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Simply Darwin by Michael Ruse: book review




Simply Darwin (2016) is part of the Simply Charly series of short summaries about influential people. This one is 129 pages about the British biologist, Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was a revolutionary biologist, noted for his theories on evolution through natural selection. Darwin started his career as a geologist on the British ship HMS Beagle for five years from 1831-1836, sailing to South America, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. His first publication was The Voyage of the Beagle (1839).

He noted that animals had variations and he proposed the ideas of ‘descent and modification’ and the slow and naturallly developing ‘branching process’ from an original form to divergent forms. This interest began in 1838.

Darwin didn’t ‘come out’ as an evolutionist until later in life because he knew that his ideas would be ‘fatal to his professional success.’ Ruse also mentions the evolution versus creationism debate, still current today.

Theories about evolution were not new in Darwin’s time – they had existed for 150 years – but it was his theories on natural selection that were highly criticized when he finally published his work 21 years later in 1859. It was called On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. But his book was not about humankind – it was about animals and plants.

In 1871 Darwin published Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, expanding natural selection to sexual selection.

In his autobiography, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: An Autobiographical Chapter (1876), he wrote that his theories were ‘one long argument’ – a hypothetical-deductive argument.

Ruse does exceptionally well in providing the lead up to, and the progress of, Darwin’s theories, as well as the repercussions and ‘aftershock’ of his publications – and their implications on biology, religion, morality, race, sexuality, and culture. I also like the inclusion of the poetry of the time as people document their interpretations and thoughts about Darwin’s ideas.

What is not covered – and which I find more fascinating – are Darwin’s works on coral reefs and barnacles, plant phototropism (why plants grow toward a light source), and earthworms. Darwin also published The Power of Movement in Plants (1880) and The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Action of Worms (1881), which are highly interesting and contemporary, but given no attention in this publication.






MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).


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