To read the biographies of great men has always been a fascination. Great men of sciences, technology, philosophy, politics, Charles Darwin features prominently among them, both personally to me, and in the annals of history. The biography by Aydon is a very simple yet charming story of the man who "created a scientific revolution".

Aydon presents the story of Charles Darwin in a chronological way, a standard fare in biographies, but with chapters to add the thematic approaches for the book. The author uses personal letters sent by Darwin to his friends and mentors as 'personal touches' to this biography. They add to the overall charm of the book and reveal a lot about the man and his thinking. Most helpful is a map of the Beagle's voyage, which I not infrequently referred to when reading the chapters on the round the world trip of the famous Beagle.

I personally analysed two points, which the author have emphasised throughout the book. Firstly, Darwin was helped in his success by the wealth and support of his father. There are many references in the book, to the pecuniary benefits accrued to Darwin by his father. This facilitated his rise as a devoted naturalist, who had no care and worries for material pursuits and with such wealth and support, he was able to network and make gains otherwise not possible for a poorer Darwin. Secondly, was his fortuitous inclusion in the Beagle's voyage. Had it not been for the 5-year voyage, Darwin would not have been able to realise his childhood dreams of collecting and observing specimens and most importantly, Darwin would have ended up as a clergyman.

The later part of the book, after detailing his voyage and subsequent settling down, revolves around his industry to complete his "big book" and his moral and intellectual dilemma. Not insignificant is the loving support given by Emma, Darwin's beloved wife.

Having read this book, I feel that Darwin's life was full of lucky breaks and that he was one of the sickliest scientists around. However, the industry and power he brought to his book, "The Origin of Species" made him a revolutionary scientist. This book is recommended for the neutral reader, who simply wants a good story about a giant scientist. I have a further feeling that to satisfy my curiosity about this man, a more detailed biography is essential.

Biographer Cyril Aydon drew upon a lifetime's interest in Charles Darwin and his work to write Charles Darwin: The Naturalist Who Started A Scientific Revolution. The result is a fascinating and informative biography of the famed author of "The Origin of Species" and "The Descent of Man". It was Charles Darwin whose theories of evolution (and whose proposal that the descendants of primordial primates could, over thousands or millions of years, eventually become men through the process of natural selection) would change forever how human beings think of themselves and understand their own genesis. This accurate and engagingly written biographical account blends an overview of natural science with the events of Darwin's life before, during, and after the publication of his trailblazing scientific treatises. Charles Darwin is a very highly recommended study of a truly great man whose trailblazing contribution to biological science is still a substantial part of public debate and controversy today between religious creationists who deny, and the scientific community which supports, Darwin's concept of human evolutionary development.

Charles Darwin Cyril Aydon, Constable, London, 2002, 326 pp, £14.99
This unpretentious but most agreeable book takes us back to an earlier style of biography in its deliberate concentration on narrative. Opening with Montaigne's well-known disclaimer about other men's flowers, Cyril Aydon acknowledges his debt to the biographies of Darwin by Desmond and Moore and by Janet Browne, before launching into an intensely readable and well-structured 300-page account of the life and work of Charles Darwin, which makes intelligent use of the extensive Darwin correspondence. The illustrations are well chosen to give images of the central dramatis personae, the index is excellent and the essential maps are beautifully drawn. What else, then, is there to say about this admirable book?

The book is based on wide reading and a sound knowledge of the life and discoveries of Darwin. Its approach is sentimental, perhaps befitting a high Victorian topic: it is encased in the life of the 21 members of the Darwin family and throughout the book, Aydon refuses to adopt any later psychological or post-modern interpretation. In other words, the book is a sensible introduction to Darwin, written to engage the reader in a story, rather than to grind a historical, scientific or intellectual axe. It particular, Aydon abstains from speculation about the causes of Darwin's continuous ill-health. He succinctly yet intelligently demolishes suggestions that Darwin's father was anything other than a useful support to his son. Darwin's marriage is described in glowing terms, with Emma given the role of the third of Darwin's 'guardian angels', his father and Captain Fitzroy of the Beagle being the other two.

Aydon's style is fluent and clear, with occasional modern expressions, as when he reserves one of his few critical comments for Herbert Spencer's unfortunate distortion 'survival of the fittest', rightly epitomised as 'weasel words' (p.285). He has a neat turn of phrase; in his discussion of the central significance of the Darwin-Wallace interaction, he points out succinctly that 'it was Darwin who made, and threw, the bomb; but it was Wallace who lit the fuse.' Short, neat jokes abound. In a discussion with his father about his overspending of his allowance, Charles contributed 'the observation that he would be deuced clever to overspend his allowance at sea.' (p.47).

