The Origin of Species

De: Charles Darwin

Narrado por: David Case

One of the most famous and influential books of its (or any) time, The Origin of Species is, surprisingly, little read. True enough, most people know what it says, or think they do, at any rate. The first comprehensive statement of the theory of natural selection, it does, indeed, provide the basic argument and demonstration of what we think of as Darwinism.

Not quite offering the misleading tautological Spencerian claim of "survival of the fittest", or the claim that man descends from monkeys (a typical perversion of the understanding of natural selection), the book did turn much of the world and how man thinks about it upside down. It is, well more than a century after its first publication, still a powerful and fascinating read.

©1992 Phoenix Recordings (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.

Great concept

Darwin was a genius and the ideas in this book set the foundation to the evolution theory. Furthermore, there were some very interesting ideas present in this book, however, the overall subject matter was a little dry and too scientific, which made for a boring listen, tho that could be the fault of the not so good narrator.

surprisingly good; measured; practical

audiobook good enough 👍👍

this is thick material, actually, & was hard to retain much of the detail compared to the overall themes

Darwin here is discussing the ins outs ups & downs of evolution by natural selection, which is a hurdle or 💡 when classifying taxonomies

w/ proper classification comes more accurate predictions, & a "story" forms

this is to say, there were moments/points in the book where i diverged, such as his usage of "globe" when talking about Earth & his insistence on a Pangea-like continent

​​​​​​​another so-so surpriser was the complete lack of dinosaurs in this work, as it was published before the dino craze went wild [see: invented by charlatans]

he explains how a given area on an island, for instance, will have significantly less diversity than an equal space on a continental area, which makes logical sense

​​​​​​​he says that species drift is checked to a large extent by sterility & 'the struggle,' which eliminates the weak/ill-fitted in favor of the most adapted

​​​​​​​i'm actually fresh enough on his content to try another book

I loved it

We've heard it's work of genius, and listening to it shows that that's true.

I really liked the narrator. He's British, the book is British, he obviously cared a lot about what he was doing and practiced before he recorded. Very clear, easy to understand, properly inflected.

Don't knock it till you have read it

A book of scientific observation and research, cannot understand all the fuss. I believe most who comdemn haven't read it.

Brilliant Writer

Darwin was a consummate writer and a brilliant thinker. He anticipated nearly all the modern objections to Darwinism, and what he did fail to address is largely due to his ignorance of the mechanisms of inheritance. Even then he still had many insights that apply equally well to modern population genetics. I never knew how truly necessary it is for anyone who discusses evolution to read Darwin!