Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species a little over one hundred and fifty years ago, and it changed everything. But many don’t realize that it took Darwin over twenty years to develop his theory, that others had been advocating a similar theory before him, and many others have been developing it since. In A Remarkable Journey, R. Paul Thompson tells the story of evolutionary theory, of the empirical and theoretical discoveries and the endless heated debates that have led to our understanding of it today.
           
As Thompson shows, the tortuous path from Darwin’s brilliant formulation to today’s robust and vibrant model is filled with intrigue. Evolutionary theory has become, in many respects, the center of biological science, and its maturation is an indication of a larger and more sophisticated scientific understanding more generally. But this development was not easily won, a point Thompson makes clear as he takes readers from one stage of the theory’s maturation to the next, detailing all that went into the development of what most of us now take for granted as a basic—and beautiful—principle of life. 

R. Paul Thompson is professor in the Institute of the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Agro-Technology: A Philosophical Introduction and Evolutionary Biology: Conceptual, Ethical, and Religious Issues. 

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