October 24, 2019 • 32 mins
Born into slavery in the 1700s, John Edmonstone gained his freedom in 1817 and moved to Edinburgh, where he stuffed birds for the Natural Museum and taught taxidermy to a young Charles Darwin. Tune in to learn more about the life and times of the man who not only taught Charles Darwin, but inspired him to explore the planet and, eventually, produce groundbreaking science that would forever change the way we think of the natural world.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Well, well, well,
(00:29):
Darwin is entering the car, Yes, entering the conversation again.
Though we have talked about Darwin in the past, because
there's a lot of stuff that people don't know. We
think of origin of the species, and we just we
stopped there in school. What is this? Why are we
talking about Darwin? This is ridiculous history. Thank you for
(00:52):
coming through. I am not Darwin. You're not Darwin. My
name is Ben, my name is Nolan. I immediately regret
my joke because I'm a little I'm on like west
East coast brains still where we're still on the West coast, uh,
and we've been staying up quite late, even by West
Coast standards. So it's been mega mega late by East
Coast standards. Um, and we've had a bit of a
whirlwind experience. But it's kind of been fun. I'm leaning
(01:14):
into the punchiness. But Darwin, I hardly knew him. That
doesn't even make sense. I know, I thought it had
an internal lot. It was the phonemes of it that
kind of triggered my brain to do a thing that
just didn't work out. But I'm owning up to it.
I'm no old that I say that already. Yeah. Oh
I well, I'm glad you did. Either way, people might
have been confused. You're who is this? Fool's fine? You're no,
(01:34):
I'm Ben. We're joined in spirit, as always, with our
super producer Casey Pegram. God only knows where we'd be
without him. Uh, each reference a little bit. La Bouche
is a big fan of the Beach Boys, right, fantastic.
The French love the Beach Boys. I don't know, and
probably do. French have notoriously good taste. I'm right there
with you. I slept like maybe an hour before this.
(01:57):
But we are also joined with our at turning guests,
super producer Danald Goodman. How's it going, Man, It's going great?
Ready for another episode of fun. We're the sweetest guy
I know, right, and it's got like these great food recommendations.
You know, did you I didn't get any food, Rex,
you gotta ask. We can talk after that. Sounds good.
(02:19):
I'm ready for it. Um. I went to a place
called the fleet Footed Goose. No, it wasn't that, it
was just the running goose. See. I added too many
words to you've been to the running goose. I have
not where where's that's right around here? It's on the
front end of the block. Or no, I'm sorry the
uh I want to say it's on Cowanga. Um. It
was right across from a place called Beauty and Essex
(02:40):
or kind of like right around there. It's just a
little cafe. I had been there before and they have
a salmon belly sandwich that's quite delightful. But you went
to a bond me place that seems to be the
talk of the office here bon bon. We from Daniel's recommendation,
which was pretty amazing. They got this Georgian flatbread. Georgia
the country. Uh. So, apparently you guys are sick of
(03:02):
it sometimes. We've had quite a few times at this point.
But it's a it's a standard haunt, as it were.
So the way we can segue this, uh is to
talk about one of our earlier episodes. He did a
two part series on weird historical flexes with our pals
Jack and Miles from the Daily Seite. Guys and Jack
(03:24):
hipped us to one of the strangest Darwin facts we
had learned up to that point, which was well, it
was the fact that Darwin um in college had been
a member of this like fraternity that was all about
eating exotic creatures. Uh. And he took that lust for
murder and flesh, exotic fleshes uh and and applied it
(03:47):
to his research where when he was exploring the Galapagos
and you know, charting all of the different species that
he encountered, and you know that it made up the
great tapestry that is the human experience and life on Earth,
he'd eat at least one of each of them. Yeah,
sometimes more. I think he consumes so many, uh, Galapagossian
sortises that he single handedly was was a big part
(04:08):
of the reason they went they went endangered and then extinct.
I don't know, I might be overstating the case. They're
a little bit, but I'm pretty sure there's some truth
to them. Yeah. Yeah. And so again, as we say,
whenever Darwin comes up in conversation on or off the air,
thanks for ruining that for us, Jack, thanks for ruining
that guy for us. I always say, Darwin, I hardly
knew him. See, I think you should lead into it.
(04:32):
It's like, this is me now, I'm such an easy
crowd today, man, because I'm at that stage where it's
like my head is stuffed with cotton. I'm I'm very adult.
Everything seems surreal and hilarious and loaded with symbolism and
double entendre. Well, Daniel seems to think we're funny. We're
getting some some solid laughs out of him. It could
just be the fact that we're literally like two men
(04:53):
losing their minds in a fish tank, and he is
the audience. Here's the thing. Oh you said, Okay, he
thinks it's hum aw. Let's continue. Let's let's continue with
today's Darwin story. Today's Darwin story. Yes, uh, there's another
thing that people may generally not know about Charles Darwin.
Like many famous, historically influential individuals, he is the sum
(05:20):
of more than one person's work. We stand on the
shoulder of giants and one we stand on just the
one shoulder. It's usually the left because like regular sized bipeds, um,
you know, like giants are right handed. And also one
giant shoulder would be the equivalent of a set of
shoulders for a regular size many yeah, many shoulders biped ye.
(05:43):
So so there there is a person in the evolution
of Darwin which terrible choice of words on my part.
There's there's a person in Darwin's past who is who
plays a crucial and vital role in all of the
work that Darwin went on to create. He's a person
that many of us may not have heard of before.
(06:06):
His name is very cool, by the way, it is
John Edmond Stone D Stone. I don't know why, you
know why? I know why. What makes me think of
the Flintstones because everyone's last name and the flint Stone
ended with Stone. Everybody, maybe not everybody. Well, there's there's
Betty and Barney, Rubble. There we go. I got one
that's that's like a that's a construction rock related thing. Anyway,
(06:28):
it just makes me think of the Flintstone. That's great.
And I I uh, I think Rubble. I think you're
on to something with the rock themes. Anyway. John Edmond
Stone not an inspiration for the Flintstones as far as
we know, but he was one of the sources of
support and inspiration for Charles Darwin. John Edmondstone was from Guiana,
(06:54):
South America, also the country where Jim Jones and his
cult relocated the kool Aid genocide. Technically it was flavor Aid,
that's right. He didn't even pop for the good stuff. No,
no he didn't because it didn't really matter, not at
that point. But that's a that's a story for another day.
