Janet Browne This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Biographer focuses on Darwin's science

   www.decaturdaily.com/decaturda - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/8/2003   Last Visited: 8/9/2003

   By Janet Browne.
   ...
   Janet Browne is qualified to write on the subject. She is a trained biologist, whose doctoral work was in the history of science. The text is presented with intriguing interest. There is an excellent blending of Darwin the researcher with Darwin the person.
   
   Not only does Browne tell an interesting and detailed story of Darwin's many experiments, but also accentuated and fully developed the portrait of his personality. She shows him as somewhat aloof and reclusive. He was married to his first cousin and both were wealthy heirs of the famous Wedgewood fortune. Their wealth allowed Darwin to work entirely on his ideas in natural science. Being quite a manipulator, he required the assistance of his entire family with the experiments, and maintained a close relationship with all his children. Interestingly, although an atheist, Darwin attended and supported the church, apparently because his wife was a devout believer.
   ...
   Once the decision was made to publish, Browne shows Darwin as a master of networking and marketing. He sent signed copies of his work with admiring personal notes to all scientists of any professional stature in Europe and America. Browne also notes how authors of the era wrote their own reviews and manipulated the publication. Darwin's marketing skills proved to be a determining factor in assuring anything he published was well received by the appropriate people.
   
   Browne's writing skills meshed what could have been dull experiment details with the surprising consequences of Darwin's celebrity for having altered biological science forever. Darwin was surprised by the conflict the book created. He later admitted that some of his verbal ambiguities led readers in directions he had not fully intended. He seemed always to be uncomfortable with being a celebrity as "Darwinism" began to develop into a body of thought.