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Professor Joe Cain

UCL Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology

Flight of the Langoustine sculpture, Hove
  • Synthesis Period
    • Synthesis Period posts
    • Sewall Wright Taught Me series
    • “Evolution-A Journal of Nature”
  • Eugenics History
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News Ticker
  • [ 2026-07-21 ] Darwin in London – Great Marlborough Street and Upper Gower Street Darwin
  • [ 2026-06-02 ] Broadcast Clock Generator App Featured
  • [ 2026-05-25 ] Phone Lock Screens – Photography Challenge (Gallery) Featured
  • [ 2026-05-04 ] Medical Cards for Croydon Schoolchildren 1920s-1930s Blog
  • [ 2026-04-25 ] HPSC0028 History of Life Sciences 2026-27 Modules
HomeProjects

Projects

Projects are published or unpublished activities produced by Professor Joe Cain. Projects in this collection will include small research queries, large online projects, data stores, or activities best suited for digital distribution.

Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins 1854 paper on visual education applied to Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, with detailed descriptions.
Blog

Why Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins Created Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (FGS, FLS) was the sculptor who created the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. Specifically, he created over thirty statues of prehistoric animals for the Crystal Palace and Park (Sydenham), which opened in June 1854. […]
Three snouters: Archirrhinos haeckelii, Rhinolimacius conchicauda, Nasobema lyricum (Order Rhinogradentia), from Stumpke (1961).
Blog

Snouters, by Harald Stumpke (actually, Gerolf Steiner)

Every scientific discipline has inside jokes. Why? Because they perform social or intellectual work. In this post, Professor Joe Cain links jokelore to his project on one of biology’s most famous jokes, the Rhinogradentia, or […]
Excerpt from photograph of conference attendees at 1947 Princeton conference organised by National Research Council's Committee on Common Problems of Genetics, Paleontology, and Systematics
Books

Exploring the Borderlands of Evolutionary Synthesis

The Society for the Study of Evolution and its journal, Evolution, have their origins in the work of a small national committee of the National Research Council. This was organised by George Gaylord Simpson and […]
Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975) was an experimental population geneticist and Soviet émigré to the US. In 1943, he visited Professor Andre Drefus in Sao Paolo as part of a US “good neighbour” programme. In this photograph, Dobzhansky (centre) and two unnamed Brazilian colleagues are trapping Drosophila fruit flies in nearby forest. Dobzhansky was key to the synthesis period.
Edited Books

Descended from Darwin – Context for the Evolutionary Synthesis

The synthesis period in evolutionary studies (most people call this the “evolutionary synthesis”) of the 1930s and 1940 has had a standard narrative for many years, but pressure has increasing for a revision. Descended from Darwin: […]
No Picture
Blog

How Extremely Stupid: Source for Huxley’s Famous Quote

When asked about the Origin of Species and the theory of natural selection, Thomas Henry Huxley told friends, “how extremely stupid not to have thought of that”. This is well-known folklore, and much has been […]
Evolution - A Journal of Nature - sample covers
Blog

Pro-Evolution Magazine “Evolution: A Journal of Nature,” 1927-1938

This page provides information about this pro-evolution magazine, otherwise lost, from the 1920s and 1930s. It was devoted to promoting the teaching of evolution in US public schools. It was titled, Evolution: A Journal of […]
Evolution - A Journal of Nature - sample covers
Evolution- Journal of Nature

Evolution: A Journal of Nature – contents listed, sorted by author

This page lists articles appearing in Evolution: A Journal of Nature with contents sorted by issue, then author. This data is available as an Endnote file (Evolution – A Journal of Nature – Complete Table of […]
Evolution - A Journal of Nature - sample covers
Evolution- Journal of Nature

Evolution: A Journal of Nature – contents listed, sorted by issue number

This page lists articles appearing in Evolution: A Journal of Nature with contents sorted by issue, then author. This data is available as an Endnote file (Evolution – A Journal of Nature – Complete Table of […]
Illuminations by C. T. Brock and Co, Sutton, Surrey, England. Advertising postcard for Brock’s Crystal Palace Fireworks and Illuminations, postmarked 1906.
Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Brock’s Illuminations 1906 Connected with Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Brock’s Illuminations and Fireworks might be celebrating Crystal Palace Dinosaurs in their famous and rare 1906 postcard promoting their “Illuminations” at Crystal Palace. It’s possible, but I think that is a tenuous. The postcard features […]
Dinner in the Iguanodon Model, at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham
Blog

New Year’s Eve Dinner in the Iguanodon at Crystal Palace 31 December 1853

The “Dinner in the Iguanodon Model” is the best known story involving Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. That dinner took place on New Year’s Eve 31 December 1853. It was immortalised in an illustration published in Illustrated London News, […]

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Recent posts

  • Darwin in London – Great Marlborough Street and Upper Gower Street
  • Broadcast Clock Generator App
  • Phone Lock Screens – Photography Challenge (Gallery)
  • Medical Cards for Croydon Schoolchildren 1920s-1930s
  • HPSC0028 History of Life Sciences

Images From Galleries

1881 census records for 88 Gower Street 1911 census records for 88 Gower Street Path leading to 1985 Brown Dog Statue (by Nicola Hicks) in Battersea Park Pterodactyl (Oolite) statues, restored 2000, damaged after 2005, Crystal Palace Dinosaurs | ProfJoeCain Shakespeare and Science Lock screen gallery Flight of the Langoustine, by Pierre Diamantopoulo MRSS. It is made of four life-size bronze figures flying through a steel grid. It was inspired by a discarded and mangled lobster pot that the artist had found on Brighton beach. In his imagination, the washed-up object that had seemingly helped the lobsters escape, translated itself into a wider story of human exodus and release – a dash for freedom. Diamantopoulo describes the figures as “at once profound, frivolous and boisterous, occupying the air like a flock of birds and inspired by modern dance choreography”. Bronze casting at Milwyn Foundry and fabrication of the steel grid and assembly by Art Fabrications. The sculpture weighs 2.2 tonnes and measures approximately 3.5 metres high and 3 meters wide. Flight of the Langoustine was inaugurated on the Hove Plinth on 17 September 2023. Lock screen gallery Iguanodon close-up. The Extinct Animals Model-Room Case 33-35 Gorilla (Adult male) Survey of Animals exhibit in Natural History Gallery (balcony) in Horniman Museum, Forest Hill, London, UK

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Professor Joe Cain 2026