Some interesting tidbits from Darwin’s Autobiography

A collection of learnings + quotes

I just finished Darwin’s autobiography, and there were so many interesting tidbits that I figured I had to quickly copy over the best quotes and share them.

Like I had no idea that he rejected from his expedition on the Beagle because of the shape of his nose. I was really taken aback by how reflective, humble, and self aware he came across as, and I learnt all sorts of new things, like the fact that he’s also the guy who discovered carnivorous plants (and wrote a whole treatise on them!) and that his grandfather basically wrote a proto-evolutionary theory.

Strange what could have beens

There’s a lot of strange ‘what could have beens’ in Darwin’s life.

First, Darwin, the man who convinced the world out of the idea of divine design almost became a clergyman (!) according to his father's wishes.

Then the voyage of the beagle, one of the defining events of his life, almost didn’t happen for two reasons.

First, his father objected:

"I was instantly eager to accept the offer, but my father strongly objected"

This only didn’t happen because Darwin met with his uncle the next day, who said he really should. 

"As my uncle thought it would be wise in me to accept the offer, and as my father always maintained that he was one of the most sensible men in the world, he at once consented in the kindest manner."

And then it turns out he was almost rejected because he had a strange nose! 

"Afterwards on becoming very intimate with Fitz-Roy, I heard that I had run a very narrow risk of being rejected, on account of the shape of my nose!" (This Fitz-Roy guy thought Darwin's nose indicated that he won't posses "sufficient energy and determination for the voyage")

Extreme humility/ not obvious he’d succeed

The voyage of the beagle was one of the pivotal moments of his life, and it’s during these years he developed his skills as a naturalist, and began to lay the seeds of the idea that became natural selection. 

But before we get to more talk about science, I think it’s interesting to note how extremely aware Darwin seemed about the things he was bad at in a completely non-judgemental manner. And he’s also very calmly confident in the things he’s good at. In fact, it wasn’t at all obvious that he’d be this huge success from the start. 

He wasn’t particularly sharp at languages or mathematics:

“During the three years which I spent at Cambridge my time was wasted, as far as the academical studies were concerned, as completely as at Edinburgh and at school.”

“I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at least to understand something of the great leading principles of mathematics; for men thus endowed seem to have an extra sense. But I do not believe that I should ever have succeeded beyond a very low grade.”

“During my whole life I have been singularly incapable of mastering any language”

"I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance Huxley. I am therefore a poor critic: a paper or book, when first read, generally excites my admiration, and it is only after considerable reflection that I perceive the weak points. My power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought is very limited; I should, moreover, never have succeeded with metaphysics or mathematics. My memory is extensive, yet hazy: it suffices to make me cautious by vaguely telling me that I have observed or read something opposed to the conclusion which I am drawing, or on the other hand in favour of it; and after a time I can generally recollect where to search for my authority. So poor in one sense is my memory, that I have never been able to remember for more than a few days a single date or a line of poetry."

In fact, as a young man, he even developed a “passion for shooting and for hunting and when this failed, for riding across country I got into a sporting set, including some dissipated low-minded young men…we sometimes drank too much, with jolly singing and playing at cards afterwards. I know that I ought to feel ashamed of days and evenings thus spent, but as some of my friends were very pleasant and we were all in the highest spirits, I cannot help looking back to these times with much pleasure."

But these interest were eventually replaced by his strengths. And here’s where I see a lot of humble highlighting of things he did believe he was good at.

“....the habit of energetic industry and of concentrated attention to whatever I was engaged in, which I then acquired. Everything about which I thought or read was made to bear directly on what I had seen and was likely to see”

“Looking back as well as I can at my character during my school life, the only qualities which at this period promised well for the future, were, that I had strong and diversified tastes, much zeal for whatever interested me, and a keen pleasure in understanding any complex subject or thing”

“Some of my critics have said, "Oh, he is a good observer, but has no power of reasoning.” I do not think that this can be true, for the Origin of Species is one long argument from the beginning to the end, and it has convinced not a few able men. No one could have written it without having some power of reasoning. I have a fair share of invention and of common sense or judgment, such as every fairly successful lawyer or doctor must have, but not I believe, in any higher degree.”