Because the book is aimed at the generalist market, it cannot offer in-depth treatment of several areas opened up recently by Darwin scholars. Indeed, one could almost say that Aydon's book is a modern re-working of the outstanding first biography by Francis Darwin, the Cambridge botanist son of Charles, which was well summarised in the 1888 volume of the Dictionary of National Biography. However, the twenty-first century perspective which Aydon adopts in his very thoughtful 'Postscript: A Backward Look' gives the reader an overview, based on twentieth-century work on genetic inheritance, which was not available to Francis Darwin. He refuses to become involved in the 'Science Wars' of Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins, apart from good judgements of their work in his bibliography.

Inevitably, this self-denying ordinance leads to gaps. There is very little comparative history of science, as Darwin's achievements are rarely compared with the work of other scientists from earlier periods, apart from the obvious comparison with Newton. An excellent discussion could be had over the impact of the slightly earlier career of Joseph Banks, a rich landowner like Darwin whose life's work entirely arose from his three-year circumnavigation of the globe with Captain Cook. Why did Darwin concentrate on barnacles and Banks on politics after their extraordinary adventures on the Beagle and the Endeavour? A paragraph on the relative sizes of the two ships would have thrown light on the achievement of both men. Aydon is interested in scientific method and offers several thoughtful analyses of Darwin's overall study methods. However, he has not compared and contrasted these with those used by earlier and contemporary natural historians. There could have been more connections between Darwin the good old-fashioned collector and curious observer, and Darwin the microscopic investigator at the cusp of modern biology, playing a central role in the development of the new scientific methods in morphology and systematics. Aydon rightly makes much of Darwin's experiments; he could have emphasised even more that he belonged to all three of E.B.Wilson's categories of biologists - bug hunters, worm slicers and egg-shakers.

The book correctly concentrates on a year-by-year account of Darwin's life and work, focussing excellently on the nineteenth-century development, exposition and reception of his theory of evolution. In other words, this entertaining biography is a fine introduction to Darwin studies. My recommendation to anyone, from 16 years old onwards, entering this field used to be that they should read On the Origin of Species, preferably in a reprint of the 1859 first edition. I would now add to this, "And you should read Aydon, too."

Dr Michael Honeybone
Research Associate
The Open University.
(814 words)

This is a well researched biographical account of Darwin, his family and the struggle he had with the death of his ten-year old beloved daughter. Her death haunted him until he himself died. The author did an excellent job of illustrating Darwin's character and his thought processes while developing his theory of species evolution through natural selection. Mr. Keynes certainly deserves five stars for his effort.

However, the attempt to tell the story of Darwin using his daughter and her death as a focal point doesn't work very well. It is almost a distraction in the first half of the book. Certainly her death was important and influenced Darwin's thinking, but her story may have been more properly placed peripherally, focusing more on Darwin himself, as was done later in the book. Dana Sobel was able to use the letters of Gaileo's daughter much more effectively in her book, "Galileo's Daughter". This is not a reflection of Mr. keyne's effort, but rather the fact that Ms. Soble had much more material to work with. There are 124 surviving letters of Galileo's daughter and she lived until age 34.

Once the book moved beyond the death of Darwin's daughter, it became more informative since Charles Darwin was now the centration point and his story became more illuminating. Of particular interest is the attention given to the recurrent mention of God and religion. Mr. Darwin had to reconcile his evolving (excuse the pun) view of God with the prevailing religiousness of society and his wife's deep Christian belief.

He managed it quite well and he was strategic in his approach to publishing his ideas. While he developed his species theory in 1938, it wasn't until 1859 that he published "Origin of The Species" and even then, he only briefly mentioned human origins in the book's conclusion. He finally addressed man's origin in 1871 when he published "The Descent of Man".

His handling of the religious question was often brilliant. Once when questioned if his species theory was compatible with a belief in God he answered "It has always appeared to me to be more satisfactory to look at the immense amount of pain and suffering in this world as the inevitable result of the natural sequence of events, i.e. general laws, rather than from the direct intervention of God." He also said at one point that "the safest conclusion seems to me that the whole subject is beyond the scope of man's intellect, but man can do his duty."

