Last month, the Dr Pepper company posted an ad, “Evolution of Flavor,” on its Facebook page. That may be a new way to promote a beverage, but the ad harked back to a time-honored image: the “monkey-to-man” illustration that has become an iconic and instantly recognizable visual shorthand for evolution. In response, anti-evolutionists flooded the company’s website, protesting what they claimed was the soda company’s endorsement of Darwinism.
That a 150-year-old scientific illustration could trigger a political attack today speaks volumes about the contentious state of the American debate over evolution. But it also opens a window onto the extraordinary history of the image itself—one of the most intriguing, and most misleading, drawings in the modern history of science.
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"A May Gallup poll showed that 46 percent of Americans believe God created humans in a single act in the last 10,000 years." And, God help us, a good deal of them will be voting in a week and a half. What a country! 46%?!!!! That means, some of them are definitely your neighbors, who smile and wave to you as they rake their leaves or wash their cars.