On the Origin of Species a Facsimile of the First (Harvard Paperbacks)

Rating:
Summary: A true classic in the field of biology
Review: A group of my students and I read this book this semester. During the discussion period for the final chapter, one of the students said, "I cried. This was the best book I have ever read." On the other hand, another student expressed great disappointment with the book. Another student quipped, "There weren't enough examples about pigeons." All in all, this book provides excellent food for thought today, just as it did 140 years ago when it was first published. I found Darwin's insights and synthesis of ideas, based on the accumulation of carefully collected observations combined with intellectual leaps to be inspiring. There are flaws in portions of the book to be sure, but this is a book that all biologists and biology students should have a chance to read and discuss. When you read it, make sure you read the entire book, discuss it with a friend or two as you read, and you can look forward to a perfect conclusion to this paradigm shifting book that continues to influence modern biological thought.

Rating:
Summary: a Classic, very frank and original
Review: A lot of unanswered questions of Darwin's age have been answered today, but still one does not fail to see the genius behind the logical derivations and counterweighted arguments.

In this edition, Darwin expresses himself much more boldly than in the later editions, when he was countered and threatened by the dogmatic religious groups simply because it doesn't support 'their' theory.

(This is for the anti-theorists) A theory is always a theory, it can't be proven like a mathematical formula, it may have gaps in understanding, it may not be able to explain everything under the sun, but that does NOT provide a good reason to throw the whole theory out. For the ones attentive to the nuances, it is NOT a hypothesis, it's a theory, and in spite of not being provable by deductive logic, this provides a good insight on how the species might have evolved, and very interestingly, the role of mankind in it.

One of the reason behind my liking this book is that the author is aware of the weak areas and mentioned what kind of proofs (fossils and the like) would substanciate the theory, and in many cases such pieces of proof were found much afterwards. The book is really a masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: If you haven't read the 1st edition, you haven't read Darwin
Review: A theory is not a fact. Darwin's theory prevents budding minds from challenging a flawed paradigm. As Chomsky, MIT University Professor, said: What Darwin achieved is of extraordinary importance, but there's nothing of a theory here. There's nothing much to teach. You can teach population genetics and Mendel and so on, but the explanatory force is limited. There's plausible descriptive accounts of why snails get bigger shells and so, but when you try to account for why particular organs develop, or species, and so on, all you can do is wave your hands. You say, "well, if something else had happened that wasn't functional the organism wouldn't have reproduced and would have died off."

Rating:
Summary: Some concepts should be revised and corrected......
Review: I read the original version of "The origin of Species" a few years ago. As a naive secondary year student, I beleived in most of its contents. After that, when I started to think how animal behavor is programmed and how mutation (s) in such program can completely null the system as a whole, I started to ask myself how, then, these creatures (Ants, Bees,......etc) were the source of another more evoluted species or how they evolved from lower species. Actually, mutations can not attribute to the origin of such behavor(work in group, assigning the job to specific members...etc). Meanwhile, in the lab. scientists could not transform cyanobacteria to algae or bacteria to yeast.........etc. The only appreciated points of Darwin were his observations; modifications and variation. Science so far was not able to prove that life has evolved from nothing; the idea of the first cell (the first anscetor) still controversial. Meanwhile biochemical analyses proved that all creatures contain the same organic elements (N, C, H) and inorganic ones (P, S,...etc). Surperisingly, these analyses proved that Mud contain all of these elements and do not contain any toxic elements that are toxic to humans, for example. If anybody looked carefully to the DNA and how this molecule is well-arganized and how many enzymes are keeping this molecule in its normal conformation and maintain its function, He/She could get the point that cells generally are elaborately programmed; exaclty in a manner resembles that computer programs. Cells excute these programs starting from their brith to death and any change in this program cause serious problems. Fossils showed insects with the same compund eyes exactly like that insects that are surviving nowadays. Some fossils, also, showed different species, which are supposed not to be together, in the same historic era. we know also now that must of the mutations are harmful and fatal to the organisms(for example, in humans mutations cause sever diseases). Meanwhile research on HIV showed that mutations in this virus never originate a new viral species, but result in defective HIV viruses that could not replicate, assemble, and therefore not able to re infect its host to survive. Actually, similarity among the species can not prove they originated from each other(if we argue that sequence homology between Mankey and human, for example, is so close and so they are relative, this is not true). My opinion does not refute the book; it contains very old concepts that should be revised and corrected.