Even late in life Darwin recognized that "the human brain was not a perfect instrument for finding essential truths." Still, regarding his his own religous classification "he preferred the word agnostic" rather than atheistic. And finally, Mr. Keynes advises that Darwin felt that "While there was work to be done on Earth and humanity, while nature still held so many of her secrets, the effort devoted to aims other than natural could be put to better use."

In summary, the book gets off to a slow start, initially weighed down with an excess of trivial details, but eventually takes off and gives us great insight into one of science's most influential figures.

Charles Darwin has been much vilified by creationists for the development of his "atheistic" theory of evolution by natural selection. This book portrays the true Charles Darwin as a grieving and loving father and husband, a very human and humane doubter in revealed religion, and a serious and thoughtful scientist. That people can have honest differences with a popular view of religion without having horns and a pointed tail may open the minds of some. It will, unfortunately, probably not convince those who refuse to entertain the possibility that non-believers can be moral beings.

Keynes has done us a great service by revealing the private sorrows and triumphs of his famous ancestor and their effects of his thinking. Unlike many other great men (like Isaac Newton, for example), Charles Darwin seems to be someone you might have wanted to have as a neighbor and friend.

I recommend this book without reservation to those who would like to know more about the man who revolutionize our thinking regarding man's place in nature.

I am almost convinced (quite contrary to the opinion I had started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder), immutable. . . . I think I have found out (here's presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends.--Charles Darwin, in a letter to Joseph Hooker, January, 1844
Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882), arguably the greatest naturalist of all time, is best known for two works: his magnum opus, The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, Or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life (1859) and The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871).
The Origin dropped like a bombshell on a proud and complacent world convinced that human beings exist by virtue of a "special act of creation" which makes them fundamentally different from animals and "brute beasts."
Not so, said Darwin. His theory of evolution by means of natural selection--"the survival of the fittest"--posits a more humble origin for homo sapiens sapiens, that of "descent," or gradual development, from other animals.
Many books, essays, and articles, pro and con, have been written about Charles Darwin and his theory. This one by Randal Keynes is virtually unique in that it centers on Darwin's domestic life at Down House, only 16 miles from the center of London, near the town of Downe, in County Kent.
Charles and his wife, Emma Wedgwood Darwin, had ten children, two of which (Mary Eleanor and Charles Waring) died in infancy. The severest blow, however, was the death of their ten-year-old daughter Annie, of "consumption" (tuberculosis).
Annie's gravestone, in the churchyard of Malvern Priory, contains five lines: "Anne Elizabeth / Darwin / Born March 2, 1841. / Died April 23, 1851. / A dear and good child."
To Darwin, Annie was "the apple of his eye," his favorite child, and the "joy of the household." Darwin and Emma never quite got over the death of this adorable and precious child. It was the most emotional moment, the central tragedy, of their lives.
One critic writes of Randal Keynes' book, "Though there have been innumerable biographies of Darwin, there cannot have been any warmer portrayals of his humanity." Indeed, in this, his first book, Keynes reveals Darwin as a devoted "family man" who dearly loved his wife and children. Here one finds not a cold and aloof scientific genius, but a warm and caring human being.
Although the book gets off to a slow start, but one's patience in sticking with this volume is rewarded by extraordinary insights into the heart and home of a man who courageously sought to follow truth wherever it might lead.
A final confession on my part, although the admission is not quite like "confessing a murder." Call me overly sentimental if you will, but this book brought tears to my eyes, the only book to do so in years. The tragedy of Annie's death, and the author's account of how her death affected Darwin, is a poignantly moving experience.
In Darwin, His Daughter, & Human Evolution, Mr. Keynes has made an admirable--and memorable--contribution to Darwiniana.
Randal Keynes, who lives in London, is a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin and a great-nephew of the economist John Maynard Keynes.

.............each step of Darwin's five year, world-wide journey is chronicled here in his "Voyage of the Beagle" a work in which he shares his perceptions of the world as a renowned naturalist. If you respect Darwin and his revolutionary theories, you will love this book, which is filled with geological and biological (descriptions of the flora and fauna) data that he recorded throughout his journey. We even travel with him through the Galapagos Islands where Darwin thoroughly analyzed giant tortoises and bird life (the analyses of which lead to his evolutionary theories of natural selection and survival of the fittest). If you aren't particularly intrigued by Darwin himself and naturalism, this book may seem dry to you, in which case I think you would find it a tiresome read.

This is an under-rated read. It is the story of Charles Darwins 5 year journey on the Royal Navy ship, HMS Beagle. If ever there was a fateful voyage, this is it. But of course in this case, it is a 'fate' of hope, joy and true discovery.

