Big Daddy? (Chick tract)



Big Daddy? is a Chick tract whose description on Chick's website is, "A student proves evolution is full of holes." It is an excellent example of Chick's work, featuring cutely oversimplified situations and lots of misrepresentations of scientific facts. This tract was originally published in 1972, but underwent a revision in 1992, with Kent Hovind acting as a consultant.

Synopsis
An overbearing college professor, who looks suspiciously like various racist anti-Jewish caricatures, harangues his students about the truth of evolution, but he is put in his place by an unusually Aryan looking, clean cut, preppy student who defends God and the Bible.

Tract walk-through
There are already a couple of good refutations of the bad science in this tract on the web (see below), so this page will concern itself mainly with religious concepts and the portrayal of atheists. In some cases, the reader is referred to other sites for more detailed responses to the science mistakes.

Introduction of conflict
(Panel 1)
 * Professor: "How many of you believe in evolution?"

(Panel 2)
 * Students: "WE DO SIR!"

(Panel 3)
 * Professor: "Anyone disagree?"
 * Evangelist student: "I do, sir!"

(Panel 4)
 * Professor: "You can GET OUT of MY class!! After you've apologized for your rudeness and ignorance, we MIGHT let you back in!"

(Panel 5)
 * Professor: "On second thought, perhaps I was a little bit hasty. I think I will systematically tear your little beliefs to shreds in front of the entire class!"
 * Evangelist: "Thank you, sir!"
 * Another student: "Crazy man!"
 * Professor: "Sit down!"

Enter religion
(Panel 6)
 * Professor: "What makes you think evolution is untrue?"
 * Evangelist: "Because the Bible says that each kind..."
 * Professor: "HOLD IT, YOU FANATIC!!"

(Panel 7)
 * Professor: "I could have you jailed for that!!"


 * Footnote: "It has never been against the law to teach creationism in public schools."


 * Professor (continuing): "How dare you even mention the word Bible in this school. You know it's unscientific?? -- If you talk to me, it will be ONLY in scientific terms!  Do you understand?"

(Panel 8)
 * Professor: "Young man, the evidence is overwhelming. ALL of the schools teach it.  It's accepted everywhere.  DNA proves it!  Science proves it!  Carbon-14 proves it!"

(Panel 9)
 * Professor: "FACTS - FACTS FACTS! Huxley - G. Gaylord Simpson - Darwin - even NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and TIME magazines know it..."
 * Evangelist: "Sir?"

Creationist view of evidence
(Panel 10)
 * Evangelist: "Are there not six basic concepts of evolution?"
 * Professor: "Yes!"


 * Written on the board:
 * Cosmic Evolution - Big Bang makes hydrogen
 * Chemical Evolution - higher elements evolve
 * Evolution of stars and planets from gas
 * Organic Evolution - life from rocks
 * Macro-evolution - changes between different kinds of plants and animals
 * Micro-evolution - changes within kinds

(Panel 11)
 * Evangelist: "Only the last one has been observed and can be called science."
 * All other students: "He's got a point there!"


 * Professor: "I don't like your attitude! Let's discuss prehistoric man."

(Panel 12)
 * Professor: "Here is the first and most famous clue to early man, The Neanderthal Skullcap! Modern dating methods show man to be older than Darwin could have imagined!"

(Panel 13)
 * Professor: "Lucy, the oldest known ancestor of humans, is 2.9 million years old."

(Panel 14)
 * Evangelist: "Only 2.9 million? Richard Leakey found a normal human skull under a layer of rock dated at 212 million years... I'm sorry sir, but most experts agree that Lucy was only an unusual chimpanzee not a missing link."
 * Footnote: (For details, watch this Kent Hovind video.)


 * Professor: "WILL YOU SIT DOWN!"
 * Evangelist: "Yes, sir!"

A fossil learns about fossils
(Panel 15)
 * Professor: "Pieced together by fragmentary fossil evidence, science can show the stages of man's long march from ape-like ancestors to sapiens! With wonderful names like proconsul-australopethicus afarensis to homo habilis to homo erectus and on and on to modern man!"

(Panel 16)
 * Evangelist: "Sir, I have in my possession a similar chart showing some amazing findings which are finally made public! May I show it?"
 * Professor: "This should be interesting! Yes, let's see it!  Science always has the answers."

(Panels 17-18)
 * These panels contain eight misleading pictures of hominids showing a progression from "Lucy" (represented as a chimp, as discussed earlier) to "modern man", who is captioned with "This genius thinks we came from a monkey."

(Panel 19)
 * Professor (thought bubble): "He's killing me! I've gotta play it cool!"
 * Professor: "All of these layers of the earth are millions of years different in age. We can tell the age of these layers from the fossils they contain."
 * Evangelist: "But sir, how do you date the fossils?"

