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March of Progress

January 01, 1970

The March of Progress,[1][2][3] originally titled The Road to Homo Sapiens, is an illustration that presents 25 million years of human evolution. It was created for the Early Man volume of the Life Nature Library, published in 1965, and drawn by the artist Rudolph Zallinger.

The original March of Progress illustration from Early Man (1965) with spread extended (top) and folded (bottom)

It has been viewed as a picture of the discredited theory, orthogenesis, that evolution is progressive.[4] As such, it has been widely parodied and imitated to create images of progress of other kinds.

The picture of progress in evolution was anticipated by Thomas Henry Huxley's 1863 Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature.

Illustration edit

Context edit

The illustration is part of a section of text and images commissioned by Time-Life Books for the Early Man volume (1965) of the Life Nature Library, by F. Clark Howell.[5]

The illustration is a foldout entitled "The Road to Homo Sapiens". It shows a sequence of figures, drawn by natural history painter and muralist Rudolph Zallinger (1919–1995).[5] The 15 human evolutionary forebears are lined up as if they were marching in a parade from left to right. The first two sentences of the caption read "What were the stages of man's long march from apelike ancestors to sapiens? Beginning at right and progressing across four more pages are milestones of primate and human evolution as scientists know them today, pieced together from the fragmentary fossil evidence."[5]

Sequence of species edit

The 15 primate figures in Zallinger's image, from left to right, are listed below. The datings follow the original graphic and may no longer reflect current scientific opinion.

  • Pliopithecus, 22–12 million year old "ancestor of the gibbon line"
  • Proconsul, 21–9 million year old primate which may or may not have qualified as an ape
  • Dryopithecus, 15–8 million year old fossil ape, the first such found (1856) and probable ancestor of modern apes
  • Oreopithecus, 15–8 million years old
  • Ramapithecus, 13–8 million year old ape and possible ancestor of modern orangutans (now considered a female Sivapithecus)
  • Australopithecus, 2–3 million years old; then considered the earliest "certain hominid"
  • Paranthropus, 1.8–0.8 million years old
  • Advanced Australopithecus, 1.8–0.7 million year old
  • Homo erectus, 700,000–400,000 years old, then the earliest known member of the genus Homo
  • Early Homo sapiens, 300,000–200,000 years old; from Swanscombe, Steinheim and Montmaurin, then considered probably the earliest H. sapiens
  • Solo Man, 100,000–50,000 years old; described as an extinct Asian "race" of H. sapiens (now considered a sub-species of H. erectus)
  • Rhodesian Man, 50,000–30,000 years old; described as an extinct African "race" of H. sapiens (now considered either H. rhodesiensis or H. heidelbergensis and dated much earlier)
  • Neanderthal Man, 100,000–40,000 years old
  • Cro-Magnon Man, 40,000–5,000 years old
  • Modern Man, 40,000 years to the present

Intention edit

Contrary to appearances and some complaints, the original 1965 text of "The Road to Homo Sapiens" reveals an understanding of the fact that a linear presentation of a sequence of primate species, all in the direct line of human ancestors, would not be a correct interpretation. For example, the fourth of Zallinger's figures (Oreopithecus) is said to be "a likely side branch on man's family tree". Only the next figure (Ramapithecus) is described as "now thought by some experts to be the oldest of man's ancestors in a direct line" (something no longer considered likely). That implies that the first four primates are not to be considered actual human ancestors. Likewise, the seventh figure (Paranthropus) is said to be "an evolutionary dead end".[5] In addition, the colored stripes, across the top of the figure, which indicate the age and duration of the various lineages clearly imply that there is no evidence of direct continuity between extinct and extant lineages and also, multiple lineages of the figured hominids occurred contemporaneously at several points in the history of the group.