The writer, in case you don't know him, is an enthusiastic and slightly rebellious young British naturalist, Charles Darwin. Here he reveals a style of cool-headed prose, sombre reflection, humour, and scientific enthusiasm. Amongst other things he describes his traverses in the Andes mountains, his jaunting about the Galopagas Islands, and his reflections of the bristling new British colony of Sydney. He collects specimens at places as diverse as the open sea, the remote Australian coast, and various islands of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. One particularly interesting piece describes his experience of a major earthquake on the Chilian coast, with details of totally destroyed coastal townships, and a major tidal wave. Of course he doesn't miss the correlation of the earthquake and a rather significant mountain chain running down the length of the Chilian coastline.

A good insight into the thoughts and style of the man, 19th century scientific prose, as well as the world itself in that interesting period of human history-the early to mid 19th century. This edition incidentally is also the unabridged one, which serves the reader better than some others.

Forget the image of the grim, ancient, grey-bearded savant. By the time those pictures were taken Darwin was long past his energetic prime. BEAGLE catches him literally starting out on his life-long voyage of discovery at a time when he was still extremely physically active and just beginning to come to grips with the seriousness of his interest in Natural History. Later in life he said that the VOYAGE was his personal favorite of all his writings, and one can see why. Darwin set off young, energetic, but frankly naieve & a little foolish (his father ahd written to him at Cambridge saying that he feared that he would never amount to much, and apart from his work with Henslow, much of his college career seems to have been devoted to what we would now call "partying hearty") He returned a seasoned naturalist and explorer, with the germ of his Great Idea firmly implanted. While in many ways VOYAGE is describing a vanished world, Darwin's keen eye for detail renders each landscape with such clarity that one feels that one is really along for the trip -and, thank goodness, some of the places he went to are still there for us to go & wonder at. There is no Big Theory here, just an enormous sense of wonder and excitement, with little of the periodic homesickness that shows up in the letters that he was writing during the voyage. Perhaps most intriguing is the remarkably SHORT section on the Galapagos -I remember thinking the first time that I read the VOYAGE "Wait, but wasn't the Galapagos THE Big Deal?" No, not to read it here in the original. One gets the sense that many of Darwins fundamental beliefs were already in gestation long before he left the coast of South America & by the time he gets to the Galapagos, he is increasingly anxious to be home & working it all out. Make sure that you get a COMPLETE version of the Voyage, there are many editions (including abbridgements) out there.

The subject matter is quite interesting, but no tangible Darwinian perspective of creativity emerges from this book. Apart from that, this stuff is so interesting that one could make the book a real page-turner (think Dawkins or Simon Singh). While this work is slow, repetitive and ultimately dissatisfying. And inconclusive, too: all these lists of geniuses do not supply any real, verifyable statistic data.

Worth to leaf through, but not much more.

I don't know how the author did it, but he produced a great book that was both ponderous and a real page-turner.

I found this book to be extremely interesting and well-written in detail. But the author could be ponderous in repeating some sub-themes and points.

You will learn a lot about the causes of genius and creativity but you won't walk away with a quick set of techniques to help you on your immediate problem. You will learn an overall approach of what has worked in the past.

His references and analogies to Darwin make the book even better. His references of other readings are also excellent and very detailed.

I really liked his comparison of artistic vs. scientific creativity or genius. One selection from the book that I found very interesting was this one on what makes for greatness in a genius:

"... individual differences in total lifetime output are indeed associated with the degree of eminence achieved. In fact, research has consistently shown that the most powerful single predictor of reputation among both contemporaries and future generations is the person's sum total of contributions. Furthermore, almost all other variables that may correlate with the differnce in fame between individuals do so only because they affect the output of creative products."

The point made in this sub-theme by Simonton was that it was the QUANTITY rather than the just the QUALITY that often was the leading indicator of peer acceptance of genius. If the genius is not stepping up to the plate and taking a lot of swings, he won't go down as a "Babe Ruth." Most of the geniuses studied were single home-runners.

Another thing I liked about the author was an often used approach of revealing a concept, proving it with lots of historical details and studies, then when you were really convinced, he showed you why other studies show why that logic might be flawed. He did this several times in the book, and it was quite stimulating to see the flaws in many people's logic... after you had made the same fatal assumption or mistake.

I highly recommend this book for those interested in the background and causes of genius and creativity. My copy of this book is heavily underlined.

