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The Beak of the Finch
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 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.
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 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.
352 pages, Library Binding
First published May 3, 1994
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12847 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Weiner
32 books122 followersJonathan Weiner is one of the most distinguished popular-science writers in the country. His books have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A former editor at The Sciences and a writer for The New Yorker, he is the author of The Beak of the Finch, Time, Love, Memory, His Brother's Keeper among many others.
He currently lives in New York with his wife, Deborah Heiligman who is the children's book author, and their two sons. There he teaches science writing at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
He currently lives in New York with his wife, Deborah Heiligman who is the children's book author, and their two sons. There he teaches science writing at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 752 reviews
December 4, 2013
Wow.
When I joined Goodreads a few months back, I set two rules for myself: first, to review books as I read or re-read them, and second, to be sparing with my ratings. I've not given any book five stars this summer. This is the first.
Weiner won the Pulitzer for general non-fiction with this book in 1995. He utterly deserves it. While it's not difficult to find an interesting non-fiction book, and not too hard to find a truly gifted writer (the market's competitive like that), finding someone who discusses science with such evocative, expressive language is a rarity. Neither too dry nor too familiar, Weiner's writing is as wonderful as his subject matter.
Rosemary and Peter Grant are two evolutionary biologists who did what no one had attempted to do before: beginning in the early 70's, they studied, measured, and documented every detail of the finches on Daphne Major, one of the Galapagos islands, in an effort to determine if evolutionary changes could be observed over a span of decades instead of eons. Amazingly, they succeeded far beyond their expectations: selection does not occur at the glacial pace Darwin envisioned, but at a flickering rate measurable over years, seasons, and days. The smallest differences -- so small that no one had thought them worthy of study prior to the Grants -- have an effect so profound on a population that it's literally visible to the naked eye.
A fabulous description of the dedication, tedium, and sheer amount of number-crunching involved in field research, Weiner talks to many of the biologists inspired by the Grants: those studying fish, insects, and viruses -- those gathering data that Darwin never thought possible to observe in the span of a single human lifetime.
When I joined Goodreads a few months back, I set two rules for myself: first, to review books as I read or re-read them, and second, to be sparing with my ratings. I've not given any book five stars this summer. This is the first.
Weiner won the Pulitzer for general non-fiction with this book in 1995. He utterly deserves it. While it's not difficult to find an interesting non-fiction book, and not too hard to find a truly gifted writer (the market's competitive like that), finding someone who discusses science with such evocative, expressive language is a rarity. Neither too dry nor too familiar, Weiner's writing is as wonderful as his subject matter.
Rosemary and Peter Grant are two evolutionary biologists who did what no one had attempted to do before: beginning in the early 70's, they studied, measured, and documented every detail of the finches on Daphne Major, one of the Galapagos islands, in an effort to determine if evolutionary changes could be observed over a span of decades instead of eons. Amazingly, they succeeded far beyond their expectations: selection does not occur at the glacial pace Darwin envisioned, but at a flickering rate measurable over years, seasons, and days. The smallest differences -- so small that no one had thought them worthy of study prior to the Grants -- have an effect so profound on a population that it's literally visible to the naked eye.
A fabulous description of the dedication, tedium, and sheer amount of number-crunching involved in field research, Weiner talks to many of the biologists inspired by the Grants: those studying fish, insects, and viruses -- those gathering data that Darwin never thought possible to observe in the span of a single human lifetime.
June 7, 2019
This is not a bad book; it is OK. There is room for improvement.
It is a book of the popular science genre. Having read them before, you know what is in-store.
The book is about evolution, and so about Darwin, natural selection and survival of the fittest. Its central focus is a study of finches on Daphne Major, an island of the Galapagos archipelago. Ancestors of the finches studied were collected by Darwin on the HMS Beagle journey to the islands in September and October 1835. The study was led by Peter and Rosemary Grant, began in 1973 and had been in progress for almost two decades when the book came out, in 1994. Thirteen species of finches have been studied, studied meticulously. Body measurements, food and water availability, weather conditions, breeding habits and their song—all were noted. Every bird is measured and tagged. Every bird is recognizable by Peter and Rosemary, and there are a lot of birds these two have kept track of! The study is large! The statistics have been crunched and analyzed in sophisticated computer programs at Princeton. The effort and time and work devoted is impressive, yet the author’s manner of excessively praising the Grants is out of place.
Other field studies are spoken of too. Studies of sticklebacks and guppies are two which I found interesting. I would have appreciated more such studies. They are concisely handled.
The book emphasizes the speed with which natural selection can take place. Five times our biosphere has been in a period of such rapid change as that we are experiencing now.
The book needs a better layout and organization. I prefer the rigor of scientific analysis. I am not looking for lyricism in a book such as this.
The book is repetitive. Had it been properly edited and tightened it would be half its length.
The book ends on a philosophical note warning of the consequences of increased gas emissions and global warming.
Victor Bevine narrates the audiobook. He is not hard to understand but I could have done without his dramatization. His impersonation of Darwin was ridiculous. I have given the narration two stars.
