Jared's review of The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time
The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner
Peter and Rosemary Grant, both Evolutionary Biologists out of Princeton, have been relentlessly researching one topic since the 70s: the beaks of finches. After identifying a few isolated species of finches in Daphne Major, a small island in the Galapagos chain, the Grants have gathered data for the past 30 years trying to document finch evolution in Darwin’s own. Jonathan Weiner documents, in plain English, the most important evolutionary biology study conducted in the 20th century. He explicitly describes Darwin’s theory as it applies to the finches of the Galapagos—be prepared for more detail than you’re used to—and using the Grant’s thesis, posts evidence of evolution that occurred 2,500 times more quickly than even Darwin hypothesized!
Weiner is an experienced scientific author, and did his homework for The Beak, for which he was amply awarded—he got the Pulitzer Prize in 1995. If nothing else, read Part One (100 pgs), subtitled: Evolution in the Flesh. It is...more
Weiner is an experienced scientific author, and did his homework for The Beak, for which he was amply awarded—he got the Pulitzer Prize in 1995. If nothing else, read Part One (100 pgs), subtitled: Evolution in the Flesh. It is...more
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