Reception edit

 
One of many versions of the progressionist meme: Astronomy Evolution 2 by Giuseppe Donatiello, 2016
 
Anti-war mural, Tehran, 2007

The image has frequently been copied, modified, and parodied. It has been criticized as "unintentionally and wrongly" implying that "evolution is progressive".[4] The image has been described as having a "visual logic" of linear progression.[1] The Lancet called it "proverbial, much quoted or adapted, familiar to multitudes who have never seen its original version or heard of its maker".[2] The image has become better-known than the science behind it.[3]

With regard to the way the illustration has been interpreted, the anthropologist and author of the section, F. Clark Howell, remarked:[6]

The artist didn't intend to reduce the evolution of man to a linear sequence, but it was read that way by viewers. ... The graphic overwhelmed the text. It was so powerful and emotional.[6]

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) condemned the iconology of the image in several pages of his 1989 book, Wonderful Life, reproducing several advertisements and political cartoons that make use of the illustration to make their various points. In a chapter, "The Iconography of an Expectation", he asserted that[7]

The march of progress is the canonical representation of evolution – the one picture immediately grasped and viscerally understood by all. ... The straitjacket of linear advance goes beyond iconography to the definition of evolution: the word itself becomes a synonym for progress. ... [But] life is a copiously branching bush, continually pruned by the grim reaper of extinction, not a ladder of predictable progress.[7]

The intelligent design advocate Jonathan Wells wrote in Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? (2002), "Although it is widely used to show that we are just animals, and that our very existence is a mere accident, the ultimate icon goes far beyond the evidence."[8] The book likens a selection of evolution theory textbook topics to the cover illustration thus qualified.

 
A German protest banner in Stuttgart, 2010. The caption below the image reads "We will not allow ourselves to be made into monkeys!"

Riley Black, writing for Scientific American, argues that the idea of a "march of progress", as depicted in the 1965 Time-Life illustration, dates back to the medieval great chain of being and the 19th century idea of the "missing link" in the fossil record. In her view, to understand life and evolution, "step one involves casting out types of imagery which constrain rather than enlighten."[9] Writing in Wired, Black added that "There is perhaps no other illustration that is as immediately recognizable as representing evolution, but the tragedy of this is that it conveys a view of life that does not resemble our present understanding of life's history."[10]

Parodies and adaptations edit

The March of Progress has often been imitated, parodied, or adapted for commercial or political purposes. The logo for the Leakey Foundation and the National Museums of Kenya features a small silhouette of the March of Progress image itself.[11] The cover of the 1972 Doors album Full Circle references the March of Progress, as does the 1985 Supertramp album Brother Where You Bound, while the soundtrack CD for the 1992 movie Encino Man shows an ape evolving into a skateboarder.[11] The December 2005 issue of The Economist depicts hominids progressing up a flight of stairs to transform into a woman in a black dress holding a glass of champagne to illustrate "The Story of Man".[12] British rapper, Digga D, adapted a version of the image for the cover of his third mixtape, Noughty by Nature.[13] https://yume.wiki/2kki/Events#March_of_Progress The game Yume 2kki also has an "Event" which takes place in an area called "Chess World," the Event starts off by walking through a corridor similar to another location in the game, after the corridor ends, you are taken to a singular room with a throne, sitting on this throne will then teleport you to the Event.

Predecessors edit

Further information: Orthogenesis
 
The frontispiece to Thomas Henry Huxley's 1863 Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature was intended simply to compare the skeletons of apes and humans, but unintentionally created a durable meme of supposed "monkey-to-man" progress.[4]

Thomas Henry Huxley's frontispiece to his 1863 book Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature was intended simply to compare the skeletons of apes and humans, but its unintentional left-to-right progressionist sequence has according to the historian Jennifer Tucker "become an iconic and instantly recognizable visual shorthand for evolution".[4]

 
"Evolution" in 1889 edition of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

