Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species by Dr. Michael Leach and Dr. Meriel Lland

This oversize nonfiction picture book explores Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and his ideas about the natural world that were published in his book, On The Origin of Species.

In this book, evolution is defined as "the way that living things here on Earth have changed and continue to change." It "explains why there are so many different kinds of plants and animals." This explanation comes from Charles Darwin who described his ideas in his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, published in 1859. 

This nonfiction picture book sets out to describe how naturalist Charles Darwin came to develop the idea of evolution and natural selection and explain his "big idea".

After identifying some of the great scientific thinkers in the late 1700's and early 1800's, the authors describe the early life of Charles Robert Darwin who was born in 1809. His love of studying the natural world led him to leave the study of medicine and enroll in courses to become an Anglican minister. He obtained the position of a naturalist on the HMS Beagle and journeyed to the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of South America.

 

In 1835, Darwin studied the wildlife on the various islands of the Galapagos, making records and collecting samples. When he returned home to England, Darwin married Emma Wedgwood in January, 1839. They had ten children. Over the next sixteen years, Darwin came to develop a theory as to how species change, by passing on small variations that made them better adapted to their environment. These traits eventually became common to all members of that species. This process was named "natural selection" by Darwin. Another British man, Alfred Russel Wallace also came to have a similar theory and sent his idea to Darwin.

In 1858, their idea of the theory of natural selection was presented at a scientific meeting in London. Wallace admitted that this idea was first Darwin's. This radical idea was very controversial leading to many public debates. Darwin published his theory in a book titled, On the Origin of Species in 1859. In 1871 he further developed his ideas and published a book on the evolution of humans called The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Because Darwin considered humans as part of the animal kingdom, he believed humans shared a common ancestor with apes.

Darwin continued his thinking and research all his life, writing fourteen books and corresponding with many people regarding his ideas. He died in 1882 and is buried in Westminster Abbey, London.

From this point on, examples of natural selection in action are featured. Other concepts such as "common descent", "survival of the fittest", "the struggle for life", and sexual selection are presented. How island life forms unique organisms, Darwin's tree of life and the interdependence of species are also discussed. The authors also incorporate pages about convergent evolution, the fossil record, the rise of birds, plate tectonics and how this has affected life on Earth, and some of Darwin's ideas that ultimately proved to be wrong.

Discussion

Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species offers young readers a short biography of Charles Darwin, the British naturalist who posed the theory of evolution and natural selection. Darwin's ideas on how natural selection works to help species adapt better to their environment and his theory of evolution - how life on Earth may have developed over hundreds of millions of years are also discussed.

This book begins by offering some key definitions about evolution, stating that "People and species of plants and animals also change bit by bit over many generations. These processes are gradual and are the basis of evolution - or how living things change over time."  This definition is somewhat vague and doesn't explain what Charles Darwin's theory of evolution has come to embody today. The Merriam-Webster definition is probably more accurate: "the scientific theory explaining the appearance of new species and varieties through the action of various biological mechanisms (as natural selection or genetic mutation)"

It's important for children's science books to strive to be accurate. Darwin brilliantly recognized that living organisms adapt to small changes in their environment so they can better survive. He was able to  describe this with his detailed observations of various animals on the Galapagos. Drs Leach and Lland do an excellent job of presenting this evidence by describing Darwin's finches from the Galapagos and the rainforest frogs in Thailand. 

But Darwin also had another part of his theory which the authors describe as  "Evolution also helps us to understand how groups of animals and plants become extinct, and how new groups emerged - including humans."  In other words, Darwin believed that evolution could explain how new species come about, a process he believed happened gradually, through small changes over a vast period of time. To prove this many, transitional forms must be found to show the development from one species to a completely new one. As Leach and Lland do mention, transitional fossils are not common, making such proof difficult. They present the evolution of whales from a land ancestor  called Indohyus as one example and also the belief today, that birds are the descendants of dinosaurs based on the discovery of dinosaur fossils with feathers, and what is considered an intermediary, Archaeopteryx. 

Leach and Lland also present some of the problems Darwin considered but was unable to solve during his lifetime. One was how plants and animals passed on their characteristics to their offspring. We now know since the discovery of DNA in 1953, that traits are passed on through segments of DNA called genes which are inherited from the parents of an organism. Genes describe protein chains, amino acid by amino acid.  During reproduction DNA is copied but often the duplication is not perfect. These flaws lead to mutations. Most major mutations are fatal, as the work of the German geneticists Christiane Nusslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus demonstrated. When Darwin posed evolution, he knew nothing about DNA, amino acids, proteins and inheritance. Had he known, would he have believed that random mutations that occurred early enough in development to affect the body plan of the organism - could drive macro-evolution? Today, many microbiologists and geneticists understand that minor mutations do not create significant evolutionary change as Darwin proposed. And major mutations are usually fatal to an organism. Leach and Lland describe DNA and confidently state that these mutations which they describe as "faults" are what "...create the variants that drive evolution." They do not explore the question that microbiology presents regarding evolution: since genes contain information that is coded in various combinations of the twenty amino acids, where did that biochemical information initially originate? Did the information come from random mutations? Or from some other source? 

The second problem Darwin couldn't solve was "how a species could appear in different places around the Earth." We now know that the Earth is a dynamic system in which the crust is made up of  tectonic plates that are constantly moving. The continents as we currently know them were arranged very differently in the past, into one supercontinent called Gondwana.

