Author: Eugene Byrne
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
Rating: WORTHY!
Very neatly illustrated by Simon Gurr.
This is a remarkable and charming graphic novel briefly explaining how Charles Darwin arrived at the Theory of Evolution, and telling us something about his life. It’s told accurately and to a significant depth, without going into way too much detail, and it’s told with a great sense of humor.
As a young man, Darwin was rather rudderless. He was pointed in the direction of family tradition (for men) which was medicine, but he couldn’t stand the sight of blood and had to leave the OR during one surgery he was supposed to be witnessing. Of course, medicine was far more of an experimental – if not just plain mental – endeavor back in his day than it is now, and far more bloody and painful (there was no anesthesia). Perhaps Darwin was wise in deciding that he would much rather spend his time taking nature rambles and looking at beetles, plants, and life in tidal pools.
His father determined that he should become a clergyman in default of a medical career, and though he was religious, Darwin wasn’t interested in that, either. He did manage, with some help, to complete his schooling, but before he had a chance to lose his way in the church, he had the opportunity to take a sea voyage on a ship called The Beagle. The idea was to finish mapping South America’s coast line and estuaries for trade and naval use.
The voyage was supposed to last two years, but Darwin was gone for five, and when he returned, he was quite a celebrity in scientific circles, having documented geology and life, both plant an animal, extensively, and sent back hundreds and hundreds of specimens, some of them live, along with letters and reports. One of these live specimens was a giant tortoise from the Galapagos, which ended up in Australia and died only in 2006.
The idea of organisms changing over time is inescapable to anyone with eyes and a decent amount of smarts. It’s evident even in living species, and it’s blatantly evident from the fossil record, but because of the power of the church, it was very much a taboo subject. Nonetheless, the evidence forced it into the light, and Darwin wasn’t the first person ever to think about this. He was the first to marshal so great a wealth of evidence, supported by a working, testable explanation, that the subject could no longer be ignored by the populace, dismissed by scientists, or repressed by religious authorities.
This book describes his life leading up to the Beagle voyage, the voyage itself, and the years of hesitation and agonizing over the theory before he finally published his land-mark work late in 1859. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species… was a best-seller, and was read not only by scientists and the wealthy, but by ordinary people for whom it was an expensive purchase. When he learned that everyday people were reading it, Darwin even produced a “mass market” version – using smaller print so it cost less to produce and buy.
This graphic novel explains lucidly and accurately what the theory was all about, and details some of the extensive evidence that supports it. It also cuts the legs out from under a lot of the lies which young-Earth creationists have been forced to ‘create’ in their attempts at character-assassination of Darwin over the years, as they realized their attempts at ‘science’ have failed dismally and repeatedly. I thoroughly recommend this book.
