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    In Darwin'S Wake: Our Far-Flung Correspondents

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    The document summarizes a writer's trip to the Galapagos Islands to retrace Charles Darwin's famous voyage aboard the HMS Beagle. The writer accompanies his Darwin-enthusiast wife and tour group to the islands where Darwin developed his theory of evolution by natural selection. During visits to various islands, the writer observes wildlife like marine iguanas, sea lions, and tortoises. He gains a new appreciation for Darwin's work and comes to understand nature and humanity's place within it, overcoming his initial reluctance to embrace nature. The trip allows the writer to experience Darwin's insights in the place they were discovered.

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    In Darwin'S Wake: Our Far-Flung Correspondents

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    The document summarizes a writer's trip to the Galapagos Islands to retrace Charles Darwin's famous voyage aboard the HMS Beagle. The writer accompanies his Darwin-enthusiast wife and tour group to the islands where Darwin developed his theory of evolution by natural selection. During visits to various islands, the writer observes wildlife like marine iguanas, sea lions, and tortoises. He gains a new appreciation for Darwin's work and comes to understand nature and humanity's place within it, overcoming his initial reluctance to embrace nature. The trip allows the writer to experience Darwin's insights in the place they were discovered.

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    The document summarizes a writer's trip to the Galapagos Islands to retrace Charles Darwin's famous voyage aboard the HMS Beagle. The writer accompanies his Darwin-enthusiast wife and tour group to the islands where Darwin developed his theory of evolution by natural selection. During visits to various islands, the writer observes wildlife like marine iguanas, sea lions, and tortoises. He gains a new appreciation for Darwin's work and comes to understand nature and humanity's place within it, overcoming his initial reluctance to embrace nature. The trip allows the writer to experience Darwin's insights in the place they were discovered.

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    20 views3 pages

    In Darwin'S Wake: Our Far-Flung Correspondents

    Uploaded by

    anup chauhan
    The document summarizes a writer's trip to the Galapagos Islands to retrace Charles Darwin's famous voyage aboard the HMS Beagle. The writer accompanies his Darwin-enthusiast wife and tour group to the islands where Darwin developed his theory of evolution by natural selection. During visits to various islands, the writer observes wildlife like marine iguanas, sea lions, and tortoises. He gains a new appreciation for Darwin's work and comes to understand nature and humanity's place within it, overcoming his initial reluctance to embrace nature. The trip allows the writer to experience Darwin's insights in the place they were discovered.

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    9/19/2020 IN DARWIN'S WAKE | The New Yorker

    Our Far-Flung Correspondents July 21, 1997 Issue

    IN DARWIN'S WAKE

    By David Denby
    July 14, 1997

    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/07/21/in-darwins-wake 1/3
    9/19/2020 IN DARWIN'S WAKE | The New Yorker

    The New Yorker, July 21, 1997 P. 50

    OUR FAR-FLUNG CORRESPONDENTS about the writer's trip to the Galapagos Islands and his exploration of the legacy of
    Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin was a placid, half-educated, wealthy country boy--a far from brilliant young man--who became
    the most radical and disruptive thinker of the 19th century. The writer reexamines Darwin's brilliance on a eco-tourist trip to the
    Galapagos Islands that his wife, Cathy, has talked him into. They are retracing Darwin's voyage to the same islands in 1835 aboard
    the H.M.S. Beagle. Darwin wound up as naturalist of the Beagle at age 22 mainly because the ship's captain, Robert Fitzroy,
    feared going insane. The writer grew up in Manhattan and has no love for nature; he refers to his companions on this voyage
    dismissingly as "nature lovers." His wife, on the other hand, is a Darwin enthusiast who is writing a novel set in the islands. For
    many people, Darwinism appears to be replacing Freudianism as an intellectual hobby, a system of social analysis, or even an
    explanation of personal destiny; evolutionary psychology seems to be replacing "depth psychology." A large audience now followed
    the work of such Darwin-interpreters and disputants as Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel C. Dennett. The writer
    boarded the Galapagos Adventure, a 90-ft. yacht, with his wife. Their tour guide was Mickey Cohen, a retired biology teacher
    from Far Rockaway; they also had an Ecuadorian guide named Rodrigo Jacome. The writer read Janet Browne's biography of
    Darwin, "Voyaging," and also Darwin's own book, "The Voyage of the Beagle," during the trip. "The Voyage" reveals Darwin's
    exquisite curiousity about the life he was encountering. The Galapagos Adventure arrived at Santa Cruz Island and they went
    ashore; the writer saw a procession of marine iguanas on the beach, but noticed that, from a distance, the moving iguanas appeared
    stationary. Humanity's problem with evolution by natural selection is that it offers nothing for the soul; humans are neither the
    inevitable goal nor the end product of evolution. The writer and his group travelled to the next island and saw many sea lions lying
    about the beach. When the "nature lovers," went swimming, the sea lions swam along beside them. The writer realized that he was
    resisting the lure of the Galapagos because he wanted to keep nature in its place; he realized he had underestimated his fellow
    travellers. Spurred by Darwin's writing, he resolved not to hang back any longer. At Tower Island, they observed masked boobies--
    large shing birds. Later, in the Paci c, the writer saw a ock of great frigate birds, ying overhead, moving without movement
    like the iguanas on Santa Cruz, but this time the writer realized his mistake. He had been viewing nature as something composed
    and static in order to pretend he didn't belong to it. On their last day, the group visited Lonesome George, the last of the giant
    tortoise subspecies Geochelone elephantopus abingdoni, at the Charles Darwin Research Station, in Santa Cruz. Many attempts

    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/07/21/in-darwins-wake 2/3
    9/19/2020 IN DARWIN'S WAKE | The New Yorker

    had been made to mate George with turtles from a closely related subspecies, but all attempts had failed. The writer realized that
    in the extinction of any species there was a guarantee of our own mortality. Back home, the Darwin controversies rage on.
    Without intending to, Darwin has confounded us all, because Darwinism is the greatest of all assaults upon the human ego.

    View Article

    Published in the print edition of the July 21, 1997, issue.

    David Denby has been a staff writer and a lm critic at The New Yorker since 1998. He is the author of “Great
    Books” and “Lit Up.”

    More: Cambridge University Charles Darwin

    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/07/21/in-darwins-wake 3/3

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