A graphic tour of how we humans came to be, through the eyes of space aliens Bloort and Prince Floorsh
New Challenges for Evolution Education
Five years after the Dover trial pushed intelligent design out of public school classrooms, how has evolution instruction fared?
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February 28, 2011
Editor's note: The following is an excerpt of the graphic book, "Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth" (Hill and Wang, 2011). It was written by noted comic-book author and professor of biology Jay Hosler and illustrated by the award-winning duo Kevin Cannon and Zander Cannon.
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15 Comments
Add CommentMaking science more accessible in this way is remarkable and entertaining while being informative; I'll be looking for the book in stores. Thanks for this great look into the book!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWonderful job of explaining various models and aspects of evolution but somehow comic books seem a more appropriate medium to explain creationism, you know , magic and superheroes, that sort of thing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI really enjoy going through the cartoons. They are very informative and educational.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe originated from bacteria. They are still within and part of us. We are the number one organism because, among other things, of a special gene we possess, that is , FOXP-2.
Magic man done it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid you intend for all three statements to be self-referencing?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah letxequalx, fantasy explains creationism so much better than say defying the laws of thermodynamics dreaming up Piltdown man.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn inquest into Piltdown Man doesn't seem to offer much cheer to those of us who think that science is a legitimate enterprise that has drawn a credible chart of human evoltuion. Anyone conversant with the Piltdown history will readily, if not eagerly, agree that many of the researchers shaped reality to their heart's desire, protecting their theories, their careers, their reputations, all of which they lugged into the pit with them. All of the suspects were long dead before the assesments of their culbability began. Their relatives, friends, and admirers may have been embarrassed into shame or stroked into resentment, but that seems a small price to pay for all the fun. Less fun is the more important part: what the Piltdown case signifies.
The resolution of the question of whether science does map the truth of reality or whether it is just another myth has consaequences for us in our daily lives. In the 1920s, fundamentalists wanted to outlaw the teaching of evolution in public schools; today, they want to give creationism equal time with evolution.
For close to 40 years, Eoanthropus dawsoni, a.k.a. Piltdown Man, was taught as fact. His australopithicine and pithecanthropine relatives are still taught as fact. If they are really as mythical as he was, then it seems the just thing to do would be to give equal time to comparing facts or myths. If science is nothing more than myth, then biblical stories are agreeable alternatives and render, serendipitously, more wholesome ethics.
The paleontologist Earnest Hooton pushed this Piltdown case aside as unique, but the creationists pulled it back as typical of what evolutionists always do: deceiving themselves and others by turning apes into people.
Talk about fantasy. Evolutionists dont need a comic book. They are doing just fine all on their own.
Dude, are you writing from *inside* a comic book? Is it a Jack Chick?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisListen: A hoax does not invalidate all science! You're saying that the existence of the Piltdown Man as a hoax somehow refutes the Scientific Theory of Evolution? I suppose then that Raelian's Eve invalidates Genetics as well? And the Fiji Mermaid invalidate Marine Biology? And the Balloon-Boy invalidates Aviation? And the Platypus invalidates... wait, Platypuses are real...
The cartoon should be coloured! Black and white is not very interesting for kids or young adults ( or me) |:o)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe lesson to be learned from Piltdown Man is not that science is infallible, but that mistakes and even outright fraud are eventually detected and corrected, even though it may take 40 years or more to do so. Religiously inspired "theories" such as creationism have no such self correcting mechanism, their proponents can go on teaching nonsense for thousands of years under a doctrine of infallibility.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree! Comics will make it easier for veryone to understand evolution in a very simple, attractive way. Thank you for showing this book.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGetting a leg up on evolution in another venue brings to mind the following quotation:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The success of Darwinism was accompanied by a decline in scientific integrity....I do not contest the fact that the advent of the evolutionary idea, due mainly to the Origin, very greatly stimulated biological research. But it appears to me that owing, precisely to the nature of the stimulus, a great deal of this work was directed into unprofitable channels or devoted to the pursuit of will-o'-the-wisps....Darwin himself considered that the idea of evolution is unsatisfactory unless its mechanism can be explained. I agree, but since no one has explained to my satisfaction how evolution could happen I do not feel impelled to say that it has happened. I prefer to say that on this matter our information is inadequate."
One may be tempted to ask what creationist wrote that comment. The answer is, no creationist wrote it. Prof. W. R. Thompson, FRS wrote it in the "Introduction" to one of the 1956 Editions of Charles Darwin's "...Origin of Species..." Creationists, however, did have some influence on the issue. The members of the British organization, Evolution Protest Movement, obtained permission to reprint the "Introduction" in booklet form in 1967. The quoted material is on pages 17, 16 and 12.
What a great idea. Scientific understanding in the States can use all the help it can get. So awesome.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKriss
Producing a cartoon comic book to teach a scientific subject seems to me to say more about the readership rather than the subject. My feeling is that it owes more to propaganda and brainwashing (always assuming that brains are involved)than teaching. Next on the list will be 'Brain surgery' by comic strip, I look forward to that one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The success of Darwinism was accompanied by a decline in scientific integrity....I do not contest the fact that the advent of the evolutionary idea, due mainly to the Origin, very greatly stimulated biological research. But it appears to me that owing, precisely to the nature of the stimulus, a great deal of this work was directed into unprofitable channels or devoted to the pursuit of will-o'-the-wisps....Darwin himself considered that the idea of evolution is unsatisfactory unless its mechanism can be explained. I agree, but since no one has explained to my satisfaction how evolution could happen I do not feel impelled to say that it has happened. I prefer to say that on this matter our information is inadequate."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat decline was more a matter of joining a new and popular club, and the subscription to that club meant the loss of objectivity in the relevant fields. If you were not a member you found yourself marginalized by your peers, a death nail in the scientific community. Science today is slowly regaining the objectivity and that 'inadequate' information is slowly turning against Darwin. We continue along the same path, but now stagger rather than stride, but still we have no idea how life actually started, or how the various elements came together (amino acids into proteins, where the machinery to convert light energy into cellulose, etc)that are so essential to life.
Bill Crofut, I can't imagine why you'd even bother using that quote from 1956 - we've learned quite a bit about the mechanism since then. You might as well go back to 1556 and quote someone who says that there's no evidence that the earth revolves around the sun.
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