A Blog Around The Clock

Or, Happy Evolution Day! It's time for a party!

It is easy to look up blog coverage - if you search for "Origin of Species" you mostly get good stuff, if you search for "Origin of the Species" you get creationist clap-trap as they cannot even copy and paste correctly (hence they are better known these days as cdesign proponentsists).

Pondering Pikaia and The Beagle Project Blog were first out of the gate this morning with wonderful posts.

Here is a recent book review of the Origin by someone who knows some biology and another one by someone who does not - both are quite nice and eye-opening.

Corpus Callosum, John Wilkins, Shalini, Paul Erland also mark the date.

The first printing of 1250 copies did not fly off the shelves, because they were all already sold to subscribers - yes, amazon.com did not invent pre-ordering of books. The second printing was then rushed immediatelly for public sales in actual physical bookstores.

Upon first reading The Origin, Thomas Henry Huxley famously exclaimed: "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!"

I first read The Origin (4th edition) when I was about 13 or 14. That was the third serious book I have ever read in English (the first two were Jonathan Livingston Seagull and a biography of Bruce Lee) and it was heavy slogging. I do not remember if I actually finished it (probably not) and mostly remembered the pigeons. Too young.

I read The Origin again (the 1st edition), the whole thing, while taking a "History of Life Science" course with Will Kimler some ten years ago, and then again next semester for his "Darwin In Science And Society" course. As well as a bunch of secondary literature, autobiography, a couple of biographies, some papers...Then the following year, Will and Roger Powell co-taught a graduate seminar "Darwin (Re)visited" where we actually read the entire Origin, entire Voyage of the Beagle, huge chunks of Descent of Man (I read the whole thing), the whole The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, some letters, excerpts from the Orchid book, etc. I also read pieces from the Power Of Movement in Plants and the Earthworm book. I need to re-read all that stuff again (one should, every ten years or so). And you should, too.

More from Dispersal of Darwin, Laelaps, Sandwalk, Afarensis and Yikes!