Ebook On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life Classic Reprint Charles Darwin 9781396693960 Books

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Excerpt from On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

The Hon. And Rev. W. Herbert, afterwards Dean of Man chester, in the fourth volume of the 'horticultural Trans actions, ' 1822, and in his work of the 'amaryllidaceae' (1837, pp. 19, declares that horticultural experiments have established, beyond the possibility of refutation, that botanical species are only a higher and more permanent class of varieties. He extends the same View to animals. The Dean believes that single species of each genus were created in an originally highly plastic condition, and that these have produced, chiefly by intercrossing, but likewise by variation, all our existing species.

In 1826 Professor Grant, in the concluding paragraph in his well-known paper ('edinburgh Philosophical Journal, ' vol. Xiv. P. 283) on the Spongilla, clearly declares his belief that species are descended from other species, and that they become improved in the course of modification. This same view was given in his 55th Lecture, published in the Lancet' in 1834.

In 1831 Mr. Patrick Matthew published his work on 'naval Timber and Arboriculture, ' in which he gives precisely the same View on the origin of species as that (presently to be alluded to) propounded by Mr. Wallace and myself in the 'linnean Journal, ' and as that enlarged in the present volume. Unfortunately the View was given by Mr. Matthew very brief ly in scattered passages in an Appendix to a work on a differ ent subject, so that it remained unnoticed until Mr. Matthew himself drew attention to it in the 'gardener's Chronicle, ' on April 7th, 1860. The differences of Mr. Matthew's view from mine are not of much importance he seems to consider that the world was nearly depopulated at successive periods, and then re-stocked; and he gives as an alternative, that new forms may be generated without the presence of any mould or germ of former aggregates. I am not sure that I under stand some passages; but it seems that he attributes much influence to the direct action of the conditions of life. He clearly saw, however, the full force of the principle of natural selection.

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Ebook On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life Classic Reprint Charles Darwin 9781396693960 Books

"Such an important foundational book that changed the course of the world and laid foundation to many new branches of science... but I have to admit the way Darwin writes is a bit difficult to slog through. But an insight I was able to gain throughout my reading is how different the popular and scientific climate must have been during Darwin time. Once I realized Origins was meant to be as much a persuasive text at can be and at least partly aimed at producing counterargument to his many dissenters at the time, the repetitions and many detailed examples made a lot more sense in context... Still the verbose style of writing makes it kind of dense."

Product details Hardcover 566 pages Publisher Forgotten Books (January 31, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 1396693963

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On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life Classic Reprint Charles Darwin 9781396693960 Books Reviews :

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life Classic Reprint Charles Darwin 9781396693960 Books Reviews

• Do not buy the "Gold Edition!" This is NOT the complete book. It is missing the last half of the book. There are 14 chapters in On The Origin Of Species. This book abruptly ends mid-sentence on the first page of chapter 9.
• Darwin wrote a great book. It deserves to be treated properly and that does not happen in this edition. It s full of mistakes to the point of often being confusing and unintelligible. it is clear that no human being ever looked at the output that became the .
  
  At $0.99 it is wildly overpriced.
• Such an important foundational book that changed the course of the world and laid foundation to many new branches of science... but I have to admit the way Darwin writes is a bit difficult to slog through. But an insight I was able to gain throughout my reading is how different the popular and scientific climate must have been during Darwin time. Once I realized Origins was meant to be as much a persuasive text at can be and at least partly aimed at producing counterargument to his many dissenters at the time, the repetitions and many detailed examples made a lot more sense in context... Still the verbose style of writing makes it kind of dense.
• This is pretty difficult to read, not because of the language or sentence structure which is surprisingly easy, but because of the content. So I am glad I purchased the $0.99 version. While the contents are the works of a genius of his time, it was difficult for me to force myself through the pages and pages observations of the ants and plants, and bugs, and doves to get to his famous theories and summaries. I do understand that this wasn't intended to be read casually, but given it's importance in history I wanted to give it a go. Just realize it can be difficult to get through.
• Darwin was somewhat of a genius, some things he was so ahead of the time but other things we now know we're completely wrong. I am reading this book along with The Descent of Man to account for the dangerous rhetoric that these works contributed to racism and to Hitler and many other white supremacy groups. To say 1 people are less evolve than another opens a floodgate that has been proven to be completely untrue. Man is one, skin color is and hair are minute and genetically speaking it is proven we descend from 2 common ancestors and so do many others. Variation is within, but the common ancestor had to be black or brown.
• This "150th Anniversary Edition" seems to be simply a reprint of the 100th Anniversary Edition. In particular, the forward by Julian Huxley was written in 1958 and while it is still mostly relevant, it has dated badly in a few places.
  
  The main text is Darwin's 6th Edition.
  
  Darwin considerably amended Origin of Species through the course of its six editions. For example he first used the expression "survival of the fittest" (coined by Herbert Spencer) in the 5th edition and he first used the term "evolution" in the 6th edition. However, he also diluted some of his arguments in an attempt to deflect criticism. Most notably he made more allowance for now discredited Lamarckian ideas of hereditable affects of use and disuse, versus pure natural selection.
  
  It is an open argument whether the 1st edition or the 6th edition best represents his real thinking. My 2 cents would be that the differences are relatively minor in the context of the overall work. The key driving ideas are well expressed in both and either is a fine start. Just be aware that other readers of Origin of Species may have seen a slightly different text!
• Everyone has opinions about evolution, but how many people have actually read Darwin? If you haven't done so yet, you're missing out on what is surely one of the greatest books ever written, period. And this edition, which provides an authoritative facsimile of the famed first edition PLUS helpful, explanatory annotations, page-by-page, is the one to read. To some people, I suppose, Darwin's Origin will be dry reading... but that's not what readers thought in the mid-nineteenth century, when the book created a sensation and, arguably, changed the way people conceptualize their position and role in the universe. I think Darwin's prose speaks just as powerfully today. The entire book amounts, as Darwin himself said, to an argument -- and it is an argument for the ages. What a magnificent work this is! Darwin engages the reader in a dialogue, presenting the plain facts as they were known at his time, and asking the reader to proceed, step by step. He begins by noting how knowledgable breeders can modify domesticated organisms significantly by means of artificial selection -- and what is more, that they can do so in only a few generations. Building on his unmatched knowledge of nature, Darwin presents the book's fundamental, earth-shaking concept the environment in which organisms live exerts a selection force of its own, which he calls natural selection. By no means does he depict a battle for survival, in which only the fiercest win; the game is far more complex, and in a series of breathtakingly vivid chapters, Darwin shows why Deception and subterfuge may well be the master of ferocity and strength, depending on the changing, inexorable pressure of natural selection. But this is not a one-sided argument. Along the way, and indeed at every step, Darwin expressly points out the chief objections that can be raised to his argument, and addresses them, one by one. All along, the page-by-page annotations are crucial to the ability of modern readers to grasp Darwin's argument fully; they explain the issues at hand and explain how they've worked out in the many long years since the Origin's publication. I read Darwin's Origin only late in life, after a career of commitment to science, but I wish I had done so sooner, and in the company of this edition's expert annotations; I would have been emboldened all the more. For Darwin, lacking knowledge of Mendelian inheritance, DNA, and all the rest that we know today, nevertheless got the big picture right, and in ways that are far more intelligent and subtle than they are made out to be. Darwin's exploration of the role of sexual dimorphism in evolution, in particular, must be recognized, I believe, as one of the most extraordinary interpretive insights in the history of science. But as I have noted, the entire book, from page one until the final, unforgettable paragraph, is an argument; it must be read as such; and there is no finer guide to this majestic journey than this superbly annotated volume.