The Beak of the Finch

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The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time

Author: Jonathan Weiner
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Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
On a desert island in the heart of the Galapagos archipelago, where Darwin received his first inklings of the theory of evolution, two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have spent twenty years proving that Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory. For among the finches of Daphne Major, natural selection is neither rare nor slow: it is taking place by the hour, and we can watch.In this dramatic story of groundbreaking scientific research, Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin’s finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself. The Beak of the Finch is an elegantly written and compelling masterpiece of theory and explication in the tradition of Stephen Jay Gould.
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On the Galapagos Islands Charles Darwin gave his first hint at his theory of natural selection, writing about the finches he studied there. In Darwin’s time there was no proof of this theoretical mechanism for evolution. Indeed it would have been thought absurd to imagine observing it actually happen; the process was thought to take geological time spans. Weiner, an outstanding science journalist, details research done in the last 20 years that proves otherwise. Biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant have documented the evolution of Darwin’s Galapagos finches, demonstrating that it is neither rare nor slow, but can be watched by the hour. Weiner’s superb account reads like a thriller and won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

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