Darwin's Dogs: How Darwin's Pets Helped Form a World-Changing Theory of Evolution [Paperback]

This is a marvelous surprise. Emma Townshend, the gardening correspondent for the INDEPENDENT, has written a new and fresh book on Charles Darwin -- something just about miraculous, given the flood of publications appearing in recent years and especially in this 200th anniversary year for Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.

Townshend beghins her concise, charmingly-illustrated, graceful book by demonstrating that, throughout his life, Darwin was surrounded by dogs; she shows further that this fact was not merely an expression of his personality but also offers a fascinating way into his intellectual world. She traces how Darwin's interest in dogs and in the myriad of varieties of dog breeds spurred his exploration of the question how species of animals and plants of all kinds came to be -- a central preoccupation of naturalists and scientists in his day, and the focus of his ORIGIN OF SPECIES. Showing how Darwin studied his own dogs, and dogs in general, as a central component of that larger research project, she also illustrates, with abundant and well-chosen examples, how Darwin used examples and anecdotes of dogs as rhetorical devices to build community with his readers as he explained his daring and controversial views about evolution by natural selection.

Townshend also addresses Darwin's determined, patient work to break down the artificial barrier separating human beings from "lower orders." She explores the ways that his study of dogs and their expression of emotions helped him to understand the emotional continuum that humans, dogs, and other animals occupied.

Along the way, Townshend introduces us to many of the dogs owned by Darwin and the Darwin family -- never indulging in cute or sentimental digressions, but always linking each anecdote to her book's larger purpose. The book is short and can be read in an evening, but its illumination of Charles Darwin as human being, dog lover, and student of animal psychology will stay with you for a long time.

In the Darwin anniversary year, more books were published about him than probably in all the years of my life preceding 2009. More biographies, and more treatments of his work. Some books seemed to jump on the Darwin wave by connecting a topic to Darwin because, that year, it just might sell. Surely there is Darwin fatigue in publishing. In a review of new additions of Darwin's work that appeared in 2009, historian of science Jim Endersby asked whether there can be too much of a good thing, referring to the myriad of scholarly work on Darwin, sometimes called the Darwin Industry (note 1). It is a reasonable question, as one can easily think that since so much has been written about a historical figure, what can possibly be written about Darwin that is new? Or what refreshing approach can be taken in looking at his life and work?

While many books seem to reiterate the standard Darwin story, what I enjoy are those that consider an unexplored or neglected topic. Such is Darwin's Dogs, a short exposition as to the influence that the many dogs in Darwin's life, and the group of animals dogs in general, had on Darwin's thinking. This short book - less than 150 pages - is very readable, and provides a concise overview of Darwin and his ideas while offering a fresh perspective on the story - that "Darwin's dogs brought evolutionary theory right to the hearth rug of the Victorian home" (9), meaning that using dogs in his writings brought something familiar to his readers.

Essentially, Darwin's proximity to various dogs - "some of the most important characters in the story of his thinking" (9) - throughout his life taught him several things:

1. That humanity should not feel insulted by its relationship to animal ancestors,

2. That animals have emotions, morals, self-consciousness, and language, too (that human distinctiveness is a myth),

3. About variation, inheritance, and artificial selection through the practice of dog breeding (Darwin's reliance on "practical men"),

4. The proper treatment of animals (Darwin was an antivivisectionist),

5. The similarities in behavior between dogs and humans (The Descent of Man says a lot about dogs, Townshend notes).

While the book is fun and enjoyable, and made me think differently, I feel that the way the book is presented is a bit misleading. In the Preface, Townshend invites the reader "to a rather different account of the life of Darwin, this one told from the canine point of view" (11). The description on the back of the book states "from a uniquely canine perspective." These statements reiterate one of the purposes of Darwin's Dogs: the consideration of other actors, even non-humans, in the history of science. I immediately thought of Bruno Latour's microbes in The Pasteurization of France, Michael Pollan's plants in The Botany of Desire, and the various organisms in Endersby's A Guinea Pig's History of Biology (one reviewer wrote "Science is a collaborative process and by looking at the roles played by unwilling collaborators, from guinea pigs to zebrafish, Endersby provides a new perspective on the history of genetics" [note 2]). All these works suggest that non-human actors have agency, agendas of their own. It is not simply humans that drive history.

So, reading "from the canine point of view" and "from a uniquely canine perspective," I expected an approach (especially since Endersby is acknowledged in the book) that was lacking in Darwin's Dogs. The book remains a story about Darwin, from his perspective in how he used dogs in his thinking. It is not told through the eyes, minds, or lives of dogs. Their actions - how they fit into the story as useful - is dependent on what Darwin is doing. Darwin's Dogs is indeed "a rather different account of the life of Darwin," but it is not from the "point of view" of dogs.