Scientific thinking

There’s this huge emphasis throughout the autobiography of coming up with general laws. 

"My father's mind was not scientific, and he did not try to generalise his knowledge under general laws, yet he formed a theory for almost everything which occurred.”

Also another surprising point- his grandfather was surprisingly like him, and even wrote a whole treatise which had speculative foundations of natural selection. But Darwin wasn't that impressed:

“ I had previously read the Zoonomia of my grandfather, in which similar views are maintained, but without producing any effect on me. Nevertheless it is probable that the hearing rather early in life such views maintained and praised may have favoured my upholding views maintained and praised in my Origin of Species. At this time I admired greatly the Zoonomia; but on reading it a second time after an interval of ten or fifteen years, I was much disappointed, the proportion of speculation being so large to the facts given."

"From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed,—that is, to group all facts under some general laws. These causes combined have given me the patience to reflect or ponder for any number of years over any unexplained problem. As far as I can judge, I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men. I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free, so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it.”

This unstoppable curiosity was everywhere in his life. There seems to be a common thread between scientists here- even Feynman used to experiment a lot. Here’s him talking about experimenting

"In the summer of 1860 I was idling and resting near Hartfield, where two species of Drosera abound; and I noticed that numerous insects had been entrapped by the leaves. I carried home some plants, and on giving them insects saw the movements of the tentacles, and this made me think it probable that the insects were caught for some special purpose. …. The fact that a plant should secrete, when properly excited, a digestive fluid of an acid and ferment, closely analogous to the digestive fluid of an animal, was certainly a remarkable discovery."

Yep. Darwin is also the guy who discovered carnivorous plants. And there’s some deep metaphor here, I think, in the fact that these plants existed in the countryside for anyone to systematically study, but it took the guy who figured out natural selection to actually do it. 

Metascience

This was also surprising. It turns out both Darwin and Wallace published the basic theory of evolution in a Journal but barely anyone noticed.

“….The extract from my MS. and the letter to Asa Gray had neither been intended for publication, and were badly written. Mr. Wallace's essay, on the other hand, was admirably expressed and quite clear. Nevertheless, our joint productions excited very little attention, and the only published notice of them which I can remember was by Professor Haughton of Dublin, whose verdict was that all that was new in them was false, and what was true was old. This shows how necessary it is that any new view should be explained at considerable length in order to arouse public attention.”

And this solved something I’d wondered about for a while. Today, a lot of people say that ‘the idea was in the air’ and Darwin was simply the guy to point it out. I thought this was a retrospective thing. But it turns out Darwin himself was aware of it, and had this to say:

“It has sometimes been said that the success of the Origin proved "that the subject was in the air," or "that men's minds were prepared for it." I do not think that this is strictly true… What I believe was strictly true is innumerable well-observed facts were stored in the minds of naturalists, ready to take their proper places as soon as any theory which would receive them was sufficiently explained.”

So why did Darwin's account succeed? Here’s what Darwin himself had to say:

"The success of the Origin may, I think, be attributed in large part to my having long before written two condensed sketches, and to my having finally abstracted a much larger manuscript, which was itself an abstract. By this means I was enabled to select the more striking facts and conclusions. I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised against my views which I had not at least noticed and attempted to answer."

In other words, I think it’s his tireless work ethic and systematic thinking that did it. I think this shows the importance of being able to convince people in science. It’s not enough to have a theory, in the end, science is rhetoric. You need to make the best argument, and that argument must spread the most. It’s also interesting how this links to Sam Altman’s idea that sales is at the heart of everything. 