The basic problem is that there is really nothing new or outstanding presented. I would have preferred simply a clear, concise presentation of the field studies and what each showed, without excessive padding and repetition.
It is a book of the popular science genre. Having read them before, you know what is in-store.
The book is about evolution, and so about Darwin, natural selection and survival of the fittest. Its central focus is a study of finches on Daphne Major, an island of the Galapagos archipelago. Ancestors of the finches studied were collected by Darwin on the HMS Beagle journey to the islands in September and October 1835. The study was led by Peter and Rosemary Grant, began in 1973 and had been in progress for almost two decades when the book came out, in 1994. Thirteen species of finches have been studied, studied meticulously. Body measurements, food and water availability, weather conditions, breeding habits and their song—all were noted. Every bird is measured and tagged. Every bird is recognizable by Peter and Rosemary, and there are a lot of birds these two have kept track of! The study is large! The statistics have been crunched and analyzed in sophisticated computer programs at Princeton. The effort and time and work devoted is impressive, yet the author’s manner of excessively praising the Grants is out of place.
Other field studies are spoken of too. Studies of sticklebacks and guppies are two which I found interesting. I would have appreciated more such studies. They are concisely handled.
The book emphasizes the speed with which natural selection can take place. Five times our biosphere has been in a period of such rapid change as that we are experiencing now.
The book needs a better layout and organization. I prefer the rigor of scientific analysis. I am not looking for lyricism in a book such as this.
The book is repetitive. Had it been properly edited and tightened it would be half its length.
The book ends on a philosophical note warning of the consequences of increased gas emissions and global warming.
Victor Bevine narrates the audiobook. He is not hard to understand but I could have done without his dramatization. His impersonation of Darwin was ridiculous. I have given the narration two stars.
The basic problem is that there is really nothing new or outstanding presented. I would have preferred simply a clear, concise presentation of the field studies and what each showed, without excessive padding and repetition.
July 26, 2012
I'm ashamed to say that I didn’t know until recently (after reading Dawkins’ magnificent book The Ancestor’s Tale) that evolution can in fact be observed happening in real time and not only in as short a time as centuries, but also in decades and even years. In that book, Dawkins spoke about Rosemary and Peter Grant in relation to their work on the Galapagos Islands on Darwin’s finches and how they showed the role of evolution in explaining the immense diversity of life. I tried to find a book on the subject and came across this one, which was also mentioned in the Bibliography of The Ancestor’s Tale.
First, there is a thing that I didn’t appreciate much in this book, and that is the style in which it was written. Scientific books with journalistic and literary tones annoy and distract me a lot and if it were not for that, this book would have easily earned a perfect 5 star. It is unique and intelligent, written sometimes with beautiful Dawkinsesque prose about the elegance and magnificence of evolution with beautiful allusion to the Judeo-Christian myths in a manner that didn’t suggest supernatural elements which can sometimes be imprudently used in scientific books. I actually quite liked that since I happen to find the Judeo-Christian myths of creation beautiful.
The Beak of the Finch had some very interesting ideas about the different paths evolution follows under different circumstances, such as when a species is being subjected to opposing selection forces by both sexual and natural selections, or when droughts and floods occur in successions. Also, one of the most interesting ideas was the fact that when zooming-in on the evolutionary history, the transition is often jagged and goes back and forth on the same or different paths. Another powerful idea was speciation and how it occurs without necessarily being always caused by geographical isolation. It only suffices that certain members of a species adapt to a different lifestyle from that of the others while living in the same environment, and given enough time the two groups can diverge to form different species following different lifestyles. And finally, demonstrating the role of hybridization in speciation was really interesting and informative.
The Beak of the Finch is not as much focused on finches as its title suggests. In fact, the author believes that the finch's beak can be used to symbolize evolution itself, given the powerful insights it gave the scientists who studied it since decades, and most importantly its historical significance because of Darwins' visit to the Galapagos. It is a delightful idea and symbol.
Evolution is indeed a fascinating and important topic and this book clearly shows how it is happening all around us. We like to think that it happened a long time ago and long stretches of time are needed for its latest effects to surface. Weiner shows how this is not always the case and how evolution can proceed with varying speeds under different conditions. He shows the extent of the effects of our actions on the evolution of almost all the species around us including of course our own. It is nice to remember that Heraclitus was right in saying that everything flows, which is not only true as regards the atoms of our bodies which are being replaced as I write these words, but also in relation to the changes that our species undergo as long as we have enough time, wisdom, and chance to be here.
First, there is a thing that I didn’t appreciate much in this book, and that is the style in which it was written. Scientific books with journalistic and literary tones annoy and distract me a lot and if it were not for that, this book would have easily earned a perfect 5 star. It is unique and intelligent, written sometimes with beautiful Dawkinsesque prose about the elegance and magnificence of evolution with beautiful allusion to the Judeo-Christian myths in a manner that didn’t suggest supernatural elements which can sometimes be imprudently used in scientific books. I actually quite liked that since I happen to find the Judeo-Christian myths of creation beautiful.
