Back to The Origin

value, Darwinian evolution is no different from the other epistemological entities mentioned above, in that one can fully understand evolution without ever having read a single line of Darwin's own writings. This is because what Darwin laid out as a theory has become superseded by the empirical confirmation and theoretical expansion of the concept of evolution — in particular, its mathematical formulation and its unification with genetics. So, if we can understand evolution perfectly well without having to read Darwin, what would have happened if Darwin hadn't been born? Of course, we would not have The Origin. But, given the fortunate historical situation, it can be comfortably argued that Alfred Russel Wallace would have stepped in and, as it were, filled that 'empty niche'. To what extent he would have done so, however, and how 'Wallaceism' would have been different may be a point of debate over a drink at this year's many celebrations; after all, Wallace, surpassed by Darwin, never bothered to formulate his theory in full. This uncertainty perhaps betrays the notion that The Origin is somewhat of a hybrid; on the one hand, seen in retrospect, it has characteristics of a scientific discovery in that it builds Back to The Origin Features on empirical data and becomes corroborated and extended by further work. So, even with Wallace or some unknown taking Darwin's place, it is safe to say that by now we would have an idea how the different kinds of organism diversified. On the other hand, what Darwin did is in a sense not so different from what, say, Kant did, in that he erected a theoretical framework aimed at explaining the world and created concepts that were at the time largely abstract, such as natural selection. After all, in Darwin's time, biology was far away from being the empirical, experimental science it is today and was, in its reliance on observation, description and reasoning, much more like philosophy or history — which is why it used to be referred to as 'natural philosophy' or 'natural history'. So, what about today's actual relevance of Darwin's book itself, in practical terms? Though it still is common practice to directly or indirectly refer to Darwin's writings in the scientific literature, is there actual value in treating them, in particular The Origin, as if it they were philosophical works that ought to be read in the original? Is it …