This also makes me think of scientific theories as a sort of ‘coherent story’. David Deutch says science is made up of explanations that have reach and are hard to vary, but what is an explanation? I think it’s a narrative that combines together several facts in a coherent manner. And for it to succeed, it needs to be able to convince people. (The convincing doesn’t change whether it’s true, but you do need to compel people to believe the new theory) And Darwin’s account of evolution was a perfect example of that. 

On Victorian England

I was wondering about what exactly made Darwin the guy on a more meta scale, and another big idea that struck me was how unexplored and magical the world seemed in Victorian England.

Darwin was clearly in a fortunate enough position to have private tutors, so this wouldn’t have applied to the majority of people, but consider the fact that his brother made a laboratory for himself. There’s a zest for natural science here. Today, this is way more accessible, but I’m not convinced there’s that many more people as a percentage doing things like this. I could definitely be wrong though.

"Towards the close of my school life, my brother worked hard at chemistry and made a fair laboratory with proper apparatus in the tool-house in the garden, and I was allowed to aid him as a servant in most of his experiments. He made all the gases and many compounds, and I read with care several books on chemistry, such as Henry and Parkes’ Chemical Catechism."

Or even the wonder of strange, distant lands.  This passage struck me as fascinating. Today the idea of being an expert on, say India, doesn’t seem as magical as it must have then. To me, saying 'he might have died in India' feels like it carried a weight closer to saying 'He might have died on the moon' today.

"One of these was Ainsworth, who afterwards published his travels in Assyria... Hardie, who would I think have made a good botanist, but died early in India."

Going on a large voyage to explore distant lands doesn't even feel like a thing you can do today. It feels more commercial, touristy, and, I don't know. Lacking a sense of spiritual wonder?

Information architecture

There’s a few interesting ideas about information architecture. It really is interesting to think about how people back then wrote such extensive books with ample references, or how they collected notes in a systematic manner. In fact, I wonder if perhaps manually creating these indexes actually helped them recall and internalize these facts. It also makes me happy because I’ve been doing this, on and off, for a while. The Reverse index for useful concepts is a great idea, though. 

On Buckle:

"He told me that he bought all the books which he read, and made a full index to each, of the facts which he thought might prove serviceable to him, and that he could always remember in what book he had read anything, for his memory was wonderful. I then asked him how at first he could judge what facts would be serviceable and he answered that he did not know, but that a sort of instinct guided him.”

Darwin co-opted this method for himself:

“ As in several of my books facts observed by others have been very extensively used, and as I have always had several quite distinct subjects in hand at the same time, I may mention that I keep from thirty to forty large portfolios, in cabinets with labelled shelves, into which I can at once put a detached reference or memorandum. I have bought many books and at their ends I make an index of all the facts that concern my work; or, if the book is not my own, write out a separate abstract, and of such abstracts I have a large drawer full. Before beginning on any subject I look to all the short indexes and make a general and classified index, and by taking one or more proper portfolios I have all the information collected during my life ready for use."

Darwin also has some universal writing advice- draft fast, edit slowly:

"Formerly I used to think about my sentences before writing them down; but for several years I have found that it saves time to scribble in a vile hand whole pages as quickly as I possibly can, contracting half the words; and then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scribbled down are often better ones than I could have written deliberately. Having said this much about my manner of writing, I will add that with my larger books I spend a good deal of time over the general arrangement of the matter. I first make the rudest outline in two or three pages, and then a larger one in several pages, a few words or one word standing for a whole discussion or series of facts. Each of these headings is again enlarged and often transformed before I begin..."

And although he expresses his distaste for music and Shakespeare later in life

"for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry; I tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost any taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work on, instead of giving me pleasure. I have some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the..."

He goes on to give some funny, but when I think about it- pretty good- advice about stories

"...A novel, according to my taste, does not come into the first class unless it contains some person whom one can thoroughly love, and if it be a pretty woman all the better.."

Conclusion

There’s this point towards the end of the autobiography where he says he “heard the success of a work abroad is the best test of its enduring value. I doubt whether this is at all trustworthy; but judged by this standard my name ought to last for a few years.” Yes it did my guy, yes it did.