Rereading Darwin

Good article. If you want more, rather than reading Darwin, I suggest Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea, which gives a broader, more modern view of the importance of evolution. Especially of "variation and selection", the core ideas of Darwin, and without a lot of frequently irrelevant, for the general reader, biological details.

Whenever I read about Darwin I'm impressed by his commitment to a pretty disruptive idea in the face of substantial criticism. Also interesting that he (over)worked himself to the detriment of his health and relationships but left behind a pretty amazing legacy.

Not surprised pg is interested in him as a subject!

The essence of the Enlightenment is shown where Bishop Ussher looks to scriptures to confirm while Darwin, Kelvin et alia, observe.

>Both our life spans and our five senses are inadequate to the task of comprehension: The most powerful mechanism of organic change lies well beyond our everyday experience.

This is mostly true, but there are some cool things (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_exp...) that have been done. (You might recall that Lenski's team saw E. coli evolve the ability to eat citrate: http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2008/06/02/a_new_step_in_evolut...)