Product Description

The Origin of Species sold out on the first day of its publication in 1859. It is the major book of the nineteenth century, and one of the most readable and accessible of the great revolutionary works of the scientific imagination.
The Origin of Species was the first mature and persuasive work to explain how species change through the process of natural selection. Upon its publication, the book began to transform attitudes about society and religion, and was soon used to justify the philosophies of communists, socialists, capitalists, and even Germany's National Socialists. But the most quoted response came from Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin's friend and also a renowned naturalist, who exclaimed, "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!"

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #310284 in Books
• Published on: 1995-05-22
• Released on: 1995-05-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 459 pages

Amazon.com Review
It's hard to talk about The Origin of Species without making statements that seem overwrought and fulsome. But it's true: this is indeed one of the most important and influential books ever written, and it is one of the very few groundbreaking works of science that is truly readable.

To a certain extent it suffers from the Hamlet problem--it's full of clichés! Or what are now clichés, but which Darwin was the first to pen. Natural selection, variation, the struggle for existence, survival of the fittest: it's all in here.

Darwin's friend and "bulldog" T.H. Huxley said upon reading the Origin, "How extremely stupid of me not to have thought of that." Alfred Russel Wallace had thought of the same theory of evolution Darwin did, but it was Darwin who gathered the mass of supporting evidence--on domestic animals and plants, on variability, on sexual selection, on dispersal--that swept most scientists before it. It's hardly necessary to mention that the book is still controversial: Darwin's remark in his conclusion that "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history" is surely the pinnacle of British understatement. --Mary Ellen Curtin

Review

"...There is an excellent introduction to set the stage and a glossary to help with the terms.... All serious students of biology should read this booK."--The Science Teacher


`An elegant introduction from Gillian Beer ... includes an account of the writers that Darwin refers to in his text.' New Scientist

`Gillian Beer's new essay frames the biggest scientific earthquake ever to appear in lucid English prose.' New Statesman and Society

`Oxford University Press ... has chosen to reprint in its World's Classics series the second edition of this great work.' Nature, Feb 1996

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Customer Reviews

The second most misrepresented book ever written
There is only one other book that is so widely known, discussed, and debated, yet so rarely read: that other book is the Bible. To make my point, here is a little quiz:

1) Which name is most closely associated with the theory of evolution?

2) Which book did this person write on evolution?

3) What claims are made in that book?

4) What else is contained in that book?

With astonishing regularity, the average literate adult will respond as follows: 1) Darwin, 2) Origin of Species, 3) Humans descended from apes, and 4) I have no idea. The first two are correct, the third is absolutely false, and the fourth is an admission of complete ignorance. Considering that "Origin of Species" is over 600 pages long, and took nearly two decades to write, one would expect it to contain something more than the four simple words "Humans descended from apes," which, in fact, it neither contains nor implies. So, what DOES it contain? There is one word that best summarizes the bulk of Darwin's magnum opus: "observation".

It is a lengthy book; at times it is tedious, at times politically incorrect, and at times scientifically off-base. But, despite its numerous flaws, it is one of the greatest achievements in the history of mankind. Even if you are among the few who refuse to accept Darwin's ideas, you cannot deny their impact. The theory is the cornerstone--if not the very foundation--of modern biology. Whatever your preconceptions, you will likely be surprised by this work. Darwin was the consummate naturalist and scientist, as well as a refined and articulate gentleman. "Origin" is a delight and an epiphany to read. It's amazing how much Darwin got right, despite the fact that he had essentially no idea of how inheritance worked. It's amazing how much data Darwin carefully assembled, analyzed, and described. It's amazing how meticulously Darwin weighed the evidence, noting when competing theories made different predictions, when the available evidence was not what he would have expected, and what future evidence could completely discredit (falsify) his theory. It's amazing in its honesty.

The misconceptions about "Origin of Species" are not merely rampant, they are effectively universal, fueled (largely in the US) by the rise of creationism, which seeks first and foremost to vilify the theory of evolution as well as Darwin (often failing to distinguish between the two). It's worth the time to read this enormous but meticulously crafted volume, if only to allow you to form your own opinions about such an influential book. Once you have, take the little quiz again. You may need 600 pages to answer the last question.

Buy the first edition: buy Harvard or Penguin
Because Darwin's "Origin" may be published by anyone, there are various editions available that seemingly differ only in price and introduction. In fact, however, among the various published versions of the "Origin," there is a difference vastly more important than price and intro -- that is, which *edition* is being published. Harvard and Penguin publish the first edition of the "Origin," whereas Bantam, Modern Library, and Prometheus Books publish the sixth edition.

