"It's his last book. He wrote in in 1881, the year before he died, and usually, we expect that in old age, just before death, a great scientist will write a pontificating philosophical treatise on the nature of reality. And Darwin... wrote a book on worms. [...] He was interested in worms because they were... a metaphor for his larger worldview. The worms that slowly churn the topsoil of England... that work literally beneath our feet, that we never notice, that we think are insignificant because they're so small and lowly, are in fact producing the very soil that is the basis of agriculture. And therefore Darwin uses it as a metaphor for the importance of apparently tiny things when you extend them over long periods of time. And that's what evolution is, the extension of small change (to Darwin) over vast periods of time. So the worms become a metaphor for evolution and for the whole process of temporal change, a very fascinating book."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
"Stephen Jay Gould: The Unanswerable" (Aug 30, 2016) , A Glorious Accident (6 of 7) 22:01.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Related Quotes
"Many insects stridulate by rubbing together specially modified parts of their hard integuments. This stridulation gen…"
"When a worm is suddenly illuminated and dashes like a rabbit into its burrow—to use the expression employed by a frie…"
"Mental Qualities.—There is little to be said on this head. We have seen that worms are timid. It may be doubted wheth…"
"Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, name…"
"That there is much suffering in the world no one disputes. Some have attempted to explain this in reference to man by…"
"It is nearly impossible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings which are excited; wonder astonishment, and s…"
"A cell is a complex structure, with its investing membrane, nucleus, and nucleolus."
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to …"
"In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting the…"
"After a time the minute colourless particles which are imbedded in the flowing protoplasm are drawn towards and unite…"