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Apparently, images described earlier as depicting a baby jackalope and signifying the demise of modern scientific thought are actually of a Patagonian cavy, a mammal native to South America and a recognized member of the Caviidae family since forever.

Picture of the Patagonian cavy sign at the Southwick’s Zoo. Photograph by Mary Schwalm.

The “befuddled” graduate student who first failed to identify this non-controversial species, which has not shared a common ancestor with rabbits for 83 million years or with antelopes for 100 million years, is an idiot. “She’s an idiot,” her advisor said. “This is going in your file,” said the graduate chair, “and expect to revisit this issue at your next committee meeting.” Another faculty member passing by in the hallway declared, “graduate students are as dumb as a sack of hammers,” though it is not clear if the comment was addressing the subject at hand. The correction came three days after the initial misidentification, when the photographer, who is not a biologist but who did read the plaque at the zoo exhibit, contacted the student. “It’s a Patagonian cavy,” she wrote in an email.

In better news, the return of the jackalope to mythical status means that science is safe again. Champions of Intelligent Design, who had heralded the baby jackalope as irrefutable evidence for their theory, have returned to their think tanks. At the present time, the scientific establishment faces no real threats from the anti-science camps.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 11:28 am and is filed under ID / creationism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.