This is a column that was published originally in March 2008. It was written in fun and is not intended as an angry rant on either side. 

Cynthia:

Millions of years ago, an amoeba oozed around in the ooze until it had a good idea. It turned into a fish, grew legs, walked on the land, climbed a tree (meteor crashed, dinosaurs died), climbed out of the tree, stood on its hind legs and became a man.


Woman arrived via taxi wearing heels and a tasteful scarf to keep the primordial ooze out of her hair.


It’s never been a neck-and-neck race. Evolutionarily speaking, women have always been a couple of millennia ahead of the men who missed their stop on the punctuated equilibrium bus ride of life. We were the first to not have hair on our backs or pee on the toilet seat, we were the first to groom ourselves and ask for directions and we were the first to realize it’s not okay to spit in public.


Women use their opposable thumbs for turning book pages. Men use theirs for mashing X-Box controller buttons.


Women use their pinkies to fine-tune their eyeliner lines. Men use theirs to dig stuff out of their ears.



It’s just painfully apparent that in the evolutionary scale, men haven’t made much progress—except those metrosexuals who have reached some sort of tentative evolutionary high based on the fact that they act, dress, talk and walk like women—they wax their eyebrows, swallow their expletives, gel their hair, wear great shoes and have learned how to read. They are considerate of others and don’t smell funny. Fortunately for women, these evolutionary hybrids have allowed us to continue reproducing with little or no harm to ourselves.


Any man reading this column (congratulations on your ability to read) is probably offended, but be honest, are you picking at your ears right now or scratching your butt?

I spent too many years picking greasy laundry up off the floor, prying mashed Skittles off pocket change and wiping little after-shave hair bits out of the sink. I spent too many years involuntarily watching Max X and Fear Factor out of the corner of my eye—watching him drink straight out of the milk jug and turn all the clothes pink. And guys—as righteous as your indignation may be, he’s not the only one. You’re doing something gross right now. You just won’t admit it.

Yes, I’ll admit that there are various incarnations of man/woman, woman/man, man/man and woman/woman. There’s always an exception to the rule, but bear in mind—it’s an exception. 

But it’s not too late to play catch-up. Just wait around for the next catastrophic world-wide event, and make sure you go with the flow this time. Come on. It’ll be fun.

Then well have someone to talk to.


Jason Sherman:

Contrary to popular belief, evolution isn't something that actually matters. There's the scientific community who postulate that we evolved over millions of years, the religious community who argue that Adam was the first man created by God, the scientific/religious community who argulate that God used evolution as a means of creating man, and then there’s the rest of the population who simply don’t care.

I'm with those guys.

Argument and debate are great things, as they inspire thought about different points of view, but at some point this particular argument got way too fanatical for its own good.

Honestly—people go insane over this. For some reason, the question "Do you believe in evolution?" has become akin to asking "Are you an atheist?" or "Are you a Christian?" Seriously people—we're talking about something that, if it’s true, takes place on such a huge timeframe that there is no possible way it would have any effect on any human, ever.

By the time evolution crops up again as a valid point of discussion for humans (in a Why-is-my-face-melting kind of way), I’m fairly certain the human race as we now know it will still resemble itself in the way a FOX News story resembles something that actually happened: not very.

We will probably have gone through seven nuclear winters, four Zombie Apocalypses, and at least three million more seasons of American Idol before any living thing has actually visibly evolved, and by then, we won’t remember what we looked like now anyway. (Sorry; I ran into a sort of paradox of tense there.)

What began as a simple conflict of theories mushroomed into a completely irrelevant Science vs. Religion SmackDown 2008. You might as well argue about the exact orbital patterns of galaxies, or try to understand the plot of Syriana. It would take way too long to know for sure, and isn’t worth the effort.

Whenever someone comes up to you and asks the question, (and the answer’s not, "Of course I’ll marry you!"), try to change the subject as fast as possible, or better yet, simply give them a good, hard slap.

No amount of discussion is going to change either party’s mind anyway, and this guarantees that:
  1. They’ll never ask you about evolution again and
  2. That they’ll think twice before asking anyone else. And come to think of it, anyone walking around looking for an argument deserves to be slapped. Hard.