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX

This book presents one theory on creativity, but that misleads. It covers another 30 theories along the way, using its one favored theory to knit and mesh, distinguish and fit all the others. Each page contains the same contents as entire other books on the subject (fortunately for this book; unfortunately for the others). I try my best to find faults with the books that I buy but I would be hard pressed to find a single fault with this book. You will learn more about creativity from this book, even if the theory it presents turns out to be wrong, than you will from any other book, I believe, though Sternberg, Amabile, Runco, Martindale, Gruber and a few few others have near competitors so excellent that you would be foolish not to buy their books as well. This book teaches you 30 theories of creativity while presenting its favored one. It is wonderful. Finite limited human beings can do no better.

Some readers might think that this book is too researchy, especially readers looking for how to books on quick and easy creativity methods. Strangely, this book while maintaining all the professional balance and careful definition of any academic work, makes it much clearer what you have to do to become creative than the top 50 how to books combined. I counted an amazing 1100 particular suggestions in this book for how to make someone more creative--that is about 1000 more than any other published how to book and this book avoids the exaggerations, the sales language, and the imbalanced treatment of pros and cons of such lesser books.

This is an excellent book written by a brilliant author. It details the line of progenitors leading up to Darwin's theory as well as the historical milieu in which Darwin swam during his lifetime and some of the forces, social and otherwise, that influenced him prior to Origin of Species and beyond. Himmelfarb gives an insightful criticism of Darwin's theory working simply from the internal organization of Darwin's thoughts. Himmelfarb is so brilliant in her analysis that my only criticism of the book is that she didn't critcize the theory in a more detailed fashion.

But it is a very readable and accessible book, and one that clearly points out some of the failings of Darwinian theory, many of which have been picked up by other critics over the years. However, I suspect that for the more sophisticated critic of Darwin, this book lacks sufficient scientific evidence--though it remains a fine history of the person, his theory, and its reception at the time of publication.

All of the books I have ever read about Darwin either extoll him a a perfect, God-like creature, or vilify him as a demon. This book provides a comprehensive view of Darwin as he was, that is, as he saw himself and as others saw him. I was surprised to read that Darwin had many predecessors in the development of his theory, and that the flaws of the theory (which are significant) were generally recognized long before the challenges of modern science pointed them out. If you want your fancies about Darwin tickled, read others. If you want the facts, read Himmelfarb. I strongly recommend this book.

This is an excellent book by a distinguished scholar who is also a fine writer. The Darwinian Revolution is the story of a scientific community producing and assimilating one of the most momentous sets of ideas in human history. Ruse deals thoughtfully and carefully with the scientific, philosophic, religous, and social background of British biology in the early 19th century, how this community became focused on the issue of evolution, how Darwin integrated himself into this community, and how this community dealt with the consequences of Darwin's work. Ruse does a fine job of describing the work of Darwin and his precursors, provides a nice and concise social history of this community, deals sensitively with the religous dimensions of these issues, and does a really commendable job of examining the state of philosophy of science in the early Victorian period. Written about 20 years ago, the conclusions of this book are still largely valid and Ruse provides a nice afterword to this edition to update his thinking on these questions. Ruse is a clear writer with an almost conversational style. This is really the book for readers interested in beginning an exploration of this interesting topic. This is also an excellent companion volume to Janet Browne's superb biography of Darwin, still incomplete, because it covers much of the same ground but with an emphasis on this community of British scientists rather than Browne's focus on Darwin himself. A particularly interesting feature of the book is Ruse's explanation of the reception of Darwin's ideas by his colleagues. Ruse points out that the academic biologists were largely able to go only part way with Darwin; they accepted evolution as a doctrine but were more resistant to the importance of natural selection. There were both internal scientific and external philosophical/social reasons for this relative resistance to Darwin's scheme. The full triumph of Darwinism has occurred in this century with the development of population genetics and more recently, large scale ecological experiments and studies.

Michael Ruse does a masterful job of showing the context of Darwin's work. Ruse, who is a professor of philosophy covers in great detail the culture of Darwin's time with a great deal of information on the biological theories of Darwin's day along with many of the major players and their various attitudes and especially their philosophies of science and in particular biology (and geology). This book is a must for anyone who wants a good historical view of Darwin. It is well written and clear but it is not a light read and it is not for the casual student.