Furthermore, given this book is written by someone in the history of science, I was disappointed in the lack of citations (no footnotes, no endnotes) except those for the quotes that open each of the five chapters, and the lack of a bibliography or sources section. Throughout the book Townshend utilizes direct quotes from Darwin's letters, notebooks, and publications. Yet no citations for any of them. Why? Maybe because the publisher did not want it. If I were the author of a book about history, and a publisher said they did not want citations and sources, I would find another publisher. For someone like me, familiar with Darwin's work, I know where to find the sources (Townshend thanks the Darwin Correspondence Project and John van Wyhe/Darwin Online for "their invaluable help and resources," [144] but no URLs are given). For a reader unfamiliar with how to track down the sources, not having those materials provided misses the opportunity to explore further than the text of the book.

Those problems aside, Darwin's Dogs is a surprisingly rewarding little book that would be a good introduction to Darwin's ideas. If you like dogs, all the better. The many anecdotes are informative, while the book is seeded with canine artwork.

Notes:

1. Jim Endersby, "Origins: Selected Letters of Charles Darwin, 1822-1859 (Anniversary edition), edited by F. Burkhardt, and other works by Charles Darwin" [essay review], History of Science 47 (Dec. 2009): 475-84.

2. Nick Rennison, Sunday Times (from the publisher's webpage for the book).

The religious people who hate the ideas of evolution first proposed by Charles Darwin have not had much success in scientifically attacking those ideas. Some of them have tried, as a misguided part of that effort, to attack Darwin himself. Sure, they can rightly show that he was trained in the church but wound up being an agnostic. Some of them cling to the pious lie that Darwin recanted all when he was on his deathbed. They have not been able to make Darwin into any sort of moral monster: besides working hard at many uncontroversial researches in biology (like barnacle taxonomy or earthworm behavior), he was a gentleman, an exemplary husband and father, and a kindly master. Let's give him another trait that most people will find agreeable, and the religious fundamentalists cannot attack: Darwin loved dogs. He and his family kept dogs all his life, and dogs were important family members. What is more, Darwin drew upon dogs to make many of his big conclusions about evolution and animal behavior (though it must be said, Darwin drew upon _everything_). These are the lessons in _Darwin's Dogs: How Darwin's Pets Helped Form a World-Changing Theory of Evolution_ (Frances Lincoln Limited) by Emma Townsend. This lovely little book, while emphasizing the dogs in Darwin's life and in Darwin's ideas, is a small biography of the great man, referencing most of the important events in his life, and summarizing many of his important concepts. It is thus an amiable and accessible new way of looking at evolution's founder.

And here are Darwin's dogs: Shelah, Spark, Czar, Sappho, Dash, Pincher, Nina, Bob, Tartar, Quiz, Bran, Tony, and Polly. There may have been others, but we know of these because of letters exchanged between him and other family members throughout his life. When he came to writing _The Descent of Man_, he knew that people objected to the idea that humans and monkeys had descended from the same sort of creature (not, as is so often incorrectly expressed, that humans came from monkeys), and he wanted to draw examples from other species, too. He used dogs most of all. It might be said that Darwin was guilty of that great sin of anthropomorphizing, but he gave examples and reasons for his beliefs that dogs enjoyed play and humor, that they showed kindness, that they have different personalities, that they even had imaginations and some ability to reason. It was all part of Darwin's great lesson, that all living things are kin. Darwin was personally interested in his own dogs, and when it came to learning more about dogs in general, he had various experts to call upon (just as he had pigeon fanciers when he was doing his pigeon experiments). He had wide correspondence about the issue: "Blyth sent him details of pariah dogs, the shunned wild mongrels that hang around living off the detritus of Indian villages; Falconer wrote to him with information about Tibetan mastiffs." Dogs came in plenty of variations, and were one of the many sources for his illustrations of artificial selection producing members of a species with diverse characteristics. He knew, for instance, after the publication of the _Origin_, that opponents were objecting that there were insufficient fossil examples to show intermediate forms that would illustrate the entire history of the evolution of a species. Darwin pointed out that such intermediate forms could not even be found in developments of modern breeds, saying of such forms, "Opponents will say, show me them. I will answer yes, if you will show me every step between bulldog and greyhound."

Townsend's book summarizes such things as Darwin's delay in publishing the ideas that would be explosive in _Origin_, the gentlemanly way that he and Wallace came to share credit for the ideas, his work on barnacles, and the flashes of insight he got from geologist Charles Lyell and political economist the Reverend Thomas Malthus. Such episodes will be familiar to anyone who knows about Darwin's life, but they are presented here in an accessible way that would make this book a fine introduction to Darwin for those who do not yet know him. The dog stories here, however, add a charming aspect to the portrait of an inquisitive and likeable man. Anyone who loves dogs will here find further reason (if any be required) to admire Darwin and his work.