I saw Stephen Jay Gould speak once, in 1995 or 1996, at William and Mary. He showed us a series of 'evolution' cartoons, all bearing some humorous variation on the the linear progression of ape-to-australopithecine-to-caveman-to-modern-man theme. Gould used these cartoons an an example of the traditional human way of thinking about evolution: as a linear process leading to us as its final culmination. (Gould argued against this "line" of thought -- suggesting instead that evolution is best thought of as dendritic and arborescent.)

Anyhow: since I saw that talk, I've been very aware of the variety of cartoons on this cliche of a theme. There are a lot of them. I saw another one (by Ward Sutton) this evening while reading this week's New Yorker magazine:

Labels: art, evolution, humor