An illustration, with the caption "Evolution", showing two sequences of four images, each illustrating a gradual transformation of an animal into a human, appeared in the 1889 edition[14] of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b Shelley, Cameron (1 January 2001). "Aspects of visual argument: A study of the March of Progress". Informal Logic. 21 (2). University of Windsor Leddy Library. doi:10.22329/il.v21i2.2239. ISSN 0824-2577.
  2. ^ a b Lubbock, Tom (2008). "Art and evolution". The Lancet. 372: S14–S20. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(08)61876-0. ISSN 0140-6736. S2CID 54266427.
  3. ^ a b Feteris, Eveline T.; Groarke, Leo; Plug, Jose (2011). "Strategic maneuvering with visual arguments in political cartoons: A pragma-dialectical analysis of the use of topoi that are based on common cultural heritage". In Feteris, Eveline T.; Garssen, Bart; Snoek Henkeamns, A. Francisca (eds.). Keeping in Touch With Pragma-Dialectics: in Honor of Frans H. Van Eemeren. John Benjamins Publishing. pp. 67–69. ISBN 978-9027211811.
  4. ^ a b c d Tucker, Jennifer (28 October 2012). "What our most famous evolutionary cartoon gets wrong". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 29 December 2017.
  5. ^ a b c d Howell, F. Clark and the Editors of Time-Life Books (1965), Early Man, New York: TIME-LIFE Books, pp. 41–45.
  6. ^ a b Barringer, David (2006) "Raining on Evolution’s Parade"; I.D. Magazine, March/April 2006.
  7. ^ a b Gould, Stephen Jay (1989), Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. W.W. Norton & Company, pp 30–36.
  8. ^ Wells, Jonathan (2000). Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?. Regnery Publishing. p. 211.
  9. ^ Black, Riley (3 December 2010). "Breaking our link to the 'March of Progress'". Scientific American. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
  10. ^ Black, Riley (11 April 2009). "The March of Progress has Deep Roots". Wired. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
  11. ^ a b Barringer (2006), Op. cit.
  12. ^ "The Story of Man". The Economist. 20 December 2005. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
  13. ^ Nast, C. (2022, April 28). Digga D: Noughty By Nature. Pitchfork. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/digga-d-noughty-by-nature/
  14. ^ Project Gutenberg text, search for second appearance of the word "crusher." Title page image shows "New York: Charles L. Webster & Company. 1889.

