I learned so much from Dr. Carol Anelli’s presentation on Tuesday. When we think about species and evolution, we automatically think of Charles Darwin. I’ve never really thought about what the previous ideas were on the origins of species before Darwin published his book and ideas. Thus, I was intrigued when Dr. Anelli spoke about Plato’s idea that species have a perfect essence and that they are immutable; in general, variations were thought as being unimportant. Now a days, this goes against everything we know, but just imagining how Darwin was going against everyone and everything at the time of his publication of “On the Origin of Species” makes me admire him even more. I’ve always admired Darwin, but I’ve never spent the time learning about his personal life. Thus, I really appreciated that Dr. Anelli went into such detail about Darwin, from his upbringing and family to his voyages on the HMS Beagle. Overall, I learned a great deal from Dr. Anelli and might read “On the Origin of Species” on my own time and consider focusing on Darwin for my final class project.
That would be great if you did. I read the book a few years ago and racked up a large library fine trying to get through it. It’s not that it’s not an interesting book. It certainly is. And Darwin was a very good writer. It’s more that it’s just packed so full of ideas that it caused me personally to move slowly through it. I’d be interested to know your experience.