The Origin of Species in Science and Inquiry

Mar 26, 2011 Cassandra Kay Silva rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science

It took me awhile to drag myself into reading this one. People have always commented that it was so dull and that it was convoluted and hard to follow and I have always believed in evolution and found modern books very accessible on the subject so I thought why bother? Then again I have a thing for classics, and as my list of books on evolution grew I started to chide myself that I still had not even read from Darwin's own hand. So I bent to the grain and pulled it out. This book was nothing lik ...more

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Apr 02, 2011 David S. T. rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science

I figured while I was on my evolution book kick, I might as well go back to the original (well sort of the original, Alfred Russel Wallace published a paper on natural selection which prompted Darwin to publish this “abstract”). Now that I'm finished I feel two different ways about the book, a loved yet bored type of feeling. First I'm amazed at just how much of Darwin's theories and ideas are accurate and accepted even today 150 years later (which is a pretty darn long time in science). One thi I figured while I was on my evolution book kick, I might as well go back to the original (well sort of the original, Alfred Russel Wallace published a paper on natural selection which prompted Darwin to publish this “abstract”). Now that I'm finished I feel two different ways about the book, a loved yet bored type of feeling. First I'm amazed at just how much of Darwin's theories and ideas are accurate and accepted even today 150 years later (which is a pretty darn long time in science). One thing you have to appreciate about this book is that its pretty evident that Darwin didn't just rush out and publish this theories but thought about every possible question everyone could have and he attempts to answer them all. Another question he spends a lot of time on is how flora could make it to islands, he goes through page after page of experiments trying to see how long seeds can stay in salt water and still germinate. Even better way back 150 years ago Darwin already anticipated the irreducible complexity argument of the eye and proposed his own ideas about how the eye could evolve and how each gradation is useful in itself. Some times the prose was pretty amazing, I think the famous line about “There is grandeur in this view of life.....” is one of my favorites in any book I've read.

So as amazing as some parts where why then did I rate it 3 stars? Well for every amazing part there are page after page of material which is (to me) just plain boring. The prose which is great in sections is pretty tedious in other parts. The fact that he thought of every question means that he goes over proof after proof. Remember the salt water and the seeds mentioned above, well its cool at first but 40 pages of his experiments makes me start to care less and less. There were also a few parts which he got wrong, he spends a whole section trying to figure out why certain animals can't cross breed, something which is quickly addressed now days with DNA. I think at another part he denies that there ever were any mass extinctions (something we know happened several times in the earth's history). Another thing which made the book a little harder for me is Darwin mentions lots of people and animals I've never heard of, of course a better reader would have spend time looking them up but I just read on, I guess I didn't care enough to do that much research for the book.

So overall for importance I'd rate this book a 5/5, but I have to factor in enjoyment and I so its gets the lower score. Truthfully this book is 150 years old and written in Victorian English, its very important, but there are better books on evolution out there, so if you're curious about the fascinating world of evolution, start elsewhere, only if you're curious about how the theory got started pick this one up. ...more

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Jan 29, 2012 Sandra rated it really liked it

Shelves: science, classics

I've been promising myself for years that I would read Darwin's original treatise, and finally got around to it as it is now available as a free Kindle book. Finished it just in time for Darwin's upcoming birthday on Feb 12th. I did not find it an easy read because of the archaic language and the redundancies of content, but I am very glad I did read it because I now can more fully appreciate how difficult it must have been for Darwin to formulate this theory in all its complexity given the stat ...more

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