Caricature Memes

This 1871 cartoon from "The Hornet" shows the Victorian-era scientific community's favorite pastime: drawing Darwin with monkey parts. Nothing says "I have a compelling counterargument" like depicting your intellectual opponent as half-primate! The caption "A Venerable Orang-Outang" is peak 19th-century wit—about as subtle as a lab explosion. This was the original scientific clickbait, published when evolution was still the spicy new theory making religious conservatives clutch their prayer books. The real irony? Darwin never claimed humans evolved FROM apes, but rather that we SHARE common ancestors. But why let facts get in the way of a good caricature? Victorian satirists: missing the point since 1871.