The Origin Of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition (Paperback)

~ (Author), Julian Huxley (Introduction)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The book that shook the world
First time from Signet Classic

This is the book that revolutionized the natural sciences and every literary, philosophical and religious thinker who followed. Darwin's theory of evolution and the descent of man remains as controversial and influential today as when it was published over a century ago.

Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Signet Classics; Reprint edition (September 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451529065
• ISBN-13: 978-0451529060
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,029 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 95 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 (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.

19 of 23 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

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.

65 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An aspect other than the brilliant scientific insights, March 20, 2004

By	ophelia99 (USA) - See all my reviews

Besides natural selection, Darwin in this book laid the groundwork for ecology (doesn't use that term), and the scientific study of animal behavior. One other point which often gets overlooked is that if you can get past the Victorian prose style you will see a nearly flawless model of how to patiently build a complex argument out of a mass of raw data. The way Darwin himself brings up objections to his ideas, treats them carefully and respectfully, and then disposes of them is an example to everyone who has to deal in complex, controversial ideas. This book is one of the high water marks of the human mind.