Irving Stone gives us a beautiful depiction of the character of the real Charles Darwin, and how he came to his breakthrough scientific insights. Charles Darwin, it turns out, was an immensely likeable character, with an adventuresome spirit, immense energy, a genuine humility, and warm sense of humor. Stone's brilliant portrayal shows us how Darwin was always guided by really examining what he saw and experienced, and letting his questions guide him, through a lifetime of earnest questing for knowledge and understanding. Anyone who doubts that such a devoted scientist could also make such a fascinating literary figure, will be delighted by Irving Stone's illuminating storytelling. Now, we can esteem Darwin all the more for his humaneness, which serves to magnify his genius!

Irving Stone is no stranger to the art of lively historical biography. Indeed, he has made it his own particular area of expertise and developed his craft to a thoroughly respectable level. Coming to Darwin after Van Gogh, I knew I was going to be in safe hands. What I didn't know was how Darwin himself was going to affect me. Stone has us walking in his shoes. The very paths he trod, be it the lyme walks along the river near his birthplace or the lava-fields of Peru, are our paths. Such is the skill of the author. I cannot understand why this is not a popular book. It has just about everything going for it: a famous author with a competent pen; an even more famous naturalist as its centrepiece. Can it be that poor old Charles is out of fashion? I hope that these few crumbs may incite a further readership. You will not be disappointed.

I bought this book as a brief introduction to SJ Gould's opus "A History of Evolutionary Theory." I have no idea how well it will prepare me because I have not yet tackled that tome.

Let me say a few things what this book is not about:

1) It is not an argument in any real sense of the term, at least the book does not give us a glimpse of the passions in the scientific community in the mid-19th Cen. Mayr's style is more descriptive. He describes the current thinking in Darwin's time and the, mostly philosophical, rational debates that Darwin's ideas were immersed.

2) There is no real background of description of the people around Darwin except to enumerate their thoughts in contrast or in support to him. We get some good background of Darwin's personal life when it is relevant to an idea, but this slender volume is about the battle of ideas, but at least in Mayr's work, the passion largely omited.

3) The work deals with Evolution and how Darwin and others around him reached rational scientific conclusions on certain ideas. It is testament to the intrinsic simplicity of the idea (its relative ease to being proved wrong -- yet was not) that motivated the personalities around him Darwin until Evolution became the firmanent for the scientific understanding of the origin of species and the rise of genetic theory.

4) The books lacks most of the later day varients of Darwinism, there is little about Gould's punctuated equilibrium or Dawkins' selfish genes. The reason is that these ideas compliment the theory and do not challenge any major central idea of the descent of man or the evolution of species --- all understood and accepted by the scientific community by about 1900.

5) This not a book about the "debate" between creationism and science. This is a serious scientific, philosphic study and those topics such as teleos and the saltation (spontaneous creation) theory of the origin of species are only discussed in relationship they had on the scientific mind of the 19th Century. By the 20th Cen. such ideas had been relegated to the fringe and off the scientific plate of ideas. A true testament to the brilliance of Darwin.

The reading style, while not like Gould or Matt Ridley, is pleasant but the emphasis on the philosophic underpinnings of Darwin means that the debate does not deal with any empirical issues. He is intersted in Argument and the history of the Scientifc Argument.

I gave the book an overall 3 because although I realise that Mayr is one of the best minds in the area of the history of evolution theory I found the book losing my interest at points. How it prepares me for Gould's Opus Major I will only know when I have the guts to tackle the whole 1800 pages of it.....

The title "One Long Arguement", it is a reference to part of Darwin's introductory description to The Origin of Species (appearing within Origin itself). This book is not about arguing with Creationists (Thank God ;). I suspect the above reviewers were misled to the point that they felt rating stars must be subtracted. Don't be fooled by title bashers. This is an excellent history and theory primer for the novice and a nice knowledge gap filler for those well-read in the science of evolution and biology.

Creationists have claimed that geology has conspired to support evolution. This book just shows how ridiculous that claim really is. Geologists tossed out the idea of "Flood Geology" long before Darwin arrived on the scene. The idea of an old Earth was developed independently of Darwin. Also interesting is that Darwin was well respected among his fellow scientists, even though they did not initially accept his idea of evolution. His work on the Beagle was considered important, and it alone was sufficent to establish Darwin's scientific reputation. He was already famous (in his day) before his landmark work.

Many scientists in Darwin's time were old earth creationists. In time, many of them were persuaded by the mass of evidence that Darwin had collected, although it would be a long time before natural selection was accepted as the mechanism. So, it is possible to not accept natural evolution and still accept the idea of common descent. Creationists try to argue that evolution is a package deal, that if one idea is out of place or not quite right, then the whole thing should be tossed out. This notion is just wrong, and reading this book will help the reader understand why. In general, creationists exploit the public's poor understanding of the scientific method. While one fact can be enough to completely toss out a theory, what often happens is that old theories get revised to accomdate the new facts. Successful, powerful theories (like Darwins) tend to evolve.

