E-Book Overview
Pictures from the past powerfully shape current views of the world. In books, television programs, and websites, new images appear alongside others that have survived from decades ago. Among the most famous are drawings of embryos by the Darwinist Ernst Haeckel in which humans and other vertebrates begin identical, then diverge toward their adult forms. But these icons of evolution are notorious, too: soon after their publication in 1868, a colleague alleged fraud, and Haeckel’s many enemies have repeated the charge ever since. His embryos nevertheless became a textbook staple until, in 1997, a biologist accused him again, and creationist advocates of intelligent design forced his figures out. How could the most controversial pictures in the history of science have become some of the most widely seen? In Haeckel’s Embryos, Nick Hopwood tells this extraordinary story in full for the first time. He tracks the drawings and the charges against them from their genesis in the nineteenth century to their continuing involvement in innovation in the present day, and from Germany to Britain and the United States. Emphasizing the changes worked by circulation and copying, interpretation and debate, Hopwood uses the case to explore how pictures succeed and fail, gain acceptance and spark controversy. Along the way, he reveals how embryonic development was made a process that we can see, compare, and discuss, and how copyingusually dismissed as unoriginalcan be creative, contested, and consequential. With a wealth of expertly contextualized illustrations, Haeckel’s Embryos recaptures the shocking novelty of pictures that enthralled schoolchildren and outraged priests, and highlights the remarkable ways these images kept on shaping knowledge as they aged.
E-Book Content
Haeckel’s Embryos
{ Haeckel’s Embryos IMAGES, EVOLUTION, AND FRAUD
NICK HOP WOOD
}
The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London
Published with the support of the Getty Foundation
NICK HOPWOOD is reader in history of science and medicine in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Embryos in Wax, coeditor of Models: The Third Dimension of Science, and cocurator of the online exhibition Making Visible Embryos.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2015 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2015. Printed in China 24╇23╇22╇21╇20╇19╇18╇17╇16╇15â•…â•… 1╇2╇3╇4╇5 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-04694-5 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-04713-3 (e-book) DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226047133.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hopwood, Nick, author. Haeckel’s embryos : images, evolution, and fraud / Nick Hopwood. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-226-04694-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-226-04713-3 (e-book) 1. Haeckel, Ernst, 1834–1919. 2. Evolution (Biology)—History. 3. Scientific illustration—History. 4. Embryos. I. Title. QH361.H67 2014 576.8—dc23 2014016887
∞╇ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).
For my parents, David and Joyce
CONT E NT S
1
Icons of Knowledgeâ•… â•… 1
2
Two Small Embryos in Spirits of Wineâ•… â•… 9
3
Like Flies on the Parlor Ceilingâ•… â•… 31
4
Drawing and Darwinismâ•… â•… 53
5
Illustrating the Magic Wordâ•… â•… 69
6
Professors and Progressâ•… â•… 89
7
Visual Strategiesâ•… â•… 107
8
Schematics, Forgery, and the So-Called Educatedâ•… â•… 127
9
Imperial Gridsâ•… â•… 145
10