Ben Fry Visualizes the Evolution of Darwin’s Ideas
Ben Fry, well-known for Processing and plenty of other data goodness, announced his most recent piece, On the Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Traces, made possible by The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online.
The visualization explores the evolution of Charles Darwin's theory of, uh, evolution. It began as a less-defined 150,000-word text in the first edition and grew and developed to a 190,000-word theory in the sixth edition.
Watch where the updates in the text occur over time. Chunks are removed, chunks are added, and words are changed. Blocks are color-coded by edition. Roll over blocks to see the text underneath.
As usual, excellent work, Mr. Fry.
Happy labor day!
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Ben Fry is awesome, processing is brilliant :), beautiful piece of art.
I just wish the visualization helped me understand how Darwin’s ideas evovled over time. Maybe in the next version.
IIRC, Darwin’s 1st published edition was vastly reduced from the book he intended.