ENGL200B Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Natural Philosophy, Intersubjectivity, To A Mouse
Document Summary
Did not think of himself as a scientist, as it was not a common word in the 19th century. Would have said he was a natural philosopher. Written in an accessible prose style, not just accessible to scientists. Changed the game of where scientific work stood in his time period. ), wrote his scientific work in poetry (e. g. describing the sex lives of plants). His formal education didn"t do him any good, because there weren"t any formal departments of science. Went on a journey to the galapagos islands and recorded natural observations of the people, the vegetation, everything. He published this in essentially a travel book. In reflecting on his findings (over twenty years), he comes up with the concept of evolution. His work was extremely controversial (especially the decent of man), but the government never censored him. On the origin of species by means of natural selection. Beautiful adaptations a subjective judgement in a scientific text.
