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'Plants and animals remote in the scale of nature, are bound together by a web of complex relations'
--Chapter III
Originally published on November 22, 1859, The Origin of Species was actually an abstract of a much longer work which Darwin had been toiling over for several years, in ill-health and shadowed over by the death of a son. The initial stock of 1,250 copies sold out before release, and the book has remained in print ever since, the most popular of Darwin's many books and writings.
The book focuses on his theory of natural selection. It was written to introduce leading-edge 19th century concepts of biology to a wider audience, much like the popular books which Steven Hawking writes does for 21st century physics. His purpose was to educate, not alienate people, so the wording and argument of the book are intentionally very cautious. The word evolve, even then considered 'fightin' words,' only occurs six times in the entire book. In addition, nowhere does he state or imply in Origin of Species that apes and men are related; this is left as an exercise for the student. The Descent of Man, published two years later, outlines his thinking about the evolution of Homo Sapiens. Nonetheless, Origin of Species set off a firestorm of controversy, and created an instant split in the Church of England. Today this unassuming, well-written, and occasionally dry book on factors which lead to speciation continues to be recognized as both a scientific and a cultural tipping point.
Science continues to explore points which Darwin could not explain, or where his guesses were wrong. This does not invalidate evolution, as creationists sometime impute. One of the still controversial aspects of his theory among legitimate scientists is why we only see qualitatively different species instead of fine gradations, both temporally and spatially. Darwin attempts, unsuccessfully in my view, to come to terms with this in Origin. Today, the theory of punctuated equilibrium attempts to address this. Like a non-linear system collapsing at a singularity, or the Hegelian and Marxist 'quantity becoming quality,' species cluster around optimally adapted points in a continuum of attributes, and when an accumulation of environmental or other forces destabilize that optimal point, species will coalesce elsewhere. In the words of W.B. Yeats: 'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.'
Darwin does not deny the existence of a creator of some sort. He points out that Leibnitz originally thought that gravity (another famous 'theory') was a shockingly atheistic idea, but it does not preclude a Higher Power, either. Darwin postulates a creator which seeds the universe with few simple forms and some laws, and then, like a cellular automaton, 'endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.' While this may differ from the literal text of Genesis, it is not incompatible in spirit: "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life" (Gen. 1:20). ---J.B. Hare
--Chapter III
Originally published on November 22, 1859, The Origin of Species was actually an abstract of a much longer work which Darwin had been toiling over for several years, in ill-health and shadowed over by the death of a son. The initial stock of 1,250 copies sold out before release, and the book has remained in print ever since, the most popular of Darwin's many books and writings.
The book focuses on his theory of natural selection. It was written to introduce leading-edge 19th century concepts of biology to a wider audience, much like the popular books which Steven Hawking writes does for 21st century physics. His purpose was to educate, not alienate people, so the wording and argument of the book are intentionally very cautious. The word evolve, even then considered 'fightin' words,' only occurs six times in the entire book. In addition, nowhere does he state or imply in Origin of Species that apes and men are related; this is left as an exercise for the student. The Descent of Man, published two years later, outlines his thinking about the evolution of Homo Sapiens. Nonetheless, Origin of Species set off a firestorm of controversy, and created an instant split in the Church of England. Today this unassuming, well-written, and occasionally dry book on factors which lead to speciation continues to be recognized as both a scientific and a cultural tipping point.
Science continues to explore points which Darwin could not explain, or where his guesses were wrong. This does not invalidate evolution, as creationists sometime impute. One of the still controversial aspects of his theory among legitimate scientists is why we only see qualitatively different species instead of fine gradations, both temporally and spatially. Darwin attempts, unsuccessfully in my view, to come to terms with this in Origin. Today, the theory of punctuated equilibrium attempts to address this. Like a non-linear system collapsing at a singularity, or the Hegelian and Marxist 'quantity becoming quality,' species cluster around optimally adapted points in a continuum of attributes, and when an accumulation of environmental or other forces destabilize that optimal point, species will coalesce elsewhere. In the words of W.B. Yeats: 'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.'
Darwin does not deny the existence of a creator of some sort. He points out that Leibnitz originally thought that gravity (another famous 'theory') was a shockingly atheistic idea, but it does not preclude a Higher Power, either. Darwin postulates a creator which seeds the universe with few simple forms and some laws, and then, like a cellular automaton, 'endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.' While this may differ from the literal text of Genesis, it is not incompatible in spirit: "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life" (Gen. 1:20). ---J.B. Hare
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