Encyclopedia of Evolution.pdf - Online Reading Center

Montagu said, “Next to the Bible, no work has been quite as
influential, in virtually every aspect of human thought, as The
Origin of Species.”
Shortly after returning from his voyage around the
world, marrying, and settling down in England, Darwin formulated
his theory of natural selection as the mechanism
by which evolution had occurred. His acceptance of uniformitarianism
(see Lyell, Charles), the numerous observations
of biogeography and fossils that he had made during
his voyage, and the principles of population biology (see population)
that he had read (see Malthus, Thomas), all converged
in his mind upon natural selection. However, he was
reluctant to present his ideas in public. Earlier presentations
of evolution (see Lamarckism) had claimed that evolution
had occurred but had not presented a mechanism for it. This
was the principal reason that evolution did not have scientific
credibility. Darwin became even more convinced of this when
he saw the chilly reception and outright hostility occasioned
by the 1844 book Vestiges of Creation (see Chambers, Robert),
which presented evolution without explaining how it
worked. As theologian William Paley had explained, saying
that complex design simply happened by natural law was
not an explanation (see natural theology). The creationism
that prevailed in the early 19th century at least had the
advantage of explaining how organisms had been designed—
God did it—while evolution, as presented in the Vestiges,
simply said it just happened. Darwin had figured out a mechanism,
but he wanted to assemble all the evidence for every
part of his theory before presenting it in public. He conducted
research for many years, filled several notebooks with information,
and began long manuscripts, all intended to eventually
form his big book of evolution. Darwin told some close
associates, such as Sir Charles Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker
(see Hooker, Joseph Dalton), about his theory.
Darwin did not get the chance to write his big book. In
1858 he received a letter from a young British naturalist who
was working in Southeast Asia (see Wallace, Alfred Russel),
which described the theory of natural selection almost
exactly as Darwin had conceived it decades earlier. Unlike Darwin,
Wallace was ready to publish. Had Wallace published his
article in a scientific journal rather than sending it to Darwin,
scientists might be referring to evolution as Wallace’s theory.
Darwin now knew that he could not delay in presenting his
theory, which Wallace had independently proposed. Lyell and
Hooker were able to vouch that Darwin had thought of natural
selection before receiving Wallace’s letter. The paper in which
natural selection was presented to the scientific world contained
an essay Darwin had written the previous decade and Wallace’s
letter and was read to the Linnaean Society on July 1, 1858.
Neither Darwin, who was ill, nor Wallace, who was also ill and
still in Southeast Asia, were present. Why the paper aroused
little curiosity or discussion remains unexplained.
Darwin wrote his book in a hurry. He referred to it as
the “briefest abstract” of his ideas, to be followed someday
by his big book that would provide all the information.
His abstract was more than 400 pages in length. Because
Darwin was trying to be brief and clear, Origin of Species
remains one of the masterpieces of scientific writing, much
Origin of Species (book) 0
more readable and much more widely read than the portions
of his big book that he did finish (such as Variation of
Plants and Animals under Domestication). The first printing
of Origin of Species, 1,250 copies printed by publisher John
Murray, sold out on the first day, November 24, 1859.
Darwin undertook a monumental task in writing this
book. First, he demonstrated that heritable variation exists in
plant and animal populations. Next, he presented the Malthusian
argument for the struggle for existence, as applied to
plants and animals, not just to humans. Chapter 3 of the Origin,
“Struggle for Existence,” therefore became the founding
document of the science of ecology. Next, Darwin brought
these together in an explanation of natural selection. Having
presented his theory of how evolution works, Darwin then
presented the evidence that evolution had occurred throughout
the history of the Earth, from the order of fossils in the fossil
record, to the biogeography of modern organisms, to the vestigial
evidences of evolution to be found in rudimentary organs
and in embryos. In his concluding chapter, he refrained from
making anything more than the gentlest reference to human
evolution (“Much light will be thrown on the origin of man
and his history”). His final statement has become one of the
most famous in biology:
There is grandeur in this view of life … whilst this
planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed
law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless
forms most beautiful and most wonderful have
been, and are being evolved.
The word evolution had often been used to describe the
playing out of a pre-ordained history of the world (see evolution).
Since Darwin did not mean to imply that the direction
of natural history was preordained, he avoided the word
evolution, preferring instead the phrase “descent with modification.”
The last word is the only time in the book that Darwin
used a version of the word evolution.
Darwin issued six editions of Origin of Species, the last
one in January 1872. Each time, he incorporated new information
and recent discoveries. He also added a great deal
of material to answer critics. He devoted an entire chapter
to answering criticisms, many raised by zoologist St. George
Jackson Mivart, whose 1871 book The Genesis of Species
may have been one of the most influential challenges to Origin
of Species, although it is today largely forgotten.
Even though Origin of Species is an abstract of Darwin’s
thought, most of even highly educated modern people have
not actually read it. The author of this encyclopedia, like most
evolution educators, strongly encourages every person to read
the complete Origin of Species. In the event that one does not
have time to do so, the author has included a summary of Origin
of Species as an appendix to this encyclopedia.
Further Reading
Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,
1st ed. London: John Murray, 1859. Available online. URL:
http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/texts/origin1859/
origin_fm.html. Accessed May 3, 2005.