A dark turns. This is gonna take some turns. We
(07:16):
suckered dan'l in here with our previous episode. There was
a lot of fun and now we're going into some
disturbing stuff. Are you talking about the one about luxury? Luxury?
John Edmondstone I was formerly enslaved and then he was manumitted.
He was a freed slave from Guiana, and he was
in Edinburgh teaching university students taxidermy. He lived literally down
(07:43):
the street from where Charles Darwin and Charles his brother
Erasmus awesome name lived thirty seven Lothian Street right there
in Edinburgh. And um he learned his trade, John did
from a man by the name of Charles waterton U,
who is another assumingly competing naturalist uh to Darwin in
(08:04):
the eighteen hundreds, early eighteen hundreds, Well, I guess not,
maybe they Maybe it was a different time. He would
have would have already attained these skills and then crossed
paths with Darwin. So forget about my fake beef that
I just made up between the all British naturalists. Clearly
they have a Highlander. Yeah, they're very very intense dudes. Um,
but yeah, I mean they kind of just became pals, right, yeah. Yeah.
(08:28):
So while Darwin is a student at Edinburgh, he approaches
John Edmondstone and asked him, you know, Mr Edmondstone, will
you teach me to be a taxidermist. They would enter
into this teacher student relationship and they would hang out
and they would have conversation, shoot the breeze, and John
(08:50):
would tell Charles about the land of South America, about
the continent, about the tropical rainforest, about Guiana, and historians
believe that these conversations may have been the spark that
fan the flames of Charles Darwin's ambitions to explore the tropics.
I was gonna make a forest fire reference there, but
(09:11):
I think I think we're already we already got there. Okay,
I was gonna say that fan the flames of the
forest fire in his mind. I like the alliteration. Yeah,
we love alliterationous, fan the flames of the forest fire
in his fancy. I don't know of his fancy, of
his fancy. Okay, we got there, We did so we
know that regardless of how we want to freeze it.
(09:33):
The taxidermy skills that Darwin did provably learn from edmond
Stone were indispensable when he was later traveling famously aboard
the HMS Beagle in eight thirty one. So let's let's
talk a little bit about this man who has been
so woefully ignored by, you know, by history, or the
(09:55):
at least the history would learn in school. He was
born into slavery in British Guiana in the late seventeen hundreds.
In his early years, he was on a plantation in
a region in present day Guiana that was called Dimrera.
That's right. And um, there were a lot of ties
(10:15):
with Caribbean countries, so Guiana, um was kind of looked
at as an extension I guess of of the Caribbean. Um.
A lot of the political and cultural and um ties
historically to the Caribbean. So um. Charles Edmondstone was a
Scottish politician. Uh, the original Charles Edmonstone. I guess, let's say,
(10:37):
who owned this plantation where young John lived and worked.
And in the early eighteen hundreds, uh, we'll call him
the elder Charles was visited by a man by the
name of Charles Waterton who would go on to not
only become a renowned naturalist, but also the elder edmund
Stone's son in law. Yeah. Yeah, And while they're interacting
(11:01):
on this plantation, Charles Waterton takes John Edmond Stone sort
of as his protege. Right, he becomes a mentor and
he teaches edmund Stone taxidermy. If you look at the
contemporary reports, Charles Waterton says, I taught him the proper
way to stuffed birds. And so John Edmond Stone and
(11:23):
Charles Waterton would patrol walked through the surrounding rainforest and
they would collect bird specimens. This was really a two
person job because you know, most birds can fly, and
as far as we know, most people cannot. I don't
know why I've made that such a point. It's probably
(11:45):
the lack of sleep. But anyway, that statement is at
least true. And so they had to They had to
go find these birds, and they wanted to find new specimens,
unique specimens. And then they once they caught them, once
they captured them, killed them. They had to quickly preserve
them because this is the jungle, it's very hot, it's
so crazy to think of the idea of field taxidermy, right,
(12:07):
But that's absolutely you had to do because it was
so human and hot that the bird carcasses would start
to rot and decompose very very quickly. So what does
field taxidermy, what do they actually do? Yeah, they had
to soak the carcasses in this mixture um where the
primary ingredient was mercury. And then of course they had,
you know, pull out all their guts and stuff them
with some stuff. What would be some of the stuff
(12:28):
they might stuff them with, Ben, I think sawdust was popular. Yeah,
probably not other birds that you're ducan is a it's
a different thing. That's an abomination, Ben, I've never had one.
But yet their primary goal here is to you know,
soaked them, as you said, that sublimate of mercury and
preserve the outer shell. They don't really care about the
(12:51):
stuffing other than what helps it to pure life like.
And during these expeditions, Edmondstone gains a lot of knowledge
about the bio diversity of South American Guyana in particular.
But there's an important point we have to hit here.
You can look back on stories like this and say, oh,
(13:11):
these people were despite uh, the social hierarchies foisted upon them,
actual friends. But it's tough to it's it's tough to
ascribe that to them because we have to remember this
man was enslaved. He did not have the agency to
consent or not consent to these expeditions. It wasn't until
(13:32):
the Slave Trade Act of eighteen o seven that things
began to change for John Edmondstone. The Slave Trade Act
of eighteen oh seven this law from the British Empire
that says the purchase or ownership of slaves is illegal
within all the lands of the British Empire. Like a
(13:53):
lot of laws concerning manumission, the law on paper doesn't
always reflect the law as it should be practiced or
as it is practiced. So in eighteen o seven Edmonston
travels to Glasgow with the Scottish politician who owns the
(14:15):
plantation is namesake Edmondston the Elder, and while he is
in Scotland he gains his freedom. You'll hear a couple
of conflicting accounts. Some some folks say there was eighteen
seventeen when he gains his freedom, so that so he
was still enslaved for ten years in Scotland, Um, it's interesting.
(14:37):
But either way, by eighteen seventeen, at the very least,
he is a freeman finally, and he says, I'm moving
from Glasgow to Edinburgh, and that's you know. And then
he begins to live at the address you mentioned earlier,
thirty seven Lothian Street, and it's just right down the
street from University of Edinburgh, that's right, and that's where
(14:58):
he um made the acquaintance of a pint size sixteen
year old Darwin, who had come to study at Edinburgh
to study medicine. Um. Like, it was a generational thing
in his family's father had been a doctor and his
grandfather and he lived with his brother, as you said,
the delightfully named Erasmus on Lothian Street, and that was
(15:18):
just a couple of doors down from John's house. So um,
it was kind of just serendipitous that these two guys
kind of became pals. Yeah, And he did hire him
as a tutor, essentially a taxidermy tutor, because Darwin knew
pretty quickly that the doctor he was not, he was
more interested in exploring and adventures. And again he'd already
(15:39):
been kind of dreaming of some of those places that
John would kind of really hit him to in South
America and really make those dreams come alive in his mind. Yes, exactly,
just so. And in Darwin's defense, we have to realize that,
you know, even today, a lot of college students, we
don't really know a percent what we want to do.
