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From: eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya)
Newsgroups: net.bio
Subject: Darwin
Message-ID: <1185@ames.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 9-Oct-85 03:20:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.1185
Posted: Wed Oct  9 03:20:05 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 21:21:27 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 27

Two of my spare time books have recently included Darwin's Origin of
Species and S. J. Gould's Ontogeny and Phylogeny.  What is surprising
about Darwin is that he anticipated most of his critics and include
three chapters about problems with his ideas.  He was quite critical of
himself.  What makes this surprising is that his critics have not
really changed their arguments over the course of 100 years.  Also
less surprising is the lack of Darwin followers to neglient his comments
about what constitutes a species and what is a variation.  It appears
Darwin was quite hesisitant (sp) to say humans were a "higher"
life form when compared to other animals, again unlike the Social
Darwinists.

Gould's books are now quite popular, but I think his textbook contains
greater content than his more popular books.  He explores many
popularizations of the concept of evolution and how it has affected
Western thinking.

Upon reading Darwin in light of the current CA textbook controversy,
my impression is to forget all the texts between Darwin and Gould
and just use Darwin since he covers both sides of his argument quite
well.

From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  {hplabs,ihnp4,dual,hao,decwrl,allegra}!ames!aurora!eugene
  emiya@ames-vmsb