Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is the keystone text for evolutionary theory; now you can see how the book itself evolved, thanks to Ben Fry.

Fry is the director of information design company Seed Visualization and he has constructed a rather wonderful graphic that shows the changes in the book over its six editions.

“We often think of scientific ideas, such as Darwin’s theory of evolution, as fixed notions that are accepted as finished,” writes Fry. “In fact, Darwin’s On the Origin of Species evolved over the course of several editions he wrote, edited, and updated during his lifetime.”

Fry’s other scientific information design projects include a redesign of genetic code diagrams and illustrations of the relationships between different genomes. He was also behind the rather cool Nature HapMap cover.

His Traces graphic allows to you not just to watch the changes accumulate as time passes – and editions are published – but also to see where words and passages have been added into the text (image left).

“The idea that we can actually see change over time in a person’s thinking is fascinating,” says Fry. “Darwin scholars are of course familiar with this story, but here we can view it directly, both on a macro-level as it animates, or word-by-word as we examine pieces of the text more closely.”

Traces uses text from The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, run by John van Wyhe.

Hat tip: Flowing data