The Young Charles Darwin

by Keith Thomson

• ISBN13: 9780300167894
• ISBN10: 030016789X
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2010-10-19
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

What sort of person was the young naturalist who developed an evolutionary idea so logical, so dangerous, that it has dominated biological science for a century and a half? How did the quiet and shy Charles Darwin produce his theory of natural selection when many before him had started down the same path but failed? This book is the first to inquire into the range of influences and ideas, the mentors and rivals, and the formal and informal education that shaped Charles Darwin and prepared him for his remarkable career of scientific achievement. Keith Thomson concentrates on Darwin's early life as a schoolboy, a medical student at Edinburgh, a theology student at Cambridge, and a naturalist aboard the Beagle on its famous five-year voyage. Closely analyzing Darwin'sAutobiographyand scientific notebooks, the author draws a fully human portrait of Darwin for the first time: a vastly erudite and powerfully ambitious individual, self-absorbed but lacking self-confidence, hampered as much as helped by family, and sustained by a passion for philosophy and logic. Thomson's account of the birth and maturing of Darwin's brilliant theory is fascinating for the way it reveals both his genius as a scientist and the human foibles and weaknesses with which he mightily struggled.

Author Biography

Keith Thomson is professor emeritus of natural history, University of Oxford, and senior research fellow, the American Philosophical Society. He is also the author of more than 200 scientific papers and twelve books. Thomson lives in Philadelphia.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Beginnings
Falmouth	p. 3
Antecedents	p. 10
Childhood	p. 22
Edinburgh	p. 32
Robert Jameson	p. 41
Mentors and Models	p. 60
Lamarckians	p. 71
Cambridge Undergraduate	p. 84
Savant
More Serious Things	p. 101
Reading Science	p. 116
Geology Again	p. 126
HMS Beagle	p. 131
Epiphanies	p. 145
Storms and Floods	p. 151
Natural Selection
First Thoughts on Evolution	p. 175
Notebook B	p. 191
Moving Forward, Living a Lie	p. 204
Finding His Place	p. 219
First Drafts	p. 227
Crisis and Resolution	p. 239
Notes	p. 245
Index	p. 267
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