Ape to Human Icon false?

True. Technically it is incorrect. But it does capture the general sense of evolution, and our imagination.

Yes, this famous picture is wrong.

Zallinger did it in the 50s or 60s for “Young Readers Nature Library” a collection of Time-Life.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gunthert/4132549445/i...

One single image can't explain the complexity of human evolution. Authors expected the young reader to read the text, I'm afraid many just looked at the image and got a poor idea of evolution.

Many mistakes, misunderstandings or preconceptions come from this picture :

- The hominid on the left is a modern chimpanzee

That's a mistake: chimpanzee didn't exist millions years ago. But 50 years after the article, some people still think "human evolve from chimps"

- Bipedalism seems to be the goal of evolution (4 legs -> knuckle walking -> more and more upright position)

Wrong again: first, evolution has no goal, and then, all those hominids had different bipedalisms, and chimpanzee-human MRCA was more likely a better biped than modern chimps.

- A species evolve into a better one and so one.

Evolution is not a straight line, it's a branched tree and most species on this picture are dead branches.

There had always been several human species at the same time, not one species replacing one other one. The chronology at the top of the image explain it quite well

- Human is perfect and evolution is the way to perfection

Wrong of course even if Darwin himself because of his religious background thought Human was the "top of evolution". Evolution has no "top"

Furthermore, there is no such a thing like "more evolved". Human is not "more evolved" than potatoes.

This image is more accurate:

http://www.mmdtkw.org/CNAf0120MeetTheFolks.jpg

There is no chronology (you need to read) and body hair come from author imagination, but there is some humor and hominids features (height, shape, weapons) are scientifically correct.