STEPS ON THE PATH TO THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES

The choice of Charles Darwin to serve as geologist on H.M.S. Beagle ca me about in a somewhat haphazard fashion, and by modern standards his technical qualifications for the post were not strong. However, during the voyage he was exposed to a wider range of phenomena, both in geol ogy and in natural history, than any previous scientist, and his innat e qualities of enquiring critically with an open mind into the why and wherefore of every one of his observations enabled him to make very e ffective use of his experience. By the end of the voyage he had found himself ready to abandon the doctrine of the fixity of species, and a few months later he opened the first of the series of notebooks on ''T ransmutation of Species'' in which he recorded his private thinking. H e quite quickly arrived at the Principle of Natural Selection as a mec hanism for the creation of new species, but the process of building up adequate evidence in support of his theory was a slow one, and more t han 20 years had passed before his great work was finally ready for pu blication. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.