i'm reading On the Origin of Species ...

[reACTIONary]

... by Means of Natural Selection.

This has got to be the best piece of scientific literature ever written! First - it is amazingly relevant - the very FIRST book written on evolution and it is the very BEST introduction to its subject! Second, it is a completely amazing tour-de-force of scientific thought and reasoning. It shows how science RELAY works. Third, totally and completely REVOLUTIONARY in its impact on human life and thought. A true paradigm shift, al la Kuhn, but within a cradle of slowly accreted, detailed, obsessive observation.

Fantastic!

[exboyfil]

1. Certain books/papes are seminal in their field

"On the Origin of Species" rates right up there with Newton's "Principia", Einstein's Remarkable Year (1905), or Maxwell's "A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism".

It should be remembered that Darwin's hand was forced to publish because Wallace was on the same track as him, and Darwin's friends encouraged him to jointly announce with Wallace. Wallace took it graciously.

Given the age in which it is written, it is a remarkable book. Darwin was ahead of his time in his writing ability as well. He was direct and while it is far from the last word, you can't help from getting a chill from Darwin's Tree of Life figure see at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(biology)#Darwin.27s_Tree_of_Life.

[alittlelark]

2. Dr Staski had us read it in 1984.... (anth. degree)

It is still one of the most mind altering books I have ever read.

[reACTIONary]

3. Chilling and Mind altering...

...it is. I'm reading it as an eBook (from Project Gutenberg) and they didn't include the "tree of life" diagram. I read through the entire section that references it without it! Thanks for the link! Here is Darwin's diagram: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Darwin_divergence.jpg

[SheilaT]

4. Another reason why real books

can still be better than the electronic versions.