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What We Lose in the Face of Extinction

Neil Griffin· 22 septembre 2026

Before Charles Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species, he spent twenty years sketching out his ideas in a series of journals called the Transmutation Notebooks and the Metaphysical Notebooks, archived now at the University of Cambridge. In one of

Résumé

Darwin's early insight

Before publishing On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin spent two decades documenting his theories in private journals like the Transmutation Notebooks and Metaphysical Notebooks, stored at the University of Cambridge.

In one of these, Notebook B, he sketched a branching diagram representing the tree of life, a radical idea at the time.

This moment marked Darwin’s realization that species evolve over time through branching lineages, a concept that would later challenge the prevailing view of static, unchanging species.

The diagram’s tentative, almost hesitant style reflects the uncertainty and novelty of the idea, which would fundamentally alter humanity’s understanding of nature and its own place within it.

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