In the original Hebrew, Genesis is full of delicious wordplay. Even the name of Adam is a pun. Every time you say the name Adam, you're breathing over mud, just like God did.
In Origin we have to wait for the second sentence to understand Darwin's subject (in newspaper-speak, this bad writing habit is called "burying the lead."): "These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species – that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers." It's a perfect model for what not to do with a lead sentence. Not only does it contain a passive construction, it is also a tissue of conditionals, stuffed with "seemed to me," "some light," and "one of our greatest." Its vagueness and weakness have real consequences, too. They lead Kansas school board trustees and ex-U.S. Presidents to believe that there's reasonable doubt about the ideas in The Origin of Species, when there is not. Good writing matters.
SHOOT: Shows you Darwin's approach is very humble, even second-guessing, despite being scientifically astute anbd very accurate. The Bible is well written, enjoyable but ultimately just a damn good yarn.
In Origin we have to wait for the second sentence to understand Darwin's subject (in newspaper-speak, this bad writing habit is called "burying the lead."): "These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species – that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers." It's a perfect model for what not to do with a lead sentence. Not only does it contain a passive construction, it is also a tissue of conditionals, stuffed with "seemed to me," "some light," and "one of our greatest." Its vagueness and weakness have real consequences, too. They lead Kansas school board trustees and ex-U.S. Presidents to believe that there's reasonable doubt about the ideas in The Origin of Species, when there is not. Good writing matters.
SHOOT: Shows you Darwin's approach is very humble, even second-guessing, despite being scientifically astute anbd very accurate. The Bible is well written, enjoyable but ultimately just a damn good yarn.
Genesis, it has to be said, is tough to beat as a piece of writing. It contains both the best of the wilderness, emerging over several generations from the greatest poets of the Judean desert, and the best of civilization, being polished by its proximity to the original cities in Iraq and Persia. You can spot the difference in the quality of the writing from the very first lines of the respective books. The first line of Genesis – "In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth" – is simply the best sentence ever composed: strong, active, concise, clear, complete and yet turgid with hidden depths. Compare that perfection of expression with the first sentence from the introduction to The Origin of Species: "When on board HMS Beagle, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent." What the hell are you on about, Charles Darwin?
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