I am firm believer that scientific geniuses are idealized and fictitious characters. Let me explain. Epoch changing ideas are indeed often proposed by individuals, but they are never produced in a vacuum. In other words, there are always novel and unorthodox concepts already sparring in the academic arena portending the groundbreaking discoveries and planting the seeds for the inevitable eureka moments. Examples abound, such as the discovery of calculus, the DNA double helix, and (of interest in this particular review) evolution through natural selection. This is where this book comes in. The author describes important but largely forgotten thinkers who preceded Darwin and proposed radical ideas regarding the origin of species that gradually nudged our collective thought processes in the direction that allowed Charles Darwin (and Alfred Wallace, to be fair) to “see the light”. For this reason alone I heartily recommend this book to any student of biology or history of science. My only critique is that although there is a tepid narrative thread that keeps the book together, each chapter reads like an independent story, and is poorly connected to the others, so it is easy to forget what book one is reading or what its thesis is. The absence of a concluding chapter (beyond the epilogue) to tie it all together does not help either. But for what it is worth, at least each individual chapter is well written and engaging, so if the reader approaches this as a collection of short stories, they will have an enlightening reading experience. By the way, wondering what these pre-Darwinian thinkers are? Dive right in and find out for yourself.
Rafael Romero, PhD