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[oliverm]

I finished reading Charles Darwin's Origin of Species today (I've been reading it on the bus for the last couple of months whenever I don't have a New Scientist available). It's a book that I've wanted to read for a while, and I'm really glad that I finally got around to it

Comments

[hipikat]

I stalled halfway, when it felt like the pigeon fancying was never going to end.

[ataxi]

Darwin's big in Chile, so we learned a bit more about him in 2008 when we were travelling. Plenty to him besides the abstract concept of evolution - his work as a naturalist is probably even more impressive.

I've never read Origin of the Species, and I'm not sure I could sit through it.

There was a big media spill recently about his family's involvement in abolitionism in the UK - did you read about that?

[ext_2025]

http://benfry.com/traces/ shows how it changed over the 6 editions, including the phrase “survival of the fittest” - usually considered central to the theory and often attributed to Darwin - instead came from British philosopher Herbert Spencer, and didn't appear until the fifth edition of the text.