Book Review: Originals selected

Published on Thursday 29 January 2009 16:48

THIS YEAR MARKS THE 200TH anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, his groundbreaking book on evolution.

To commemorate both this revolutionary work and the life of its author, a whole swathe of books on the world's most famous naturalist are being published, ranging from pocket guides to poetry, art books to biographies to scientific discussions of his legacy.

Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection is amazingly simple and astoundingly beautiful. Basically, favourable inherited traits become more common in successive generations of a species because individuals with those traits are more likely to survive and reproduce. Over time this leads organisms to adapt to their environment, eventually leading to the emergence of new species.

This idea, encompassing all life on the planet, was described by eminent American philosopher Daniel Dennett as "the single best idea anyone has ever had", and yet one and a half centuries after Darwin published it, debate still rages. With the modern rise of religious ideas such as creationism and intelligent design, Darwin's evolution seems increasingly under threat, despite overwhelming evidence to back it up, and that perceived attack by the forces of unreason in part fuels most of the current crop of books.

It's certainly the driving force behind Jerry A Coyne's excellent Why Evolution is True (Oxford, 14.99). Coyne is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, and has a lifetime's experience of teaching evolutionary genetics. Worried by the rise of creationism in the United States, Coyne has set out in clear, concise prose the evidence, collected both in terms of the fossil record and developments in genetics and DNA, all of which back up Darwin's original idea that today's species have evolved from common ancestors.

The doubts about evolution in some circles of American society baffle Coyne. As he points out, no-one doubts the existence of atoms or black holes, yet the evidence for evolution is far more compelling and accessible in everyday life. Lucid, thorough and eminently readable, this book is a delight from start to finish.

Steve Jones is on a similar tack in Darwin's Island (Little Brown, 20). Jones is professor of genetics at University College London and has written on evolution and Darwin before, and here he does a good job of revealing the extent of Darwin's work outside of The Origin of Species, as well as highlighting the way in which modern scientific research in DNA and genomes has consistently bolstered Darwin's natural selection principle.

Darwin's Island is subtitled "The Galapagos in the Garden of England", and with it Jones is on a mission to re-evaluate Darwin's legacy. The Origin of Species was only one of 19 books Darwin published, and the trip that inspired it, to the Galapagos on HMS Beagle, took up only one tenth of his career. Having returned, Darwin never left Britain again, instead working tirelessly at his home, Down House in Kent, developing theories and searching for evidence, analysing everything from barnacles to earthworms, to expressions of human emotion.

Jones is a fine science writer but his enthusiasm sees him occasionally bogged down in numbers and examples, and he sometimes drifts from the focus of Darwin's work; but overall this is a fine attempt to reposition his best-known work in the context of his lifetime's achievements.

If Jones's detailed treatment of Darwin's work is a tad too involved, you could do worse than dip into the pocket-sized Charles Darwin: Origins and Arguments (Pocket Essentials, 9.99) by Bill Price. Succinct and no-nonsense, this little title looks at key moments in Darwin's life and the context of the scientific and philosophical thinking of the period that led him towards his discoveries. In fewer than 150 pages it goes on to look at how ideas about evolution have developed over time, as well as briefly outlining the continuing controversy in a dispassionate and even-handed way.

That scientific and philosophical context of Darwin's life is at the heart of one of the finest and most intriguing books on offer at the moment, Darwin's Sacred Cause (Allen Lane, 25) by Adrian Desmond and James Moore. The authors have already received considerable acclaim for their biography of Darwin, but this fascinating new book looks to unearth the experiences and conditions that drove him on in his work, namely his witnessing and violent opposition to slavery.

Darwin was born into a family with an abolitionist and humanitarian tradition, and he was deeply against slavery. At the time of his working on evolution, and specifically while travelling on HMS Beagle, he was disgusted by the appalling treatment of slaves he saw all around him. Apologists for slavery argued with spurious scientific backing that blacks and whites had been created separately, with whites being superior.

Darwin refuted this vehemently, and Darwin's Sacred Cause coherently lays out the case that it was his moral outrage that drove him on in his work, in an attempt to prove that all men, and indeed apes, had a common ancestor. Interestingly, Darwin shied away from addressing human evolution in The Origin of Species, perhaps fearing it was too controversial, but he did finally tackle the subject in 1871 with The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, a book that cemented his reputation as a hugely influential thinker.

Desmond and Moore take a close look at The Descent of Man, and have trawled newly released archives of family letters, diaries and other documents to bolster their case, displaying an insight and verve that is nothing short of compelling.

Slightly more tangential to Darwin's legacy are two books that take a poetic and artistic look at aspects of the naturalist's life. Darwin, A Life in Poems (Chatto & Windus, 12.99) sees acclaimed poet and great-great-granddaughter of Darwin, Ruth Padel, take a more personal look at the man and his work. Taking family correspondence as a starting point, Padel imagines the more intimate life of her ancestor, his relationships, his family and his work, and does so through a uniquely personal perspective. It's a strange collection, and occasionally hamstrung by dogged adherence to Darwin's own words, but it's undeniably moving in places, particularly when dealing with his relationships with his wife and children.

More detached is The Voyage of the Beagle (Conway, 20) by James Taylor. A large-format, glossy hardback coffee-table book, it concentrates on the survey ship's five-year circumnavigation of the globe from 1831 to 1836, combining paintings and drawings with maps and charts, as well as providing insight into the voyage via snippets of first-hand account from both Darwin and the vessel's captain, Robert FitzRoy. Focusing as much on the captain as the naturalist, it makes a good fist of conveying the adventurous spirit of the times, the hardships endured, as well as the excitement of new discoveries – and the lush pictorial element helps convey that this was a scientific and navigational project at the cutting-edge of its day.

If all this choice has left you wondering where to start, you could do worse than read the work of the great man himself. The Origin of Species and The Voyage of the Beagle (Vintage, 8.99) by Charles Darwin is a nicely packaged joint reissue of the two classic works that made his name. The Voyage of the Beagle is as much a piece of travel writing as it is a work of scientific merit, and it pales rather in comparison with its bolder, more ambitious successor. But for all the groundbreaking ideas contained within, the first thing that strikes you upon reading The Origin of Species is how contemporary it feels. Darwin's style is readable and unfussy, and he comes across as a kind-hearted, inquisitive and affectionate polymath with a deep empathy for other living beings and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Amidst all the celebratory hoopla surrounding this anniversary, it's worth reading, at least to remind yourself what all the fuss is about.