The Famous Diagram of the Tree of Life, where Darwin started to process the idea of evolution.
Field Notebooks are prevalent in the sciences. Hundreds of notebooks filled with the annotations and thoughts of scientists while working. Records of some of the most important discoveries in the world like the Tree of Life you see above where Darwin started to process that which would become the theory of evolution. Within them we can find amusing pieces like Darwin’s distaste for marine iguanas which he described as ” a hideous-looking creature, of a dirty black colour, stupid, and sluggish in its movements” or the obsession that Linnaeus had to compare botany with sex “The flower’s leaves … serve as bridal beds which the creator has so gloriously arranged … and perfumed with so many soft scents that the bridegroom with his bride might there celebrate their nuptials with so much greater solemnity. When now the bed is so prepared, it is time for the bridegroom to embrace his beloved bride and offer her his gifts.”.
Above all they’re a way to process our thoughts and data. So, for a virtual world, of bits and bytes, virtual field notes.
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