Evolution & monsters

Darwin Killed Off The Werewolf:

From the late 19th century onwards, stories of werewolf encounters tailed away significantly, says Regal. "The spread of the idea of evolution helped kill off the werewolf because a canid-human hybrid makes no sense from an evolutionary point of view," he says. "The ape-human hybrid, however, is not only evolutionarily acceptable, it is the basis of human evolution."

Today, in Darwin's bicentenary year, werewolves have been relegated to films. When it comes to the actual monster scene, it's Bigfoot that now dominates.

This is an interesting thesis. In light of the wide variation in acceptance of evolutionary theory it would be interesting to test this model in modern populations. Those which reject evolution should be more open to exotic chimeras than those who do not.

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Whitecoat Tales:

Neither dragons or the loch ness monster are hybrids that don't make sense in terms of evolution.

One theory of dragons I've read is that they were real creatures (once). Something similar to Komodo dragons. And depicted on the Ishtar Gate...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pergamonmuseum_Ishtartor_02.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ishtar_Gate_Dragon.jpg

And that all stories of dragons come from these creatures.

Point being though... dragons aren't suppose be a strange hybrid animal (like half monkey, half butterfly) like the werewolf is.

The same with the loch ness monster.

I'm not at all convinced by the summary given. In general, education levels went up in the second half of the 19th century. To make this claim at all convincing one would need to show that stories about werewolves didn't just go down but that they went down faster than stories about other supernatural entitites (such as vampires and ghosts). My impression(vaguely remembered from some of my reading about American folklore) is that ghost stories (at least in the US) became more common in the second half of the 19th century. If that's the case, then there may be a decent argument.

A possibly related piece of anecdote: The Talmud and other old Jewish works have a large number of stories of strange animals and the like. My impression is that Orthodox Jews who are young earth creationists are more likely to take such stories seriously than other Orthodox Jews. But this could be explained by other causes as well. For example, they may just be less critically inclined or put more emphasis on trusting the received tradition.

Certain Mormons think Bigfoot is Cain.

Some argue a mythopoetic interpretation of atmospheric plasma discharges is the source for Chinese-type dragons.

Draculas are gay.

Before Darwin, people surely understood the concept of breeding, and that certain animals could be successfully cross-bred and others couldn't, and which could reliably produce fertile vs. sterile offspring. Based on various successes and failures, pre-Darwinian people no doubt understood that hybrid success was more likely the closer the morphology of the two lines - so why would they think a human/wolf hybrid would be at all likely? Plus, werewolves resulted not from sexual reproduction but from being bitten, and they were shape-shifters, not fixed-shape progeny of cross-species unions. I ain't buyin' it.

There are dragons, and there are dragons. Chinese dragons are powers of goodness, European are not. European dragons breathe fire and can fly, but Chinese dragons don't. They must come from different sources.

By Lassi Hippeläinen (not verified) on 16 Jun 2009 #permalink

It is an interesting idea, but it sounds to me like it's not meant to be taken that seriously, only as an interesting intellectual excercise. There are more Bigfoot reports and apeman reports after darwin than before and much fewer werewolf stories.

I think much of belief in this type of stuff (e.g. face on Mars) is due to wishful thinking. I mean if the face on Mars was actually a vestige from an ancient alien civilization, that would be awesome. People who lack critical thinking skills just go by this emotional impulse without the clarity to see evidence to the contrary.

Sorry if this wasn't clear from context. I am not saying such ideas are plausible, I was bringing them up as similar to the search for Bigfoot, who is also NOT real, but more able to be rationalized by evolution.

Point being though... dragons aren't suppose be a strange hybrid animal (like half monkey, half butterfly) like the werewolf is.

The same with the loch ness monster.

Yes, that is the point. I'm not seeing how your comment separates Dragons and Loch ness monster from bigfoot, rather than from werewolves.

I'm not saying dragons and nessy exist, I'm saying some of their mythos is in the same vein as bigfoot.

Sorry if that was unclear

Lassi, that's not clear. People take legends and modify them over time. Just because the details are different does not mean they don't have a common source. That said, there is an argument that the European and Chinese dragons really are different types of creatures and that we simply use the word "dragon" for both because the Chinese dragon seemed similar to the European myth for the Europeans.

Ziel, not all werewolf stories required being bitten. That's an example of a trope that existed in some stories but has become much more solidified in popular culture over time.

I think much of belief in this type of stuff (e.g. face on Mars) is due to wishful thinking. I mean if the face on Mars was actually a vestige from an ancient alien civilization, that would be awesome. People who lack critical thinking skills just go by this emotional impulse without the clarity to see evidence to the contrary.

this is like saying visual illusions are the result of not looking hard enough.

It doesn't take rejection of evolution; ignorance of biology in general will do just as well. It's not as exotic as a werewolf, but a few months back a woman swore up and down to me that someone had crossed a dog and a cat and got viable offspring....it had to be true, she'd seen the pictures on the Web! No amount of explanation helped; after all, if it's possible to cross a horse and a donkey, there's no reason why you can't cross canines and felines!
:(

Jack Kirby depicted the Face on Mars in a comic published in 1958. Kirby depicted the lunar "crystal" domes some see in NASA photos AS14-66-9301 and AS14-66-9279 in a comic published in 1960.

The decline in werewolf sightings probably has more to do with the regularization of lunatic asylums and also urbanization than with education.

The violently insane were simply locked away from society rather than roaming the countryside. Also, urban people have different fears than rural. The werewolf becomes Jack the Ripper.

A werewolf is not a wolf-man hybrid but a man that turns into a wolf. The rest of this post shows an even more rare ignorance about the nature of monsters.