Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871)

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2021

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matthew Sweet is joined by Xine Yao, Joe Cain, and Ruth Mace, who've been re-reading Charles Darwin's 1871 book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. The book offered a radical reinterpretation of what it means to be human by situating us completely within the natural world as a product of natural selection. But it is also a book of its times, as reflected in the language Darwin uses to talk about race and gender. University College, London where our speakers are based - holds the papers of Francis Galton, the Victorian polymath and eugenicist who was Darwin's half cousin and the conversation considers both the positive and the negative ways of interpreting Darwin's book.

You will hear a discussion about some of the racial language used in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Dr Xine Yao is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker whose main research at University College London focuses on nineteenth century American literature and histories of science and law at Professor Joe Cain is UCL Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology. Ruth Mace is Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology

On the Free Thinking website you can find a playlist exploring works which are Landmarks of Culture - these include discussions about Karl Marx, George Orwell, Machiavelli, Rachel Carson, Lorraine Hansberry https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44 And there are discussions about animals including Should We Keep Pets? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09hzj3y Does My Pet Love Me? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004dr9

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Transcript

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0:38.3	150 years ago, Charles Darwin wrote a book that changed the world.
0:42.8	No, not that one. This is The Descent of Man I'm talking about.
0:47.2	And on this Arts and Ideas podcast, you can find out how.
0:50.4	So join me, Matthew Sweet, and guests after this message.
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1:32.3	He'd done finches, he'd done tortoises, niguanas and the giant prehistoric sloth. They were all there
1:39.1	in the origin of species. But Charles Darwin didn't have too much to say about humans and their evolution.
1:46.5	In February 1871, though, he went there in a book called The Descent of Man. And he went there
1:52.8	partly because the rest of the culture had already gone there, arguing about apes, arguing about race,
	...

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