The Triumph of the Darwinian Method (Dover Books on Biology, Psychology, and Medicine) [Paperback]

Michael T. Ghiselin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 4, 2003 | Series: Dover Books on Biology, Psychology, and Medicine

This volume surveys the complete range of the Darwin's accomplishments, offering a coherent and consistent treatment of the flow of ideas throughout Darwin's works. Ghiselin constructs a unified theoretical system that explains the major features of Darwin's investigations, evaluating the literature from a historical, scientific, and philosophical perspective.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (August 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486432742
• ISBN-13: 978-0486432748
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,909,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Very Best Book on Darwin's Scientific Thought and Work, March 19, 2006

By 

R. M. Williams "scientist" (Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Triumph of the Darwinian Method (Dover Books on Biology, Psychology, and Medicine) (Paperback)

This book deals with Darwin's thought and method - his scientific methodology which is the foundation and the consistent basis for all of Darwin's work. It is not a biography. If you want the best biography, look at Janet Browne's excellent two-volume work. It is not a description of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. If you want that, read Origin of Species first. If you're interested in a modern treatment of evolutionary science, I must recommend a excellent textbook, Douglas Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology.

The Triumph of the Darwinian Method reads somewhat like a critical book review of nearly all of Charles Darwin's writings, and Michael Ghiselin has read them all. Few have, for they include, among other immense books and many technical papers, 1600+ pages of barnacle taxonomy, work which established Darwin among the top scientists of his time, and won him a prestigious Royal Medal. Because of this tedious, painstaking, but brilliant work, Darwin could expect to have his "big species book" taken seriously, but it was also undertaken to answer important questions about these unusual, varied and peculiar animals. Scientists have the greatest respect for this sort of dedicated, careful work. Darwin's barnacle monographs are still the primary references on barnacles today. The "big species book" was never published in toto; instead, Origin was rushed to the printers in 1859.

Besides the Introduction and Conclusions, the book has chapters sequentially dealing with Darwin's Geology, Biogeography and Evolution, Natural Selection, Taxonomy, Barnacles, orchids (titled "A Metaphysical Satire" for good reason), Variation, Evolutionary Psychology, and Sexual Selection, totaling 243 pages. Each deals with one or more of Darwin's books. But they are primarily a way of examining Darwin's method - how he did experiments (he did very many) how he observed, how he theorized, how he evaluated, discarded, or further investigated hypotheses. Ghiselin also shows that Darwin's few mistakes were the result of applying his powerful methodology consistently, but often without benefit of crucial information which later became valuable.

A mark of the value of this work is that the first rank of evolutionists, an extremely contentious bunch of scientists, have uniformly praised it since its first publication in 1969, although some do have minor nits to pick. And this is the more remarkable because Ghiselin pulls no punches when exposing flaws in their works. But he also isn't petty. He does have caustic words for some of the most serious errors of Darwin's less intelligent critics. Referring to the claim by some scientists that taxonomic work could not be used to discover information about relatedness and evolutionary mechanisms, he states:

"Their argument combines the modesty of Schopenhauer with the logic of Mary Baker Eddy; it does not follow from their own lack of imagination that Darwin or anyone else must fail."

This book is admirably concise and not dated at all. This edition includes a six page preface and one page bibliography written by Ghiselin in 2003, as well as the original 43 pages of appendix, chapter notes, and index. It is an important book for the any biologist, Darwin scholar, or scientist interested in the development of ideas, but it is quite accessible to the interested non-scientist.