(16:01):
It's a it's very common thing. And then furthermore, during
surgery in this time, there was no anesthesia. This reminds
me of the story of Robert Liston. We were a
little click baity with the title, but it is true
that he did perform a surgery with a three percent fatality.
I was gonna obviously don't understand how math works because
(16:22):
that still is as a head scratcher to me, because
he hit the guy on the he hit the surgical
assistant or a bystander, Nick and yeah led out right. Yeah,
he swung wide on that one. He s white because
you had to work fast. There was no anesthesia. Anyway,
Darwin says, this is not the life for me, and
so he and John Edmondstone make an agreement where Darwin
(16:44):
will pay John Edmondstone one guinea per lesson and that
after forty daily hour long sessions his training in taxidermy
will be considered complete. Uh if we want to inflation,
calculate this to get a sense of the math. Yeah yeah.
(17:05):
Peepoopoo pee peepoop pepoo, peepoopoop pepoop peepoo doo deepoo ding perfect.
One guinea or is replaced by the pound in eighteen sixteen.
But anyway, in eight one guinea was about a hundred
and sixty U s. Dollars today, right, it's I mean,
it feels like he is paying for a college course
(17:27):
at that point for sure. And that was when he
again he started talking about, um, the lush tropical regions
and all of the creatures and the vegetation that populated
it there in South America. Where was it again, dem Arara? Yeah, yeah,
the plantation, that's right, um. And it really got Darwin
(17:47):
thinking about a career in naturalism. Right. And at this time,
Guiana is making international headlines to not just headlines in
Darwin's mind. You see, at the time, Guiana has become
the site of a slave rebellion, and this rebellion was
ultimately unsuccessful and had been crushed a few months earlier.
(18:08):
Compounding this, Charles Waterton had published a book about his
expeditions to Guiana, named in a Burst of Creativity Wanderings
in South America. It's hugely popular. Everybody loves it, and
Edmond Stone stories, along with Waterton's book, along with the
international headlines about Guiana very plausibly inspired Darwin to explore
(18:34):
to discover more things. And during this winter when they
are when he's receiving his tax durmy training, he begins
to think of his teacher, of John Edmond Stone, more
and more as not just a teacher, but a but
a friend, you know, a mentor. And we have a
letter that Darwin wrote to his sister about the course
(18:57):
that Edmond Stone taught him and rich He said, it
has the recommendation of cheapness. If nothing else is the
only charges one guinea for an hour every day for
two months. And then they eventually as they become closer. Later,
Darwin writes about John Edmond Stone in his memoir Memoir,
Memoir and then and in this In this writing, Darwin
(19:19):
says that Edmund Stone is quote a very pleasant and
intelligent man. I spent many hours in conversation at his side.
Of course, you know, we we know that Darwin is
still trying to resist his father's saying, like you will
be a doctor. I was a doctor where a family
(19:39):
of doctors. And that is why in one at the
age of twenty two, inspired by and educated by John
Edmond Stone, Darwin gets a place on the HMS Beagle
as they voyage to chart the South American coastline. And
he gets he secures this position not as a doctor,
(20:00):
not as a surgeon, but as a naturalist. Yes, just
just as he had wished. UM. And all of those
lessons in taxidermy were huge. His ability to do that
UM in the field so quickly and efficiently were a
massive help on this voyage UM, and in helping him
formulate his theory of evolution um and the idea of
(20:24):
natural selection UM. And he when he was eating tortoises
on the Galapagos Island, there's a really cool story here
from history dot co dot uk UM what's called the
finch story. Right. He saw that there were differences between
these birds, these finches on the island, and the big
one had to do with the shape of their beak. UM.
If I may ben, I would like to read some
(20:46):
intensely triggering descriptions of birds. I was gonna ask you
I'll go ahead and ask on air, are you sure
you're okay? It's all right, it's gonna help me. All right. Well,
you're in a safe spot, so let me know. If
anything goes sideways, want to get through it, we can stop.
Oh sorry, danal Nolan, Okay, you know about the birthdays.
Everybody knows about you probably talked about it. Is that, guys,
(21:09):
I just you know, it's just it's obvious, just from
from the look on my face when you see a
pigeon walk by, my eyes light up in horror. Um,
So here we go, here a minute, a minne, make
this happen. Some of the finches had broad, deep beaks,
some elongated, and others small and stout. Ben, can you continue?
(21:30):
I can't go on? Yeah, yeah, so I thought you
did a good job. Thanks man. So Darwin notices, as
we said, specifically that some of the finches have one
kind of beak and some have other kinds. Some finches
have broad, deep beaks, some have really long beaks, and
some have very small, very tough, stout beaks. And he says,
(21:53):
you know what I think is happening here. You can
differentiate the finches by their beaks and also by the
islands upon which these finches reside, and each island has
different sort of stuff for finches to eat, and so
I believe that over time, advantageous traits that lead to
(22:16):
certain types of beaks become become more common in the
breeding population. So, if we have a finch population on
island with lots of seeds, the individual finches that have
broad beaks that can help them crack open the hard
coding of seeds will have a better chance of surviving
and reproducing, and then they become more common and ultimately
(22:39):
they become the only kind of finch on that island.
It's right, It's like we're talking about with Katie Golden
on Creature Feature. When we were talking, I had asked
the very stupid question of you know, why, what was
the advantage of the woodpecker being able to you know,
it's it's such a damaging adaptation to the creature to
like basically essentially gives it brain damage over time. But
(23:01):
what's the what's the edge and the edges? Obviously the
other creatures can't get those bugs that are in that
tree way up there that he has to dig dairy,
you know, the bird has to dig so deep for
and you know, to such a personal harm. Uh. And
there is another influence that Edmund Stone had on Darwin.
(23:22):
And this this is not completely proven, but it's it's
something that a lot of historians speculate about. They believe
that it may have been Darwin's personal relationship with John
Edmond Stone, along with the abolitionist beliefs of his grandfather's
of course, that contributed to his famous loathing and hatred
(23:44):
of slavery. And that comes to us via Clifford B.
