On the Origin of Species Introd. by William Bynum

A masterpiece of its time

Bewertung am 31.05.2021
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Charles Darwin’s "On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life." from 1859 is not just a book. His work is a masterpiece of its time. Precocious thoughts are revealed. The wide knowledge and experience acquired throughout his voyages and studies, as well as his undeniable passion for trying to understand the origin of organic beings can be felt through all his words. I was surprised how pleasant it is to read, considering this scientific work was written over 160 years ago, when science and humanity were on another level. Still, his innumerous and detailed observations of characteristics and structure of many different organic beings, like plants and animals, mammals and insects etc., from all over the world are long, but necessary in order to set the context for his revolutionary theory of descent with modification through variation and natural selection. He guides us from the variations between and within species under domestication and compares it to the ones under nature by the means of a various experiment of crossing and assessing the fertility. He then goes on explaining the struggle for life that leads to his theory of natural selection by the survival of the fittest, made possible by mutable species over long periods of time. He then gives further arguments with a focus on the large importance of embryological character to support his theory and mentions the difficulties encountered for the differentiation and classifications of species, genera and what he calls varieties. He basically mentions what will later be described as taxonomy. A look at the geological proofs and gaps and the observations of the geographical distributions and variations, is given. At the end he gives some last arguments for his theory, before his conclusive words. It is clear, that with his work he represents a revolutionary step for the natural science opposed to the traditional, religious point of view on which nature was created by the creator. It is almost hard to imagine how his new thoughts may have shaken the world at his time. Criticism was large towards his theory but Darwin was well aware of this. Though, it is remarkable how he avoids elegantly to make any offence towards Christianity and the theory of Creation which can clearly not match the one he is elaborating. He himself believed in God, at least in the beginning of his life, but this did not hold him back from asking the right questions about the origin of the organic beings beyond what was thought to be right at this time. In doing so, he leads the way for open mindedness towards more rigorous thinking. Indeed he is confident, that in the future more naturalists will be convinced of his theory. In order to attempt to persuade the sceptic reader, he brings up important points of his work and he sincerely agree with the fact that there are still some inexplicable relations. So, on the one hand, he shows, that he is convinced of his arguments but on the other hand he admits not having the answer to every question. He is noble in the way he admits, that still little is known from the history of ancient species that gone extinct. Incomplete geological record seem to be an issue to prove every step of evolution for his theory, as it is still the case today, with many gaps and unexplored parts of the world. Further, for instance he claims that it can not be proven that species are clearly differentiable from each other and that there is no proof that species would be invariable, like the theory of Creation is suggesting. In the contrary, likewise his statement that the laws governing inheritance are quite unknown, today with genetics there are more answers to his questions in favour of his theory. He also insists on the fact that it is hard for a human being to be able to imagine such tiny, very slow and constant changes by means of progressive adaptation occurring over millions of years. This is in my opinion, still an issue today. And, the importance of domestication and his attention brought towards future need of further domestication, shows the growing impact of humans on nature. Which was an important part of the 20th century, and which built the base for the modern world we know now. Concerning his writing, it is very scientific in the means of the exactitude of the detailed descriptions made and at the same time he is able to bring his studies and observations as a fascinating story to the reader. He also ensures, that the reader is still following by summing the content at the end of each chapter. It is sometimes hard to imagine that this work has been made so long ago, but the use of terms like savages or even negroes remind us brusquely that this was another time. Overall, it is really impressive to think about what his work procured in the future, as we can clearly see how important his theory still is today. Many of his findings belong to general knowledge for us now, where back to his time, it was new and very brave to bring such a new theory contradicting the religion point of view, which was of much higher importance at this time. His arguments are solid and undeniably critical questions are asked in his great work. Scientific history since, has showed that the main part of his theory are still valid today. With a far larger and complete knowledge of the topic, with genetics, discovered just a few years after Darwin’s oeuvre, as well as new technologies that are available to us know, this is just impressive and Darwin himself would most probably be very pleased to see what his work initiated. He would probably also love to see what more could have been discovered since, on the foundations of his findings.