The Darwin Effect by Jerry Bergman

Author:Jerry Bergman [Bergman, Jerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: REL106000, BIO006000
ISBN: 9781614584186
Publisher: Master Books
Published: 2014-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Darwinism and the Exploitation

of Deformed Humans

Introduction

From the early 1800s until today, hundreds of millions of people the world over have visited amusement parks and circuses (Milner 2002; Lindfors 1983). Until the introduction of motion pictures, circuses were the leading form of commercial entertainment for over a century (Bradna and Spence 1952). A major circus attraction for decades was sideshow displays of deformed humans who were widely advertised as “Darwin’s missing links,” “man-monkeys,” “ape-men,” or “ape-women.”

These circus displays were usually deceitfully made to appear to be convincing ape-human links as required by Darwin’s theory. The shows were historically one of the most convincing evidences of Darwinism for the general populace. These “shows, which often presented individuals as monstrous intermediaries between humans and animals, relied on a new interest in biological aspects of human nature generally and Darwinism in particular” (Zimmerman 2001, 4).

It now is known that all of these claimed “missing link” cases were normal humans afflicted with various genetic deformities or diseases which in most cases have been accurately identified by medical researchers (Thomson 1996). An example is “Schlitzie, the missing link” a microcephalic, as were many of the sideshow missing links (Hartzman 2005, 210). The “missing link” idea existed before Darwin, but

came to a crux with publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in 1859. While many of the ideas and themes addressed by Darwin were not new, the Origin of Species was clearly a major publishing event that dramatically changed the nature of discussion on the question of origins (Browne and Messenger 2003, 155).

This chapter covers a few of the more well-known examples.

The Story of Zip

Giant Paul Herold pictured with Zip,

considered the “missing link,” though

actually an African American named

William Henry Johnson.

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