Frith in his book Charles Darwin's Life with Birds his
Complete Ornithology, which promise you will never have to read.
Thank you, Ben, thank you for shielding me from the
horrible bed eid weird talent, gangly, twitchy creatures. All right,
(24:06):
at this point you're just doing it to yourself. You're
probably I'm a glad punishment. So so we know that
this personal relationship uh, and his his firsthand experience seeing
the just gross atrocities of slavery had made him very
much an abolitionist. And then they will also argue that
(24:27):
his anti slavery beliefs may have may have had a
relationship to the formation of his theory of natural selection
because it traces all things that are ostensibly different quote
unquote races or whatever to a common ancestor. And that
challenges the popular notion at that time that a certain
(24:47):
type of person could be somehow considered inferior or superior. Absolutely,
and he really did see it firsthand with the bloody
aftermath of some of the slave rebellions in South America.
And now you know, we we did it again. We
did the thing that a lot of historians have done,
(25:09):
which is we started dwelling on Charles Darwin instead of
John Edmondstone. So let's give John Edmondstone is due what
what happened to him? Do we know what happened after
after the taxidermy lessons were wrapped after Darwin heads off. Well, no,
And that's sort of the impetus for the story is
that he was sort of an uncredited influence on Darwin.
(25:33):
And the fact that we know anything about him and
kind of helps share a story. Um, I think it's
pretty cool. What we do know about him comes directly
from a very short little blurb in Darwin's own autobiography.
That's right, it's the it's the moment where he recalls
the conversations they had, right, and then this sets people
(25:56):
off on a path to learn more about John Edmondstone.
We know that after his interaction teaching Charles Darwin, he
stays in Edinburgh. He moves in the eighteen thirties to
areas south St. David Street. And if you look at
there were some real crackerjack researchers here. If you look
(26:17):
at the Scottish Industrial and Natural History Museum Register, which
is later the Royal Scottish Museum, you see that they
acquired a boa constrictor skin, a fifteen foot boa constrictor
from a Mr Edmondstone, and that seems likely to be
John Edmond Stone. And then there are a couple of
(26:38):
other records relating to him, uh showing that the museum
has purchased different specimens from him. But eventually John Edmondstone
began to receive his do In two thousand and nine,
a small plaque was mounted on Lothian Street, really close
(26:59):
to Edmond Stone's original home in Edinburgh. It commemorates his
years of mentorship, his years as an educator. And you know,
it's it's a small gesture, it's better than nothing, but
it's at least finally as the University of Texas says,
acknowledging Edmond Stone's influence, as historians continue to make efforts
(27:20):
to learn more about his life, and here, for now
our story draws to a close. Or maybe let's let's
call it a pause, because you know, history is active,
it's a conversation. People are still learning more stuff about
John Edmond Stone. And you know, in the coming years
we might learn even more. And I have to ask.
(27:43):
I'll be completely upfront and honest here I had not
heard of John Edmond Stone. Had you, guys, said you?
Daniel never No, I had neither and and unfortunately, um,
as recently as night, some of the academic writing about
Edmond Stone and his work UM use some pretty racist language.
Daniella Lee, who's a professor of biology at the University
(28:06):
of Missouri, once wrote a column from Scientific America where
she was quoted as saying, the next time I teach
evolutionary biology, I am definitely including Edmond Stone in my lectures.
I hope others do as well. Well said, and I
think it's a sentiment we can all get behind. This
concludes today's episode, but not our show. We want to
hear from you who are some other figures that you
(28:30):
think mainstream historical discourse has neglected, UH, And who do
you think has been maybe overblown or presented with some
sort of sanitized image. I just I just listened to
as we were coming in, I was listening to our
Columbus episode, and I got a quiet let's let's do
real quick, in the spirit of the daily zeygeists and
(28:50):
being here in the l A Studios, let's do an
overrated historical overrated, underrated. I feel like that's every episode. Okay,
so UM historically underrated. This is this is a hot take,
But I think the what we call the Black Plague
or the Black Death has UH, the way it's taught
(29:10):
to people, it's historically underrated. The statistics, the estimates about
how many people died UM are terrifying. I think people
are giving those their full do. But the there's so
many long term UH effects and consequences ramifications of that
massive outbreak that those three waves of outbreaks that we
(29:33):
didn't know, we did not fully understand until recently. Like
the reason that some people have genetic inborn resistant stage
I V it's because of the Black Plague. That's just
one example that was well, that was a very thoughtful
and thoroughly researched answer. I'm going to do a hot
take overrated Yeah, George Washington, baby who needs oh boy?
(29:59):
All right, well, let us know what you think, folks.
You can find us on Facebook. You can find us
on Twitter, you can find us on Instagram. Just type
Ridiculous History into your uh Internet connection of choice or
your Internet connection device choice. I don't know, maybe meditate,
Maybe I'll just come to you. But if you want
to take a shortcut, you can go to one of
our favorite places online, our community page Ridiculous Historians on Facebook,
(30:23):
where you can hang out with our favorite part of
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with Jonathan Strick on the quister. He's there, like most
of the time, he's probably there right now, lurking um.
You can also find us individually on social media. You
can find me on Instagram at how now Noel Brown.
You can find me on Instagram getting kicked into and
out of various countries, communities, and organizations at ben Bowling
(30:46):
in a burst of creativity. You can also find me
on Twitter. I'm at ben Bowling h s W. Thanks
as always to our our third Musketeer, super producer Casey
Pegram Again big thanks to our guests, super producer Daniel Goodman,
and I like that sound effect from the last episode,
(31:07):
just treaming a Californication. Do you think we get sued
for for saying the words californication is a portmanteau. They
probably can copyright that. Can you get supers saying words? Um?
Not yet? What even our words anymore? But seriously, Daniel,
thank you so much for having us and for being
such an amazing host and super producer. It is truly
my pleasure. This guy I can't even handle it, so
(31:28):
we have other people to thank. We do. Thank you
to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Of course, super
producer Casey Pegram here in spirit. Christopher Haciota is also
here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland um here as some sort
of demonic presence um but here none the people but
here nonetheless, and of course thanks to our research associate
Gabe Louisier. Thank you to John Edmondstone. Uh. And you know,
(31:54):
despite his strange loustatory culinary inclinations, thanks to Charles Darwin. Yeah,
he seemed like he was okay unless you're at, you know,
unless you're an animal, if you're ducking, unless you're literally
in the animal he'd ever discovered. We'll see you next time. Books.
