Everyone seems to be familiar with it, but I've never met anyone who has actually read it. If you have, could you sum up what it says? I've been told that it has little to do with evolution.
2007-03-26 05:21:23 · 7 answers · asked by David 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
I have, many times...
In short:
It is observed that by selective breeding mankind can influence the physical characteristics of animals (lots of stuff about pidgeons) it therefore stands to reason that similar things can happen in nature over time if some variations are better suited to their environment than others. This would explain why, just as man has made a million types of pidgeon, nature has made a million types of beetle.
2007-03-26 05:32:48 · answer #1 · answered by LabGrrl 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I read it, but not recently, about 40 years ago as an undergraduate. It is all about evolution. Darwin summed up evidence from artificial breeding, geology, comparative morphology, biogeography, species diversification on islands and ecology to make a case for evolution by means of natural selection. He was handicapped by the limited understanding of genetics of his time. In the mid 1800s it was thought that heredity worked by blending of parental characteristics. Now we know more about mechanisms of heredity, including how evolution works on a level of molecular genetics.
2007-03-26 12:39:48 · answer #2 · answered by Dendronbat Crocoduck 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Wind-up right? Or are you buried in the Bible belt where the book spontaneously combusts as soon as it crosses the border into Kansas?
I've read it. I know hundreds of people who've read it. I've written books about it.
Funnily enough, I don't think I'd be too far wrong if I said that almost everyone who's read The Origin has also read the Bible. Can the reverse be said to be true?
2007-03-26 12:26:26 · answer #3 · answered by Bad Liberal 7 · 4⤊ 1⤋
No one has actually read it. Loudmouth atheists just quote what they've seen quoted a million times. You see the title appear quite frequently, but never anything actually from the book. Atheists just know it has something to do with Darwin, so it makes them sound scientific
2007-03-26 12:26:18 · answer #4 · answered by TheMadLith 2 · 0⤊ 4⤋
i'm actually just starting to read it, so i can't help you out now. but i do know that it doesn't talk about man's evolution, but Darwin's "Descent of Man" talks more about that.
2007-03-26 12:28:06 · answer #5 · answered by The Tourist 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
My wife has. But then she was a Biology major. I tried, it was very hard to read.
2007-03-26 12:31:06 · answer #6 · answered by Alex 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
No
2007-03-26 12:25:23 · answer #7 · answered by BJD 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