Little known to historians, the dodo were violently opposed to Darwin's theory of evolution. Their argument was that since evolution must proceed by survival of the fittest, they themselves, being flightless, ungainly, trusting, and not terribly bright, were obviously not at all the fittest, and thus, could not possibly survive the process of natural selection. Therefore, the very fact of their existence meant that somewhere, a benevolent creator had made them in his own feathered image, a perfect example of divine intervention, debunking all this nonsense about survival of the fittest.

Sadly, they got it part of it right.


Ahem. Yeah. Well, evolution is something I feel strongly about, and young-earth creationists have bludgeoned me with their pseudo-science one too many times of late. At first, I worried that I'd piss people off, and then I thought "Dude, it's art. Not doing art because you're afraid of a reaction is practically anti-art. Might as well smack the Muse and tell her to go make you a sandwich, fer cryin' out loud." So screw it. I may even do a painting. I don't usually use art as a blunt instrument for my particular philosophical axes, mind you, but I figure I earn one every now and then, and if you can't use art to explore the things you feel strongly about, what good is it?

The Victorian clothes on the dodo are undoubtedly inspired by the Alice in Wonderland version, which is my first memory of the dodo in art.