(32:15):
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Well, well, well,
(00:29):
Darwin is entering the car, Yes, entering the conversation again.
Though we have talked about Darwin in the past, because
there's a lot of stuff that people don't know. We
think of origin of the species, and we just we
stopped there in school. What is this? Why are we
talking about Darwin? This is ridiculous history. Thank you for
(00:52):
coming through. I am not Darwin. You're not Darwin. My
name is Ben, my name is Nolan. I immediately regret
my joke because I'm a little I'm on like west
East coast brains still where we're still on the West coast, uh,
and we've been staying up quite late, even by West
Coast standards. So it's been mega mega late by East
Coast standards. Um, and we've had a bit of a
whirlwind experience. But it's kind of been fun. I'm leaning
(01:14):
into the punchiness. But Darwin, I hardly knew him. That
doesn't even make sense. I know, I thought it had
an internal lot. It was the phonemes of it that
kind of triggered my brain to do a thing that
just didn't work out. But I'm owning up to it.
I'm no old that I say that already. Yeah. Oh
I well, I'm glad you did. Either way, people might
have been confused. You're who is this? Fool's fine? You're no,
(01:34):
I'm Ben. We're joined in spirit, as always, with our
super producer Casey Pegram. God only knows where we'd be
without him. Uh, each reference a little bit. La Bouche
is a big fan of the Beach Boys, right, fantastic.
The French love the Beach Boys. I don't know, and
probably do. French have notoriously good taste. I'm right there
with you. I slept like maybe an hour before this.
(01:57):
But we are also joined with our at turning guests,
super producer Danald Goodman. How's it going, Man, It's going great?
Ready for another episode of fun. We're the sweetest guy
I know, right, and it's got like these great food recommendations.
You know, did you I didn't get any food, Rex,
you gotta ask. We can talk after that. Sounds good.
(02:19):
I'm ready for it. Um. I went to a place
called the fleet Footed Goose. No, it wasn't that, it
was just the running goose. See. I added too many
words to you've been to the running goose. I have
not where where's that's right around here? It's on the
front end of the block. Or no, I'm sorry the
uh I want to say it's on Cowanga. Um. It
was right across from a place called Beauty and Essex
(02:40):
or kind of like right around there. It's just a
little cafe. I had been there before and they have
a salmon belly sandwich that's quite delightful. But you went
to a bond me place that seems to be the
talk of the office here bon bon. We from Daniel's recommendation,
which was pretty amazing. They got this Georgian flatbread. Georgia
the country. Uh. So, apparently you guys are sick of
(03:02):
it sometimes. We've had quite a few times at this point.
But it's a it's a standard haunt, as it were.
So the way we can segue this, uh is to
talk about one of our earlier episodes. He did a
two part series on weird historical flexes with our pals
Jack and Miles from the Daily Seite. Guys and Jack
(03:24):
hipped us to one of the strangest Darwin facts we
had learned up to that point, which was well, it
was the fact that Darwin um in college had been
a member of this like fraternity that was all about
eating exotic creatures. Uh. And he took that lust for
murder and flesh, exotic fleshes uh and and applied it
(03:47):
to his research where when he was exploring the Galapagos
and you know, charting all of the different species that
he encountered, and you know that it made up the
great tapestry that is the human experience and life on Earth,
he'd eat at least one of each of them. Yeah,
sometimes more. I think he consumes so many, uh, Galapagossian
sortises that he single handedly was was a big part
(04:08):
of the reason they went they went endangered and then extinct.
I don't know, I might be overstating the case. They're
a little bit, but I'm pretty sure there's some truth
to them. Yeah. Yeah. And so again, as we say,
whenever Darwin comes up in conversation on or off the air,
thanks for ruining that for us, Jack, thanks for ruining
that guy for us. I always say, Darwin, I hardly
knew him. See, I think you should lead into it.
(04:32):
It's like, this is me now, I'm such an easy
crowd today, man, because I'm at that stage where it's
like my head is stuffed with cotton. I'm I'm very adult.
Everything seems surreal and hilarious and loaded with symbolism and
double entendre. Well, Daniel seems to think we're funny. We're
getting some some solid laughs out of him. It could
just be the fact that we're literally like two men
(04:53):
losing their minds in a fish tank, and he is
the audience. Here's the thing. Oh you said, Okay, he
thinks it's hum aw. Let's continue. Let's let's continue with
today's Darwin story. Today's Darwin story. Yes, uh, there's another
thing that people may generally not know about Charles Darwin.
Like many famous, historically influential individuals, he is the sum
(05:20):
of more than one person's work. We stand on the
shoulder of giants and one we stand on just the
one shoulder. It's usually the left because like regular sized bipeds, um,
you know, like giants are right handed. And also one
giant shoulder would be the equivalent of a set of
shoulders for a regular size many yeah, many shoulders biped ye.
(05:43):
So so there there is a person in the evolution
of Darwin which terrible choice of words on my part.
There's there's a person in Darwin's past who is who
plays a crucial and vital role in all of the
work that Darwin went on to create. He's a person
that many of us may not have heard of before.
(06:06):
His name is very cool, by the way, it is
John Edmond Stone D Stone. I don't know why, you
know why? I know why. What makes me think of
the Flintstones because everyone's last name and the flint Stone
ended with Stone. Everybody, maybe not everybody. Well, there's there's
Betty and Barney, Rubble. There we go. I got one
that's that's like a that's a construction rock related thing. Anyway,
(06:28):
it just makes me think of the Flintstone. That's great.
And I I uh, I think Rubble. I think you're
on to something with the rock themes. Anyway. John Edmond
Stone not an inspiration for the Flintstones as far as
we know, but he was one of the sources of
support and inspiration for Charles Darwin. John Edmondstone was from Guiana,
(06:54):
South America, also the country where Jim Jones and his
cult relocated the kool Aid genocide. Technically it was flavor Aid,
that's right. He didn't even pop for the good stuff. No,
no he didn't because it didn't really matter, not at
that point. But that's a that's a story for another day.
A dark turns. This is gonna take some turns. We
(07:16):
suckered dan'l in here with our previous episode. There was
a lot of fun and now we're going into some
disturbing stuff. Are you talking about the one about luxury? Luxury?
John Edmondstone I was formerly enslaved and then he was manumitted.
