Happy 200th Birthday Charles Darwin!
I studied your work for eighteen months as a biology undergrad and knew you drew. But there's only *one* chart in On The Origin Of Species?? Really, Dear Sir, what were you thinking?
Ah, now I see what you were thinking...
(This is the first drawing of the "tree of life" concept found in Darwin's personal notebook. The amazing part is how her begins with the words, "I think..." then relies on the picture to show what he thinks.)
From the accompanying text:
The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth... I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications.
—Darwin, 1872.
Thank you, Dr. Darwin. You have long been the bedrock under my faith in science. Now you'll be the same for my faith in pictures.
