Haeckel Slide Show in Slate

Andrea Bottaro posted Entry 1370 on August 18, 2005 05:19 PM.
Trackback URL: http://www.pandasthumb.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.fcgi/1367

Haeckel.jpgSlate has an interesting slide show about Ernst Haeckel’s life and work. The commentary touches on the most controversial aspects of Haeckel’s legacy (doctored embryo drawings, racism, etc), but with the aid of some truly stunning pictures, it does a good job at offering a balanced look at this amazingly gifted scientist and artist.

Interestingly, a movie based largely on Haeckel’s story is about to come out. Too bad the casting was done long ago, because judging from the photograph in Slate’s second slide (reproduced here, Haeckel on the left), with a wig and a fake beard Dembski would have been a shoo-in for Haeckel’s part.

Commenters are responsible for the content of comments. The opinions expressed in articles, linked materials, and comments are not necessarily those of PandasThumb.org. See our full disclaimer.

Comment #43838

Posted by Shirley Knott on August 18, 2005 6:39 PM (e)

But adding additional fake anything to Dembski would likely result in a total implosion.
Is there anything whatsover about him which is honest and genuine?

hugs,
Shirley Knott

Comment #43844

Posted by Andrea Bottaro on August 18, 2005 6:59 PM (e)

Well, Dembski has been impersonating a scientist pretty much full-time for over a decade, so he has much more experience with the character that any professional actor out there…
;-)

Comment #43848

Posted by Dan Phelps on August 18, 2005 7:17 PM (e)

Too bad the movie/DVD is so expensive. Any chance it will be available at a reasonable price someday?

Comment #43882

Posted by Kele on August 18, 2005 10:57 PM (e)

With a price like that, how do they get any sales? Or am I just ignorant in that a lot of movies are priced like this and people buy them?

Comment #43884

Posted by Sir_Toejam on August 18, 2005 11:09 PM (e)

I think somewhere along the line, everything worth buying was priced out of the range of anyone trying to make a living as a scientist.

:)

Comment #43890

Posted by Pedro Ferrousgate on August 18, 2005 11:29 PM (e)

Shirley wrote

But adding additional fake anything to Dembski would likely result in a total implosion.
Is there anything whatsover about him which is honest and genuine?

Surely Shirley doesn’t think he’s just pretending to be an idiot?

Comment #43893

Posted by Sir_Toejam on August 18, 2005 11:33 PM (e)

How do you know he isn’t.

and don’t call me surely…

Comment #43918

Posted by Shirley Knott on August 19, 2005 6:57 AM (e)

No, dearie, I’m thinking he’s pretending not to be an idiot.
And a singularly inept performance it is, too.

hugs,
Shirley Knott
“I’m not saying he’s dishonest, but his wife has to call the dog to come in for dinner”

Comment #43943

Posted by Katarina on August 19, 2005 11:02 AM (e)

The slide show is a brilliant summary. I found interesting the defense of Heackel’s tree illustration. Doesn’t have to have a hierarchial interpretation. Because certain species or races made it to the top of the tree, that doesn’t prove they are better, only that they evolved separately. Whatever traits may be modified, it is hard to tell whether those traits make them superior.

Comment #43952

Posted by steve on August 19, 2005 11:51 AM (e)

No bathroom wall, so i’m putting this here. Good update on Pastafarianism:

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/19/pastafarianism_flyin.html

Comment #43981

Posted by Louis II de Bourbon on August 19, 2005 2:32 PM (e)

I actually saw the film “Proteus” at the Atlanta film festival last year with the director in attendance. It was visually stunning. I’d recommend it even if you don’t care one way or another about Haeckel himself. I would say that the film is a work of art first and a documentary a distant second.

Comment #44064

Posted by Lukas on August 20, 2005 7:02 AM (e)

If you are interested in Haeckel several of his works can be found at Kurt Stüber’s Online Library:
http://caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/~stueber/stueber_library.html

particularly beatiful are: “Kunstformen der Natur” http://caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/~stueber/haeckel/kunstformen/natur.html

and “Die Radiolarien” http://caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/~stueber/haeckel/radiolarien/index.html

Comment #44151

Posted by Andrea Bottaro on August 20, 2005 6:18 PM (e)

Lukas:
Thanks - those are beautiful!

Comment #44247

Posted by Sir_Toejam on August 21, 2005 5:51 PM (e)

I bought a copy of Artforms in Nature a couple years back. Is it out of print now? i couldn’t seem to find it for sale anymore.

If you want to use Haeckel’s artwork yourself, this site has png versions that are quite useful:

http://draves.org/pix/kdn/