The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Species’

Review of On Natural Selection by Charles Darwin

I have been researching great thinkers and how they have shaped the world. I have also been trying to prove that the act of reading helps to generate or even stimulate great ideas. Great thinkers do not operate within a vacuum, they rely on the works of others, and often expand the original thought and take the world further. Charles Darwin and British biologist Alfred Russel Wallace independently arrived at similar theories of Natural Selection in the mid-1800s after reading Essay on the Principle of Population by British pastor Thomas Malthus.

I wrote this book review four years ago for my newsletter, Ambeck Edge and thought I would share it with you since it makes a great Invisible Mentor.

Darwin defines natural selection as the “preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variation.” So what does this all mean? Darwin further adds, “Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection, and would be left a fluctuating element, as perhaps we see in the species called polymorphic… Natural selection can act only by taking advantage of slight variations; she can never take a leap, but must advance by the shortest steps.”

This book wasn’t the easiest to read, and I found it quite “dry”. But, in my quest to find out where really good ideas come from, I made the sacrifice and slogged through it. I have selected fives ideas from On Natural Selection. For the five ideas below, how can you use them in different contexts to resolve/understand modern day problems?

Five Good Ideas

1. When a plant or animal is placed in a new country amongst new competitors, though the climate may be exactly the same as its former home, yet the conditions of its life will generally be changed in an essential manner. If we wished to increase its average numbers in its new home, we should have to modify it in a different way to what we should have done in its native country; for we should have to give it some advantage over a different set of competitors or enemies.
2. Individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind
3. When a species, owing to highly favourable circumstances, increases inordinately in numbers in a small tract, epidemics often ensue
4. The more diversified the descendants from any one species become in structure, constitution, and habits, by so much will they be better enabled to seize on many and widely diversified places in the polity of nature, and so be enabled to increase in numbers
5. Natural selection is working behind the scenes all the time throughout the world whenever the opportunity arises. It works to improve each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. You cannot see these slow changes taking place, until after a long period of time has elapsed, we see that the forms of life are now different from what they formerly were

We could take idea number two and look at it in the context of education. It’s a reasonable assumption to make that people who are more educated have a better chance of succeeding than those who have less education. Or, for that same idea, we could say, someone who has an idea and knows how to take action, will be more successful than someone who has ideas but do nothing about them. Success in this context is not restricted to financial success. Why don’t you take one of the above five ideas and see what new ideas you can generate?

I recommend On Natural Selection because I am sure that you will come up with your own five ideas. This is not a book that you would read for entertainment, but it will certainly stretch you.

Excerpt Ambeck Edge May 2005

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Photo Credits: Cover from Amazon

Have you ever listened for and to the sound of silence? What does silence sound like? On Saturday, I did just that. I escaped to a conservation park to listen for and to the sound of silence. Can one truly experience silence in a major metropolitan city such as Toronto?

I sit on the steps to meditate, and be at one with nature. I was the only person in the park because it’s hidden, and I suspect that even though it’s beside the Rosedale Subway Station, most people do not know that it’s there. I accidentally found this park about five years ago. During the hour that I was there I saw four people walk by, two walking their dog and two cyclists (one of which was riding down the steep steps).

Sound Of Silence – Simon & Garfunkel (live sound)

If you cannot view this YouTube video, please click here.

What did I hear and see while I sat down?

Trains go click clack on the rails, black birds in flight, branches sway to the gentle rhythm of the breeze, a black squirrel scurries about looking for food, and though I couldn’t see them, many different species of birds perform a requiem, singing their hearts out, like they know that they have an audience.

The Path of Life

The Sky Is Indeed The Limit

Things Are Seldom As They Seem

Fallen Tree

Nature At Its Finest

The Bigger Picture

I get up and explore, soaking in the here and now. I see what looks like a beautiful healthy tree and head that way to take a photo. I realize that things are seldom what they seem. The tree is healthy now, but will not be for long because it’s a fallen tree.

How often do we stop to see, if we are really seeing what we are seeing, or hearing what we are hearing? Perhaps silence now has a new definition: the natural sounds of the environment. Being in the here and now is an exercise in becoming more focused. How could your life improve if you were always aware of what’s going on in your environment? Take a look at the photos I took in the conservation park, what do you see? If you could attach a sound to the scene in the photos, what sounds would you hear?

Take a moment to listen for and to the sound of silence!

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Photo Credits: Avil Beckford

Video Credit: Sound Of Silence – Simon & Garfunkel, Uploaded by Hamp32 on Feb 8, 2007

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