Let's just say already milled enthusiastically through the first chapter. I think what aided in my enthusiasm was the Historical Sketch and Introduction section of the book. Normally, when I tend to read academic writings, I often ignore the notes and intro, but reading through the Historical Sketch, I found it an eye opener.Let's get the record straight: Darwin, although paraded as the poster-boy of evolution was not the only person discover the idea. In fact, there were numerous scientist and naturalist that presented the same argument of evolution.
For the longest time prior to my understanding about Darwinism and the theory of evolution, I initially thought that it was Darwin - and only Darwin - who thought up the theory. From what I understood from reading these notes was that Darwin had an immense database from his trip around the world on the HMS Beagle. The Origin of Species does not only use his data, but Darwin also uses theories from similar studies at the time [i.e. Wallace, Lamrack, his grandfather, etc.] to back up his claims.
In an article I read in the Smithsonian Magazine titled On the Origin of a Theory, Richard Conniff comments that it was Wallace who drove Darwin to finish The Origin of Species. Both Darwin and Wallace were rivals in their studies, because they both have had similar findings, but Darwin and Wallace corresponded with each other in their research as the article mentions. It is probably a given that both realized they were fighting on the same team and corresponding with their findings would help both parties. I honestly think that those who wrote articles about a small aspect of evolution (most authors spoke of certain animals and their certain traits passed on through generation) was just a unit from a much larger system. What Wallace and Darwin did was gather all the units, whether it be other essayist claims, Wallace's findings in the Amazon or Darwins massive database and create a much bigger picture of life; or in this case The theory of evolution. You can probably see why I was enthusiastic to read the book after reading the two notes prior to the first chapter.
I found the first chapter pretty easy to grasp. Even a non-academic in science could read the book and understand the writings of Darwin. Darwin introduces the arguments that work and work against the claims in the book. In other words, he lets the reader know the both sides of the spectrum about scientist and/or observers of animals. There are scientist [and one Rev.]who believe that animals are immutable, while he also mentions those whom he believes makes his findings possible.
I've noticed he talks a lot about his pigeons and I can see why a lot of commentaries about his work joke about Darwin and his pigeons. Yet, his work with them explain much about passed on character traits from one generation to another. This is due simply to the fact that pigeon generations are easy to observe, because of quick reproduction.
There was one sentence in the book that made me laugh out loud. Basically what Darwin said was that if you told a farmer that his live stock did NOT originate from a long horned cow the farmer would laugh at you. I laughed, because I would like to challenge that notion. I'm certain I can be proven wrong that farmers know about selective breeding, but it seems plausible just to ask and see what kind of response you will get.
Trying to reproduce the first chapter in my own words will be long and labourious for myself, but I find myself very fascinated in my reading of the book. If you're a believer, I would suggest you read it, because it will keep you informed of what the other side observes.
I went into a mini discussion with my father (a devout Catholic) about The Origin of Species.
This is an interesting story. I was in the basement reading and my father asked me what I reading. I told him it was The Origin of Species. His initial reaction was a scoff. He told me that Darwin was an idiot and he can't believe people believe his writings. If I wasn't informed about the subject I wouldn't have entered into a discussion with my dad, but I told him in simple terms, "If not Darwin, it could have been X,Y, or Z to hold the torch of evolution. If it wasn't for his large database from his findings on the HMS Beagle, there would be small claims about evolution." I never saw my dad puzzled, because he normally was the one to teach me.
He said that he read Darwin's book, but it was when he was in the Philippines. Since I know he was raised under strict Catholic rule, I could tell why he had such a bad experience with the text. I told him about Wallace and how he could have bested Darwin, but retracted a bit, because Darwin did have enough evidence from his world tour. Initially, I thought were were going to go into an religious reason argument, but he actually suggested he read the text again. He said he was young when he first read it and he thinks a re-read would help. I guess because both my dad has no stress about writing reports about reading Darwin's book, this may be reason why there is interest. In fact, I have no stress reading the book either. I guess as a child, my dad found reading academically an habitual chore. After our conversation about Darwin relinquished into a history conversation, I told my dad, "I love science." and he said, "Well, love science and history."
Even though we both disagree on some things about life, we manage to find a common ground between us.
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