He was a freed slave from Guiana, and he was
in Edinburgh teaching university students taxidermy. He lived literally down
(07:43):
the street from where Charles Darwin and Charles his brother
Erasmus awesome name lived thirty seven Lothian Street right there
in Edinburgh. And um he learned his trade, John did
from a man by the name of Charles waterton U,
who is another assumingly competing naturalist uh to Darwin in
(08:04):
the eighteen hundreds, early eighteen hundreds, Well, I guess not,
maybe they Maybe it was a different time. He would
have would have already attained these skills and then crossed
paths with Darwin. So forget about my fake beef that
I just made up between the all British naturalists. Clearly
they have a Highlander. Yeah, they're very very intense dudes. Um,
but yeah, I mean they kind of just became pals, right, yeah. Yeah.
(08:28):
So while Darwin is a student at Edinburgh, he approaches
John Edmondstone and asked him, you know, Mr Edmondstone, will
you teach me to be a taxidermist. They would enter
into this teacher student relationship and they would hang out
and they would have conversation, shoot the breeze, and John
(08:50):
would tell Charles about the land of South America, about
the continent, about the tropical rainforest, about Guiana, and historians
believe that these conversations may have been the spark that
fan the flames of Charles Darwin's ambitions to explore the tropics.
I was gonna make a forest fire reference there, but
(09:11):
I think I think we're already we already got there. Okay,
I was gonna say that fan the flames of the
forest fire in his mind. I like the alliteration. Yeah,
we love alliterationous, fan the flames of the forest fire
in his fancy. I don't know of his fancy, of
his fancy. Okay, we got there, We did so we
know that regardless of how we want to freeze it.
(09:33):
The taxidermy skills that Darwin did provably learn from edmond
Stone were indispensable when he was later traveling famously aboard
the HMS Beagle in eight thirty one. So let's let's
talk a little bit about this man who has been
so woefully ignored by, you know, by history, or the
(09:55):
at least the history would learn in school. He was
born into slavery in British Guiana in the late seventeen hundreds.
In his early years, he was on a plantation in
a region in present day Guiana that was called Dimrera.
That's right. And um, there were a lot of ties
(10:15):
with Caribbean countries, so Guiana, um was kind of looked
at as an extension I guess of of the Caribbean. Um.
A lot of the political and cultural and um ties
historically to the Caribbean. So um. Charles Edmondstone was a
Scottish politician. Uh, the original Charles Edmonstone. I guess, let's say,
(10:37):
who owned this plantation where young John lived and worked.
And in the early eighteen hundreds, uh, we'll call him
the elder Charles was visited by a man by the
name of Charles Waterton who would go on to not
only become a renowned naturalist, but also the elder edmund
Stone's son in law. Yeah. Yeah, And while they're interacting
(11:01):
on this plantation, Charles Waterton takes John Edmond Stone sort
of as his protege. Right, he becomes a mentor and
he teaches edmund Stone taxidermy. If you look at the
contemporary reports, Charles Waterton says, I taught him the proper
way to stuffed birds. And so John Edmond Stone and
(11:23):
Charles Waterton would patrol walked through the surrounding rainforest and
they would collect bird specimens. This was really a two
person job because you know, most birds can fly, and
as far as we know, most people cannot. I don't
know why I've made that such a point. It's probably
(11:45):
the lack of sleep. But anyway, that statement is at
least true. And so they had to They had to
go find these birds, and they wanted to find new specimens,
unique specimens. And then they once they caught them, once
they captured them, killed them. They had to quickly preserve
them because this is the jungle, it's very hot, it's
so crazy to think of the idea of field taxidermy, right,
(12:07):
But that's absolutely you had to do because it was
so human and hot that the bird carcasses would start
to rot and decompose very very quickly. So what does
field taxidermy, what do they actually do? Yeah, they had
to soak the carcasses in this mixture um where the
primary ingredient was mercury. And then of course they had,
you know, pull out all their guts and stuff them
with some stuff. What would be some of the stuff
(12:28):
they might stuff them with, Ben, I think sawdust was popular. Yeah,
probably not other birds that you're ducan is a it's
a different thing. That's an abomination, Ben, I've never had one.
But yet their primary goal here is to you know,
soaked them, as you said, that sublimate of mercury and
preserve the outer shell. They don't really care about the
(12:51):
stuffing other than what helps it to pure life like.
And during these expeditions, Edmondstone gains a lot of knowledge
about the bio diversity of South American Guyana in particular.
But there's an important point we have to hit here.
You can look back on stories like this and say, oh,
(13:11):
these people were despite uh, the social hierarchies foisted upon them,
actual friends. But it's tough to it's it's tough to
ascribe that to them because we have to remember this
man was enslaved. He did not have the agency to
consent or not consent to these expeditions. It wasn't until
(13:32):
the Slave Trade Act of eighteen o seven that things
began to change for John Edmondstone. The Slave Trade Act
of eighteen oh seven this law from the British Empire
that says the purchase or ownership of slaves is illegal
within all the lands of the British Empire. Like a
(13:53):
lot of laws concerning manumission, the law on paper doesn't
always reflect the law as it should be practiced or
as it is practiced. So in eighteen o seven Edmonston
travels to Glasgow with the Scottish politician who owns the
(14:15):
plantation is namesake Edmondston the Elder, and while he is
in Scotland he gains his freedom. You'll hear a couple
of conflicting accounts. Some some folks say there was eighteen
seventeen when he gains his freedom, so that so he
was still enslaved for ten years in Scotland, Um, it's interesting.
(14:37):
But either way, by eighteen seventeen, at the very least,
he is a freeman finally, and he says, I'm moving
from Glasgow to Edinburgh, and that's you know. And then
he begins to live at the address you mentioned earlier,
thirty seven Lothian Street, and it's just right down the
street from University of Edinburgh, that's right, and that's where
(14:58):
he um made the acquaintance of a pint size sixteen
year old Darwin, who had come to study at Edinburgh
to study medicine. Um. Like, it was a generational thing
in his family's father had been a doctor and his
grandfather and he lived with his brother, as you said,
the delightfully named Erasmus on Lothian Street, and that was
(15:18):
just a couple of doors down from John's house. So um,
it was kind of just serendipitous that these two guys
kind of became pals. Yeah, And he did hire him
as a tutor, essentially a taxidermy tutor, because Darwin knew
pretty quickly that the doctor he was not, he was
more interested in exploring and adventures. And again he'd already
(15:39):
been kind of dreaming of some of those places that
John would kind of really hit him to in South
America and really make those dreams come alive in his mind. Yes, exactly,
just so. And in Darwin's defense, we have to realize that,
you know, even today, a lot of college students, we
don't really know a percent what we want to do.
