preface
To begin with

Part 1: Ancient Times
1 Darkly beyond the window
2 Not dawn, but dawn
3-hour gift

Part 2: The Middle Ages
4 From Darwin to Darwin
5 Wallace and Darwin
6 Darwin and Wallace

Part 3 Modern Times
7 From pea wrinkles to chromosomes
8 The Role of Crystallography and DNA
9 Neo-Lamarckism

Words of gratitude
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Sources and Readings
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★★★ Recommended by Professor Choi Jae-cheon! ★★★
★★★ Waterstone's Best Books of 2020 ★★★
★★★ Recommended reviews from overseas media ★★★

“John and Mary Gribbin’s writing is very clear.”
[Guardian]

“It is accurate yet mysterious.
…as beautiful as poetry and as exciting as a novel.”
[Sunday Times]

“A truly wonderful read.”
[The Times]

“It is a sophisticated piece written with meticulous research.
…it is an incredibly entertaining book.”
The Observatory (science journal)

Evolution is evolving

“Evolution is a fact.
Evolution is observed in nature, particularly in the finches of the Galapagos Islands, made famous by Charles Darwin's studies, in the fossil record of life on Earth, and in the development of antibiotic resistance in 'superbugs'.
Several theories have been proposed to explain this fact.
Just as Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein came up with the theory of gravity to explain the fact that objects fall down and planets remain in orbit around the sun.”
In "The Origin of Evolution," the author provides insightful and consistent explanations of the vast topic of "evolution," broadly and deeply covering detailed information from various fields such as genetics and geology.
As a result, it presents evolutionary science that is very close to the present, from ancient times through the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, and further to the discovery of genetic phenomena in the 20th century and recent new discoveries.


The theory of evolution originated in the mind of Charles Darwin.
It didn't just pop up out of nowhere one day.

Did the theory of evolution by natural selection suddenly emerge from Charles Darwin's mind, fully formed? Was it a topic he hadn't even considered before? No.
The 'idea of ​​evolution' has existed in various forms since the ancient Greek era, and the 'idea of ​​natural selection', which is the core of Darwin's theory of evolution, was also vaguely half-known to some of Darwin's predecessors and contemporaries.
Another contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, knew this as clearly as Darwin.
This book fascinatingly describes the letters exchanged between Darwin and Wallace, and the various events that occurred before they jointly published their theory of evolution by natural selection, which they had independently devised through observation and inference.


The evolution story has only just begun.

『Origin of Evolution』, Part 1: Antiquity, begins with an overview of evolutionary thinking from ancient times to the early 19th century.
Part II: The Middle Ages focuses on developments in the 19th century, focusing on Charles Darwin and also highlighting Alfred Russel Wallace.
Finally, 'Part 3: Modern Times' covers the process of elucidating the structure and function of DNA, starting with Mendelian genetics, and continues with recent research on horizontal gene transfer and epigenetics.
This book is not actually about the 'origin of evolution itself', but about the 'origin of the idea of ​​evolution'.
The idea of ​​evolution is readily understood once explained, but it takes great insight to even begin to conceive it.
Another credit to Darwin is that he presented his ideas in a book that was easy and clear for the average person to understand.
In 『The Origin of Evolution』, Darwin's contribution is highly praised, while also showing that it is one of many links in the chain of evolution that has been passed down from ancient times and continues to this day.
And by highlighting the key figures involved, it shows how the story of evolution unfolded before and after Darwin.
Finally, the author notes that the scientific understanding of evolution is still evolving as we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century.
Just as apples didn't stop falling from trees just because Einstein improved Newton's theory, organisms won't stop evolving just because someone improved Darwin's theory.
The story of evolution has only just begun.