For almost every purpose, the first edition is the only version worth reading. Aside from its overwhelmingly superior historical merit, the argument in the first edition is shorter, livelier, and more persuasive than the one in the sixth edition, where Darwin includes concessions to physicists such as Kelvin, which were ultimately proven unnecessary (as Kelvin's claims were shown to be in serious error). These erroneous concessions forced Darwin to mistakenly add several non-Darwinian arguments to his later editions.

So, if you want to read the book that changed biology forever, then read the "Origin" as it was originally written: buy the Harvard or Penguin copies.

The Original Work of a Cautious Scientist
This is not a difficult book to read, and I would encourage readers to read the original work of Darwin.

"The Origin of Species" is considered to be an important work in both world literature and science. An interesting aspect of the book was the pressure for Darwin to publish the book. Prior to publishing, he had spent almost 30 years developing and testing his ideas. The book is a combination of argument and debate along with descriptions of Darwin's own experiments with birds and plants, including his own cabbage garden. In short, according to Darwin, the evolution of species takes place over a long time period and is a series of random events with survival of the fitest, or what is called "natural selection."

Darwin was born in 1809, trained as a botanist and zoologist at Cambridge University, and made his famous trip on the H.M.S. Beagle from 1831 to 1836. He was first inspired by the writings of the geologist Sir Charles Lyell. This same geologist would play an important role in pushing Darwin to publish his findings in 1856.

Darwin - as he writes in his book - was not working alone. He was not the first to come up with the ideas. Darwin was preceded by many before him with similar ideas. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire wrote as early as 1795 that species are "degenerations of the same type." Lamarck was in fact the first person to suggest that "all species, including man, are descended from other species." He published his ideas in 1801, 1809, and 1815. W.C. Wells presented a paper on human skin colors in 1813 and published his results in 1818. This was followed by The Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert published in the "Horticultural Transactions" in 1822 that "botanical species are only a higher and more permanent class of varieties." In 1826 professor Grant "declares his belief that species are descendent from other species." Also, Von Bush in 1836 "expresses his belief that varieties slowly become changed into permanent species." And, in 1846 M.J. d'Omalius d'Halloy published a paper with his opinion "that it is more probable that new species have been produced by descent with modification than they have been separately created."

After the Beagle trip, Darwin's main pre-occupation was to prepare his five volume work "Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle" over the years 1840 - 1843. Also, he undertook a series of experiments on evolution and wrote shorter papers. But in 1856 geologist Sir Charles Lyell persuaded Darwin to take his notes and publish "The Origin of Species." As he prepared the book, Alfred Russel Wallace sent him a manuscript with an identical or similar theory. The two men decided to present their works simultaneously to the Linnaean Society. Wallace had visited Malaysia and come up with similar conclusions to Darwin, but he had not yet prepared an impresive large book, as had Darwin.

Darwin had been very cautious, and in the years 1840 to 1856 he had undertaken a number of experiments himself with pigeons and various plants. He had even joined two pigeon clubs and had his own garden in the country. He describes some of the slightly amusing details in the book. For example, he was able to grow over 200 varieties of cabbages by cross breeding. Among the findings, he had come to the conclusion that domestic pigeons were probably all related back to the rock-pigeon (Columba livia). He undertook a number of experiments including one where he mated two mongrel pigeons, and the resulting offspring looked like rock-pigeons.

So, although Wallace had the same ideas at the same time, Darwin had a fifteen years accumulation of notes, observations, and his own experiments that he could put into the book. Once the book came out it was an instant best seller and Wallace was largely forgotten, along with his other predecessors. Darwin was very cautious with his findings, and the many years researching and thinking about his ideas - almost two decades - paid off for him when he finally released the near 700 page book.

Darwin published a second well known book in 1871: "The Descent of Man."

"The Origin of Species" is a well crafted and interesting book. There are just a few figures in the book. It is an easy read, although some parts have many small details. Darwin lectures us on a variety of subjects such as flower reproduction. The heart of the book is Chapter IV: Natural Selection. He has fifteen chapters covering a range of topics including geology and fossils.

It must be remembered that when the book came out in 1859 it was generally assumed that only God could create life. The book was revolutionary, and too detailed to refute. It was a comprehensive book and came as a major challenge to the accepted norm. At the end in the conclusion Darwin tells the reader that his findings just give a different explanation in the way "the Creator" works, and it does not imply a lack of a God.