Rating:
Summary: Some concepts should be revised and corrected......
Review: NOTE that this is a review of the Harvard University Press facsimile of the first edition of "On the Origin of Species" (intro by Ernst Mayr). This is NOT a commentary on Darwin's text.

I blithely bought and began reading the Modern Library's "Origin", then came across this facsimile of the first edition in the library. Hmm, I wondered. I used the quotations in the front of my copy to deduce that I was reading the sixth (and last) edition, rather than the first. While that, too, has its considerable interest in illustrating the twists and turns of Darwin's thought during those years, the evolution revolution was made by the first edition. As Ernst Mayr says in his introduction, "When we go back to the Origin, we want the version that stirred up the Western world, the first edition." Besides which, if one is going to do any historical research, one needs this edition, for contemporary references use the first edition's pagination.

But most importantly, this is the firstborn of Darwin's mind, long gestating, and contains his most confident and positive statement of his thesis. He had tried to anticipate all the major objections to his theory and answer them preemptively here. Still, at the time of this writing he had no critics, so the tone and content display none of that waffling that mar, to a certain extent, the final edition.

This volume was put together in 1964, and Ernst Mayr's introduction dates from that time. It is a good historical introduction to Darwin and his contribution, and some more specific remarks on the first edition, its general approach and some of its path-breaking arguments. Also included in the extra matter is a bibliography of Darwin's published works, plus current works on evolution, as of 1964. There is also a quite comprehensive index of the text, which should make the book considerably more usable to us than it was to Darwin's original readers.

My only gripe is that Harvard University Press only offers a paperback, although it used to have a hardcover edition. The paperback version is readable enough at 5.5 by 8.2 inches, yet it's too thick for its size, and, while definitely not of poor quality, vulnerable to the binding breakage typical of the breed, so serious scholars of the work might find themselves literally pulling it apart. For you and me, though, it should be just fine.

Rating:
Summary: Answer to "Some concepts should be revised and corrected"
Review: Some idiot wrote a review of this book as if it were a contemporary scientific publication, as if Darwin were still alive to rewrite another edition! Darwin was a great writer who used his keen mind in communicating his ideas in English. It is interesting to contrast Darwin's writings to Freud's works, which were also presented as scientific, but haven't stood up to scrutiny nearly as well. Let us also apply some of the principles of selection to Amazon reviews. Feel free to review this book if you can appreciate both the historic and literary value of Dawrins works. Otherwise, please keep your opinions to yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Answer to "Some concepts should be revised and corrected"
Review: Some idiot wrote a review of this book as if it were a contemporary scientific publication, as if Darwin were still alive to rewrite another edition! Darwin was a great writer who used his keen mind in communicating his ideas in English. It is interesting to contrast Darwin's writings to Freud's works, which were also presented as scientific, but haven't stood up to scrutiny nearly as well. Let us also apply some of the principles of selection to Amazon reviews. Feel free to review this book if you can appreciate both the historic and literary value of Dawrins works. Otherwise, please keep your opinions to yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Buy THIS "Origin"!
Review: There is only one reason to read "On the Origin of Species" -- to discover how Darwin himself first articulated the most revolutionary scientific theory of all time. And to achieve this purpose there is only one means -- to read his original argument, set forth with the greatest force, clarity, and brevity in that very first edition published in 1859. So, unless you happen to have the $$$ to buy an actual first edition, this facsimile of the first edition is the *only* way to read Darwin: all other paperback "Origins" publish Darwin's latest edition.

But even if you are not interested in the history of biology (scoundrel!), and you think you'll learn complete evolutionary theory from the "Origin" (fool!), you should get this edition -- and *not* later ones. Darwin's later editions of the "Origin" contain many errors that are not found in the original edition, including especially a progressive weakening of his original argument (evolution by natural selection) by the importation of Lamarckism (evolution by the inheritance of acquired characters). In these later editions, Darwin had been convinced by blockhead, mystical *physicists* that his *geology* was wrong (as if!), so he had to speed up the timing of everything, which meant smuggling in Lamarckism.

Last, this volume contains an introduction from one of the most charming biologists and philosophers of all time -- Ernst Mayr. This intro alone is worth the price of the book.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: Tweaked my imagination and opened all kinds of doors. Our bookclub spent many hours hashing out ideas that this book explored. I put this on my recommend list.