The Origin of Species

By: Charles Darwin

Narrated by: David Case

One of the most famous and influential books of its (or any) time, The Origin of Species is, surprisingly, little read. True enough, most people know what it says, or think they do, at any rate. The first comprehensive statement of the theory of natural selection, it does, indeed, provide the basic argument and demonstration of what we think of as Darwinism.

Not quite offering the misleading tautological Spencerian claim of "survival of the fittest", or the claim that man descends from monkeys (a typical perversion of the understanding of natural selection), the book did turn much of the world and how man thinks about it upside down. It is, well more than a century after its first publication, still a powerful and fascinating read.

©1992 Phoenix Recordings (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.

Great concept

Darwin was a genius and the ideas in this book set the foundation to the evolution theory. Furthermore, there were some very interesting ideas present in this book, however, the overall subject matter was a little dry and too scientific, which made for a boring listen, tho that could be the fault of the not so good narrator.

surprisingly good; measured; practical

audiobook good enough 👍👍

this is thick material, actually, & was hard to retain much of the detail compared to the overall themes

Darwin here is discussing the ins outs ups & downs of evolution by natural selection, which is a hurdle or 💡 when classifying taxonomies

w/ proper classification comes more accurate predictions, & a "story" forms

this is to say, there were moments/points in the book where i diverged, such as his usage of "globe" when talking about Earth & his insistence on a Pangea-like continent

​​​​​​​another so-so surpriser was the complete lack of dinosaurs in this work, as it was published before the dino craze went wild [see: invented by charlatans]

he explains how a given area on an island, for instance, will have significantly less diversity than an equal space on a continental area, which makes logical sense

​​​​​​​he says that species drift is checked to a large extent by sterility & 'the struggle,' which eliminates the weak/ill-fitted in favor of the most adapted

​​​​​​​i'm actually fresh enough on his content to try another book

I loved it

We've heard it's work of genius, and listening to it shows that that's true.

I really liked the narrator. He's British, the book is British, he obviously cared a lot about what he was doing and practiced before he recorded. Very clear, easy to understand, properly inflected.

Don't knock it till you have read it

A book of scientific observation and research, cannot understand all the fuss. I believe most who comdemn haven't read it.

Brilliant Writer

Darwin was a consummate writer and a brilliant thinker. He anticipated nearly all the modern objections to Darwinism, and what he did fail to address is largely due to his ignorance of the mechanisms of inheritance. Even then he still had many insights that apply equally well to modern population genetics. I never knew how truly necessary it is for anyone who discusses evolution to read Darwin!

Case is tedious

I found this book very enlightening and fascinating. However, the narrator sounds pretenious and bored. He emphasis is odd and very hard to listen to. Try LibriVox.com for this title if you want a better reading of it.

Good if your interested in this type of stuff

Very scientific and hard to get through at points.

In Defence of a Glorious Narrator

What made the experience of listening to The Origin of Species the most enjoyable?

While some of the other reviews show that the narrator is not universally popular, I could listen to David Case (aka Frederick Davidson) read the London phone book. Darwin's prose is notoriously dry, but read by this narrator listening to the Origin of Species is not only intellectually exciting but an aural delight.

Historically Significant

Charles Darwin's Origin of Species is a little bit outdated; however, it is historically significant in that it is the first work that coins the "theory of evolution".

Although it is not all accurate, it was a stunning piece of work for its time. Any serious Biology enthusiast should read this book, seeing as how all modern evolutionary science references it.

The audiobook is very long, a little dry, and I don't know what version it is either; suffering through the audiobook is better than reading the hard copy though. There is no way around it, push through it, and you'll be glad you did :)

Evolve, ubi sunt canes!

It is amazing to think that this mild, scientific book published a little less than 155 years ago caused (and is still causing) such a complete storm. I'm surprised at how adapted we have become (or at least the segment of those people on the planet who don't reject Darwin's theory of natural selection as counter to their own idea of the way God makes and shakes) to Darwin's revolutionary idea(s).

Like with many of the pantheon of scientific geniuses (Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, etc) there was a bit of luck involved. The ground was ready for Darwin's seed. There were enough scholars and scientists and rationalists around to carry his idea(s) hither and thither. So while the book, and Darwin himself, were both stellar examples of scientific restraint, the force of his book can't be under appreciated. It was just the right time and right place for a revolution. Darwin and his little book walked by a labour of scientific mouldywarps who happened to find themselves on the chalk cliffs of science, pushed those sterile hybrids off, and never looked back. Evolve, batches! (I couldn't keep the word I wanted because Audible has a problem with either female dogs or categorical imperatives).

The audio is just ok. David Case, RIP, did a fine job of narration. The audio quality of the digital book just wasn't great. It wasn't pulled from the original master, but from the audio tapes and that is obvious both in its low quality and those few occasions when the audiobook tells you it is time to flip the tape over. Ah, well, at least it didn't talk about rotary phones.