Book contents
- Understanding Evolution
- Series page
- Understanding Evolution
- Copyright page
- Reviews
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface: There is More to Resistance to Evolution than Religion
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Public Acceptance of Evolution
- 2 Religious Resistance to Accepting Evolution
- 3 Conceptual Obstacles to Understanding Evolution
- 4 Charles Darwin’s Conceptual Change
- 5 Common Ancestry
- 6 Evolutionary Processes
- 7 Evolutionary Theory and the Nature of Science
- Concluding Remarks
- Summary of Common Misunderstandings
- References
- Figure Credits
- Index
4 - Charles Darwin’s Conceptual Change
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 September 2020
- Understanding Evolution
- Series page
- Understanding Evolution
- Copyright page
- Reviews
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface: There is More to Resistance to Evolution than Religion
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Public Acceptance of Evolution
- 2 Religious Resistance to Accepting Evolution
- 3 Conceptual Obstacles to Understanding Evolution
- 4 Charles Darwin’s Conceptual Change
- 5 Common Ancestry
- 6 Evolutionary Processes
- 7 Evolutionary Theory and the Nature of Science
- Concluding Remarks
- Summary of Common Misunderstandings
- References
- Figure Credits
- Index
Summary
Many people have heard of Charles Darwin (Figure 4.1) and his book On the Origin of Species (hereafter Origin). But I am not very confident that all those people who have something to say about Darwin’s book (both proponents and opponents) have actually read it. The Origin was written by Darwin as an abstract of his species theory for a general audience. It is written with clarity, and it is full of insight and evidence for evolution. Reading the book also provides one with reflections of the particular political, cultural, social, religious, and scientific contexts in which Darwin’s theory was developed and published. Darwin was a man of science; his aim was to convince his readers about natural selection as the process of transmutation (this is how the emergence of a species from a preexisting one was called at the time, whereas the word “evolution” referred to progress and development).
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- Information
- Understanding Evolution , pp. 70 - 89Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020