Ben Fry Visualizes the Evolution of Darwin’s Ideas

Sep 7, 2009 / Artistic Visualization / 8 comments

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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Comments (Add Yours)

  • Antoine Bonnin - September 7, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    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.

  • Eofhan - September 8, 2009 at 7:27 am

    IIRC, Darwin’s 1st published edition was vastly reduced from the book he intended.