Hopwood, Nick (Author)
Haeckel, Ernst (Author)
University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 2015
Language: English
Physical Details: vii + 388 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
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 copying---usually dismissed as unoriginal---can 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.
...MoreReview Erik L. Peterson (2017) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". American Historical Review (pp. 1302-1303).
Review Hsiang-Fu Huang (June 2017) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (pp. 293-295).
Review Donna Roberts (2016) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 429-432).
Review Kate MacCord (2015) Review of "Life's Blueprint: The Science and Art of Embryo Creation". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (pp. 103-106).
Review Liborio Dibattista (2017) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". Nuncius: Annali di Storia della Scienza (pp. 791-793).
Review Frederick B. Churchill (2016) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 719-720).
Review Robert J. Richards (2016) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 865-867).
Review Andrew S. Reynolds (2016) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (pp. 165-167).
Review Federica Turriziani Colonna (2016) Review of "Stations in the Field: A History of Place-Based Animal Research, 1870--1930". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 107-113).
Review Nils Petter Hellström (2016) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". Archives of Natural History (pp. 367-368).
Review Federica Turriziani Colonna (2016) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". British Journal for the History of Science.
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