External links edit

  Media related to March of Progress at Wikimedia Commons

January 01, 1970
march, progress, originally, titled, road, homo, sapiens, illustration, that, presents, million, years, human, evolution, created, early, volume, life, nature, library, published, 1965, drawn, artist, rudolph, zallinger, original, illustration, from, early, 19. The March of Progress 1 2 3 originally titled The Road to Homo Sapiens is an illustration that presents 25 million years of human evolution It was created for the Early Man volume of the Life Nature Library published in 1965 and drawn by the artist Rudolph Zallinger The original March of Progress illustration from Early Man 1965 with spread extended top and folded bottom It has been viewed as a picture of the discredited theory orthogenesis that evolution is progressive 4 As such it has been widely parodied and imitated to create images of progress of other kinds The picture of progress in evolution was anticipated by Thomas Henry Huxley s 1863 Evidence as to Man s Place in Nature Contents 1 Illustration 1 1 Context 1 2 Sequence of species 1 3 Intention 2 Reception 3 Parodies and adaptations 4 Predecessors 5 See also 6 References 7 External linksIllustration editContext edit The illustration is part of a section of text and images commissioned by Time Life Books for the Early Man volume 1965 of the Life Nature Library by F Clark Howell 5 The illustration is a foldout entitled The Road to Homo Sapiens It shows a sequence of figures drawn by natural history painter and muralist Rudolph Zallinger 1919 1995 5 The 15 human evolutionary forebears are lined up as if they were marching in a parade from left to right The first two sentences of the caption read What were the stages of man s long march from apelike ancestors to sapiens Beginning at right and progressing across four more pages are milestones of primate and human evolution as scientists know them today pieced together from the fragmentary fossil evidence 5 Sequence of species edit The 15 primate figures in Zallinger s image from left to right are listed below The datings follow the original graphic and may no longer reflect current scientific opinion Pliopithecus 22 12 million year old ancestor of the gibbon line Proconsul 21 9 million year old primate which may or may not have qualified as an ape Dryopithecus 15 8 million year old fossil ape the first such found 1856 and probable ancestor of modern apes Oreopithecus 15 8 million years old Ramapithecus 13 8 million year old ape and possible ancestor of modern orangutans now considered a female Sivapithecus Australopithecus 2 3 million years old then considered the earliest certain hominid Paranthropus 1 8 0 8 million years old Advanced Australopithecus 1 8 0 7 million year old Homo erectus 700 000 400 000 years old then the earliest known member of the genus Homo Early Homo sapiens 300 000 200 000 years old from Swanscombe Steinheim and Montmaurin then considered probably the earliest H sapiens Solo Man 100 000 50 000 years old described as an extinct Asian race of H sapiens now considered a sub species of H erectus Rhodesian Man 50 000 30 000 years old described as an extinct African race of H sapiens now considered either H rhodesiensis or H heidelbergensis and dated much earlier Neanderthal Man 100 000 40 000 years old Cro Magnon Man 40 000 5 000 years old Modern Man 40 000 years to the present Intention edit Contrary to appearances and some complaints the original 1965 text of The Road to Homo Sapiens reveals an understanding of the fact that a linear presentation of a sequence of primate species all in the direct line of human ancestors would not be a correct interpretation For example the fourth of Zallinger s figures Oreopithecus is said to be a likely side branch on man s family tree Only the next figure Ramapithecus is described as now thought by some experts to be the oldest of man s ancestors in a direct line something no longer considered likely That implies that the first four primates are not to be considered actual human ancestors Likewise the seventh figure Paranthropus is said to be an evolutionary dead end 5 In addition the colored stripes across the top of the figure which indicate the age and duration of the various lineages clearly imply that there is no evidence of direct continuity between extinct and extant lineages and also multiple lineages of the figured hominids occurred contemporaneously at several points in the history of the group Reception edit nbsp One of many versions of the progressionist meme Astronomy Evolution 2 by Giuseppe Donatiello 2016 nbsp Anti war mural Tehran 2007 The image has frequently been copied modified and parodied It has been criticized as unintentionally and wrongly implying that evolution is progressive 4 The image has been described as having a visual logic of linear progression 1 The Lancet called it proverbial much quoted or adapted familiar to multitudes who have never seen its original version or heard of its maker 2 The image has become better known than the science behind it 3 With regard to the way the illustration has been interpreted the anthropologist and author of the section F Clark Howell remarked 6 The artist didn t intend to reduce the evolution of man to a linear sequence but it was read that way by viewers The graphic overwhelmed the text It was so powerful and emotional 6 Stephen Jay Gould 1941 2002 condemned the iconology of the image in several pages of his 1989 book Wonderful Life reproducing several advertisements and political cartoons that make use of the illustration to make their various points In a chapter The Iconography of an Expectation he asserted that 7 The march of progress is the canonical representation of evolution the one picture immediately grasped and