One interesting spread in the book is titled The Slow March of Evolution in which Earth's history is presented in the form of a twenty-four hour clock instead of using the geologic time scale such as Cambrian, Ordovician etc . The appearance of different forms of life are assigned a time ( for example, 04.20 First Single Cell Life appears). One issue with Darwin's theory of evolution is how to explain things like the incredible emergence of life at the beginning of the Cambrian Period - known as the "Cambrian explosion." Using the clock instead of the geologic time scale means this "explosion of new life forms" is not as readily apparent.

Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species offers an overview on the topic of evolution that may encourage young readers to further explore the ideas featured here.  This book could have been made much more engaging with the use of photographs of some of the major characters such as Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, and Samuel Wilberforce, photographs of the Galapagos Islands and of the unique animals such as the long nosed horn frog mentioned in the book, as well as the use of maps and the geologic time scale. There is a small glossary at the back which could have been expanded. In addition, there is no information offered on the authors or their credentials. 

Book Details:

Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species by Dr. Michael Leach and Dr. Meriel Lland

London: Arcturus Publishing Ltd.     2024

64 pp.

Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species by Sabina Radeva

Up until the mid 19th century, it was generally believed that all life on earth was created within the last few thousands of years,  at the same time and had generally remained unchanged. However some scientists began to consider that animals may have changed over time to their present form.

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist who enjoyed observing the natural world. During a voyage around the world aboard the HMS Beagle, Darwin began to form ideas about life on Earth based on his observations which he accurately recorded.

After twenty years of writing and researching, Darwin published those ideas in 1859 in a book titled, On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection. He defined species as "groups of living things that look alike and can have babies together." Members of a species might have "variations" such as different colouring but overall they resemble each other. A perfect example are pigeons which Darwin believe descended from the rock pigeon but now have many variations.

Variations can occur through domestication, from specialized breeding programs. For example, farmers can breed cows who make more milk. In the natural world, variation also occurs. Darwin had visited the Galapagos Islands and noted that finches on the island had variations in the shape of their beaks, allowing them to eat specific kinds of fruit. For example, some finches had large beaks for cracking open large seeds, while others had long and sharp beaks to eat only cactus flowers.

Although animals and plants can often easily reproduce and have numerous offspring, it is difficult to survive in the wild. Those best adapted are the ones who succeed. Many adaptations help a species survive and over time small adaptations add up leading to new species better adapted to a new environment.

Darwin did not know how life began on Earth but he believed, based on his observations, that life on our planet is constantly adapting and changing. He called this process "natural selection" which "makes living things better adapted to where they live. Once animals with more useful traits appear, they will compete and replace those that are less adapted."  Darwin also believed that all living things were interconnected in a vast tree of life.

His theory, unique and earth-shattering in the 19th century, also led scientists to ask even more questions? If this process was happening, where was the fossil evidence for the transitional forms as adaptations led to more significant changes? Darwin felt that this could be explained by the fact that the creation of fossils is a difficult process requiring a perfect set of conditions. Animals must be covered quickly by sediment when they die in order to be preserved and even then the soft parts of animals are rarely fossilized. The conditions for fossils to be preserved must be ideal.

Natural selection also works on instinct, or how animals inherently behave. Darwin also believed that migration, that is a species moving from one area to a new area, also plays a role in change. Darwin also noted that embryos, the very first stages of new life, all show common features suggesting a common beginning. The process of evolution continues today as all life on earth adapts to the constantly changing world.

Discussion

Author Sabina Radeva presents a picture-book adaptation of Charles Darwin's famous work, On The Origin of Species. Radeva who has an M.Sc. in Molecular Biology from the Max Planck Institute, was intrigued by an illustrated copy of On The Origin of Species. However, she realized that most people would never read it because of the dense text. Having switched careers and now working as a graphic designer, Radeva was still interested in combining her science background with her talent as an illustrator. She felt that children could better understand the concepts in Darwin's theory through the use of pictures.

The author admits to leaving out "some information from Darwin's original text because the concepts were too difficult for young readers." but this works for the topic of evolution, distilling it down to the important ideas. Overall this picture book gives a good summary of Darwin's big idea, that life on Earth is constantly adapting and that this occurs through a process Darwin called natural selection. Radeva presents the basic parts of Darwin's theory, explaining how he came to develop it through his observations. And therein lies the lesson of the book: Radeva believes that from Darwin's story, "...children can learn the power of observation and recognize how curiosity about the natural world can lead to incredible discoveries." In an era where attention is focused almost entirely on the virtual world, Radeva's book, and Darwin's story are reminders that the natural world is full of discoveries waiting to be made.

Radeva avoids most of the controversy surrounding the theory of evolution but does explain some misconceptions surrounding evolution in a separate section at the back of the book. Appropriately titled Misconceptions, she explains what evolution is and is not. In the Appendix, Radeva explains many scientific concepts including DNA and genes, inheritance, variations and mutations, natural selection, epigenetics ( relatively new field of study in which lifestyle and life events have an effect on gene expression) and comparative embryology. There is also a Glossary and a Recommended Reading section.

Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species is a good starting point for young readers (Grades 1 to 6) to explore evolution and natural selection. To learn more about Charles Darwin and his amazing voyage, young readers are directed to One Beetle Too Many: the Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin by Kathryn Lasky.

Book Details:

Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species by Sabina Radeva
New York: Crown Books for Young Readers     2019