Darwin's Century: Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It.

Rating:
Summary: Darwin's Discovery in historical context
Review: Anthropologist Loren Eiseley is best known for his poetic essays on evolution, biology, and human nature.

_Darwin's Century_ may be a leap for fans of this work. It's a scholarly work, written while Eiseley was wearing his Professor hat instead of his Philosopher cap. It's a comprehensive (but very readable) look at the intellectual climate in which Charles Darwin was educated and scentific traditions of the time.

Like any good history of science, _Darwin's Century_ clears away a lot of the mythological gleam surrounding Darwin's great realization. It shows us that, despite the genuine controversy the publication of the theory engendered, that _evolution evolved_. The seeds of the idea were all around.

Indeed, much of the ideological "flavor" we associate with evolution arises not from the theory itself, but were inherited from these ur-notions, such as the Great Chain of Being and Malthus's writings.

Put this one on your list if you enjoy the work of writers like Stephen Jay Gould and Freeman Dyson.

Rating:
Summary: fascinating, but a bit scholarly for the layperson
Review: Newton said, "If I have seen so far, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants." The same could be said for Charles Darwin, as Eisley shows in _Darwin's Century_.

It is a fascinating read, to be sure. I had always assumed that Dawin's _Origin of Species_ and _Decent of Man_ were discoveries made by a brilliant flash of intuition and genius. Eisley clarifies this misconception, demonstrating the ideas and theories that influenced Darwin - from Buffon and Lamarck to Malthus and Linneaus were critical in the development of his theory. Of course, all of these naturalists were "close" to evolution, but it was Darwin who managed to connect the dots, and it was Darwin's genius that made sense of it all. However, the theories of natural selection, species variation and adaptation did not occur in an academic vacuum. Eisely does a great job of showing this.

The only criticism I have is that it is written more for the "scholarly set" - maybe as a supplementary text for a college class rather than for the general public. This is not a weakness, but certainly something the lay reader should be aware of going into this remarkable book.

Rating:
Summary: A Work Well Worth Saving
Review: This is the story of the development and refinement of evolutionary thought in the Nineteenth Century. The author allows a little slop into the end of the Eighteenth Century with such as Hutton and Buffon, and a bit into the Twentieth with Alfred Russell Wallace's last years, but basically this is the story of how the medieval view of the Great Chain of Being coming into sudden being along with the earth 6000-odd years ago evolved into an altogether grander but not-remotely-Biblical view of time, geology, life, and change.

Charles Darwin is, of course, the centerpiece of such a discussion, but by no means crowds out consideration of other thinkers and workers. In terms of space, Darwin does not take up terribly much of the book, but many of the ideas and discoveries made before him are highlighted because of the use he is to make of them, and the loss of Mendel's work is seen as ironic because it was not there when Darwin needed it. It seems to be Eiseley's position that Darwin was not making a leap that others could not make, or had not made, but that, rather, he was positioned to carry the new paradigm of natural selection through an opposition that could not combat his thorough preparation and his dedicated cadre of younger naturalists. The time was ripe, and Darwin struck. It is ironic that he was, in later editions of his book, forced to revert to rather Lamarkian explanations of organic change because of the physicists. They just wouldn't give him an Earth old enough to allow his leisurely form of natural selection by the pruning of occasional random variations to create, eventually, the great variety of life.

After Darwin was pruned the story goes on, of course, and Eiseley mentions the work of the Germans in cytology and heredity, the rediscovery of Mendel, and Wallace's speculations about the brain. This book was written in 1958, but Loren Eiseley anticipates, to a certain extent, the evolutionary psychology that is now explaining so much about the human mind. And he weighs in on the side of free will: finally, we must become less impressed with our technology and begin to grapple with the questions that should interest a creature that can look at itself-the basic questions of morality and the meaning of life. It is fascinating to know what we are, but we must ask what we can become.

This book is well worth reading (I've read it twice) for the compelling story and the fine prose style. Eiseley was a naturalist and paleontologist as well as an essayist of great evocative power. Here he proves himself a fine historian as well: he seems to have read everything that impinges on the story he is telling, and given us a clear view of a fascinating period in science.