The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time (Pulitzer Prize Winner)PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A dramatic story of groundbreaking scientific research of Darwin's discovery of evolution that "spark[s] not just the intellect, but the imagination" (Washington Post Book World). “Admirable and much-needed.... Weiner’s triumph is to reveal how evolution and science work, and to let them speak clearly for themselves.”—The New York Times Book Review 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 remarkable story, 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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adaptive landscape animals apple archipelago barnacle Beagle beaks biologists birds Boag breeding bugs cactus finches caltrop Character Displacement Charles Darwin competition crossbill Daphne Major Darwin's finches Darwin's process divergence dozen drought eggs Endler evolutionary evolutionists evolved female Finch Unit finch watchers finches on Daphne fish fledglings flies flood Floreana flowers fortis fuliginosa Galápagos finches Galápagos Islands genes genetic Genovesa Geospiza ground finches guppies happen human hundred hybrids insects invisible kind land Laurene lava living look magnirostris males mate measure mericarp millimeters mockingbirds moths natural selection nest Niño numbers origin of species pair percent Peter Grant Peter says pigeons plants population pyrethroids rain Ratcliffe resistance rock says Peter says Rosemary scandens Schluter season seeds selection pressure sexual selection single small beaks song sparrows spots sticklebacks survived territory tion Trevor Tribulus variable variations watch wild win's wrote young