The Origin of Species (Mentor)

"When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of nature as one which has had a history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, nearly in the same way as when we look at any great mechanical invention as the summing up of the labour, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting, I speak from experience, will the study of natural history become!"

Even though it's become somewhat of a cliché, the term that repeatedly sprang to mind while reading this book is "tour de force." If any book I have read is worthy of the term, it's The Origin of Species, without question. In a relatively compact volume, Darwin lays out his argument for natural selection from multiple angles, beginning by drawing a comparison with the production of varieties by man, which he terms artificial selection. If man has been able to create new varieties by iteratively picking individuals with desired traits and breeding them to the exclusion of others, then Nature, working on timescales orders of magnitude greater than what man can even comprehend, can surely accumulate much larger changes and produce new species, using a similar mechanism.

After laying out the general idea and proposing basic laws, Darwin presents a couple chapters devoted to addressing difficulties and objections to his theory. I found these to contain many of the highlights of the book. It's interesting that many of the arguments used today against evolution were brought forth in Darwin's day, and he does a good job presenting them and how they can be explained by the theory, or by science in general. For example, one objection that still seems to come up is the apparent lack of transitional forms. This is explained by a combination of factors, including the extreme imperfection of the fossil record, which in turn is due to the rare set of conditions required to preserve fossils, the relatively small sample examined by humanity, the changing pace of modification shortening the window for preservation of less successful forms, and the difficulty in piecing everything together with confidence. Another objection concerns complex organs, which are viewed as impossible to have evolved over time, but Darwin argues that organs can and do change their function over time, allowing complex organs to form in increments. An example I found especially interesting is the swimbladder found in some fishes for buoyancy evolving into lungs.

The chapter about embryos was also incredibly interesting, providing additional evidence for evolution. In fact, Darwin says the weight of this evidence alone would be enough to convince him. An example would be the presence of nascent gills in the embryos of terrestrial salamanders. In fact the prevalence of vestigial organs throughout living things is referenced several times as evidence of change, and inexplicable on the theory of creation, in his view. Similarly, the fact of the same basic structures being re-purposed for hands, wings, fins, etc. points to common descent, and is hard to explain by the belief that everything was specially created.

There is so much fascinating stuff in this book it is difficult to contain myself and keep this review under control. The passages about social insects such as bees and ants were especially captivating. I had no idea that some species of ants capture other ants for slaves, or essentially keep flocks of aphids for their own use. And I was enthralled by the torpedo fish with its electric stun organs.

Finally, I was enlightened to learn that the crux of the whole argument is that all living things are members of a vast genealogy, with degrees of relation marked off by the labels of domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, and variety. These labels are arbitrary, but useful for understanding the "plan of creation." The takeaway is that we're all related, all descended from a common ancestor.

Maybe given some illustrations, and updated with new information (Darwin was ignorant of genetics and continental drift, for example), I think this would make an excellent biology textbook. Which is ironic since my high school biology teacher literally skipped the chapter on evolution in our textbook. Over 150 years since the publication of The Origin of Species, evolution is still revolutionary.