Why was charles darwin drawn as a monkey? >>>answer<<<<<

I put that his theory went against the idea, that all animals were created by God - so this made i him look ridiculous and mocked him.

Yes, it was to mock him. But that's not explicit enough.
The question asked why he was drawn as a monkey, specifically. You would've had to mention that people of the time were reluctant to believe they were descended from apes (religious or not).
That's why some of the Darwin-monkey cartoons show him eloping with a monkey or hugging a monkey "brother".

Has anyone got the unofficial mark scheme? x

what do you think the grade boundaries will be like?

Ahh! I knew I was missing something. I wrote that it was because he believed humans evolved from apes. I've always hated biology

Yes, it was to mock him. But that's not explicit enough.
The question asked why he was drawn as a monkey, specifically. You would've had to mention that people of the time were reluctant to believe they were descended from apes (religious or not).
That's why some of the Darwin-monkey cartoons show him eloping with a monkey or hugging a monkey "brother".

I think it's ridiculous that students are "baffled" over this, complaining it isn't relevant. For the GCSE Biology AQA specification, you have to learn about Darwin and his theory of evolution. It's a simple application of knowledge and was worth a grand total of 1 mark.

I love how GCSE students always make the news with questions they think are not relevant or are unnecessarily difficult.

If you look on the unofficial mark scheme, most people are saying something along the lines of "we evolved from monkeys/apes", which isn't correct, as we only shared a common ancestor. And that may not be correct as is.

Both answers I've seen have validity: "representative of evolutionary history"/"representative of the views of society at the time - rejection of his theory and therefore mockery".

But in both answers above, these are things that you should be taught as a part of the specification and it's just knowledge application. Not having a personal dig at you btw! Was this on the higher or foundation paper?

Well being only one mark I doubt you would need an explanation that specific. And it's certainly better than simply putting "humans evolved from monkeys/apes" (which is wrong as well, as we only share common ancestors). By following that logic, that answer wouldn't be specific enough either.

1 mark for shared common ancestry between monkeys and humans.

How is that two specific? The paper gave you 2 lines for that question it's obviously not 'to mock him'.

Actually it is most likely the correct answer (from collective best judgement until the Mark scheme is released), as stated before. Some person could have drawn him as a monkey, for ANY reason at all - which is highly unlikely to be because we shared a slight common ancestry link with monkeys and apes.

Why would someone think "Oh look, Darwin supposedly said we share a common ancestor. Let's draw him like a monkey because he said we share common ancestry!". The typical train of thought and reasoning "That theory is ridiculous! God made all humans! Let's draw him like a monkey, so we can mock him to everyone for this ridicule!" The latter was the very common opinion to do with religion, and that Darwins idea were therefore crazy.

And most importantly, by drawing him as a monkey, they are explicitly admitting his theory to be true (which they most certainly did NOT, at the time). The only reasonable explanation is that they were mocking him, and to ridicule him. Look at the two links. It even says that a "newspaper" "cartooned" Darwin as a monkey, to mock him. In both.

Simply stating "1 mark for shared common ancestry between monkeys and humans." is an arrogant thing to do. At least attempt to even justify your answer. You don't have the mark scheme, nor do I or anyone else. I'm providing evidence for the likely answer, to a single Mark question.

there's no point drawing him as a monkey for any reason.

I wasn't being arrogant, I was showing how simple the mark is.

You are wrong because history disagrees with you:



I quote: "Before Charles Darwin and his groundbreaking theory of evolution, primates were mainly used as caricatures of human nature."

Monkeys were used to mock everyone so that is obvious.

This page MENTIONS nothing about God so you flopped there m8.

Then I quote from the page: "Darwin's facial expression seems to encourage the monkey to recognise their common ancestry."

Drawing Darwin as a monkey is not admitting to his theory it's mocking him for his belief in common ancestry between humans and monkeys. It is obvious he was being mocked - this isn't Foundation Tier.

Yes, exactly - so you see my point. I never denied the fact that we didn't share common ancestry with monkeys/apes. The answer "shared common ancestry between monkeys and humans" alone, exactly as you put it, is insufficient. The answer that I raised at the start - that his theory went against the idea that all animals were created by god, thereby drawing him as a monkey/ape mocked him - is most likely sufficient. One (in he context of him being drawn as a monkey) could have equally said, in a much more crude and blunt form, that Darwin made claims that we shared common ancestry with apes. The question would have most likely said "What was Darwin's theory of common ancestry?" - instead of very explicitly stating that he was drawn as a monkey.

Look again at the provided links. It very clearly says that Darwin was mocked,
THROUGH this picture of him with the head of a monkey, which exposes him to ridicule.

What do you think is more likely, an explicit point that appears in the syllabus - that is his theory was NOT believed until 50 years later, so he was therefore mocked - Or, the point that is loosely based on the fact that we shared a common ancestor (which does not explicitly appear in the AQA syllabus), that is an ambiguous and undeveloped answer?


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