Product Description

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

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.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #492753 in Books
• Published on: 1994-05-03
• Released on: 1994-05-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 332 pages

From Amazon.com
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.

From Publishers Weekly
For more than 20 years Rosemary and Peter Grant have divided their time between Daphne Major in the Galapagos and Princeton University. On the tiny island they have intensively studied six species of Darwin's ground finches; at Princeton, they analyze their collected data. In following their work Weiner ( Planet Earth ) tells a remarkable story of continuing evolution, and of the painstaking research that reveals it. The Grants documented two dramatic changes in the finches: after a drought in 1977 reduced their numbers by 85%, the surviving birds became larger, in weight, wingspan and beak; after El Nino's floods in 1983, the trend was reversed. The Grants found that during food shortages the difference of one millimeter in the size of a finch's beak could determine its life or death. In his eloquent and richly informative report, Weiner surveys as well research on evolution being done on crossbills, sticklebacks and fruit flies. Illustrations. 40,000 first printing; BOMC, QPB , History Book Club and Natural Science Book Club alternates.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This is an account of Peter and Rosemary Grant's research on the microevolutionary modifications that occur in finch beaks as they adapt to environmental changes. Analysis of data collected from 18,000 birds on a Galapagos island over 21 years conclusively demonstrates that the pressures of natural selection are currently altering wild populations. Also, by incorporating others' work on present-day evolutionary variations in fish, insects, and microbes, Weiner (The Next One Hundred Years, LJ 2/1/90) challenges the concept of evolution as a time-frozen process. Harmonized with the writings of Charles Darwin, this book provides the facts to bring alive evolution as an ongoing process. Highly recommended for general collections, but informed readers would do better with Peter Grant's own Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches (Princeton Univ. Pr., 1986).
Frank Reiser, Nassau Community Coll., Garden City, N.Y.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

interesting, instructive, good science, =nice book
The book is the convergence of three nice but unfortunately rare events:
first, a well written and interesting book.
second, good structured and well executed science.
third, the rarest of the three, good explanation at the layman's level of specific science and it's wider implications.

The book is primarily about the specific research done on Daphne Major, a small uninhabited island in the Galapagos Islands, by Peter and Rosemary Grant, concerning the measurements of beaks of Darwin's finches. Expertly woven into this discussion is a good understanding of evolutionary processes, a nice description of how science really works and why, along with enough human interest that it captivates the reader's interest and rightfully garnered the book a pulitzer prize. It's structure is primarily chronological as we are introduced to the Grant's now 20 years plus research project, the people who did it and the science underlying the effort. Other research is introduced as necessary to make or expand the point, so you learn a little about guppies, Darwin's particular studies, Hawaiian fruit flies, sticklebacks in BC; but mostly the details are taken from, are about the 13 species of Darwin's finches, what they eat, and the last 20 years of weather on these islands described as Nature's own biological laboratory: unique, simple enough to study, yet persuasive in the theories formed by people enchanted by their biological diversity stemming from just a few individuals lucky enough to cross the Pacific from South America.

The take home message is simple enough. Through 20 generations of finches, data has been carefully collected concerning the beaks, the food, the offspring, the blood and from this mass of data has emerged the proof that populations evolve in response to their environment; that is, natural selection(NS) is seen, not just in the propositions concerning fossils, but in the time frame of a PhD thesis, evolution happens. Like an often heard mantra, the phrase, "speciation has never been seen to occur" emerges from the writings of the Young Earth Creationists(YEC). This book is a direct reply to this idea, look and listen the author (and the Grants) seem to say to their most vocal opponents, evolution and NS happen all around us, it is just too complex to be clearly proven outside of the unique environment of the Galapagos.

If you have any interest in the topic of creation-evolution-design this ought to be one of the first 10 books on your to-be-read list.
thanks for reading this short review.
richard williams

Darwin's fascinating finches.
Although Creationists have long argued that evolution is "only a theory" which cannot be scientifically proven (see, for instance, THE HANDY-DANDY EVOLUTION REFUTER, Wheaton, Illinois), and that whatever processes the Creator used to create, those processes "are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe" (Duane Gish, EVOLUTION? THE FOSSILS SAY NO!), current evolutionary studies are now demonstrating what even Charles Darwin thought was impossible.

Darwin first introduced us to the finches that inhabit the Galapagos Islands in his ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES. Through their research since 1973, evolutionary scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have discovered that Darwin's finches are even more interesting than Darwin ever dreamed, and reveal that Darwin may not have known the strengths of his own theory. Jonathan Weiner's Pulitzer-Prize winning book provides a fine introduction to evolutionary science, while also delivering conclusive proof that evolution is happening "in jittery motion," daily and hourly all around us (pp. 8-9). "The beak of the finch," Weiner writes, "is an icon of evolution the way the Bohr atom is an icon of modern physics, and the study of either one shows us more primal energy and eternal change than our minds are built to take in. Yet like the vista of the atoms, the vista of evolution in action, of evolution in the flesh, has enormous implications for our sense of reality, of what life is, and for our sense of power, of what we can do with life" (p. 112). For this reason, Weiner's brilliant book should be considered required reading.

G. Merritt

An insight on evolution
"The Beak of the Finch" analyzed many of Darwin's theories on evolution. Most of the book follows the Grant's as they study thirteen species of finches on the Galapagos Islands, especially the island of Daphne Major. The Grant's studies focused mainly on how the finches reacted to environmental changes and how natural selection influenced their evolutionary change. Jonathan Weiner also provides insight into other experiments done by other scientists on finches and other species.

The book was an interesting read and the author did a good job of keeping complex science concepts simple for the purpose of suiting every type of reader. He included the stories of the Grant's and numerous other scientists to keep the novel interesting and not strictly scientific. The novel was presented in a story-like fashion on how evolutionary concepts were supported.The idea that evolutionary changes are always occurring and that the results of evolution can be seen in both short and long time periods is presented in the novel. Overall, the book was enjoyable and gave the reader valuable insight on evolution and Darwinism.