I've had numerous positive comments about the thinking donkey image used in this blog. It was drawn specifically for my blog by an excellent cartoonist, Rob Hooper of Flaming Pencil. The brief was to draw a thinking, skeptical donkey, based on Rodin's The Thinker. In line with the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 South African License, you may use the image non-commercially. I do ask that Occam's Donkey be acknowledged and that a link to Occam's Donkey be provided. I can recommend Rob's work strongly.
I would prefer the blog not to become Occam's Ape, but here is another animal thinker, Hugo Rheinhold's Affe mit Schädel (ape with skull):
Image from Wikipedia.
According to Wikipedia:
"Hugo Rheinhold's original inscription "eritis sicut deus" (sometimes wrongly "eritus …."), either suggests that Darwinian understanding may lead to Frankenstinian abuse of life's essence, or a more inclusive innocence that recognises a place for other advanced life‑forms on our intellectual podium, if only we can just accommodate those guests."Another "thinker" I recently came across on a farm in the Northern Transvaal (Limpopo). The two meter high figure was fashioned out of hardwood, probably by an illiterate Zimbabwean illegal immigrant (although you never know with the Zimbabweans, some of them are well educated, their education system was quite good before Mugabe destroyed it). The huge figure of the thinking baboon can be scary when your headlights suddenly illuminate it late at night on a dusty farm road.
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