The Beak of the Finch had some very interesting ideas about the different paths evolution follows under different circumstances, such as when a species is being subjected to opposing selection forces by both sexual and natural selections, or when droughts and floods occur in successions. Also, one of the most interesting ideas was the fact that when zooming-in on the evolutionary history, the transition is often jagged and goes back and forth on the same or different paths. Another powerful idea was speciation and how it occurs without necessarily being always caused by geographical isolation. It only suffices that certain members of a species adapt to a different lifestyle from that of the others while living in the same environment, and given enough time the two groups can diverge to form different species following different lifestyles. And finally, demonstrating the role of hybridization in speciation was really interesting and informative.
The Beak of the Finch is not as much focused on finches as its title suggests. In fact, the author believes that the finch's beak can be used to symbolize evolution itself, given the powerful insights it gave the scientists who studied it since decades, and most importantly its historical significance because of Darwins' visit to the Galapagos. It is a delightful idea and symbol.
Evolution is indeed a fascinating and important topic and this book clearly shows how it is happening all around us. We like to think that it happened a long time ago and long stretches of time are needed for its latest effects to surface. Weiner shows how this is not always the case and how evolution can proceed with varying speeds under different conditions. He shows the extent of the effects of our actions on the evolution of almost all the species around us including of course our own. It is nice to remember that Heraclitus was right in saying that everything flows, which is not only true as regards the atoms of our bodies which are being replaced as I write these words, but also in relation to the changes that our species undergo as long as we have enough time, wisdom, and chance to be here.
April 21, 2019
A woodpecker finch becomes possible only on an island without a woodpecker, a warbler finch only without a warbler. A flower-browsing finch becomes possible where there are no bees and hummingbirds—and on islands where bees have now invaded, many of Darwin’s finches have given back the flowers.
The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner won the Pulitzer Prize for Non Fiction in 1995.
This book gets high marks as an homage to Darwin. it follows a husband and wife’s two decade long biological survey of finches beginning in the 1970s on a remote and tiny volcanic island, Daphne Major, in the Galapagos.
The study on Daphne Major was a first as it tracked natural selection in near real time by measuring every finch’s beak and other physical characteristics. The living laboratory was in effect a closed system. There are only a handful of plants and seeds so the scientists knew which seeds each species of finch ate. They saw which species of finch were more likely to survive during droughts and which finches thrived during the wet years. They used a lot of data to exploit the minute differences of beak length and width from one generation to the next. This was all possible because the finches have no fear of humans and have no predators or competition other than finches.
There is discussion of cross species breeding which is more common than scientists once realized, of adaptive radiation where a single species diverges into two species, competition between birds and bees and a whole host of evolutionary topics.
The scientific content in this book is a full five stars. The writing style is breezy, for a science book, and at least four stars. The big picture focus and interpretability is a full five stars. The organization could have been a little better and the book is a little too long for its message, my only criticisms.
4.5 stars. There aren’t that many science books written for a general audience that are this thought provoking and well researched and interpreted. Some of the credit should go to the Grants of course — the couple who ran this first study of its kind.
June 7, 2019
Thoughts soon.
September 25, 2017
"We are doing what the dinosaurs did before us, only faster.
We bring strangers together to make strange bedfellows, and we remake the beds they lie in, all at once."
We bring strangers together to make strange bedfellows, and we remake the beds they lie in, all at once."
January 9, 2017
As Jonathan Weiner points out in this classic of science writing, the word "evolution" comes from the Latin word for unfolding, rolling out like a scroll.
That's an appropriate concept for this book, which unfurls before the reader an impressive array of late-20th-century scientific research into natural selection, sexual selection and speciation – all of it hammering home again and again: Not only was Darwin right, he was righter than he knew.
As the book's title implies, Weiner focuses on Darwin's finches, the baker's dozen of Galapagos species whose beaks so aptly tell the tale of adaptation and selection. But he doesn't stop there. Weiner shows us sticklebacks in British Columbia, fruit flies in labs all over the world, guppies in Venezuela, moth DNA in Ontario, and numerous other animals in numerous other places where scientists are observing evolution occur in front of their faces – a process much faster and more powerful than Darwin could have dreamed.
What is most remarkable, however, is that this book was published in 1994, yet it remains deeply relevant. Weiner was arguably 15 years ahead of his time in describing the threat of bacteria that evolve resistance to antibiotics, and his description of evolution sparked by global warming and other human-caused processes now seems almost quaint in its cautious notes of alarm. He describes cactus finches that mutilate and sterilize the very plants on which they rely for their existence, imperiling themselves and their species so they can get at the cactus nectar a few hours earlier than the others. The tragedy of the commons is not just a human one; as it turns out, the individual selfishness that makes evolution (and capitalism, not to put too fine a point on it) work collectively can backfire on birds, too.
