Write a three to four page essay (double-spaced, about 8001200 words), analyzing and evaluating the way Charles Darwin used the term and concept of natural selection in his Origin of Species.
In composing your essay, you should draw both on the chapters from the first edition of Darwins Origin that are reprinted in the Evolutionary Writings volume edited by James Secord that we are using in this class (particularly Chapter IV, Natural Selection, pp. 14073), and on the documents reproduced in Darwin and Wallace on Natural Selection, posted on Canvas. In the latter you will find the first few paragraphs of the 6th edition of the Origin, which incorporate important changes Darwin made to his original text for the 3rd edition, published in 1861, as well as smaller changes he made for the 5th edition in 1869. You will also find two letters that Alfred Russel Wallace and Darwin exchanged on the subject in July 1866. Be sure to give page numbers for any quotations you use from these documents or from the Evolutionary Writings volume, and to give full citations for any other sources you may use.
In writing your essay, you should try to make your central point as clearly and strongly as you can. Formulate an argument and back it up with evidence. There are many possible approaches you may take in addressing this assignment. For instance, you might start by asking what benefit Darwin saw in using the term natural selection for the theory he proposed. Alternatively, you might choose to focus on Wallaces complaint that Darwins use of the term natural selection had evidently led many readers to the mistaken conclusion that the evolutionary process Darwin described had to be governed by intentional choice and intelligent guidance of the kind found in artificial selection. Was this a legitimate observation on Wallaces part, and how satisfactory was Darwins response? In later editions of the Origin, Darwin conceded that the phrase natural selection was, if taken literally, a misnomer or a false term, but he said it remained useful as a metaphorical expression. What place, if any, should such metaphors have in science?
I have included the two references that we are to use for the paper. For anything cited from the Origins of Species file, please just use the page number of the document, I will translate to the proper book page when I receive the paper.
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