Today is the 148th anniversery of the first publication of the book that would change the field of biology forever: Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (most commonly referred to as simply 'Origin of Species').
I truly think everyone should read this book, no matter what your stance is on evolution (or what you think your stance is before you read the book). Even the most ardent creationist should at least make an attempt to know what they are arguing against, but very few people who "disagree" with Darwin have actually delved into his writings. Opening the mind doesn't require dropping faith, it just requires some willingness to think and consider. In my perfect little world it would be a required text in all high school biology classes...but the chances of that ever happening are slim to none at best.
One of my main thoughts the first time I read it was to wish I could go back in time and hand him Mendel's work to read! Some of the questions he puzzles over would have been helped greatly if he'd known about dominant/recessiveness, independent assortment, etc etc. Many critics of evolution point claim Darwin was "wrong" about some things, and it is true that modern evolutionary theory is in no way pure "Darwinism", but it's still important to have a knowledge of the foundations of the discipline.
I've read the first edition a couple of times now, I was told that it was the best version to read to get a look at his ideas before he added in changes as responses to suggestions and criticisms, but one of my goals for the near future is to get ahold of a later edition to read as a comparison.
One last important note: you don't have to buy the book to read it, full text is freely available online!
2 comments:
It is nice to have a paper copy, though. There is something reassuring about a book that is a book. I paid £1.50 ($3-ish) for my paperback and got home to find it had bee ferociously annotated by an increasingly exasperated creationist. Glad s/he took the financial hit.
I agree with you, I always prefer paper copies, my eyes just can't handle large blocks of text on a screen. I definitely won't be rushing out to buy Amazon's new Kindle product that has been in the news, even if it does have some pretty neat features. I like turning pages, making notes, etc etc...
I always get annoyed when I buy a book that has highlighting and whatnot in it (although I sometimes do this to my own books, it's different when it's yours), but I bet it's really interesting to read the creationist annotations in your copy!
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