The Origin Of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition [Mass Market Paperback]

Charles Darwin (Author), Julian Huxley (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2009

The classic that exploded into public controversy, revolutionized the course of science, and continues to transform our views of the world.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Signet Classics; Rep Anv edition (September 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451529065
• ISBN-13: 978-0451529060
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,538 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Outdoors & Nature > Reference
  • #5 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Science > General
  • #27 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > General > Classics

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

308 of 317 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Darwin, with intro by Huxley - is the REAL BOOK... BEWARE the copy with intro by Comfort, October 26, 2009

By 

Caraleisa (West Chester, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Origin Of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition (Mass Market Paperback)

The original book by Charles Darwin is a classic that should be on everyone's reading list. There are ample reviews here which address it, praise it, and I am completely in agreement with them. Darwin's Origin of Species is a true masterpiece.

Unfortunately, this review is to help readers/buyers realize that there is a 'vandalized' version which has been published, and to tell you how to avoid it and get the real thing.

To explain; there is yet another edition also called "The Origin of Species, 150th Anniversary Edition", put out by Christian Fundamentalist Ray Comfort in an attempt to discredit evolutionary theory and Charles Darwin, and it has some extra 50 pages of unintelligible drivel about creationism, as well as having ABRIDGED Darwin's original text. If you want to read about creationism, find another book... if you want the facts, read ALL of what Darwin has to say, and please don't give any money to Comfort by accidentally buying his ABRIDGED version.

Note that he used the EXACT same name as the 'real' anniversary edition -- "The Origin Of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition by Charles Darwin". You can easily tell which version you're getting by who wrote the introduction - go with Julian Huxley, NOT Ray Comfort, and you'll have the correct and complete version.

Also, note that Amazon reviews are mixed between the books (normally not a problem at all) - I hope they are straightening this out, but currently that's not the case. Sadly, the negative reviews of the Comfort version are bringing down the rating of the 'good/real' book.

Sorry to have to write about the 'drama', but I'm sure you want to know that you have ordered the correct book, and I know you'll love it.

Enjoy.

36 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a must read, November 17, 2005

By 

Doc Dave "Doc Dave" (Georgia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Origin Of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition (Mass Market Paperback)

It's really amazing how polarized people's opinions of this book are! Whether you accept evolution or not though, it would be foolish not to read Origin of Species if you expect to have an informed opinion on the subject. I gave it only 4 stars because it gets pretty dry in places, however I definitely recommend reading this book. Reading it two or three times would be an even better idea.

100 of 130 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be part of everyone's education, February 24, 2007

By 

calmly - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Origin Of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition (Mass Market Paperback)

I read this book after discussing "intelligent design" with someone. It had never has occurred to me that the theory and facts of evolution wouldn't be more compelling to someone than Bible myth that wasn't intended to teach science at all.

Darwin's writing style can be awkward. He is working with a lot of facts to try to discern some laws. It isn't easy material to begin with. After a long delay of collecting evidence and formulating ideas, he was in a hurry to publish and may have skipped a useful rewrite to increase readability. He is clearly not adverse to long sentences.

Nevertheless, he does present himself clearly and in an exemplary manner for a scientist. He packs his presentation with supportive facts. He presents tentative laws to explains what he observed and then sees how well this explain the data he had collected. He points out his assumptions, raises doubts about them and responds sincerely to those doubts.

As can be seen in this book, Charles Darwin was scientific, inquiring, open, honest, and genuinely concerned about advancing human knowledge about the natural world.

It is surprising, as Darwin explains, how much can be accounted for given sufficient time (millions of years, not 5000, as scientific dating methods show), given small variations within any single generation and given conditions of scarcity. Darwin recognized that what may be hardest of us to accept is that we can not see the cumulative changes that took those millions of years to occur. He does make an effort to explain why the fossil record has gaps for which intermediate forms of life are missing. He also explains that grouping life into species is just a scientific convention and that the apparent fixed form of species can be explained by consistent conditions on earth over long periods of time (such that new variations aren't selected).

Darwin does, both to identify a regularity and to make reading smoother , reify the process of "natural selection". "Natural selection" should be understood as the complement to "artificial selection" or variation under domestication, which Darwin considers first as such selection influenced by humans was well known. There is no one doing natural selection, but rather it is process that some variations are able to survive under certain conditions which they themselves cannot be aware of in advance. It is the considerable variation that occurs which enables life in some form at all to go on for so many million of years while other forms become existence.

That Darwin was able to formulate the laws he did prior to the science of genetics is a tribute to his skills and to the science involved.

It is a work that makes me proud to be a human being and grateful to Charles Darwin. Anyone who thinks evolution is incompatible with their religious beliefs should read this book and then realize that they have misunderstood the spirit of the portions of the Bible they believe conflict with Darwin's and science's great contribution to us.

If there is a Christian God, you should feel certain He will have a special place close to Him in heaven for Charles Darwin.