Asymptotia

There’s a lovely new book (or it sounds that way) out, about Darwin. It’s a biography by David Quammen, called “The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution”. There was a very nice radio piece on it on NPR’s Morning Edition, on the segment by Robert Krulwich, with an interview with the author. I recommend it, as it is a very pleasant and interesting conversation. From the website (from where you can find the audio archive):

Quammen describes what happens when a meticulous, shy, socially conservative man comes up with a revolutionary, new, dangerous idea. Darwin gets so nervous thinking what he’s thinking, yet he is so sure that it’s a promising idea. He can’t let it out but he can’t let it go. Instead, he spends years, decades even, checking and double checking his evidence. He wanted to be surer than sure about his ideas on natural selection. But, of course, in science you can never know what you don’t know, and so painfully, gingerly, and on occasion delightfully, he tried to anticipate his critics and get his idea ready. But it was slow to gestate. Very slow.

There’s a rather nice discussion of how Darwin, with his butler and also with his sons, Continue reading ‘Flying Clams’