Weiner's main argument is that evolution for more than a century was criticized by advocates and opponents alike for being mainly theoretical or logical; it couldn't be observed, couldn't be tested, couldn't be proven. Therefore, it wasn't "real science." Peter and Rosemary Grant's 30-plus years of work with the Galapagos finches have put to rest that argument once and for all, Weiner argues. Evolution by variation and natural selection can be observed, and it has been. It can be successfully tested, and it has been. Not only a logical extrapolation of the fossil record and the selection imposed on pigeons and dogs by breeders, Darwinian evolution is in fact scientifically sound and much stronger a force than even its proponents realized. Evolution is a not a river of sludge, moving so slowly you can't notice except through conjecture. Rather, it is a swift-moving current, a series of waves battering a coastline, and we – humans, other animals, plants –are pulled and pushed by the water moving in and out.
That said, Weiner seems to want to make an additional argument. He sprinkles the book with quotes from and allusions to the Bible. He sets up some prominent creationists as foils for the Grants' work. He gets some comments from the scientists he interviews about their interactions with creationists. Several chapters reference creation, metaphysics and God. But in the end, Weiner can't seem to get onto the page whatever it is he wants to say about the perceived conflict between science and faith. He worries at it like a dog with a bone, but he never sinks his teeth into it. The string is left untied, like a line of data with the final numbers erased.
Nevertheless, Weiner has written a monumentally helpful book, one that could easily be considered a sequel to Darwin's classic On the Origin of Species, so well does Weiner explicate and demonstrate Darwin's theory. I'll be recommending this to anyone interested in learning more about what evolution is and whether it's real.
That's an appropriate concept for this book, which unfurls before the reader an impressive array of late-20th-century scientific research into natural selection, sexual selection and speciation – all of it hammering home again and again: Not only was Darwin right, he was righter than he knew.
As the book's title implies, Weiner focuses on Darwin's finches, the baker's dozen of Galapagos species whose beaks so aptly tell the tale of adaptation and selection. But he doesn't stop there. Weiner shows us sticklebacks in British Columbia, fruit flies in labs all over the world, guppies in Venezuela, moth DNA in Ontario, and numerous other animals in numerous other places where scientists are observing evolution occur in front of their faces – a process much faster and more powerful than Darwin could have dreamed.
What is most remarkable, however, is that this book was published in 1994, yet it remains deeply relevant. Weiner was arguably 15 years ahead of his time in describing the threat of bacteria that evolve resistance to antibiotics, and his description of evolution sparked by global warming and other human-caused processes now seems almost quaint in its cautious notes of alarm. He describes cactus finches that mutilate and sterilize the very plants on which they rely for their existence, imperiling themselves and their species so they can get at the cactus nectar a few hours earlier than the others. The tragedy of the commons is not just a human one; as it turns out, the individual selfishness that makes evolution (and capitalism, not to put too fine a point on it) work collectively can backfire on birds, too.
Weiner's main argument is that evolution for more than a century was criticized by advocates and opponents alike for being mainly theoretical or logical; it couldn't be observed, couldn't be tested, couldn't be proven. Therefore, it wasn't "real science." Peter and Rosemary Grant's 30-plus years of work with the Galapagos finches have put to rest that argument once and for all, Weiner argues. Evolution by variation and natural selection can be observed, and it has been. It can be successfully tested, and it has been. Not only a logical extrapolation of the fossil record and the selection imposed on pigeons and dogs by breeders, Darwinian evolution is in fact scientifically sound and much stronger a force than even its proponents realized. Evolution is a not a river of sludge, moving so slowly you can't notice except through conjecture. Rather, it is a swift-moving current, a series of waves battering a coastline, and we – humans, other animals, plants –are pulled and pushed by the water moving in and out.
That said, Weiner seems to want to make an additional argument. He sprinkles the book with quotes from and allusions to the Bible. He sets up some prominent creationists as foils for the Grants' work. He gets some comments from the scientists he interviews about their interactions with creationists. Several chapters reference creation, metaphysics and God. But in the end, Weiner can't seem to get onto the page whatever it is he wants to say about the perceived conflict between science and faith. He worries at it like a dog with a bone, but he never sinks his teeth into it. The string is left untied, like a line of data with the final numbers erased.
Nevertheless, Weiner has written a monumentally helpful book, one that could easily be considered a sequel to Darwin's classic On the Origin of Species, so well does Weiner explicate and demonstrate Darwin's theory. I'll be recommending this to anyone interested in learning more about what evolution is and whether it's real.
July 10, 2016
This was a really interesting look into the constant evolution of finches in the Galapagos. Parts of it were a little slow (and I definitely got bogged down by the constant repetition of "beak" and "finch," though that probably couldn't be helped, given the subject), but other parts were very interesting. The writing was also very good. My least favorite part was the last few chapters when the author got away from finches and switched to humans. I can see why he would do it because it's interesting to think about human evolution through the lens of finches, but it seemed like a weird transition to me. Overall, this was pretty quick and interesting to read, even if I probably won't ever need to know anything about finches again.
