Abstract
In The Origin of Species, Darwin urged scientists to’ study the oddities of nature’. Perhaps Darwin had in mind Anelasma ibla or any other of the sub-class of cirripeds he studied in his exhaustive attempt to understand the structures and processes of nature. Darwin’s ‘barnacle work’ took years to accomplish, involved international correspondence with scientists and naturalists, and the dissection of hundreds of specimens.
Not that it really matters whether or not he [sic] ever knows about the vast populations of inorganic life, the ‘thousand tiny sexes’ which are coursing through his veins with a promiscuity of which he cannot conceive. He’s the one who misses out. Fails to adapt. Can’t see the point of his sexuality. Those who believe in their own organic integrity are all too human for the future [to come].1
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Notes
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© 2009 Myra J. Hird
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Hird, M.J. (2009). Microontologies of Sex. In: The Origins of Sociable Life: Evolution After Science Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230242210_5
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