Category Archives: humor

Darwin and Evolution in Cartoons and Caricatures

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Visual representation in science is the study of how images can inform an understanding of scientific practice and the production and dissemination of knowledge. There will be at least two worskshops on this topic in the next year (here and here). The description of one describes images as “occupy[ing] a special place… for their power to encapsulate scientific knowledge, their capacity to communicate to various publics, and their flexibility in the production of meanings by the interaction of producers and users.” For this month’s edition of the history of science blog carnival, The Giant’s Shoulders and it’s theme of visuals and representations in science,  I thought I’d share some information about Darwin and evolution in cartoons and caricatures.

Jonathan Smith looked at visual representation within Darwin’s various books in his 2006 book Charles Darwin and Victorian Visual Culture (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture) (you can read the first chapter as a pdf). One could look at Darwin portraiture and photography, maybe Janet Browne has, and how specific images have been used to push a particular way of looking at Darwin. The Darwin year saw many books looking at Darwin and his impact on art. Constance Clark’s 2001 article in The Journal of American History, “Evolution for John Doe: Pictures, the Public, and the Scopes Trial Debate,” is about the “role of visual images of evolutionary ideas published during the [Scopes]debate.” And Heather Brink-Roby’s article “Natural Representation: Diagram and Text in Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species,” in Victorian Studies, looks at how Darwin used diagram and text “not simply to argue for, but also as evidence of, his theory.” Also, analyses of the March of Progress imagery of evolution and other representations (like trees of life) would fit into visual representations (see here and here, and of course Gould’s Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, specifically chapter 1, “Iconography of an Expectation”).

Where do political cartoons and caricatures fit into this? Surely, such images were avenues of knowledge for the public, and how a cartoon represented Darwin or evolution (anti-evolution, pro-evolution, etc.) had an impact on the viewer, and evolution was used as a means to comment on society and culture or whatever was in the news. I know of at least two historians of science who have published on the topic:

Browne, Janet. “Darwin in Caricature: A Study in the Popularisation and Dissemination of Evolution.”Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 145:4 (December 2001): 496-509. (also, see my post 19th-Century Caricature Prints with Tyndall, Darwin caricatures at The Primate Diaries, and Darwin caricatures at Genomicron)

Davis, Edward B. “Fundamentalist Cartoons, Modern Pamphlets, and the Religious Image of Science in the Scopes Era.” In Religion and the Culture of Print in Modern America, edited by Charles Lloyd Cohen and Paul S. Boyer, 175-98. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.

Davis presented at the History of Science Society meeting in 2009 on “Demonizing Evolution,” sharing some of the fundamentalist cartoons. Since Google Books won’t let me see the cartoons in the article, I’m not sure if those in his talk are the same as those in his article, but I will share a few from his talk:

Sunday School Times, June 1922

Why be an ape--? (London, 1936)

Sunday School Times, January 1929

no source given for this one

These cartoons in the era of the Scopes trial present evolution as: dangerous to one’s faith (learning about and accepting evolution will creep into one’s religious life), “modern” education is cheating on God and the Bible; evolution is anti-religion; evolution is sacred and religious itself; the theory of evolution is collapsing, full of speculation and not fact-based. Much of these claims are still used today, by many creationists and intelligent design proponents who spend more time trying to discredit evolution than convincing us that their view is scientific. Such cartoons and anti-evolution pamphlets, according to Davis, “provide new insights into the intense debate about the meaning of science and the nature of religion that took place among American Protestants in the 1920s. From popular publications such as these, we see just how the fundamentalists and the modernists both attempted to influence public opnion about the religious image of science in the decade of the Scopes trial” (193).

There is a wonderful resource for political cartoons that do the opposite of demonizing evolution. Historian of science Joe Cain has brought to our attention the ephemeral journal Evolution: A Journal of Nature, which ran from 1927 through 1938, 21 issue in all, and he provides a publication history for it in a 2003 article for Archives of Natural History. Evolution was “a monthly platform for pro-evolutionist perspectives and as a device for rebutting anti-evolutionists. It also aimed to bolster the resolve of teachers caught in the centre of curriculum debates.” Its purpose was laid out in the first issue:  ”This magazine will help bridge that gap by furnishing a forum in which science itself can speak in popular language without fear of the restraints with which fundamentalists are seeking to shackle them.” Among the articles within Evolution were scores of political cartoons. Cain has made all the issues available (also available through the Biodiversity Heritage Library) and a page with some of the cartoons. Here are a few:

Unfortunately, Evolution was not a great success (hence, only 21 issues). By its 12th issue, the journal touted its 5,000 subscribers, and provided a list of how many by state. Interestingly, it had the most subscribers in New York City (675), California (551), New York State (494),  Illinois (486), and Ohio (299). A few others in the 100-200 range (including Pennsylvania), and the rest under 100, including all states in the South.

