Jeff Koeppen's Reviews > Darwin's Origin of Species: A Biography

This is one of nine books in the "Books That Changed the World" series, and the second one I've read after Hitchens' Thomas Paine book Declaration of the Rights of Man. These short books are great introductions to the books they cover and the circumstances resulting in to them being penned, but maybe a bit of a review if one is already familiar with them.

Being a Darwin devotee (made the pilgrimage and spent a day at the Down House in southern England and visited his grave at Westminster Abbey in 2018) I found Janet Browne's take on On the Origin of Species mostly review but for the most part it was well done and she touched on most of the key points of what led up to the publishing of Darwin's book and the after effects such as push back from creationists (still an issue to this day - 74 years later!).

This was really well written and researched and is fully notated, and contains a nice long list of sources and suggestions for further reading (including three more of the author's books) along with full index. That being said, I was surprised to read an error in the second sentence. She got Darwin's birthday wrong, stating he was born in "April 1809" when his birthday was February 12th, 1809. How did this error make it through to the final edition? Another complaint I have is I thought relatively too much ink was devoted to social Darwinism and Eugenics.

Especially good was the author's portrayal of Darwin the man - his personality, relationships with fellow scientist friends, and health problems. Also excellent was the long final chapter "Legacy" in which the author explains how scientific advancements since On the Origin of Species was published support what Darwin theorized in the mid-19th century: discovery of DNA and understanding what drives heredity, advances in molecular biology and chemistry, better understanding of human behavior, etc. Evolution is now a scientific fact, bolstered by scientific knowledge Darwin had no way of knowing.

Browne's book was published in 2006 and unfortunately there is still push back against evolution from creationists, maybe even more now 17 years later, due to the current rise of anti-intellectualism in the United States. I happen to know a middle school science teacher in a conservative district who gets push back from parents when they learn that their students are being taught evolution. The same parents who believe the supernatural, laws of physics-violating tales in their holy books at the drop of a hate but reject modern scientific facts.

I would recommend this to anyone not that familiar with Darwin's ideas and his journey in writing On the Origin of Species as well as it's repercussions. It's a quick read and is a good high level introduction to the greatest book ever written.