September 21, 2015
A cripplingly tedious account of cripplingly tedious field work that tends to confirm things that you thought were totally obvious. For most people with a high school education, natural selection, at the level depicted in the book, is pure common sense. Environmental pressures favor the survival/fecundity of certain phenotypes that then tend to displace others. Sexual preference, adaptive behaviors, and cross-breeding affect this in several ways and, if the pressures are extreme, the changes can come fast. The selective process can move in many directions and can recede altogether with the arrival and departure of such pressures. You can write the whole substance of it on the back of an index card. However, the book invites you experience every trial and tribulation of the marooned Galapagian finches and of the pathetic scientists who waste their lives watching and measuring them. Predictable things happen in predictable ways. You are along for the ride. You could have read something else, but the reviews were so good you convince yourself that the book just HAS to get better soon. There are efforts made to spice up the narrative--the scientists heroically tell droll jokes in the face of unimaginable boredom, the finches are induced to enjoy inter-species necrophiliatic intercourse with decapitated bird cadavers—but no indulgence in humor or kinky sexcapades can make the finches very interesting.
The book gradually runs natural selection down and pounds it relentlessly into the guano-encrusted tuff of Daphne Major. However, mere natural selection does not alone give you "evolution." The book only dabbles in the critical issue of speciation. It always refers to phenotypically distinct finch groups that tend not to interbreed as "species," but, amazingly, the book never attempts a formal definition of "species" and does little more than offer conversations amongst the forlorn scientists that the finch varieties indeed really just have to be separate species despite noisome interbreeding and whatnot. This could have been the interesting part—the critical part—where durable evolutionary divergence happens. Leave it to the finches to start interbreeding and melting back toward a single type.
The book actually comes alive when it ditches the finches in favor of something (anything) else. Sadly, this happens in the final quarter, when you are also told of other things you already knew from high school and a few thing you might not have known (a real treat) and this happens at an intelligent pace (another treat). Then, to tie up the book, the author indulges in some big picture/philosophical treatments that are too repetitive and uneven to be very satisfying.
Don't get me wrong, the book is very "well-written" in a mechanical sense. Truly artful biblical references and adroit and soothing language serve to dull the reader's suffering as the pages slowly go by. Even so, I have never hated the experience of a non-fiction work as much as this. I feel stupid for having finished it. I now hate "Darwin’s finches" and their vicissitudinous, environmentally selected beaks. What a waste of my time. I find myself hoping they soon go extinct and that the circumstances and causes of their extinction pass unobserved and unknowable.
So, why do people like this tome?
(1) Some readers may be surprised to discover what natural selection is, having neither any education nor imagination that would have previously acquainted them with the idea.
(2) The book strives to support the theory of evolution, which many people reject for irrational or unscientific reasons. Many readers need to be associated with the smart crowd who like evolution and "liking" this book reaffirms their participation in that smart group and further assures them they are totally unlike the other group, who instead intensely dislike the book for analogous reasons.
(3) They are, or are related to, one of the scientists whose tragic sacrifice on the altar of pointless empiricism is depicted in this heart-wrenching monument to wasted lives.
--Recommended for scientifically inclined boys of middling intellect, aged 12 to 16 years.
The book gradually runs natural selection down and pounds it relentlessly into the guano-encrusted tuff of Daphne Major. However, mere natural selection does not alone give you "evolution." The book only dabbles in the critical issue of speciation. It always refers to phenotypically distinct finch groups that tend not to interbreed as "species," but, amazingly, the book never attempts a formal definition of "species" and does little more than offer conversations amongst the forlorn scientists that the finch varieties indeed really just have to be separate species despite noisome interbreeding and whatnot. This could have been the interesting part—the critical part—where durable evolutionary divergence happens. Leave it to the finches to start interbreeding and melting back toward a single type.
The book actually comes alive when it ditches the finches in favor of something (anything) else. Sadly, this happens in the final quarter, when you are also told of other things you already knew from high school and a few thing you might not have known (a real treat) and this happens at an intelligent pace (another treat). Then, to tie up the book, the author indulges in some big picture/philosophical treatments that are too repetitive and uneven to be very satisfying.
Don't get me wrong, the book is very "well-written" in a mechanical sense. Truly artful biblical references and adroit and soothing language serve to dull the reader's suffering as the pages slowly go by. Even so, I have never hated the experience of a non-fiction work as much as this. I feel stupid for having finished it. I now hate "Darwin’s finches" and their vicissitudinous, environmentally selected beaks. What a waste of my time. I find myself hoping they soon go extinct and that the circumstances and causes of their extinction pass unobserved and unknowable.
So, why do people like this tome?
(1) Some readers may be surprised to discover what natural selection is, having neither any education nor imagination that would have previously acquainted them with the idea.
(2) The book strives to support the theory of evolution, which many people reject for irrational or unscientific reasons. Many readers need to be associated with the smart crowd who like evolution and "liking" this book reaffirms their participation in that smart group and further assures them they are totally unlike the other group, who instead intensely dislike the book for analogous reasons.
