Darwin Retrospective

Yesterday was Darwin Day*. It's now 203 years since the birth of Charles Robert Darwin FRS and 153 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species. The theory of evolution through natural selection is one of the greatest ideas of mankind and one of the greatest scientific achievements of all time.

At university, my bachelors degree was in Genetics and doctorate was in Evolution. This is a small snap shot of the somewhat large stack of books I accumulated over the years.

The Ant and the Peacock is a fantastic history of evolutionary biology from the work of Darwin up to the current date (as published). I nearly bought it when I started my PhD but never got round to it, which is good, as it was my leaving gift when I finished from my colleagues.

Next in the stack is a book my geneticist and population biologist, John Maynard Smith FRS - who I have had the privilege of talking to - though I must say only to offer him a biscuit for his tea.

Next is fellow Leeds alumni, Stephen Jay Gould's Ever Since Darwin. Annoyingly I messed the lecture at Leeds he gave the week of my graduation because no one in Biology bothered to tell the Genetics department he was visiting. I don't always agree with his views, but he is a very good writer, far superior to Dawkins in my opinion.

Next up is Ernst Mayr's One Long Argument which remember reading travelling to and from a conference at McGill University in Canada when I was a student.

Perched right on top, just out of shot is Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene. As an undergraduate I was very proud of having read this book. I use to keep a letter as the book mark that was a reply to letter that I had sent to Richard while I was in secondary school.

* I didn't check the diary in the morning and anyway a Peacock is a more interesting blip for a weekend.