This is not a book for the casual reader. Oh no, he who picks up this book had better have his thinking cap firmly in place. The book is split into four sections, each distinctly different from the others yet related in their relevance to the studies of two men: Darwin and Freud.

Expecting to find a biological study on Darwin's fascination with worms, I foolishly picked this book up. I was dismayed to discover that about ten pages of the first chapter is actually dedicated to the study of worms and their importance. Even this one section deals with worms more from a psychological standpoint than in a biological sense. This book, although interesting as it delves into complex theories, was slightly misleading to me with its cover and title.

This book consists of four somewhat related essays on what Darwin and Freud have to say about how to live a life in the face of the transient nature of existence. Disappointingly, the essays fail to address this interesting question effectively. Instead, Darwin's Worms is a collection of brief, descriptive essays on a few elements of Darwin and Freud's thinking.

The first essay sets out the question. Darwin and Freud are two thinkers who are probably most central to the "existential" worldview, the view that there is no greater "being" responsible for or looking over our actions. As a result, each of these writers was keenly aware of the relevance of "transience" as an element of living a life. Darwin saw that transience was a natural element of his theory of evolution, and Freud saw mourning and loss as a critical component in the dynamic of the psyche. So the interesting question arises: what did each of these thinkers have to say about how to live a life in this new world into which they thrust us. This question is particularly intriguing since both viewed themselves as scientists for whom direct speculation on these issues would be inappropriate. The answer to the question needs to be carefully teased from their writings. Unfortunately, the author does not carry through this exercise.

The second essay focuses on Darwin and what can be learned from his interest in the productivity of worms. The writer provides a light pastel portrait of Darwin and considers the broader implications of Darwin's interest in worms. But for me the review was too cursory and I had no sense from this of Darwin's answer as to how to live an "existential" life. At best, this was a teaser to read the more detailed work done by Darwin's biographers.

The third essay, on Freud, is surprisingly confused, given that Phillips is a psychoanalyst. It appears that what happened is that Phillips had previously written an essay on Freud's feeling toward his own biographers. Phillips then tried to fit that essay into this book and somehow make it address the larger questions this book was to address. The result is an essay that moves unconvincingly from Freud's feeling about his own biographers to his thoughts about the death instinct.

The final chapter tries to summarize what we've learned, but again the rigor is lacking. If you are looking for a cursory treatment of Freud, Darwin and the question of how to deal with the "transience" implied by their work, this book is fine. For this reader, I found the lack of disciplined reasoning frustrating, and made the book not worth the purchase price.

Adam Phillips is one of the few genuinely exciting contemporary psychoanalytic writers today, and this, along with Houdini's Box, is one of his finest works.

Darwin's "Origin of Species" is in fact an abstract of a 20 volume thesis containing the evidence gathered over many years which support the concept of evolution by natural selection. This way of describing the evolution of organisms on earth has by now become the standard and, in fact, one hardly ever thinks of evolution without automatically connecting it with Darwin's ideas.

At first, upon commencing reading this small book, I continued to ask `where is the evidence for that' but on realising that he had gathered a large volume of data to support this theory I simply continued to read on. Its not either an easy read or that complicated. Darwin looks at evolution in a very comprehensive way: first, linking the main idea with the variation of animals under domestication, something he himself had extensively studied in the case of pidgeons; second, associating this with variation under nature and the struggle for existence; he then goes on to describe in detail natural selection and the laws of variation. He follows this like any good scientist by an analysis of what may be the theory's weaknesses, such as the scarcity in the geological record and the lack of organisms in a state of gradation. He then applies the ideas to instinct, hybridism and then discusses in great depth the imperfections of the geological record. He also considers how geographical distribution can alter the results of evolution and how the embryos of various animals have a resemblance to that of other animals and how they also appear to repeat previous evolutionary steps as they mature.

