Visual Ethics: A Past Case And A Present One

Visual representations are powerful aids to communication, making points with clarity and force but they can offer opportunities for ethical and rhetorical lapses. Two cases are examined: Ernst Haeckel\u27s illustrations of supposed embryonic states in support of his biogentic law in the late-1800s and Jan Schön\u27s graphs of ground-breaking research findings in solid state physics very recently. Both sets of illustration have been shown to be fraudulent. In visual ethics the key questions remain the same: how did the visual come about, what do they mean, and do they show what they claim to represent