On the On the Origin I
Like John Whitfield at Blogging the Origin, I’m taking the opportunity to read Darwin’s On the Origin of Species now that it’s been 150 years since its publication, and 200 years since its author’s birth. I figure if I’m ever going to read it, now is the time. Unfortunately I’m not quite as fast as John, which means I’m not actually reading his blog, as I don’t want any spoilers.
Well, ok, I already know the book’s conclusion. But I want to experience each chapter without preconcieved notions and hence I’m putting off reading John’s comments until I’ve finished them myself … and I have yet to finish the first chapter. A few pages before going to sleep each night is the pace I’ve set.
Since I’ve only just started I don’t have much to say, except that so far, I’ve quite liked it. Apart from his incessant abuse of commas (which I know is simply indicative of when it was written), Darwin’s a good author. I don’t see why people complain about the pigeons in the first chapter - I think it’s brilliant. Darwin knows he’s going to upset a lot of people with his ideas, and so he starts out with the deviously innocent topic of breeding pigeons. It’s fantastic.
What’s also fantastic is how he keeps touching on areas where I, as a mere biology student in the 21st century, could totally fill him in. Although he was, to my knowledge, unfamiliar with Mendel’s ideas on inheritance at the time, he still seems very close to the right idea, occasionally. Perhaps, if his brain hadn’t already been so chock full of all that knowledge, he’d have had the intellectual energy to do some experiments and put things together. As it is, he didn’t, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe, the world needed that time of uncertainty to adjust, before the modern synthesis happened.
Anyway, I must say it’s a lot easier to read than I thought it would be. I’ve read most of Voyage of the Beagle already, and thought the Origin would be heavier, but it isn’t.
Expect more posts on the On the Origin!