Abstract
David Reznick is one of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists. His book on Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species is given here in a précis, in order to show the underlying approach that he takes towards a work that is a classic in his field. It is shown that Reznick’s interests are less in Darwin for his own sake and more in the importance of Darwin’s ideas for science today.
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Notes
When I refer without qualification to “the book,” I am talking of Reznick’s book not the Origin. All page references, unless otherwise noted, are to Reznick’s book. The same is true of quotations, and, likewise, unattributed chapter references are to Reznick’s book.
All references are taken from those given by Reznick. His list is very much longer than that given here.
This is Charles Lyell’s “grand theory of climate,” introduced in the Principles of Geology, arguing that the surface of the globe is like a giant water bed. As you push one part down through deposition, another part rises up through earthquakes and volcanoes and the like. This kind of overall equilibrium was introduced by Lyell to argue that the temperature of the Earth at any point is not so much a function of distance from the poles but of the distributions of land and sea. Britain is much warmer than expected because of the Gulf Stream. Lyell used this theory to explain away fossil palms around Paris suggesting that the Earth was cooling from an earlier stage. He wanted the Earth staying stable indefinitely, back in time and forward into the future.
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Ruse, M. David N. Reznick’s The “Origin” Then and Now: An Interpretive Guide to the “Origin of Species”: A Précis. Sci & Educ 22, 2295–2316 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-012-9546-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-012-9546-5