The ‘Origin of Species’ Revisited: A Victorian Who Anticipated Modern Developments in Darwin's Theory by Donald R. Forsdyke (review)

460 letters in canada 2001 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 facsimiles of letters and photographs also contribute to this aspect of the book. There are a few quibbles that might be mentioned, however. Tierney=s interest in the mythical analyses of such scholars as Joseph Campbell and Northrop Frye could be seen as a little too casually presented. Indeed, in a misprint, the bibliography lists Frye as the author of two of Campbell=s books. One wishes perhaps that Tierney might have gone further into a depth-psychological analysis of the heroic archetypes that inform Sangster=s >journeys.= Similarly, the biographical essay, though tantalizingly brief, really leaves the reader wondering if some of the appendixed and endnoted material couldn=t have been narrativized more completely, so that the biography were more satisfying. This is a story the general reader will want to read. Another minor flaw is Tierney=s decision to refer to Sangster=s poetics and themes in unembarrassed comparisons with British poets such as Tennyson, Browning, and, of course, Wordsworth. While one applauds such gestures for their resistance to colonial deference, the obvious objection that Sangster is not in the same league could have been trounced more rigorously. Sangster has been referred to by some as >the Father of Canadian poetry.= It is perhaps absurd in these times of canon shake-up and premiseredefinition to make such a claim regarding Sangster or anyone else for that matter. On the other hand, why not? Let us have many geniuses, in the Foucauldian sense of progenitor-authors! Let us have them crawling over each other B in the annals of Canadian Literature B >like crabs in a basket,= as Lawrence Durrell once said. And let us not be so niggardly that we would exclude the textual fathers, the editorial uncles, the meme-mentors who, like Tierney, keep us well grounded in our appreciation of literature and the past. Certainly, as is the case for all of Tierney=s work on Sangster, there is enough provocative reading and substantive documentation here for decades of further study. (R. ALEXANDER KIZUK) Donald R. Forsdyke. The >Origin of Species= Revisited: A Victorian Who Anticipated Modern Developments in Darwin=s Theory McGill-Queen=s University Press. xii, 276. $49.95 Revisiting the Origin of Species, Donald Forsdyke attempts to answer biological questions that have lingered since the nineteenth century, and to restore the memory of a forgotten Victorian evolutionist, George Romanes. Forsdyke, a lab scientist, explains how DNA=s having different levels of information leads to hybrid sterility and the creation of reproductively isolated subgroups in natural populations B or incipient species. His hunt for Victorian precursors turns up Romanes=s very similar theory of >physiological selection,= which was rejected in its day. The result is an intriguing hybrid in its own right. It blends recent science and Victorian history, scientific text with popular book, and Whig history of science with a humanities 461 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 hint of the sociology of knowledge. While it is more successful in some of these crosses than others, overall it proves an original, if somewhat challenging, work. Forsdyke=s central claim is that DNA speaks with an accent. Human speech conveys at least two levels of information, the meaning of the words and the accent of the speaker. While it is commonly known that DNA codes for proteins, there is a secondary level of information, the ratio of the DNA base pairs cytosine and guanine to adenine and thymine (C+G %) in a genome. Because there is redundancy in the way that DNA codes for amino acids, C+G % can vary between groups without affecting the proteins they produce, so groups with quite different overall levels of cytosine and guanine in their genome might well be physically identical. However, differences in C+G % can affect the biochemistry of DNA recombination B in other words, it can make varieties with different levels of C+G % mutually infertile. This is the real origin of species, according to Forsdyke. Darwinian natural selection can cause species to adapt to changed circumstances, but it cannot make them diverge, or...