| I have been researching great thinkers and how they | | | | to give it some advantage over a different set of |
| have shaped the world. I have also been trying to | | | | competitors or enemies. |
| prove that the act of reading helps to generate or | | | | 2. Individuals having any advantage, however slight, |
| even stimulate great ideas. Great thinkers do not | | | | over others, would have the best chance of surviving |
| operate within a vacuum, they rely on the works of | | | | and of procreating their kind |
| others, and often expand the original thought and | | | | 3. When a species, owing to highly favourable |
| take the world further. Charles Darwin and British | | | | circumstances, increases inordinately in numbers in a |
| biologist Alfred Russel Wallace independently arrived | | | | small tract, epidemics often ensue |
| at similar theories of Natural Selection in the | | | | 4. The more diversified the descendants from any |
| mid-1800s after reading Essay on the Principle of | | | | one species become in structure, constitution, and |
| Population by British pastor Thomas Malthus. | | | | habits, by so much will they be better enabled to |
| Darwin defines natural selection as the "preservation | | | | seize on many and widely diversified places in the |
| of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious | | | | polity of nature, and so be enabled to increase in |
| variation." So what does this all mean? Darwin further | | | | numbers |
| adds, "Variations neither useful nor injurious would not | | | | 5. Natural selection is working behind the scenes all |
| be affected by natural selection, and would be left a | | | | the time throughout the world whenever the |
| fluctuating element, as perhaps we see in the species | | | | opportunity arises. It works to improve each organic |
| called polymorphic... Natural selection can act only by | | | | being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions |
| taking advantage of slight variations; she can never | | | | of life. You cannot see these slow changes taking |
| take a leap, but must advance by the shortest | | | | place, until after a long period of time has elapsed, |
| steps." | | | | we see that the forms of life are now different |
| This book wasn't the easiest to read, and I found it | | | | from what they formerly were |
| quite "dry". But, in my quest to find out where really | | | | We could take idea number two and look at it in the |
| good ideas come from, I made the sacrifice and | | | | context of education. It's a reasonable assumption to |
| slogged through it. I have selected fives ideas from | | | | make that people who are more educated have a |
| On Natural Selection. For the five ideas below, how | | | | better chance of succeeding than those who have |
| can you use them in different contexts to resolve | | | | less education. Or, for that same idea, we could say, |
| understand modern day problems? | | | | someone who has an idea and knows how to take |
| Five Good Ideas | | | | action, will be more successful than someone who |
| | | | has ideas but do nothing about them. Success in this |
| 1. When a plant or animal is placed in a new country | | | | context is not restricted to financial success. Why |
| amongst new competitors, though the climate may | | | | don't you take one of the above five ideas and see |
| be exactly the same as its former home, yet the | | | | what new ideas you can generate? |
| conditions of its life will generally be changed in an | | | | I recommend On Natural Selection because I am sure |
| essential manner. If we wished to increase its | | | | that you will come up with your own five ideas. This |
| average numbers in its new home, we should have | | | | is not a book that you would read for entertainment, |
| to modify it in a different way to what we should | | | | but it will certainly stretch you. |
| have done in its native country; for we should have | | | | |