Hey all you Seattle and environs types – Jen McCreight is doing a talk at Town Hall next Monday.
What Makes Us Human: Decoding Our DNA
(Why are those graphics always male? Do the artists not realize that the species is not all-male?)
What makes us human? Scientists and philosophers have been asking the question for years. This age-old query is also the subject of UW genome sciences student Jennifer McCreight’s research. She’ll compare the DNA of humans to chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs, sharing how genetic differences help paint a picture of how Homo sapiens walk, talk, and have larger brains.
That’s twice today that the word “lemur” has appeared here. Independently. What are the odds?
I hate that picture and all its variants so much. It’s the go-to for creationists when they want a “this is what evolutionists believe” strawman image that they can attack, always with the “so why are there still monkeys?” argument. Anyone who actually accepts evolution should treat that image like it’s toxic.
As for the “why is it always male”, obviously because when you draw a nude male you can easily hide the naughty bits with a leg, but you can’t hide “teh bewbies” so easily. And we can’t have that, now can we?
Actually, now I’m picturing a version of that image where it’s a precursor primate slowly evolving into a women, standing proud and naked, and then progressing downwards first with a fig leaf over her crotch and hands over her breasts, then clothed with Moses-style robes and bowed over slightly from the weight of carrying stone tablets, then clothed a bit more heavily with robes and a head scarf like many depictions of New Testament women and bowed over even further burdened by a cross, then finally wearing a full burqa and bowed over more from fear and clutching a Koran to her chest. Wonder if anyone’s ever done a version like that.
That would be an interesting image for someone with the right skills to work on – the only thing I would want to add is that it would be important for it not to look like the female figure is doing this to itself. Perhaps if the cross and koran etc. are clearly being dropped in from above?
(obviously any such image is an astronomically huge simplification. An image which also makes reference to resistance and to other axes of oppression would be interesting …)
Its always male because they keep re-using the same image. From the old National Geographic ‘Early Man’ book.
Wrong for showing a ‘ladder of progress’ model rather than a more realistic ‘bush.’ Wrong for indulging in the old denial of bipedal primacy. Cringy in showing ‘progress’ toward a European…
Sorry, wrong, Time-Life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Progress