(16:01):
It's a it's very common thing. And then furthermore, during
surgery in this time, there was no anesthesia. This reminds
me of the story of Robert Liston. We were a
little click baity with the title, but it is true
that he did perform a surgery with a three percent fatality.
I was gonna obviously don't understand how math works because
(16:22):
that still is as a head scratcher to me, because
he hit the guy on the he hit the surgical
assistant or a bystander, Nick and yeah led out right. Yeah,
he swung wide on that one. He s white because
you had to work fast. There was no anesthesia. Anyway,
Darwin says, this is not the life for me, and
so he and John Edmondstone make an agreement where Darwin
(16:44):
will pay John Edmondstone one guinea per lesson and that
after forty daily hour long sessions his training in taxidermy
will be considered complete. Uh if we want to inflation,
calculate this to get a sense of the math. Yeah yeah.
(17:05):
Peepoopoo pee peepoop pepoo, peepoopoop pepoop peepoo doo deepoo ding perfect.
One guinea or is replaced by the pound in eighteen sixteen.
But anyway, in eight one guinea was about a hundred
and sixty U s. Dollars today, right, it's I mean,
it feels like he is paying for a college course
(17:27):
at that point for sure. And that was when he
again he started talking about, um, the lush tropical regions
and all of the creatures and the vegetation that populated
it there in South America. Where was it again, dem Arara? Yeah, yeah,
the plantation, that's right, um. And it really got Darwin
(17:47):
thinking about a career in naturalism. Right. And at this time,
Guiana is making international headlines to not just headlines in
Darwin's mind. You see, at the time, Guiana has become
the site of a slave rebellion, and this rebellion was
ultimately unsuccessful and had been crushed a few months earlier.
(18:08):
Compounding this, Charles Waterton had published a book about his
expeditions to Guiana, named in a Burst of Creativity Wanderings
in South America. It's hugely popular. Everybody loves it, and
Edmond Stone stories, along with Waterton's book, along with the
international headlines about Guiana very plausibly inspired Darwin to explore
(18:34):
to discover more things. And during this winter when they
are when he's receiving his tax durmy training, he begins
to think of his teacher, of John Edmond Stone, more
and more as not just a teacher, but a but
a friend, you know, a mentor. And we have a
letter that Darwin wrote to his sister about the course
(18:57):
that Edmond Stone taught him and rich He said, it
has the recommendation of cheapness. If nothing else is the
only charges one guinea for an hour every day for
two months. And then they eventually as they become closer. Later,
Darwin writes about John Edmond Stone in his memoir Memoir,
Memoir and then and in this In this writing, Darwin
(19:19):
says that Edmund Stone is quote a very pleasant and
intelligent man. I spent many hours in conversation at his side.
Of course, you know, we we know that Darwin is
still trying to resist his father's saying, like you will
be a doctor. I was a doctor where a family
(19:39):
of doctors. And that is why in one at the
age of twenty two, inspired by and educated by John
Edmond Stone, Darwin gets a place on the HMS Beagle
as they voyage to chart the South American coastline. And
he gets he secures this position not as a doctor,
(20:00):
not as a surgeon, but as a naturalist. Yes, just
just as he had wished. UM. And all of those
lessons in taxidermy were huge. His ability to do that
UM in the field so quickly and efficiently were a
massive help on this voyage UM, and in helping him
formulate his theory of evolution um and the idea of
(20:24):
natural selection UM. And he when he was eating tortoises
on the Galapagos Island, there's a really cool story here
from history dot co dot uk UM what's called the
finch story. Right. He saw that there were differences between
these birds, these finches on the island, and the big
one had to do with the shape of their beak. UM.
If I may ben, I would like to read some
(20:46):
intensely triggering descriptions of birds. I was gonna ask you
I'll go ahead and ask on air, are you sure
you're okay? It's all right, it's gonna help me. All right. Well,
you're in a safe spot, so let me know. If
anything goes sideways, want to get through it, we can stop.
Oh sorry, danal Nolan, Okay, you know about the birthdays.
Everybody knows about you probably talked about it. Is that, guys,
(21:09):
I just you know, it's just it's obvious, just from
from the look on my face when you see a
pigeon walk by, my eyes light up in horror. Um,
So here we go, here a minute, a minne, make
this happen. Some of the finches had broad, deep beaks,
some elongated, and others small and stout. Ben, can you continue?
(21:30):
I can't go on? Yeah, yeah, so I thought you
did a good job. Thanks man. So Darwin notices, as
we said, specifically that some of the finches have one
kind of beak and some have other kinds. Some finches
have broad, deep beaks, some have really long beaks, and
some have very small, very tough, stout beaks. And he says,
(21:53):
you know what I think is happening here. You can
differentiate the finches by their beaks and also by the
islands upon which these finches reside, and each island has
different sort of stuff for finches to eat, and so
I believe that over time, advantageous traits that lead to
(22:16):
certain types of beaks become become more common in the
breeding population. So, if we have a finch population on
island with lots of seeds, the individual finches that have
broad beaks that can help them crack open the hard
coding of seeds will have a better chance of surviving
and reproducing, and then they become more common and ultimately
(22:39):
they become the only kind of finch on that island.
It's right, It's like we're talking about with Katie Golden
on Creature Feature. When we were talking, I had asked
the very stupid question of you know, why, what was
the advantage of the woodpecker being able to you know,
it's it's such a damaging adaptation to the creature to
like basically essentially gives it brain damage over time. But
(23:01):
what's the what's the edge and the edges? Obviously the
other creatures can't get those bugs that are in that
tree way up there that he has to dig dairy,
you know, the bird has to dig so deep for
and you know, to such a personal harm. Uh. And
there is another influence that Edmund Stone had on Darwin.
(23:22):
And this this is not completely proven, but it's it's
something that a lot of historians speculate about. They believe
that it may have been Darwin's personal relationship with John
Edmond Stone, along with the abolitionist beliefs of his grandfather's
of course, that contributed to his famous loathing and hatred
(23:44):
of slavery. And that comes to us via Clifford B.
Frith in his book Charles Darwin's Life with Birds his
Complete Ornithology, which promise you will never have to read.