(3) They are, or are related to, one of the scientists whose tragic sacrifice on the altar of pointless empiricism is depicted in this heart-wrenching monument to wasted lives.
--Recommended for scientifically inclined boys of middling intellect, aged 12 to 16 years.
November 19, 2015
The Beak of the Finch is an excellent introduction to contemporary evolutionary theory. There was quite a lot of detail about studies into the Galapagos finches, which was great! The finches & how quickly they are evolving is super interesting. I also have a new found appreciation for the lengths that ecologists go to for their field work. I think that this book struck a nice balance between hard science, human interest, history and philosophy. It is nice to learn a bit about the scientists' lives, while still having the book firmly focused on their scientific achievements.
August 9, 2020
The finches of the Galapogos Islands rank right up there with Newton's apple and Galileo's telescope in the iconography of science, and like them, are as much fiction now as fact. There is a great deal of accumulated storytelling around the nugget of truth about Darwin's finches. While they did influence Darwin's thinking, they were just one of many, many species (or groups of species) to do so, and his notes do not reveal them to have been any sort of trigger for a Eureka moment. To give just one example, Darwin's long association with pigeon fanciers was at least as influential on his thinking. The Galapogos finches are, however, a great illustration of how evolution does and doesn't work, and in recent decades they have come in for almost unparalleled scrutiny. The primary reason why, is a married couple named Peter and Rosemary Grant.
The Grants, and their many colleagues and especially graduate students over the decades, have studied the several related finch species of the Galapogos Islands, down to the individual bird. They measure beak dimensions, reproductive success, parentage, wing length, coloration, etc. etc. They repeat this for bird after bird, on a particular islet (small even by Galapogos standards), until they have measured (and banded) virtually every single bird. They repeat this year after year. It was already, in the early 1990's when this book was written, enough to show something that most scholars of evolution in the decades after Darwin had assumed could not be seen: evolution in progress.
Because they are relatively new to the islands (in evolutionary terms), and because periodic El Nino and La Nina events shove the islands' climate from dry to wet and back again over the years, the finches of the Galapogos are by no means evidence of the much-cited "delicate balance of nature". They are, in a sense, perpetually unbalanced, and traits like beak length (which impacts what kind of food they are able to eat, and how efficiently they can do it) show trends visible over the course of a decade or less.
Well, visible if you study it in as much detail as the Grants do; the changes are sometimes measured in tenths of millimeters over the course of a year.
But, how can we know that these changes have anything to do with natural selection? What if it is simply a difference in diet (owing to differences in how much rain falls), causing the birds to grow either larger or smaller beaks? To know that, you would need to keep a ridiculously vast and detailed family tree of all the finches of the tiny islet that the Grants have made their particular object of study. Fortunately, that is just what the Grants did. They know what birds had great reproductive success, and what birds did not, and how many offspring they all left behind, and how much reproductive success those offspring have had.
The book has several dozen illustrations, some taken from Darwin's original books, and some by the Grants' daughter, Thalia, who appears to be a quite talented artist. I especially liked the ones by Thalia Grant of a finch taking a ride on a Galapogos tortoise, and a finch hunting flies on an iguana. The tortoise and iguana, both much larger than the respective finches which perch atop them, appear to take little notice of it, as if bird and reptile are living in entirely different timescales.
Jonathan Weiner does a great job of showing us both the day-to-day efforts required to collect this data, and the year-to-year and decade-to-decade progress of the Grants in collecting it. He can effectively communicate something as abstract as an evolutionary fitness landscape, and how drought and flood can push the species of Galapogos finches around it. It was a fascinating, yet oddly effortless read, as concepts that were mind-bending to 19th century scientists can get communicated to someone like me, who has no professional background in the field. This kind of thing doesn't just happen accidentally; Weiner must have worked hard at making it that easy for us. Rarely has learning been so thoughtfully and skillfully provided to the reader, it would be a shame to pass it up.
The Grants, and their many colleagues and especially graduate students over the decades, have studied the several related finch species of the Galapogos Islands, down to the individual bird. They measure beak dimensions, reproductive success, parentage, wing length, coloration, etc. etc. They repeat this for bird after bird, on a particular islet (small even by Galapogos standards), until they have measured (and banded) virtually every single bird. They repeat this year after year. It was already, in the early 1990's when this book was written, enough to show something that most scholars of evolution in the decades after Darwin had assumed could not be seen: evolution in progress.
Because they are relatively new to the islands (in evolutionary terms), and because periodic El Nino and La Nina events shove the islands' climate from dry to wet and back again over the years, the finches of the Galapogos are by no means evidence of the much-cited "delicate balance of nature". They are, in a sense, perpetually unbalanced, and traits like beak length (which impacts what kind of food they are able to eat, and how efficiently they can do it) show trends visible over the course of a decade or less.
Well, visible if you study it in as much detail as the Grants do; the changes are sometimes measured in tenths of millimeters over the course of a year.
