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The Extinct Animals Model-Room at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. Illustrated London News. Published 31 December 1853.

Studio for Crystal Palace Dinosaurs: Enter The Extinct Animals Model-Room

The famous engraving of New Year’s Eve Dinner in Iguanodon, published in Illustrated London News on 07 January 1854, appeared only one week after readers of the popular weekly magazine [...]

Sketch of Dinner in Iguanodon Model as remembered by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, 1862. Source: Letter from Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins to Edward James Alfred Trimmer, 27 August, British Library Add MS 50150 f215. Photo: ProfJoeCain CC BY NC.

Remembering Dinner in the Dinosaur: Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ 1862 Sketch

Near the end of August 1862, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (1807-1894) wrote to Edward Trimmer (1827-1904) with a brief mention of the New Year’s Eve dinner in Iguanodon mould. The letter [...]

Illustration of "ring species" concept, or Rassenkreis

Society for the Study of Speciation: Bibliographic Analysis using LLM

I provide data for an LLM-based analysis of the short-lived Society for the Study of Speciation (SSS), organised by Alfred Emerson, through three documents. […]

HPSC0044 Book Proposal feedback form 2025

GenAI Helps Review Patterns in Student Book Proposals for Publishing Module (Undergraduate)

I’ve used generative AI to help me review patterns in my marking and feedback given for student assignments in the module, HPSC0044 Publishing as Science Communication. This module is taught [...]

2026-27 Modules

HPSC0009 Introduction to History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science

This page is in development. Please return in September 2026. Find out more.

HPSC0010 History of Modern Science

This page is in development. Please return in September 2026. Until then, please enjoy these cartoons. What are these?

HPSC0011 STS Perspectives on Big Problems

The theme for 2026-27 will be “Food”. “Science and technology are two of the most important drivers of our world. As a field of study, STS is organised to interpret those activities in the past, […]

Tiger in UCL Grant Museum of Zoology - cover for Cain - No Ordinary Space

No Ordinary Space: UCL Grant Museum | EGP

UCL’s Grant Museum of Zoology moved to the Thomas Lewis Room in UCL’s Rockefeller Building in 2011. No Ordinary Space is a book designed to answer popular historical questions about the room, the building, and […]

Brown Dog and His Memorial (Battersea, London) | EGP

In 1907, London medical students protested over a statue raised to a little brown dog. Bonfires burned late into the night. Large groups marched through the streets clashing with police. Gangs were arrested trying to […]

Cain 2007 Regular Contact With Anyone Interested - Dobzhansky and friends on his new car

Regular Contact with Anyone Interested: Documents of Society for the Study of Speciation | EGP

Organising the Society for the Study of Speciation was a simple affair in 1939. The job of implementing its vision fell upon the entomologist Alfred Emerson, recruited to serve as Secretary. ‘The need was felt by […]

Professor Joe Cain

UCL Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology

Synthesis Period in Evolutionary Studies

One Hundred and One Mendelians – Buttolph (2008)

Genetics: Sewall Wright Taught Me, volume 2 | EGP

Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944) by George Gaylord Simpson

Descended from Darwin – Context for the Evolutionary Synthesis

Variation and Evolution in Plants (1950) by G. Ledyard Stebbins

Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Studio for Crystal Palace Dinosaurs: Enter The Extinct Animals Model-Room

Remembering Dinner in the Dinosaur: Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ 1862 Sketch

GenAI in Research

Society for the Study of Speciation: Bibliographic Analysis using LLM

GenAI Helps Review Patterns in Student Book Proposals for Publishing Module (Undergraduate)

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Medical Cards for Croydon Schoolchildren 1920s-1930s

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HPSC Modules 2026-27