Its too bad the 20 volume set was never published, even the incomplete version would have been better than only the abstract. Nonetheless it is well discussed and written as a comprehensive summary of the main thesis. At times the style can be repetitive and even dull but this is compensated for by fascinating little excerpts which are present throughout. This was, remarkably enough, my first reading of "The Origin of Species" and I do believe that every practicing scientist should read it as part of their education rather than accepting its tenets without question as is the wont. However rather than being a description of the true origin of species, it actually takes a change which occurs (by whatever means) and then describes the process the species undergoes from then on. Darwin never actually said anything about how new variations are formed, this was left for others to consider and eventually led to the modern Darwinian thesis including the idea of mutation caused by radiation, viruses or chemical agents. Much has also come to light over the last century such as the symbiosis of organisms producing the merger of cell and mitochondria seen in every cell today and similarly the recent evidence of gene swapping going on between bacteria and now also larger organisms, see "Lamarck's Signature" by Ted Steele. Since Darwin did also not explain form but rather the possibility of how form came about Brian Goodwin's Form and Transformation is a good place to start.

It must also be remembered that in his time the thesis was new even if many others were working on similar ideas Darwin was the first, in conjunction with Wallace, to expand on natural selection and obtain strong evidence for it. An essential read for any scientist.

It feels odd reviewing such a historic work as The Origin of Species, yet some warnings must be espoused regarding this volume as Darwin's work is often cited as the central document (along with the bible) in an argument over creation versus evolution. It is bad enough that people who so often are the most vociferous in this debate (on both sides) are relatively unread, but worse is that The Evolution of Species as a scientific manifesto is really of very little value today. Although Darwin was a brilliant naturalist, it would be as improper to call a scientist who studies evolution a Darwinist as it would be to call all computers Apple II's. Darwin has no working model of genetics, and while he proposed many excellent hypothesis about various forms of selection--he even wrote a book on behavior and facial expressions in animals!--we would be hard pressed to find Darwin as a citation in any of the modern literature. My rating of four stars is not entirely fair. I feel that people who wish to learn about evolution should seek out modern authors (I strongly recommend John Maynard-Smith's 'Theory of Evolution' as it is robust in its degree of current biological theory and will leave the reader not only understanding the biological theory of evolution, but also a lot of general biology.) On the other hand, if you are a person who is interested in history and in people, do read Origin or perhaps The Voyage of the Beagle (which I imagine must be an interesting read). Darwin sets a fantastic example of the dedicated naturalist, unbiased and thorough. His theories, which came later, were elegant--to such an extent that many of the detractors (even modern day) do not understand them. Darwin's biogeographical arguments for instance (I am thinking here about 'Darwin's Finches) stand unmolested by the diatribe of those who would make poor of a man just because they disagree with him. Neither do his opposers note Darwin's unwillingness to bring forth his theory. Truth be told, I care little whether or not people believe in evolutionary theory, only so much as they might at least understand how his ideas, humbly presented, changed the entire landscape of science. But most importantly I think people miss that Darwin was a good scientist--and there are a lot of bad ones. Science has recently taken the turn toward being all experiment and theory driven, with many of the funds in biology going more to 'gene splitters' or whatever you might want to call them than toward what little remains of descriptive science. Indeed it seems there is little room left for naturalists anymore--even to an extent that naturalists are sometimes not considered scientists. There are no more scientific works that are purely descriptive, or they are very rare, or worse done mostly for placement on coffee tables and not for the furthering of our understanding of the natural world. Darwin then is almost a sort of fatalist to his own kind; ushering in the modern age of a unified biology, he inadvertantly relegating the Conrad Lorenz's, the Jane Goodall's and (fill in the blank of your favorite naturalist) to antiquity or at least near-poverty. It might also be nice to remember that Darwin was above all interested in understanding the natural world, something he shared with a long history of zoologists before him who were of course creationists--and I see more in common between these people then I do between Darwin and the modern day evolutionist. Given all of this it seems very unfortunate the connotations and burden that Darwin's name has take on. Instead, it would be very kind if the name Darwin were flung about with the sort of respect I think it is due instead of attached to ugly terms like 'social' or as though the man had little red horns and a tail.

Believe it or not, this book was intended to be merely an introductory statement to a massive 20-volume treasise on evolution that Darwin had intended to write. However, he died before his Magnum Opus was completed. Although Darwin was not the first man to champion evolution, he was the first to create a convincing argument for it. This classic book thus records the beginning of a huge paradigm shift in biology. However, don't expect a flawless, up-to-date discussion - much has changed about evolutionary theory since Darwin's time. To fill in the holes, you might also want to read something more modern as a supplement. Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene" would be an excellent choice. Outdated concepts aside, "On the Origin of Species" puts forward an ingeniously simple argument and backs it up with an enormous and varied set of examples. It is easy to see how this book was destined to shake the foundations of science.