Charles Darwin: not always bearded.

Darren Naish, blogger and Doctor of theropod dinosaurs (which in my book makes him a Ph.D. of Th.D.) makes the point here. The iconic image of Darwin is the bearded old man. We do much the same on our site using the hirsuit old Darwin here. He was bare-chinned both in 1831 when he stepped aboard the Beagle and in 1859 when he published the Origin of Species. Darren calls Darwin: 'the most important biologist of all time', and says that portraying him as an old man, 'is annoying and misleading, and perpetuated by a society that seems to want scientists to be oddballs that operate on the fringes of society.'

A primary teacher relative says something similar: ask children to draw a scientist you inevitably get a wild-haired Einstein-alike. My recent visits to labs like the European Molecular Biology Lab in Heidelberg showed plenty of smart, bright young things quite unlike wild-haired or bald and bearded geriatrics. If we're to recruit young people into science as a career, these are stereotypes we need to challenge. We are admonished: younger and less hairy Darwins will be appearing on the site shortly.

charles darwin, science, beards, hms beagle