Thank you, Ben, thank you for shielding me from the
horrible bed eid weird talent, gangly, twitchy creatures. All right,
(24:06):
at this point you're just doing it to yourself. You're
probably I'm a glad punishment. So so we know that
this personal relationship uh, and his his firsthand experience seeing
the just gross atrocities of slavery had made him very
much an abolitionist. And then they will also argue that
(24:27):
his anti slavery beliefs may have may have had a
relationship to the formation of his theory of natural selection
because it traces all things that are ostensibly different quote
unquote races or whatever to a common ancestor. And that
challenges the popular notion at that time that a certain
(24:47):
type of person could be somehow considered inferior or superior. Absolutely,
and he really did see it firsthand with the bloody
aftermath of some of the slave rebellions in South America.
And now you know, we we did it again. We
did the thing that a lot of historians have done,
(25:09):
which is we started dwelling on Charles Darwin instead of
John Edmondstone. So let's give John Edmondstone is due what
what happened to him? Do we know what happened after
after the taxidermy lessons were wrapped after Darwin heads off. Well, no,
And that's sort of the impetus for the story is
that he was sort of an uncredited influence on Darwin.
(25:33):
And the fact that we know anything about him and
kind of helps share a story. Um, I think it's
pretty cool. What we do know about him comes directly
from a very short little blurb in Darwin's own autobiography.
That's right, it's the it's the moment where he recalls
the conversations they had, right, and then this sets people
(25:56):
off on a path to learn more about John Edmondstone.
We know that after his interaction teaching Charles Darwin, he
stays in Edinburgh. He moves in the eighteen thirties to
areas south St. David Street. And if you look at
there were some real crackerjack researchers here. If you look
(26:17):
at the Scottish Industrial and Natural History Museum Register, which
is later the Royal Scottish Museum, you see that they
acquired a boa constrictor skin, a fifteen foot boa constrictor
from a Mr Edmondstone, and that seems likely to be
John Edmond Stone. And then there are a couple of
(26:38):
other records relating to him, uh showing that the museum
has purchased different specimens from him. But eventually John Edmondstone
began to receive his do In two thousand and nine,
a small plaque was mounted on Lothian Street, really close
(26:59):
to Edmond Stone's original home in Edinburgh. It commemorates his
years of mentorship, his years as an educator. And you know,
it's it's a small gesture, it's better than nothing, but
it's at least finally as the University of Texas says,
acknowledging Edmond Stone's influence, as historians continue to make efforts
(27:20):
to learn more about his life, and here, for now
our story draws to a close. Or maybe let's let's
call it a pause, because you know, history is active,
it's a conversation. People are still learning more stuff about
John Edmond Stone. And you know, in the coming years
we might learn even more. And I have to ask.
(27:43):
I'll be completely upfront and honest here I had not
heard of John Edmond Stone. Had you, guys, said you?
Daniel never No, I had neither and and unfortunately, um,
as recently as night, some of the academic writing about
Edmond Stone and his work UM use some pretty racist language.
Daniella Lee, who's a professor of biology at the University
(28:06):
of Missouri, once wrote a column from Scientific America where
she was quoted as saying, the next time I teach
evolutionary biology, I am definitely including Edmond Stone in my lectures.
I hope others do as well. Well said, and I
think it's a sentiment we can all get behind. This
concludes today's episode, but not our show. We want to
hear from you who are some other figures that you
(28:30):
think mainstream historical discourse has neglected, UH, And who do
you think has been maybe overblown or presented with some
sort of sanitized image. I just I just listened to
as we were coming in, I was listening to our
Columbus episode, and I got a quiet let's let's do
real quick, in the spirit of the daily zeygeists and
(28:50):
being here in the l A Studios, let's do an
overrated historical overrated, underrated. I feel like that's every episode. Okay,
so UM historically underrated. This is this is a hot take,
But I think the what we call the Black Plague
or the Black Death has UH, the way it's taught
(29:10):
to people, it's historically underrated. The statistics, the estimates about
how many people died UM are terrifying. I think people
are giving those their full do. But the there's so
many long term UH effects and consequences ramifications of that
massive outbreak that those three waves of outbreaks that we
(29:33):
didn't know, we did not fully understand until recently. Like
the reason that some people have genetic inborn resistant stage
I V it's because of the Black Plague. That's just
one example that was well, that was a very thoughtful
and thoroughly researched answer. I'm going to do a hot
take overrated Yeah, George Washington, baby who needs oh boy?
(29:59):
All right, well, let us know what you think, folks.
You can find us on Facebook. You can find us
on Twitter, you can find us on Instagram. Just type
Ridiculous History into your uh Internet connection of choice or
your Internet connection device choice. I don't know, maybe meditate,
Maybe I'll just come to you. But if you want
to take a shortcut, you can go to one of
our favorite places online, our community page Ridiculous Historians on Facebook,
(30:23):
where you can hang out with our favorite part of
the show. You and your fellow listeners have a chat
with Jonathan Strick on the quister. He's there, like most
of the time, he's probably there right now, lurking um.
You can also find us individually on social media. You
can find me on Instagram at how now Noel Brown.
You can find me on Instagram getting kicked into and
out of various countries, communities, and organizations at ben Bowling
(30:46):
in a burst of creativity. You can also find me
on Twitter. I'm at ben Bowling h s W. Thanks
as always to our our third Musketeer, super producer Casey
Pegram Again big thanks to our guests, super producer Daniel Goodman,
and I like that sound effect from the last episode,
(31:07):
just treaming a Californication. Do you think we get sued
for for saying the words californication is a portmanteau. They
probably can copyright that. Can you get supers saying words? Um?
Not yet? What even our words anymore? But seriously, Daniel,
thank you so much for having us and for being
such an amazing host and super producer. It is truly
my pleasure. This guy I can't even handle it, so
(31:28):
we have other people to thank. We do. Thank you
to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Of course, super
producer Casey Pegram here in spirit. Christopher Haciota is also
here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland um here as some sort
of demonic presence um but here none the people but
here nonetheless, and of course thanks to our research associate
Gabe Louisier. Thank you to John Edmondstone. Uh. And you know,
(31:54):
despite his strange loustatory culinary inclinations, thanks to Charles Darwin. Yeah,
he seemed like he was okay unless you're at, you know,
unless you're an animal, if you're ducking, unless you're literally
in the animal he'd ever discovered. We'll see you next time. Books.
(32:15):
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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