I will also point out another website, put togteher by Mark Aldrich, called Cartooning Evolution, 1861-1925, broken up into Darwin and Evolution, Evolution as Social Comment, Victorian Science, Fundamentalist Publications, The Scopes Trial: Northern Newspapers, The Scopes Trial: National Magazines, and The Scopes Trial: Southern Newspapers. Here’s a sampling, but be sure to check out the website itself, there are many more. Enjoy:

chidefender

Harpersbazar

bennett

fun1872

puck 1885

moody

sst

sst

judge

rrdemo

livingage

sfchron

sfexaminer

Creationist quote-mining occurs in games, too!

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In my previous post I shared a link to NCSE’s images of an intelligent design vs. evolution from the banana-toting, Darwin-bashing creationist Ray Comfort. Here’s one of the images, showing a card from the game that uses this quote:

“Scientists conced that their most cherished theories are based on embarassingly few fossil fragments and that huge gaps exst in the fossil record.”

A citation is given, that’s a good step: Time magazine, November 7, 1977. So, what is this quote in reference to? What’s the context. The quote comes from an article titled “Puzzling Out Man’s Ascent” (all online, thanks Rob Igo, for the link) and here is where it falls:

These developments, probably more than any others, hastened the differentiation between man and earlier hominids. Explains Anthropologist Charles Kimberlin (“Bob”) Brain of the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria, South Africa: “Meat eating and hunting were important factors. If you remained a vegetarian, the necessity for culture was not nearly as great.” Richard Leakey too believes that hunting helped to make emerging man a social creature. Says he: “The hominids that thrived best were those able to restrain their immediate impulses and manipulate the impulses of others into cooperative efforts. They were the vanguard of the human race.”

Still, doubts about the sequence of man’s emergence remain.

Scientists concede that even their most cherished theories are based on embarrassingly few fossil fragments, and that huge gaps exist in the fossil record. Anthropologists, ruefully says Alan Mann of the University of Pennsylvania, “are like the blind men looking at the elephant, each sampling only a small part of the total reality.” His colleagues agree that the picture of man’s origins is far from complete.

Perhaps no one is trying harder to fill in the blanks than Richard Leakey. Picking up where his father Louis left off at his death in 1972, Richard—with his Lake Turkana discoveries —has already moved to the forefront of modern anthropology. Now he is reaching out to coordinate research throughout East Africa and taking the lead in sorting and assembling the thousands of fragments of evidence that may someday reveal the secrets of man’s origins.

Oh, the article discusses human evolution, not evolution of life on earth generally. Gee, Ray, do you think you could have clarified that? And, it’s not like any work in paleoanthropology has occurred over the last three decades.

Beware, quote-mining occurs in games, too! More important, do I have to give up my brain?

Skinny Marinky Linky Links

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National Library of Australia: Books and their owners: a tiny link with the past:

Joseph Dalton Hooker (who features in Creation) was most certainly not a beetle-collecting vicar, but a distinguished scientist in his own right. A tiny link with him surfaced in the NLA collections recently. Hooker was Darwin’s lifelong friend and confidant, and encouraged him to publish his Origin of Species. Hooker himself had a fascinating life, travelling on scientific expeditions to the Antarctic, the Himalayas, India, the Middle East and the US western states. He became director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, writing and publishing until well into his 90s. He died in 1911 at the age 0f 94.

petri dish: a child’s-eye view of charles darwin:

This isn’t a perspective on the history of science with which I’m particularly comfortable, as it draws a veil over the hard work of how scientific knowledge emerges, is debated, and then rendered authoritative in a dynamic interplay along many dimensions. And it does, again, tend to make for a “safe” presentation of Darwin and science, rehabilitating him, perhaps, from invidious perspectives that have convinced many that the word “Darwin” is synonymous with hidden agendas that aim to hijack scientific thought for the purpose of destroying faith in God on dishonest pretenses. A depiction of a robust and engagingly curious young Charles who is almost a blank slate, aside from his fondness for be[e]tles — indeed, who is an orthodox believer at the start of the voyage — as an alert conduit for Nature’s empirical truth is hard to square with a vision of a sinister and conniving Darwin out to dupe the devout as the devil’s chaplain. There’s an undertone of scientific apotheosis that I’m not eager to pass along with lessons on evolution if that’s what comes along with a child’s-eye view of Charles Darwin.

