This is where we leave our interviews! Coming up soon, we go speak to Charles Darwin, from, oh, way back. He’s dead now (it’s a good thing we have Fred) and can be a bit stuffy, but we thought we’d put him up first, as he’s kind of the bloke who started it all.
But first, check out our interview with Gregor Mendel! He was a Monk who played with beans and invented a race of super bees. We talked to him after travelling back in time on Fred, our time-travelling couch. Earlier this year we also talked to Dr. Anonymous Diggit - back when we were trying to figure out what was going on with Shelley’s basement.
We’ve talked to other people thanks to Fred, as well. Mr. Darwin was very impressed with him, but we don’t have him on tape any more because Jemima’s broken it!
Sorry. I didn’t mean to.
Like that’s any good to anyone! Luckily we had a copy, but you’ll have to read it. I think Mr Darwin was more interested in Fred than us.
Stupid man.
Charles Darwin Interview!!!
Jack: Good morning, Mr. Darwin!
Darwin: Aaarrrggghhh! What in the name of God is that?!
Jack: Oh, that’s Jemima. Sorry. Take no notice of her.
Jemima (offended): Hey! That’s not very nice. Hello, Mr. Darwin!
Darwin: Not the little girl! That… that thing you’re both sitting on.
Jemima: That’s Fred, our magical couch.
Jack: Shut up, why don’t you? He’s a scientist, he doesn’t want to hear about magical anything. Mr. Darwin, Fred is how we can talk to you. We’re from the future, you see.
Darwin: My goodness. And you’re telling me that thing is alive?
Jack: Things have moved on from your day. But evolution is widely acknowledged to be true-
Darwin: Yes, I can imagine. Can you breed from it?
Jack: Breed from what?
Darwin: Er… Fred? Is there, may I ask, a, um…
Jack: Fredette? I don’t know. Jemima?
Jemima: Oh, I can speak now, can I?
Jack: Unfortunately, yes. So be quick about it.
Jemima: I don’t know. He won’t say.
Jack: Lots of good you are! Mr. Darwin, do you think we should be breeding things like Fred? Is it really evolution?
Darwin: Ahem! (coughs to clear throat, continues in very impressive, pedantic voice): It is wonderful what the principal of Selection by Man, that is the picking out of individuals with any desired quality, and breeding from them, and again picking out, can do. Even Breeders have been astonished at their own results.
Jack: I know I’m astonished whenever I see those horrible little dogs stuffed in some lady’s handbag.
Jemima: Eww! They’re not dogs at all, really, are they?
Darwin: They can act on differences inappreciable to an uneducated eye.
Jemima: Who can?
Jack: The breeders – they can pick the ugliest small dog out of a whole pack of ugly small dogs and breed it with the next ugliest to give puppies that are slightly more ugly than average. Now shush!
Darwin: Selection has been methodically followed in Europe for only the last half-century. But it has occasionally, and even in some degrees methodically, been followed in the most ancient times, – namely in the preservation of the individual animals (without any thought of their offspring) most useful to each race of man in his particular circumstances. The “rogueing” as nurserymen call the destroying of varieties, which depart from their type, is a kind of selection.
Jemima: Boring! I don’t get it.
Jack: If you’ve got two cows, and one gives a lot of milk and one doesn’t give much at all, which do you kill off when it’s time for steak?
Jemima: Oh! The one with the useless udder, of course!
Jack: Right. And that cow, when you breed it, will have calves that are slightly better at producing milk than the calves of the cow with the useless udder.
Darwin: I am convinced that intentional and occasional selection has been the main agent in making our domestic races. But, however this may be, its great power of modification has been indisputably shown in late times. Selection acts only by the accumulation of very slight or greater variations, caused by external conditions, or by the mere fact that in generation the child is not absolutely similar to its parent.
Jack/Jemima: Thank goodness for that!
Darwin: Man by this power of accumulating variation adapts living beings to his wants, – he may be said to make the wool of one sheep good for carpets and another for cloth.
Jack: Alright. But what wants would we want to adapt Fred for?
Darwin (normal voice again): I wouldn’t mind going back in time to pound Bishop Wilberforce into the dust, the bastard! Descended from monkeys, my arse.
Thus Endeth Our Interview