viscerally understood by all The straitjacket of linear advance goes beyond iconography to the definition of evolution the word itself becomes a synonym for progress But life is a copiously branching bush continually pruned by the grim reaper of extinction not a ladder of predictable progress 7 The intelligent design advocate Jonathan Wells wrote in Icons of Evolution Science or Myth 2002 Although it is widely used to show that we are just animals and that our very existence is a mere accident the ultimate icon goes far beyond the evidence 8 The book likens a selection of evolution theory textbook topics to the cover illustration thus qualified nbsp A German protest banner in Stuttgart 2010 The caption below the image reads We will not allow ourselves to be made into monkeys Riley Black writing for Scientific American argues that the idea of a march of progress as depicted in the 1965 Time Life illustration dates back to the medieval great chain of being and the 19th century idea of the missing link in the fossil record In her view to understand life and evolution step one involves casting out types of imagery which constrain rather than enlighten 9 Writing in Wired Black added that There is perhaps no other illustration that is as immediately recognizable as representing evolution but the tragedy of this is that it conveys a view of life that does not resemble our present understanding of life s history 10 Parodies and adaptations editThe March of Progress has often been imitated parodied or adapted for commercial or political purposes The logo for the Leakey Foundation and the National Museums of Kenya features a small silhouette of the March of Progress image itself 11 The cover of the 1972 Doors album Full Circle references the March of Progress as does the 1985 Supertramp album Brother Where You Bound while the soundtrack CD for the 1992 movie Encino Man shows an ape evolving into a skateboarder 11 The December 2005 issue of The Economist depicts hominids progressing up a flight of stairs to transform into a woman in a black dress holding a glass of champagne to illustrate The Story of Man 12 British rapper Digga D adapted a version of the image for the cover of his third mixtape Noughty by Nature 13 https yume wiki 2kki Events March of Progress The game Yume 2kki also has an Event which takes place in an area called Chess World the Event starts off by walking through a corridor similar to another location in the game after the corridor ends you are taken to a singular room with a throne sitting on this throne will then teleport you to the Event Predecessors editFurther information Orthogenesis nbsp The frontispiece to Thomas Henry Huxley s 1863 Evidence as to Man s Place in Nature was intended simply to compare the skeletons of apes and humans but unintentionally created a durable meme of supposed monkey to man progress 4 Thomas Henry Huxley s frontispiece to his 1863 book Evidence as to Man s Place in Nature was intended simply to compare the skeletons of apes and humans but its unintentional left to right progressionist sequence has according to the historian Jennifer Tucker become an iconic and instantly recognizable visual shorthand for evolution 4 nbsp Evolution in 1889 edition of Mark Twain s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur s CourtAn illustration with the caption Evolution showing two sequences of four images each illustrating a gradual transformation of an animal into a human appeared in the 1889 edition 14 of Mark Twain s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur s Court See also editDawn of Humanity 2015 PBS film References edit a b Shelley Cameron 1 January 2001 Aspects of visual argument A study of the March of Progress Informal Logic 21 2 University of Windsor Leddy Library doi 10 22329 il v21i2 2239 ISSN 0824 2577 a b Lubbock Tom 2008 Art and evolution The Lancet 372 S14 S20 doi 10 1016 s0140 6736 08 61876 0 ISSN 0140 6736 S2CID 54266427 a b Feteris Eveline T Groarke Leo Plug Jose 2011 Strategic maneuvering with visual arguments in political cartoons A pragma dialectical analysis of the use of topoi that are based on common cultural heritage In Feteris Eveline T Garssen Bart Snoek Henkeamns A Francisca eds Keeping in Touch With Pragma Dialectics in Honor of Frans H Van Eemeren John Benjamins Publishing pp 67 69 ISBN 978 9027211811 a b c d Tucker Jennifer 28 October 2012 What our most famous evolutionary cartoon gets wrong The Boston Globe Retrieved 29 December 2017 a b c d Howell F Clark and the Editors of Time Life Books 1965 Early Man New York TIME LIFE Books pp 41 45 a b Barringer David 2006 Raining on Evolution s Parade I D Magazine March April 2006 a b Gould Stephen Jay 1989 Wonderful Life The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History W W Norton amp Company pp 30 36 Wells Jonathan 2000 Icons of Evolution Science or Myth Regnery Publishing p 211 Black Riley 3 December 2010 Breaking our link to the March of Progress Scientific American Retrieved 23 May 2018 Black Riley 11 April 2009 The March of Progress has Deep Roots Wired Retrieved 23 May 2018 a b Barringer 2006 Op cit The Story of Man The Economist 20 December 2005 Retrieved 23 May 2018 Nast C 2022 April 28 Digga D Noughty By Nature Pitchfork https pitchfork com reviews albums digga d noughty by nature Project Gutenberg text search for second appearance of the word crusher Title page image shows New York Charles L Webster amp Company 1889 External links edit nbsp Media related to March of Progress at Wikimedia Commons Portals nbsp Evolutionary biology nbsp Paleontology nbsp Science Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title March of Progress amp oldid 1220901088, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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