excellent article in Scientific American explains how the exact percentage depends on how you ask the question. Apparently, if you allow folks some wiggle room to say God had a role in it, they can publicly accept that humans evolved from something else. When given this option, a total 81% of people accepted evolution. I find that to be a bit of a relief after hearing that previous polls showed more than 50% of Americans denied evolution.

What surprised me was that only 87% of non-religious people (atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular) believe that we exist because of evolution. What do the other 13% believe? I would love to pick their brains.

And yes, this is definitely a nod to my favorite cartoonist of all time, Gary Larson.

After making this comic I looked up Origin of Feces online and discovered it is both a book about poop, and an album by metal band Type O Negative. Awesome! And of course be sure to check out Charles Darwin’s actual ground-breaking book On the Origin of Species, where it all began more than 150 years ago.