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No book made a greater impact on the intellectual world of its first Victorian readers nor has had such an enduring influence on our thinking on science, literature, theology and philosophy.
In The Descent of Man, Darwin addresses the crucial question of the origins, evolution and racial divergence of mankind, that he had deliberately left out of On the Origin of Species. And the evidence he presents forces us to question what it is that makes us uniquely human.
He who wishes to decide whether man is the modified descendant of some pre-existing form, would probably first enquire whether man varies, however slightly, in bodily structure and in mental faculties; and if so, whether the variations are transmitted to his offspring in accordance with the laws which prevail with the lower animals. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well ahead of its time,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (Paperback)
Aside from the fascinating (and mostly accurate) accounts of natural and sexual selection, confirmed decades later by new discoveries in the fossil record and the advent of DNA, this volume presents a fascinating letter from Darwin to Wallace confirming what a superficial examination of species makes apparent: that Darwin was well aware that 'blending' inheritance couldn't be right, and that hereditary traits must be passed on by some particulate process. This is obvious when we realise that our parents are male and female, but we are not born intermediate hermaphrodites. In this sense, and in so many others, Darwin was well ahead of his time.
It is naive, as Dawkins points out in his introduction, to consider the views of this Victorian gentleman (politically conservative, scientifically radical) through post-Nazi hindsight. Contrary to popular belief, Darwinism does not excuse mass extermination in pursuit of 'perfection'; indeed, lengthy passages of this book are given over to emphasising that 'savage' races (an uncontroversial label at the time, whose meaning has since drifted) are not separate species or sub-human. Darwin's limited recommendations for improving ourselves must be considered with this qualification; let us not forget that at the time such views were entirely acceptable. Darwin accounts for racial differences through sexual selection: superficial but diverse surface differences masking underlyingly highly similar organisms. Skip forward 130 years, and Dawkins's introduction also reminds us that DNA has re-affirmed this and led many scientists to advocate the abandonment of 'race' as a biological concept; through humanity passing through what Dawkins calls an "evolutionary bottleneck" in the last few thousand years, there is more genetic difference between any two groups of chimpanzees than there is between any of the human 'races'. A great book, which can be dipped into through the highly-entertaining index. Darwin's knowledge of natural history was phenomenal; here we can read at length and leisure the amazing range of creatures' adaptive behaviours, with a plausible explanation of how they share a common ancestry. Wonderful, in each sense of the word.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Please read and judge for yourself.,
By
This review is from: The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (Paperback)
A seminal work, such as this, deserves to be read as it represents original, source material for ideas that rocked the world. Unfortunately Darwin is often criticised by people who may never have accessed his original work but take a political and chronologically privileged dislike to how this important source material may, or may not, have been subsequently interpreted. I refer of course to the above review.Such works as this need to be read with an appreciation of the context in which they were written i.e. a long time ago and within an entirely different world view. Cheap, agenda-ridden, pseudo-intellectual critisism made with the benefit of hindsight and taking a twenty-first century perspective will hopefully not dissuade people from accessing fantastic source material such as this and making their own minds up. Read it, and make your own mind up (before somebody else does it for you).
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant,
This review is from: The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (Paperback)
This book is brilliant. However, you must read it in it's own time. Darwin wrote this at a time when people saw humans as being at the top of the ladder that was evolution. This was also a time when Europeans thought themselves to be superior to the rest of the world. This seemed a natural conclusions since they were more advanced, richer and had conquered almost the whole world.This book is beutifull. Darwin had obviously found mass condemnation from The Origin Of Species,. but also mass acceptance by many, especially from the scientific community. This book is written by a true scientist, who backs up his arguments with as much evidence as possible, but without going overboard. His target audience is not the ignorant who refuse to accept evolution regardless of the available evidence. When read in context, and freed from the fear of mass condemnation which haunted Darwin throughout The Origin Of Species we are given a chance to really see Darwin's genius. When reading this I got the impression that Darwin, freed from the narrow minded ideas of his own time, and given a slight push, could have taken the theory of evolution and advanced it to it's modern state. It is true that Darwin's theory has been twisted as a justification of the holocaust, and other racial crimes. However, it must be pointed out that Evolution is not alone, many theories can be twisted to justify evil. Also, there is another way of looking at the ladder theory of evolution, which is the way in which the British empire took it. The British helped out other peoples throughout the world, and the plan at least was to stand them up on their own two feet. There is a very interesting point in thie edition. Karl Marx loved the idea of survival of the fittest. He interpreted man as a being which always advanced to the next level. He therefore concluded that since Capitalism would collapse, something he spent his life writing about, that man would implement the better system, ie Communism. However, Darwin comments that man does not instinctivly advance to the next level, commenting that many "savages" don't advance. Also, neither did the Romans, who were quite content to continue as they were, disproving Marx's supposition. This is an excellant book, which must be read in it's time, not with a modern mind, or with retrospective knowledge of the holocaust.
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