Resenhas - The Origin of Species

JPHoppe 02/06/2021

"There is grandeur in this view of life"
A few selected books can be classified as "genre-defining". Only a handful of then, however, are the foundation stones of entire fields of knowledge. This is the case of the "Origin of Species", and its role in the evolutionary theory and amalgamating the entire life sciences.

Despite the name, Darwin wasn't committed to find the origin of the species. Actually, he does not give a clear cut definition of what a species is, and frequently its usage is interspersed with varieties, races, and other such things. The definition of what a species is was a problem in Darwin's time, and remains a problem now, as no single definition fits all cases. However, that is not important. Darwin's book could as well be called "In the Origin of Variation", because it's the variation among life beings the focus of his "long argument".

Basically, the entire book is one long argument, divided in fourteen chapters (the last one is a recapitulation and concluding remarks). Based on a few observed facts, such as parents producing more offspring that the environment is capable of sustaining, variation among characters in said offspring, and said characters being heritable, Darwin proposes a mechanism that selects individuals, generation by generation, and that this process leads to the diversity of life. First, he compares with the actions of artificial selection, creating variation among a parental stock under domestication. As there is no agent behind the first, he calls it "Natural Selection".

The implications are huge. First, it shows that variation among life beings are not the product of Creator of any kind. Second, it implies that if groups of species are derived from a common ancestor, this line goes back in time until a single common ancestor for all life beings. Third, if it is valid for all species, it is valid for humans as well.

It goes without saying that this book started a revolution. A revolution not confined to the life sciences, or the scientific community, but to the human society as a whole. It was cherished, it was bashed, it was attacked, it was defended. For a while, it was even eclipsed. It stood the test of time, the scrutiny of science, and proved to be the foundation stone for the entire Biological Sciences. As the geneticist Dobzhansky said, "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution".

I must add that all aspiring biologists should read this book, if possible in two moments: at the beginning of their studies, and just before the graduation. It is not an easy reading. Darwin's style in this book is very dry for the most part, and surely demands more concentration than other popular science books, there and now. This pattern is not constant, however, and certain parts are more fluid. Most probably, a consequence of its rushed writing. But this is another story by itself.