On The Origin Of Species Illustrated Edition

Description

On the Origin of Species is Charles Darwin's classic treatise on his theory of evolution and natural selection and is among the most important works in the history of science and evolutionary biology. When on board H.M.S. Beagle, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species--that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On the Origin of Species (or more completely, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life), 3] published on 24 November 1859, is a work of scientific literature by Charles Darwin which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Darwin's book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. It presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution. Darwin included evidence that he had gathered on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation. 5] Various evolutionary ideas had already been proposed to explain new findings in biology. There was growing support for such ideas among dissident anatomists and the general public, but during the first half of the 19th century the English scientific establishment was closely tied to the Church of England, while science was part of natural theology. Ideas about the transmutation of species were controversial as they conflicted with the beliefs that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy and that humans were unique, unrelated to other animals. The political and theological implications were intensely debated, but transmutation was not accepted by the scientific mainstream. The book was written for non-specialist readers and attracted widespread interest upon its publication. As Darwin was an eminent scientist, his findings were taken seriously and the evidence he presented generated scientific, philosophical, and religious discussion. The debate over the book contributed to the campaign by T. H. Huxley and his fellow members of the X Club to secularise science by promoting scientific naturalism. Within two decades there was widespread scientific agreement that evolution, with a branching pattern of common descent, had occurred, but scientists were slow to give natural selection the significance that Darwin thought appropriate. During "the eclipse of Darwinism" from the 1880s to the 1930s, various other mechanisms of evolution were given more credit. With the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s, Darwin's concept of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection became central to modern evolutionary theory, and it has now become the unifying concept of the life sciences, especially evolutionary biology.

Reviews

Praise for the hardcover edition "The most influential book in science gets a face-lift with some amazing graphics and Quammen's erudite editing." - "Library Journal" (The Best Sci-Tech books of 2008) "The perfect way to become acquainted with the authentic voice of the greatest biologist of all time, in a context provided by one of the finest scientific writers of today." - Gregory A. Petsko, "European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Journal"

Author description

David Quammen is an award-winning science, nature and travel writer whose work has appeared in publications such as National Geographic, Harper's, Rolling Stone and the New York Times Book Review. He is a Rhodes Scholar and has also garnered a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as winning the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing. He has also written several other books.