It’s Darwin Day. I’m a little ambivalent about the sort of cultishness that sometimes accrues to Charles Darwin. But it is probably a phenomenon that only makes sense in light of the culture war started by evolution-rejectionists. But there is reason to be optimistic on this; according to the GSS young people tend to be more accepting of evolutionary theory. And I was intrigued by these Pew data which indicate that a substantial minority of religious people accept a naturalistic evolutionary model! (Muslims have a high fraction of this element, and, of Creationists, indicating that this is a particularly heterogeneous group)
I’m gratified that ~40 percent of my readers have read The Origin of Species. But, I’m a bit concerned that only ~8 percent have read The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (though one more than The Structure of Evolutionary Theory). Darwin is important, but for the stuff that is more the bread & butter of this weblog, I think R. A. Fisher is probably more relevant. That is, an analytical and formal understanding of evolutionary process. With that in mind I would recommend that if you can afford it, get a hardcover The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection with the forward by J. H. Bennett. Otherwise, read the original version online. Focus on the first half, and understand that Fisher was not God, so it’s how he conceived of a problem, not his particular solution, that’s useful (he was wrong on dominance it seems for example).
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