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by Charles Darwin This is an ongoing project and chapters will be released as soon as they are available. If you prefer to download the individual chapters, perhaps to play them on an MP3 player, please use the following links:
Chapters:
Introduction /
6.1 /
6.2
I am releasing chapter 6, Difficulties of the Theory, before any others because it contains the most widely quoted and frequently mis-used passages from the book, for example the quote used by anti-evolutionists where Darwin supposedly says that the eye could not possibly have developed by natural selection. I discussed this subject in a blog about the subject - he of course said no such thing.
It is important to understand that almost all of the current criticisms of Darwin's work were anticipated by Darwin himself and included in the book 150 years ago. As such, chapter 6 is a useful resource for someone who already knows about evolution and wants to hit back at those who seek to discredit it; the latter invariably fail to understand the first thing about natural selection and merely quote Darwin out of context. Here the content is unabridged and the context is very clear - Darwin did indeed find potential difficulties with the theory, but also found answers to every one of them.
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