Reviews for Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution

The average rating for Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-05-18 00:00:00 Mark Alsept The controversy - be there any in the first place - is irrelevant. While reading this book on the plane to England the man sitting next to me asked "Is it for, or against?" "Neither," I responded, "it's a biography." Randal Keynes is the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin and he deals with the life of his progenitor in an objective, scholarly and warm manner. In an interview with Diane Rehm, Keynes said that he wanted to portray Charles through the lens of family. He achieves this primarily through Darwin's wife Emma, and the death of their ten-year-old daughter, Annie. His devotion to science never eclipsed his supreme devotion to family. Be you a Christian and a Darwinist naysayer, be sure to develop a keen differentiation between what you have to say about the man's science and what you have to say about the man. Although he spent many years determining that, although he would not deny the existence of a God, he could not subscribe to a belief in Jesus Christ, he was most Christian in character. He had great love for and cared deeply about the welfare of other humans. Outside his work as a scientist and father to ten children he did much to help others help themselves. Those who are "believers" should not look upon Charles Darwin as an object of wholesale derision. As one of history's most iconic figures Darwin is used as epithet, rude caricature, and source of ill-placed humor. His tender nature was wounded by such treatment, so much so, that he delayed the publication of his "Origin of Species" for years, not wanting to subject himself or his family to the scorn that would surely come. The natural world fueled his development of intellect. Fatherhood heightened his sense of humanity. Both taught him to see terrestrial beauty in a way most of us cannot conceive. His heart was continually swelled with the beauty of form, relationship, emotion, and filial connection. He cried bitter tears over the death of his daughter Annie. Tears made more bitter by his inability to have faith in a life after the one he knew. Although faith could not offer him comfort, love could, and as father to ten children he certainly had no paucity of love. Charles profoundly appreciated life; whether that life came as gift from a Maker, or as the stunning chance of natural selection.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-02-19 00:00:00 Joyce Schanel To be honest, I didn't know that much about Darwin going into this, only that he was a Victorian biologist who came up with the theory of evolution. So I knew he was important to the study of humanity. It's devastating to think that he lost a little girl. Unfortunately, Annie wasn't the only young child to die in the Victorian Age (or any age). There's a moment in the book where Keynes (a descendant of Darwin) mentions, briefly, a young "watercress" girl - an urchin selling watercress, from the poorest community in London, and I thought OH HERE WE GO - juxtaposition, which is always so fascinating to me. The poorest of the poor compared to the petted and pampered Darwin children. Except not so fast. It sounds terrible, but I'd rather read more about the watercress girl - Annie is one little girl from a comfortable family. Isn't that the Victorian Ideal? Family values, goodness, devotion, all that jazz? But the grittier side of history, the wretched watercress children... that one throwaway note that Keynes happened to throw in, was just as much a part of Victorian society, though usually over looked or romanticized by historians.