Darwin’s Intergalactic Adventure:

Guardian Science Blog: The Beagle, the astronaut and a party in Brazil put the awe back into science:

“Space stations, square riggers and marine biology: science does not get more exciting than this, and we need to get the inquiring young minds of today excited by science,” Barratt said. “The ISS circling the world while a scientific square rigger with Beagle’s pedigree rounds Cape Horn, making new discoveries at sea and on land, streaming footage back to labs and classrooms will be a great way to welcome young minds into the excitement and adventure of science.”

Darwin would have been proud.

Chronicle Herald: Thomas creates wonderful world, characters in pre-Darwin Britain:

One of Thomas’s greatest strengths in the novel is her ability to make us see the world from the eyes of people who do not know the concept of evolution — Anning’s astounding fossil finds were made years before Darwin’s ideas were published. The ideas of intellectuals and peasants alike were contained within a framework of theology and limited science. It was not until 12 years after Anning’s premature death, at the age of 47, that Darwin published On The Origin of Species in 1859. So the world in which Mary found the ammonites and “bezoars,” which she sold to wealthy tourists visiting her hometown of Lyme Regis, England, was one in which there was not an extensive scientific understanding or explanation for the fossils.

“We will not give in to the thinkers!” (Futurama)

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Futurama turns intelligent design on its head with robot evolution

A recap from io9 of the recent Futurama episode – “A Clockwork Origin” – dealing with evolution can be read here:

“A Clockwork Origin” had it all – the Professor was crotchety and insane in his devotion to science, robots literally took over a world, an orangutan in a snappy vest disproved evolution, Zoidberg attempted to be a father, limbs got cut off, and it all ended with a trial. If that isn’t classic Futurama, I don’t know what is.

Darwin-Jesus

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Casey Luskin of The Discovery Institute stated that some artwork depicting Darwin with endless forms of life for Nature‘s “15 Evolutionary Gems” (2009, PDF) “shows a picture of a smiling young Darwin with animals flocking about him (lizards, birds, monkeys, flowers, sponges, turtles, etc.), much like the pictures of Jesus posing with lions and lambs on some cheesy religious tract.”

The art itself:

Jack Scanlan over at Homologous Legs therefore had an idea:

Casey’s reactionary labeling of this image as a “Darwinist” religious icon is absurd, and deserves something just as absurd to mock it… grab any one of the many non-copyrighted images of Darwin out there and add some text that conveys a satirical representation of the idea that Darwin is a religious figure who is worshiped by biologists as Christians worship Jesus. Be as creative and hilarious as you can.

He has added several contributions in his post. Here is my mine, using a picture of I took in Cambridge, England of a stained-glass depiction of Darwin in the hall of Christ’s College, University of Cambridge; William Paley is to the left of Darwin:

Darwin-Jesus

Darwin-Jesus

For more on Luskin’s attack on Nature, watch this:

Falling or Failing?

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I’ve noticed in my Google Reader recently the following ads:

The urls lead here and here. Here’s a sample:

Evolution really did happen, living things really do have a common ancestor, and the earth really is 4.5 billion years old.

But the way evolution really works has little in common with Darwin’s theory. Darwinism is in deep trouble and it’s too late save it.

It’s no different than the Berlin Wall in 1986, Enron in 2000 or the US financial markets 3 years ago: It’s a bubble propped up by academic theorists, atheist zealots, politics and shell games – not hard science.

All that needs to happen is for the right 3-5 scientists to step forward and expose the evolution industry for what it is…. and it’s not a question of “IF”, it’s only a question of WHEN. Darwinism has about 2-5 years left. And when the !@#$ hits the, fan it’s it’s gonna be quite a spectacle.

