Origin of Species

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Summary: The Book That Started It All
Review: Charles Darwin may not have been the first to champion a theory of evolution, but he certainly was the best. Dry nineteenth-century writing aside, the book is a fascinating introduction to evolutionary theory. It still amazes me that someone completely in the dark about modern theories of inheritance could have successfully explained so much about evolution and variation. The book is chock-full of brilliant insights.

It's true that the book is - of course - a little outdated. Reading a more modern update, like Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" (and "The Extended Phenotype" if you're ambitious), will definitely bring you up to speed on the topic...

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Summary: Buy the first edition: buy Harvard or Penguin
Review: Because Darwin's "Origin" may be published by anyone, there are various editions available that seemingly differ only in price and introduction. In fact, however, among the various published versions of the "Origin," there is a difference vastly more important than price and intro -- that is, which *edition* is being published. Harvard and Penguin publish the first edition of the "Origin," whereas Bantam, Modern Library, and Prometheus Books publish the sixth edition.

For almost every purpose, the first edition is the only version worth reading. Aside from its overwhelmingly superior historical merit, the argument in the first edition is shorter, livelier, and more persuasive than the one in the sixth edition, where Darwin includes concessions to physicists such as Kelvin, which were ultimately proven unnecessary (as Kelvin's claims were shown to be in serious error). These erroneous concessions forced Darwin to mistakenly add several non-Darwinian arguments to his later editions.

So, if you want to read the book that changed biology forever, then read the "Origin" as it was originally written: buy the Harvard or Penguin copies.

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Summary: Wow!
Review: Okay, seeing as how I am a teenager, this book didn't seem very interesting at first, but after I got into it it helped me to understand this whole evolution thing. Another thing I would like to say is that I know Darwin is not the most interesting writer, but he does have some important things to say in his book. If you like to learn more about biology and things like how species and stuffed evolved, devolved, or if you are tired and just can't seem to fall asleep, read the book. It is pretty good.

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Summary: Origin of Species, Natural Selection explained
Review: Darwin takes the Socratic approach to the theory of evolution and by thinking through the problems to his theory, lays it all out. Hereditery, descent, migration, variation, sterility of hybreds, extinction, vestigal organs, the whole ball of wax. If you would understand life on Earth, reading this book is a good start.

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Summary: Like Newton, Darwin was a (brilliant) man of his own era.
Review: It's important to remember that Charles Darwin was born in 1809 and published this book in 1859, almost a century and a half ago. It's also important to remember that "the past is a different place: they do things differently there."

Victorian England believed strongly that northwestern Europeans were the most favored of races, with the English at the pinnacle of favor among Europeans. Darwin grew up in an England that had just defeated Napoleon at Waterloo and was also taking on the direct rule of India as its own special destiny. So it's not surprising that he absorbed the confident young empire's predominant view of the world. Nor is it surprising that the book in which he presents his ground-breaking theory of natural selection also reflects his rather uncritical acceptance of nineteenth-century England's belief in Progress with a capital P and in The White Man's Burden with similar capitalization. Darwin lived in the England of Kipling's India.

These beliefs can seem quaint, antiquated and even repulsive to us from our late twentieth-century perch, but they were characteristic of the men of his time, place and education. No doubt our own favorite assumptions about America's natural role in the world will look as odd and misplaced to readers from the mid-2100s, a century and a half in our future.

Do we expect Sir Isaac Newton to be a Jeffersonian Democrat or a modern chemist in the mold of Lavoisier? No, of course not. Sir Isaac died in 1727, nearly 50 years before the Declaration of Independence was written, and 16 years before Jefferson and Lavoisier were born in 1743. Not only that, but--as strange as it may seem to us now--Newton's gaze was fixed upon the past, not the future. In this, Sir Isaac was also very much a man of his era.

The focus of Newton's research was the experimental and mathematical recovery of knowledge he and his contemporaries thought had been known in ancient times and since lost. In a lifetime spent trying to reconstruct lost wisdom, he managed to create valuable new sciences that had never before been available to humankind. In so doing, he changed the way we think about the world forever. Newton's own laboratory notes seem strange to us today precisely because we live in his intellectual shadow; the same is true of Darwin. The landscape never looks the same after a major earthquake, whether the landscape is physical or intellectual. And both Newton and Darwin launched intellectual earthquakes with the publication of their discoveries.

The following comment, taken from the last lecture in Caltech physicist Richard Feynman's 1964 series on "The Character of Physical Law", vividly describes what it takes to seek new, testable physical [and biological] laws:

"...The truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought. What we need is imagination, but imagination in a terrible strait-jacket. We have to find a new view of the world that has to agree with everything that is known, but disagree in its predictions somewhere. . . . And in that disagreement it must agree with nature. If you can find any other view of the world which agrees over the entire range where things have already been observed, but disagrees somewhere else, you have made a great discovery. ...A new idea is extremely difficult to think of. It takes a fantastic imagination."

Newton and Darwin both did this, in spades. They had in common both that fantastic imagination and the incredible discipline it took to put it into Feynman's strait-jacket.

As B. J. T. Dobbs shows in her superb study "The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy" (1975), Newton's decades of fine-grained experimental investigation of the claims of alchemy developed both his amazing powers of concentration and the broad range of ideas that he could bring to bear on a problem. The results shook the world for generations after him. Similarly, Darwin's intense focus on a single big question for decades after the Beagle voyage led to an earth-shaking new view of life that still rocks our intellectual world today. This book reports that view and the evidence for it.

