Charles Darwin

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452288886/ref=pe_5050_7289230_pe_snp_886

At Amazon, they're promoting a new paperback version of Darwin's The Descent of Man: The Concise Edition.

Concise is good, considering how Victorian Darwin was. We might describe him as long-winded by today's short-attention-span standards. But there is a lot to like about Darwin. He was an amateur before know-it-all professional experts got the public to believe that experts know everything and ordinary citizens know nothing.

In part because he married his wealthy cousin (they were part of the family that became wealthy making Wedgewood china), Darwin had the luxury of being able to devote himself to interesting projects without having to worry about getting paid for them. He had his basic idea at a relatively young age, like most scientists, apparently. But he mulled over the idea and let it gestate. He spent a long time gathering evidence and collecting his thoughts into a well articulated and coherent statement. In part Origin of Species is so long because he had collected so much data to support the thesis. Our country would be better off if we had more people who devoted themselves to collecting data to support interesting theories. It doesn't happen often now. Maybe it happened rarely in the past, too. Anyway, I think we lack people like Darwin who are careful about making bold assertions and who make bold assertions after gathering a lot of evidence. I admire Darwin.



http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2300
www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/ - 10k -
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-descent-of-man/
ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/darwin/charles/d22d/

This site purports to be the complete works of Charles Darwin online: http://darwin-online.org.uk/contents.html