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The Origin Of Species/The Descent Of Man (Modern Library) (1901)

by Charles Darwin(Favorite Author)

4.04 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0394603982 (ISBN13: 9780394603988)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Random House, Inc.

review 1: Every educated being on the planet should read this book. Especially fundamentalists who will be surprised that Darwin believes in a God - just not a Genie. A brilliant man records his theories based on observation. I'm a Catholic and I thank God my religion readily accepts the obvious instead of maintaining unsupportable mythical positions. God gave us brains to think! We fulfill our destiny through thinking. Also, fundamentalists, we did not evolve from apes or monkeys. It's that we have common ancestors.
review 2: Loyola University, being a Jesuit University in its foundation, served as a training center for what the order called "collegians", most of whom studied theology or philosophy at the graduate level. Consequently, teaching assistantships mos... moretly went to them while seculars like myself were generally assigned research assistantships. Personally, I enjoyed my assignments, although more experience with teaching would have been more helpful, professionally speaking. There was a three year limit on such positions, a limit I was fortunate enough to extend through three school years and three summers thanks to the good offices of the first faculty member I was assigned to, Bill Ellos. Although I worked for several professors during that period, I began and ended with Bill. Indeed, during a number of semesters I had a split assignment, supposedly spending half my time with him, half with another. The years with Bill were occupied by two major topics: Wittgenstein and evolutionary theory. Bill's dissertation had been on the former, his primary teaching experience had been as regards the latter. Working with him led me to read most of Wittgenstein and the most important works of Wallace and Darwin, co-originators of modern evolutionary theory. As regards Wallace and Darwin, Bill basically told me to read as much as possible, starting with the foundational works of both authors, recording and indexing everything either wrote about particular topics relevant to his own work and publications. Naturally, this was quite the pleasant exercise as I read a lot anyway and had long intended to read Darwin. In studying Darwin one would be wise to start chronologically with the Beagle journals, followed by Origin of Species and then The Descent of Man. His autobiography makes for a good terminal overview. The other works, and there are many, tend to be either more personal (his correspondence and the like) or specialized (earthworm studies and the like). less

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