Intelligent Design vs Evolution
In 1925, a landmark court case found high school teacher John T. Stokes guilty of teaching the theory of Darwinian evolution in the classroom, fining the educator $100. Today, the fight continues, ironically evolving into what is now a debate between intelligent design, rather, and evolution.

Above is an image of a flagellum, which is a collection of proteins that propels its respective bacterium through whatever medium it happens to be in. According to proponents of intelligent design--who contest that all life on earth is the product of an intelligent, divine will and not some random natural selection--this image is truth manifested that evolution is a hoax. However, like the defense that manipulated the George Holliday video of the Rodney King beating, intelligent design believers overlook the fact that the flagellum can still operate while lacking 80% of its protein structure. This fact--the image doesn't portray.

Science is an observation-based way of thinking. If you then move that and say, “We can’t find any evidence,” and therefore it was made my God or something or other, that simply moves into a totally different kind of intellectual discourse and is utterly different—it becomes not objective, which science is, but subjective.
David Attenborough
Zoologist

For the whole story: A War on Science (Google Video: query "intelligent design")

Seeing is Treating, by HBR
Today, even with highly advanced imaging technology, scientists and doctors are finding it much more accurate to couple it with other means of detecting disease. For instance, "in vivo imaging technologies are combined with in vitro laboratory diagnostics," to render the most effective means of catching malignant growths in the bud. What is interesting to note, therefore, according to this article, is that scientists and medical practitioners cannot rely solely on imaging technology--as advanced and clear as it may be--to diagnose and treat a patient. Today, imaging technology in the medical field seems to have become a means to an end, rather than the end itself, which is what the notion of photographic truth has so long contested.

Indeed, the popular study and use of biotechnology renders the lens almost obsolete. Lab technicians must rely on electronmicroscopes and other imaging hardware that harnesses the powers of... very advanced technology that is certainly not very familiar to the lay-student. And with man looking further inward into our bodies, it is no surprise that a convergence of imaging and biotechnology "can improve the quality of health care, the delivery of [said service], and the operational and financial performance of both health care providers and medical technology companies."

Hallelujah.

Seeing is Treating. Harvard Business Review. February 2007.

The gaze -- a good amount of bull.

The latter portion of Spectatorship, Power, and Knowledge on the influence Western gaze has on the perception of Eastern culture illustrates very well the ignorance people, who intend on adhering to differences, have from not being fully exposed to different kinds of societies. Most significantly, the last image--the Guess advertisement with the scantily clad women in the rice paddie--evoked more confusion and disgust than curiosity and a desire to purchase Guess products. Having come from Asia, being of Asian decent, this advertisement communicates incredible ignorance on the part of the creative department of whichever advertising firm it was that made it, and I am disinclined to buy any more goods from Guess now.

I aimed to bring a lighter feel to the leaflet, since Americans are trying to get Iraqis to listen to (I presume) American broadcasts. Therefore, I made an icon out of the tower, and iconic/indexical broadcast signals, to entice. Notice also the symbols that are text: they look Arabic, which is intended to represent infusion of both cultures.

HuangPunctum

By highlighting the risque within an otherwise innocuous proposal, the meaning of this image dramatically alters. No longer does the simple advertisement speak to our frugality. "You love 69" mocks the institutions of religion and marriage--dismisses them even--which are used as facades by some as a means to satisfy their carnal desires.

Indexical signifiers

flickr.com, u/n: LeggNet

When an image becomes more than it was meant to be

Cultural structuralism's hand--something of Adam Smith's invisible one--is in everything. That's why I think today's title is so apropos. For those of you who have been reading a little up on the news, you might have noticed something about Cartoon Network's latest ad campaign that has created mayhem in the city of Boston.

Here's the rundown: 'Boston sign scare'. (Be sure to check out the video clip of the news report, A scary 'promotion'.)

More importantly, though, this is clear indication of how images--and what they can become unintentionally--are interpreted within their socio-cultural backdrops. News reports, as those cited in the links above, show how what was intended to be a (harmless) advertisement campaign became the focal point of much ado about nothing. Simply because Americans are in a constant state of apprehension were Lite Brite sets deemed a terrorist ploy.

Stemming from the observation, I argue that, contrary to what Struken and Cartwright propose, viewers don't make meaning out of images at all. Rather, it's the prevailing social construct. If we think about it, without 9/11 and the great political and military debacle that will go down into history books as the war in Iraq, I don't think many people would even think of a bomb if he or she were to see this contraption. Granted, these toy sets look oddly suspicious to be advertisements, but then what good is an advertisement--an image--without any means of imprinting its existence in viewers' minds?