But, how can we know that these changes have anything to do with natural selection? What if it is simply a difference in diet (owing to differences in how much rain falls), causing the birds to grow either larger or smaller beaks? To know that, you would need to keep a ridiculously vast and detailed family tree of all the finches of the tiny islet that the Grants have made their particular object of study. Fortunately, that is just what the Grants did. They know what birds had great reproductive success, and what birds did not, and how many offspring they all left behind, and how much reproductive success those offspring have had.
The book has several dozen illustrations, some taken from Darwin's original books, and some by the Grants' daughter, Thalia, who appears to be a quite talented artist. I especially liked the ones by Thalia Grant of a finch taking a ride on a Galapogos tortoise, and a finch hunting flies on an iguana. The tortoise and iguana, both much larger than the respective finches which perch atop them, appear to take little notice of it, as if bird and reptile are living in entirely different timescales.
Jonathan Weiner does a great job of showing us both the day-to-day efforts required to collect this data, and the year-to-year and decade-to-decade progress of the Grants in collecting it. He can effectively communicate something as abstract as an evolutionary fitness landscape, and how drought and flood can push the species of Galapogos finches around it. It was a fascinating, yet oddly effortless read, as concepts that were mind-bending to 19th century scientists can get communicated to someone like me, who has no professional background in the field. This kind of thing doesn't just happen accidentally; Weiner must have worked hard at making it that easy for us. Rarely has learning been so thoughtfully and skillfully provided to the reader, it would be a shame to pass it up.
October 13, 2018
In 1973 Rosemary and Peter Grant went to the Galapagos Islands to take a look at Darwin's finches. The two Princeton evolutionary biologists went to study the finches at first hand on Daphne Major, an even more isolated island in the middle of the Archipelago. These famous finches are the ones that Charles Darwin encountered during his voyage on the HMS Beagle and which inspired his ideas on evolution. The Grants went to see if they could observe evolution in action as they felt that even Darwin did not completely understand his own theory and the evolutionary process was not always the slow and gradual one he believed it to be. They have been watching these finches ever since. What they have found is proof of evolution in action observable within the single life of a finch or taking place in just a few years.
The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time is the story of how they did all this. In the approximately 30 years that the Grant's and their various assistants have been watching, these tiny birds have shown a remarkable ability to quickly adapt to changes in the environment, climate, and other pressures that nature puts in their path. The story here is absolutely an incredible one, told in exceptionally readable language. In addition to the finches, the author goes on to discuss other theories that came out of this work. Some of their former students went on to do their own experiments on hereditability, adaptation, hybridization in nature, bacterial resistance and resistance to pesticides.
This is a book that should fascinate anyone with even a small interest in the natural sciences or just an appreciation of the diversity and wonder of this world we live in.
The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time is the story of how they did all this. In the approximately 30 years that the Grant's and their various assistants have been watching, these tiny birds have shown a remarkable ability to quickly adapt to changes in the environment, climate, and other pressures that nature puts in their path. The story here is absolutely an incredible one, told in exceptionally readable language. In addition to the finches, the author goes on to discuss other theories that came out of this work. Some of their former students went on to do their own experiments on hereditability, adaptation, hybridization in nature, bacterial resistance and resistance to pesticides.
This is a book that should fascinate anyone with even a small interest in the natural sciences or just an appreciation of the diversity and wonder of this world we live in.
July 4, 2022
Despite being (I suspected) a bit dated, this book was largely fascinating but had two serious flaws, one was its frequent kowtowing to the scientific establishment but more seriously its inability to explain scientific principles of evolution. Peter Grant’s experiments were fascinating but in the end I was left with more questions about evolution than when I started. Grant’s experiments were about natural selection and quite brilliant but how they lead to evolution is a puzzle I hope to explore further.
Evolution is a scientific theory, “obviously” true except for its mysteriously mechanism. What I don’t like are evolution books that treat it as a religion, belief as an article of faith. Science books that are continually expressing doubts and concerns about their theories are much more interesting.
One thing about the book though was it did show why the Galapagos is a unique laboratory for the study of evolution and why it must be kept as a nature preserve indefinitely. The limited number of species who have evolved in isolation under incredibly unique circumstances makes it unlike anywhere else in the world. We have scientists like Grant to thank for that.
Evolution is a scientific theory, “obviously” true except for its mysteriously mechanism. What I don’t like are evolution books that treat it as a religion, belief as an article of faith. Science books that are continually expressing doubts and concerns about their theories are much more interesting.
One thing about the book though was it did show why the Galapagos is a unique laboratory for the study of evolution and why it must be kept as a nature preserve indefinitely. The limited number of species who have evolved in isolation under incredibly unique circumstances makes it unlike anywhere else in the world. We have scientists like Grant to thank for that.
April 15, 2020
nice little film to go with this book....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcM23...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcM23...
March 8, 2021
I am somewhat reluctantly giving this highly entertaining book four stars. I never took any science courses at university and my high school studies are fifty years behind me so I have no idea how good a job it does at explaining the state of evolutionary studies at the end of the 20th century which is the nominal purpose of the book.
