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SUMMARY:‘What is meant by this system?’ Charles Darwin and the visual 
 re-ordering of nature - Nicola Gauld (Fitzwilliam Museum\, Cambridge)
DTSTART:20080121T130000Z
DTEND:20080121T141500Z
UID:TALK9535@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Salim Al-Gailani
DESCRIPTION:The issue of arranging and ordering nature to explain how spec
 ies evolved within the context of divergence and variation\, and then how 
 to adequately illustrate it\, was one which vexed Charles Darwin\, and nat
 uralists before him\, for many years. This paper will consider the renegot
 iation of the ‘Great Chain of Being’ in light of Darwin’s hypothesis
 \, and examines images used to explain the order of nature\, from Darwin
 ’s own visual imagining in the Origin of Species to more popular represe
 ntations found in natural history books of the period. For Darwin\, any vi
 sual or diagrammatic description of the natural system posed an almost imp
 ossible task\; his method of explaining it in the Origin took the form of 
 a branching model\, but how did popularisers of natural history and zoolog
 y treat the order of nature? How were different animals\, specifically mam
 mals\, arranged within such books and to what extent did this change as th
 e century progressed and the debate intensified? This paper will offer an 
 examination of illustrated zoologies\, focusing on the imagery which allow
 ed writers to provide a more enlightening and vivid expression of Darwinia
 n concepts for the lay reader. Theories of divergence and variation were c
 onveyed to a wider audience through natural history books but it will beco
 me apparent that the tree model\, employed by Darwin\, was often contradic
 ted by the writers of these books in order to reassert a hierarchy amongst
  species.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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