PZ Myers. 2004 Dec 23. Enshrined errors that make you cringe. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/enshrined_errors_that_make_you_cringe/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 01.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Thursday, December 23, 2004

Enshrined errors that make you cringe

image

OK, I'm a big fan of Mac computers and OS X, and as you might guess, I'm also a big booster for evolutionary biology. The open source core of Mac OS X is called Darwin, which is the kind of synchronicity that makes me very happy—it's like peanut butter and chocolate, or squid and garlic1, or Fred and Ginger2, two things that go well together. Then, unfortunately, I read about the history of Open Darwin's mascot:

Hexley was created in response to a query on the Darwin Developers mailing list that they needed a mascot. This was sometime in the year 2000. A web vote was taken of the various submissions and my platypus was chosen. Some of the other submissions included an Aqua Darwin fish and various devilish modifications of Clarus the DogCow.
Once my platypus was chosen someone suggested that we use "Hexley" as the name of the new mascot since Darwin's assistant was named Hexley. It turns out we were wrong and the person we were referring to was actually Thomas Henry Huxley. Huxley was not Darwin's assistant but was a prominent English biologist in his own right. He was a vociferous defender of Darwin's theories, so much so that he was nick-named "Darwin's Bulldog".
By the time we found out our mistake "Hexley" had escaped into the ether and we felt that it was to late to change the name to "Huxley".

Oooh. Ow. How embarrassingly ignorant. It's bad enough that "someone" was so cavalier about the facts that they would toss out that misremembered rationale in the first place, but then for it to bounce around on a mailing list and no one noticed…ick.

If they thought a platypus was an appropriate Darwinian creature because it was transitional between a duck and a beaver, please, don't tell me.


1Sauteed.
2Not sauteed.
Posted by PZ Myers on 12/23 at 12:39 PM
Macintosh • Weirdness • 1 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. Sauteed platypus? Aren't they endangered?
    #: Posted by  on  12/23  at  01:51 PM
  2. Well, you know that it would be a bit hard to get your hands on some Fred to sautee with ginger. I wonder if there are any substitutes?
    #: Posted by mattH  on  12/23  at  01:57 PM
  3. Sauteed platypus?

    Yep. Tastes like chicken.
    #: Posted by  on  12/23  at  05:39 PM
  4. I suppose the 'Hexley' could be retconned by suggesting the use of 'Hex-' was to make a connection to the one-time BSD mascot, which was a little devil character.

    Similarly to the pitchfork and devil horns in the drawing.

    ie, the story could be that "they meant to do that".

    It'll also get the goat of the fundies, by associating witchcraft or sorcery with Darwin. That may be a plus.
    #: Posted by  on  12/23  at  09:38 PM
  5. It’ll also get the goat of the fundies, by associating witchcraft or sorcery with Darwin. That may be a plus.


    You mean like http://objective.jesussave.us/propaganda.html#APPLE ?

    (yeah, it's a parody site, but a funny one.)
    #: Posted by Aaron M  on  12/24  at  01:32 PM
  6. Based on the presence of horns and pitchfork, I predict some level of protest. However, given the fact that this is a computer-related mascot, and not likely to be seen by mainstream fundamentalists, it will be very mild protest, perhaps only up to about 1.5 on the BGS (Brainless Godder Shriek) scale.

    The little guy reminds me of Hot Stuff, the Little Devil, which was (is?) a comic book character by the same people who did Casper the Friendly Ghost and Wendy the Good Little Witch.

    I used to wonder about the people who refused to buy Proctor & Gamble products, claiming their teeny-tiny moon-and-stars logo, which you'd find on each P&G label, was supposedly satanic ... at the same time comic books with Hot Stuff, an actual pitchfork-carrying devil, and Wendy, a realio-trulio spell-casting little witch, were passing through their children's hands. Not to mention Red Devil Paints in the hardware stores, Linotype-Hell typesetting machines in the print shops, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Duke University Blue Devils on the playing fields and on TV, and sweet Jesus! deviled eggs and deviled ham on the buffet.
    #: Posted by Hank Fox  on  12/25  at  01:10 PM
  7. Calm down, it's just a point mutation.
    #: Posted by  on  12/27  at  07:24 PM