(Panel 20)
 * Professor: "That's a good question. We can tell the age of fossils since we know the age of the layer of rock where they were found."
 * Evangelist: "Sir, isn't that circular reasoning?"

(Panel 21)
 * Evangelist: "How can you say the layers are different ages? Petrified trees* are often found going through many of the layers.  Some are even upside down running through 'millions of years' worth of rock."
 * Footnote: See pictures of these on www.drdino.com.

The specious arguments continue
(Panel 22)
 * Professor: "Well, here is proof of evolution. Human embryos have gill slits proving man evolved through the fish stage millions of years ago!"
 * Evangelist: "Sir, Earnst [sic] Haeckel made up those drawings in 1869 and they were proven to be wrong in 1874. Those folds of skin are not gills.  They grow into bones in the ear and glands in the throat.**"
 * Footnote: (Another Hovind video)
 * Professor (thought bubble): "I hate him!"


 * A student: "Wow! Wrong for 125 years and still in our book!"

(Panel 23)


 * Professor (thought bubble): "(Gulp) He's destroying me!"

Vestiges of the author's sanity

 * Professor: "Vestigial organs like the human tail bone prove we evolved from animals with tails!"

(Panel 24)


 * Evangelist: "Sir, there are nine muscles that attach to the tail bone... it is not 'vestigial'!"

(Panel 25)


 * Professor: "Whales have a vestigial pelvis. This proves they evolved from a land dwelling creature."

(Panel 26)


 * Evangelist: "I'm sorry sir, but those bones serve as anchor points for muscles. Without them whales cannot reproduce.  They have nothing to do with walking on land."


 * Evangelist: "Even if there were "vestigial" organs, isn't losing something the opposite of evolution?"

Forget this farce, let's just abandon science
(Panel 27)


 * Evangelist: "Sir, what is the binding force of the atom?"
 * Professor: "It's gluons!"
 * Professor (thought bubble): "Gotcha!"
 * Evangelist: "Wrong sir! Gluons are a made-up dream.  No one has ever seen or measured them... they don't exist!  It's a desperate theory to explain away truth!"

(Panel 28)


 * Evangelist: "We know that the electrons of the atom whirl around the nucleus billions of times every millionth of a second... and that the nucleus of the atom consists of particles called neutrons and protons. Neutrons have no electrical charge and are therefore neutral --BUT--

(Panel 29)


 * Evangelist: "Protons have positive charges. One law of electricity is: LIKE CHARGES REPEL EACH OTHER!  Since all the protons in the nucleus are positively charged, they should repel each other and scatter into space.  If gluons aren't the answer... what is?"

(Panel 30)


 * Professor: "I don't know!"
 * Evangelist: "I'm sorry sir, but I can't hear you."
 * Professor: "I said -- I don't know. You tell me!"

(Panel 31)


 * Evangelist: "Sir, may I quote from the Bible?
 * Professor: "YES, YES, YES !!"
 * It says that Christ, the Creator, 'Is before all things, and by him all things consist (are held together).'" (footnote: ) "Also it says, 'All things were made by him (Christ); and without him was not anything made that was made.'" (footnote: )

The wind-up...
(Panel 32)
 * At this point the professor walks out of the classroom, carrying his "Our Father" picture and looking dejected.
 * Professor: "They'll understand why I'm quitting. They're intelligent, logical, compassionate scholars.  Everything will be alright [sic]!  I'll simply tell them I can't teach it any longer!"

(Panel 33)
 * Professor: "I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I can no longer teach evolution. It can't possibly be true!"
 * Some administrative guy (not pictured): "WHAT? Are you crazy? GET OUT of OUR university!  After you've apologized to everyone for your rudeness and ignorance we MIGHT let you back in!"

...and the pitch
(Panel 34)
 * Student 1: "Then man killed the Creator, if Jesus is God in the flesh."
 * Evangelist: "Right! Jesus came to earth to shed His blood for you, to wash away your sins so you could have eternal life with Him."
 * Student 2: "Then we didn't evolve! The system has been feeding us THE BIG LIE!  We really do have a soul!"
 * Footnote: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

(Panel 35)
 * Student 3: "What happens if I die without believing this?"
 * Evangelist: "Then you'll die in your sins -- and be eternally lost."
 * Student 4: "What should we do to go to heaven?"
 * Evangelist: "Repent of your sins. Surrender your life to Christ, acknowledge that He died for your sins and receive Him as your savior.  Then you will go to heaven when you die."

(Panel 36)


 * "THE BIBLE SAYS THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY TO HEAVEN!"


 * (See the main Chick tract article for the standard final page blurb.)