24

I just found this quote from House M.D. Season 3 Episode 5

Dr. James Wilson: Your real fear is me having a good relationship.

Dr. Gregory House: Yes, it keeps me up at night. That and the Loch Ness Monster, global warming, evolution, other fictional concepts.

This makes me confused as this implies House doesn't accept global warming and evolution. This really seems inconsistent with his character. I can accept that he doesn't have enough information for global warming, but doubting evolution?

Does he ever say something else on the subject? I only found one scene where he references Darwin's natural selection: "he's eight years old and he swallowed something stuck to a fridge? Darwin says - let him die!".

Does House accept evolution and global warming?

0

2 Answers 2

38

Judging from House's character as exhibited throughout the series, I think the conclusion you draw from that quote is rather the other way around.

If we know anything about House, he's extremely rational (or thinks to be) in his approach to problems, very unsympathetic of those who aren't and who place their emotions beyond reason (as exhibited in his bevaiour to a variety of his understandably distraught patients who don't always make the sanest decisions), and not a stranger to sarcasm.

So first, from his beliefs and scientific approach to things I would firmly believe that he is a proponent of evolution, which is somewhat of a signpost in the whole conflict between supposedly rational and scientific people and people more driven by less scientifically-based ideals. (Global warming might be a little more controversial than evolution among even scientists and embassadors of ratio, though, but I feel he might have the same attitude towards that.)

And from his general character I would strongly assume that's just part of a sarcastic remark mocking people who don't believe in evolution (or global warming). He's just taking some controversial topics and throwing them in the mix with an actual unreasonable belief. So the sarcasm works doubly, by pretending to pretend those things don't exist. If anything, he's just playing with the controversiality of a topic and exaggerating that conflict.

At least that's what I'd gather from what we know about House, as you already explained in your question.

4
  • 4
    I also remember the episode with that guy who was always friendly. House thinks, this was a symptom, while his team argues, that the patient may be really nice. House then brings an example of two cavemen seeing other cavemen running towards them - one of them takes a club to defend himself (or runs away, or something), the other one is friendly and invites them over to lunch. The first guy survived, the nice one didn't and couldn't spread his genes. I may have gotten some details wrong, but this was the core of his argument. Commented Sep 3, 2017 at 18:05
  • 3
    @AnneDaunted You mean this scene? House does like his sarcasm. ;)
    – Walt
    Commented Sep 3, 2017 at 18:11
  • 2
    I don't agree that he's taking controversial topics, so much as topics that have zero controversy. His sarcasm wouldn't make sense if he thought that people who believed in the Loch Ness monster or who didn't believe in evolution might have a point.
    – Jon Hanna
    Commented Sep 4, 2017 at 15:01
  • Well, yeah, I'm careful there because while I share his beliefs, I know there's enough people who don't. I'm aware that for House those topics of course are not controversial.
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Sep 4, 2017 at 15:05
3

It is the other way around. As the above answer says, it's a sarcastic remark. House accepts evolution and global warming.

For example, in season 2, episode 4 (TB or Not TB), House says:

Dr. House: There's an evolutionary imperative why we give a crap about our family and friends. And there's an evolutionary imperative why we don't give a crap about anybody else. If we loved all people indiscriminately, we couldn't function.

Dr. Foreman: Hmmm. So, the great humanitarian's as selfish as the rest of us.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .