The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution, David Quammen

The dis-oriented author is a creationist. I believe in a literal six day creation as described in the Genesis account. I believe that man was specially created and God breathed in him the breath of life. Even so, I knew I had to read David Quammen's excellent The Reluctant Mr. Darwin.

I have been a Quammen fan for many years. I used to rush each month to pickup my Outdside Magazine to read his column. Quammen writes primarily on biological topics. I have always found his writing to be interesting and informative, even though he and I look at the natural world from completely different  perspectives.

This book is a sympathetic biography of Charles Darwin beginning after the Beagle voyage to the end of his life. The title results from Quammen's focus on the twenty year time span between Darwin's formulation of his theory and the publishing of The Origin of Species.

This book review is a creationist reviewing a biography by an evolutionary apologist of the father of evolution.

Why this book at this time? This book is an attempt to answer some of the criticism leveled against evolution by the newly empowered Intelligent Design movement. Throughout the book Quammen makes reference to twenty-first century evangelicals. I still found the book fascinating.

Quammen relates the various areas of research that led Darwin to believe that species mutate (evolution) and further that natural selection is the mechanism. Quammen puts Darwin in his time and environment. When Darwin began his work, Mendel's idea of dominant and recessive traits was unknown. When Mendel published Darwin was quick to incorporate the ideas.

The book also talks about Darwin the man. Darwin was often sickly and appearing in public only made it worse. One of the crucial points in the narrative is when a young adventurer named Wallace sent Darwin a draft of a manuscript with an independently developed theory of evolution. Darwin, by now an established scientist, new that he  had come up with the theory first but was placed in an ethical dilemma. Wallace was half a world away in Indonesia. Darwin, ever the Victorian gentleman, came up with a solution whereby his and Wallace's work would be presented to a scientific society together.

Interestingly, while Darwin gradually came to no longer believe in God. Or as Quammen puts it, to no longer believe in special creation. That is that man is not somehow special among the animals, with an eternal soul, dominion over the earth and uniquely able to commune with the creator. At the same time, his wife remained devout and feared for his soul.

Darwin, understood that his work would start a revolution in science. Quamman says of his Darwin's Origin of Species:

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin gets 5 of 5 dis-oriented smileys

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