Like Newton's monumental "Principia Mathematica", Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" profoundly changed the way we see the world. The "Principia", with its infinitesimal numbers, its invisible forces and its gravitation, took generations to achieve widespread acceptance, even as it revolutionized the study of physics. Similarly, evolution by natural selection as presented in the "Origin" has completely reoriented the study of living creatures, and it too is taking generations to achieve widespread acceptance. This, too, is not surprising.

However, unlike the original English-language edition of the "Principia", which sports concepts, vocabulary, spelling and capitalization conventions we find difficult and distracting today, the "Origin" is still fairly easy for us to read and appreciate. Our friends in 2139 may not be so lucky. Read it now, while you still can.

-dubhghall

Rating:
Summary: favored race?
Review: I'm just curious about those of you whose mouths are overflowing with druel in your overwhelming infatuation with Charles Darwin. No one seemed to comment on Darwin's contention about a "favored race". After all the 21st century world has been through over the issue of race, one would think that intellectuals would comment more on this rarely delved-into area of Darwin's work.

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Summary: Incredible array of evidence, but leaves open questions
Review: In Origin of Species Darwin does an incredible job of documenting the mutability of species, of showing that changes can be caused not only by human breeding, but also by what you might call natural breeding, or "natural selection," as he calls it. His evidence was simply overwhelming.

The shortcoming of the book is that he gave no evidence for his main contention - that life is so mutable that a single-celled life form might evolve through many generations into, say, an elephant. The best he did on that count was to speculate. One of his odder speculations was that whales may be the descendants of animals like bears who swam through the water with their mouths open. In fact, I thought the evidence he presented could be reasonably interpreted as meaning that species have gene pools that allow a range of expression - for example, look at all the kinds of dogs there are.

That Darwin spent several chapters defending his theory against the lack of fossil evidence is also interesting because lack of fossil evidence is still being brought up as an objection. Clearly this objection has not been answered, or has been answered inadequately.

Having said all that, Origin of Species was the most persuasive argument for evolution I've heard. It is the focal point of the entire evolution-creation debate, and anybody interested in the topic should be familiar with it, regardless of which side of the issue they are on.

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Summary: Excellent edition of a supreme scientific achievement
Review: This is a handsome hardcover edition; the type is easy to read. Anyone who vilifies Darwin and claims that evolution is untenable hasn't read The Origin of Species. Christian fundamentalists should read this work: once they grasp the powerful connections Darwin makes between animaland plant breeding (intelligent selection) and how the environment gradually eliminates individuals less suited to its conditions (natural selection), they might see that arguing against Darwin's theory is like arguing Netwon's theory of gravity is wrong. Read Darwin before you cast the first stone!

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Summary: The most unfairly misjudged book in history.
Review: I started reading this book expecting to find offensive, disrespectful, and vicious material throughout it. What I came to realize instead, was that people have criticized this book based on offensive, disrespectful and vicious accusations. I can't identify how people have linked this work to God and blasphemy. It has nothing to do with religion, faith, or creation. This is a work of observation, logic, and adaptability. It makes perfect sense, and trust me, it is in no way offensive.

To think that for a century people have been debating, fighting, and cursing Charles Darwin over this work seems comical once you read his book. The book is written in easy to understand common language, allowing the not so biologically or anthropologically astute to understand it as well. Even if you are not convinced by Darwin's observations, you will be convinced that there is no threat to anyone's beliefs from this book.

I found this work to be very convincing and highly compatible with my faith in God. It does not threaten God, and it certainly does not require me to abandon any beliefs even though I fully understand and agree with Mr. Darwin. Read this book, it is worthy of consideration and it is only fair to hold judgment until after you have read it.

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Summary: Darwin begins with life NOT life begins with Darwin.
Review: Origin of Species would be an important reference for those interested in a theory describing the development and continuation of biological species and the variations seen within. This book would also be an important read for those who imagine that Darwin claimed to explain the origin of life itself, "It is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life." (p. 637). This book details Darwin's Laws of Biological Variation and Natural Selection but it is not about "evolution" (as it might be defined outside of this). To my surprise, the term "evolution" is not defined nor even mentioned in this book (although the verb 'evolved' is used without special reference at the very end). Darwin comes across not only clever and articulate in his scientific observations but also honest as to the limitations of his work. I found his depth of understanding and discussion of his theory as well as his willingness to mention and discuss its difficulties (some proposed by well known contemporaries) to be impressive and sincere, "...and this objection, as urged by Sir William Thompson (who later became Lord Kelvin), is probably one of the gravest as yet advanced" (p. 620). Darwin also mentions another concern in regard to the lack of geological evidence in support of his theory of Natural Selection, "[geological research] does not reveal the infinitely many fine gradations between past and present species required on the theory" (p. 617).

This book in no way induced a reduction in my own Christian faith nor did it lead me to question my belief in God, as I believe Darwin himself would have understood when he said "I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one." (p. 638). It would even seem that a fundamental belief of Charles Darwin emerges at the end of his work~ when he states, "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one." (p. 649).

This book, in part, addresses the biological concept of how out of a few species can come many but this should not be confused with the concept that out of nothingness came