By Matthew Harrison

Most who read Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species for the first time will attest to their previous knowledge of the book having been based in pop-culture. What these references lead readers to expect are complicated diatribes about the impossibility of God coupled with chapters about humans being bipedal pieces of the animal kingdom. What is found instead is a modest and enthusiastic book that asks tough questions about what had previously been accepted about the development of species. This piece will dissect the aforementioned suppositions held by myself and others before reading Darwin as well as some of what a first time reader can expect to find.