A comment about missing intermediate species leads into the historical context of Origin of Species. Darwin was proposing a theory without the accumulated information, evidence, and scientific tools available to modern readers. The book should not be expected to contain a complete present-day solution to every problem it raised. The importance of an original argument is distinct from the knowledge produced by later generations.
Notable Point · 1:31:46-1:32:18
Reading Darwin with nineteenth-century evidence
Gaps in Origin of Species should be judged against the evidence available when Darwin proposed the theory, not against later scientific knowledge.