Darwin's Origin of Species and its Reception

5ii2006 - interesting article on the moral implications of Dawiniianism from the Washington Post.

Readings for the meeting of February 3, 2006, in 100 Old Botany. Ronald Numbers, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be joining us. Registration is required as seating is limited and a light dinner will be served. Please reply to Barb Edwards to register.

(Right click on the links below to Save these PDF files to your computer)

Here are two readings Susan has offered for the Numbers' SSRG:

Here is the full text of the Dover decision. It's fairly long, but you can scan over the introduction and conclusion.

Here is the opening and introduction of Origin of Species

• note: I was mistaken about the prefaces changing from edition to edition; changes were woven into the text in a way not easy to extract for readings. As Ernst Mayer put it, "One can summarize {the changes in the 6 editions} by saying that there were no major alterations in the second, third, and fourth editions. The greatest number of changes occurs in the sixth edition, including the important refutation of Mivart's Genesis of Species (1871). Yet it is difficult to find any drasticaly new ideas in the added pages.... Indeed, the 1859 edition of the Origin is a far more mature and finished product than is usually conceeded." [intro to Harvard facsimilie of 1st ed. (1964)]

Also, I am providing a couple chapters in PDF form:

(note, these are housed on my own website to preserve the wiki file space -- for copyright protection, all are password protected PDFs, and the password is the same as for this wiki - I'll link to the titles above when I get them PDF-ized). --Steve

Reading Notes