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Reading Darwin has been sometimes interesting, sometimes boring and sometimes frustrating.  The problems are similar to those I've had in more modern and drier scientific writings-- the big ideas are interesting (even fascinating) but the details bore me. For Darwin, the details were the most important part-- the proof, the observations that started everything. Because of this I'm trying to understand them. I don't want to take for granted that his proofs make sense-- otherwise known as "suspending disbelief." That feels like a betrayal. We spent a lot of time in our discussion group talking about how Darwin adresses the readers and how he tries to get us to suspend our disbelief. After further thought and reading, I don't really think that's right. He doesn't want us to suspend our disbelief, he wants us to read skeptically-- until we become convinced. He includes the arguments he thinks we may have, specifically so he can disprove them. This device is ueless, unless his audience really is coming up with arguments.

He is deliberately  giving us a more complicated picture, one which includes cases against as well as for his theory. It reminds me of the discussion we had about learning in elementary school and in high school/ college-- being taught what to think or how to think. The only information I've had about evolution before has really been of the elementary-school variety. Darwin is inviting argument.