But that’s not the important part! The real crime is that the “evolutionists” never bothered to tell you how evolution REALLY works. The evolutionary process is neither random nor accident. It’s purposeful, it’s pre-programmed, it’s so ingenious and elegant it takes your breath away.

Todd Wood writes on his blog following the Evolution 2010 meeting in Portland:

Then I came home, and I noticed an outrageous banner ad at a creationist blog proclaiming: “2013: Darwinism Falls.” Ugh. I understand that there are people who think (mistakenly) that there’s a big crisis in evolutionary biology and it’s going to collapse, but I’ve never encountered anyone arrogant enough to set a date. So I clicked on the ad, and it was pretty sad. It’s some site run by an engineer. What is it with engineers? Why is it the most arrogant and vitriolic antievolutionists are engineers? I don’t know, but here’s a prediction for you, Mr. 2013-Darwin-Falls: It ain’t gonna happen. I was just there at Evolution 2010 (unlike you), and I’ve been to many of their past conferences (also unlike you). They’re doing fine. They’re plugging right along. There’s lots of excitement. Lots of research funding. Thousands of researchers. They’re not going anywhere. So unless Jesus Christ returns bodily to rule the earth in the next three years, 2013 will see evolutionary biology continuing to enjoy the same cultural power they have now.

14 (+ 1) Reasons Why Creationists Are More Intelligently Designed Than Evolutionists

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Lifted from Pharyngula:

14 (+ 1) Reasons Why Creationists Are More Intelligently Designed Than Evolutionists

Paul DesOrmeaux

1. “Creationism” comes before “evolution” in the dictionary.
2. Radiometric dating has determined that Kirk Cameron is between 6,000 – 10,000 years old.
3. The banana has obviously been perfectly designed by a designer for eating and for using in other creative, non-edible ways.
4. Where the hell are those transitional species, like flying squirrels, for example?
5. If we evolved from monkeys, why don’t we look more like the Planet of the Apes chimps?
6. Ben Stein offers a perfect example of irreducible complexity “wherein the removal of any one of the parts [such as dying brain cells] causes the system to effectively cease functioning.”
7. Especially when filled with animal crackers, my Noah’s Ark cookie jar is an exact replica of the real deal as depicted in my illustrated Bible.
8. Evolution violates the second, third, fourth, and any future laws of thermodynamics that science types can dream up.
9. If the earth were actually billions of years old, all the water from the Genesis flood, which currently covers three-fourths of the Earth’s surface, would have disappeared down the drain by now.
10. After supposedly “millions of years,” tetrapods haven’t evolved into pentapods.
11. Evolution is only a theory, like the theory of the Scottish origin of rap music.
12. There are well known, professionally published scientists who believe in God and who think dogs can telepathically communicate with humans.
13. If you leave bread, peanut butter, and Fluff on a counter long enough, does it eventually evolve into a Fluffernutter sandwich? Not likely.
14. Contrary to claims by Darwinists, Ann Coulter is not a transitional fossil.
15. If creationism isn’t a valid alternative theory, then what are we going to do with all that crap in the Creation Museum?

Dissociated Press Article on Darwin

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Paul Sivitz, a PhD student in my history department (he, too, just passed his orals – congrats, Paul!), thinks he’s so funny with his little fake news pieces poking fun at his fellow historians or historians-in-the-making. I am the subject of his latest:

Darwin Draft Manuscript Found

Dissociated Press

–LONDON– While cleaning out a storage closet, workers at London’s Natural History Museum discovered a handwritten draft of a book chapter by Charles Darwin. The project, evidently never completed, seems to have been written long before any of the scientist’s other work. Several pages of notes found with the manuscript describe Darwin’s theory of evolutionary astrology. The book chapter, titled “Origin of Pisces” is full of ideas that had already been debunked by astrological scholars decades earlier. Michael Barton, a noted Darwin expert, was in London at the time doing research for his book, The Meaningless Charles Darwin, said of the manuscript, “This is even more important to uncovering the unknown parts of Darwin’s life than the discovery of the taxidermy of Darwin’s bulldog, which he had put to sleep after it bit Alfred Russel Wallace on the leg.” In the United States, Jerry Jessee, one of Barton’s fellow graduate students at Montana State University, commented on his colleague’s book project. Said Jessee, “Barton’s plan to tell us everything we don’t need to know about Darwin is workable, although somewhat misguided.”

Har dee har, Paul.