One long argument

Few scientific ideas have changed how people see the living world as much as evolution. Darwin's Origin of Species, first published in 1859, set off a controversy that has never fully faded, and modern biologists still return to it constantly. Many current debates in the life sciences trace back to ambiguities in Darwin's writing or to questions he could not settle with the biology of his day.

This book sets out Darwin's scientific thought in clear terms, including the several distinct theories he developed and the evidence and reasoning behind each. It also follows the changes that kept Darwinism workable through the twentieth century. Ernst Mayr, a German-born evolutionary biologist widely regarded as one of the most important figures in his field, places Darwin alongside his contemporaries and successors, among them Alfred Russel Wallace, Thomas Henry Huxley, August Weismann and Asa Gray, so that their disagreements and influences become easier to follow.

The author shows how Darwin rejected the idea that each species had been separately created, and argued that all life shares a common origin. He challenged the view that humans stand apart from nature, proposing instead that they follow the same processes as every other living thing. He also replaced the picture of a flawlessly arranged, gentle natural order with one shaped by competition for survival, and he gave chance and individual variation a central place in scientific reasoning.

Written for students, biologists and general readers curious about the history of ideas, the book explains these historical questions and controversies in plain language, using a modern perspective to make them understandable.