The book however is a delight to read as Weiner tells with great flair the story of two Princeton biologists Pieter and Rosemary Grant as they studied the finch population of Daphne Major a small island in the Galapagos Archipelago over a 20 year period and comparing their findings to those of Charles Darwin. The principle conclusion of the Grants are that the evolutionary process works faster than Darwin had believed and can be observed in the field.
The Grants discovered that the evolutionary process could impact a population dramatically within a single season. They observed that during drought which would make it harder for finches with small beaks to survive, the number of finches with small beaks would decline most rapidly causing the average beak size of the population to increase within a matter of weeks. Similarly, during an extremely wet year the number of finches with small beaks would increase relative to those with large beaks. The Grants conclude that if the climate cycle remains constant the evolutionary process forces the average beak size to revert to the mean. The concern of the Grants then is that the climate changes caused by global warming will be irreversible.
Weiner notes that the findings of the Grants relative to the fluctuating average beak size were consistent with other studies notably those conducted in England which showed the Pepper Moth darkening in the 19th century as coal consumption was increasing and then becoming lighter in the 20th century as coal was replaced as a heating fuel.
What was newer in the findings of the Grants was that they observed new hybrid species of finches being created, surviving and prospering as birds from two different species of finches mated. The Grants believe that hybridization may have a significant role in explaining the type of more dramatic evolutionary changes than what they observed in their field work.
Wiener also observes that the process of sexual selection which typically creates higher death rates for the sexually attractive works at cross purposes with natural selection which promotes survival of the fittest. He does not maket it clear, however, what the implication of this is for evolutionary theory.
Weiner short volume is a delight to read. For myself, the greatest pleasure came from the reproductions the charming 19th century engravings portraying the species of the Galapagos Islands.
The book however is a delight to read as Weiner tells with great flair the story of two Princeton biologists Pieter and Rosemary Grant as they studied the finch population of Daphne Major a small island in the Galapagos Archipelago over a 20 year period and comparing their findings to those of Charles Darwin. The principle conclusion of the Grants are that the evolutionary process works faster than Darwin had believed and can be observed in the field.
The Grants discovered that the evolutionary process could impact a population dramatically within a single season. They observed that during drought which would make it harder for finches with small beaks to survive, the number of finches with small beaks would decline most rapidly causing the average beak size of the population to increase within a matter of weeks. Similarly, during an extremely wet year the number of finches with small beaks would increase relative to those with large beaks. The Grants conclude that if the climate cycle remains constant the evolutionary process forces the average beak size to revert to the mean. The concern of the Grants then is that the climate changes caused by global warming will be irreversible.
Weiner notes that the findings of the Grants relative to the fluctuating average beak size were consistent with other studies notably those conducted in England which showed the Pepper Moth darkening in the 19th century as coal consumption was increasing and then becoming lighter in the 20th century as coal was replaced as a heating fuel.
What was newer in the findings of the Grants was that they observed new hybrid species of finches being created, surviving and prospering as birds from two different species of finches mated. The Grants believe that hybridization may have a significant role in explaining the type of more dramatic evolutionary changes than what they observed in their field work.
Wiener also observes that the process of sexual selection which typically creates higher death rates for the sexually attractive works at cross purposes with natural selection which promotes survival of the fittest. He does not maket it clear, however, what the implication of this is for evolutionary theory.
Weiner short volume is a delight to read. For myself, the greatest pleasure came from the reproductions the charming 19th century engravings portraying the species of the Galapagos Islands.
February 28, 2009
This would be on my short list of best science books. Thrilling fieldwork. Especially poignant this month that we commemorate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his “The Origin of the Species.”
Weiner’s book details the study of Darwin’s finches by Princeton evolutionary biologists: Peter and Rosemary Grant. The Grants monitored every single finch on the island of Daphne Major in the Galápagos Islands over more than two decades. They recorded and made detailed measurements of every single bird and its offspring, generation after generation.
Charles Darwin himself would have loved this book even though it proved part of his treatise wrong. Evolution is not a slow methodical process, requiring thousands of years to nuance changes in species. It can move much faster. And is observable from season to season dependent on the whims of the surrounding environment. As Darwin surmised (and the Grants demonstrate how) the numerous finch species that live isolated on these tiny islands all emerged from only one mainland species.
If you are a naturalist and you asked me to recommend just one book, it would probably be this one because it dramatically illustrates just how dynamic nature truly is. Great story, told well.
Weiner’s book details the study of Darwin’s finches by Princeton evolutionary biologists: Peter and Rosemary Grant. The Grants monitored every single finch on the island of Daphne Major in the Galápagos Islands over more than two decades. They recorded and made detailed measurements of every single bird and its offspring, generation after generation.
Charles Darwin himself would have loved this book even though it proved part of his treatise wrong. Evolution is not a slow methodical process, requiring thousands of years to nuance changes in species. It can move much faster. And is observable from season to season dependent on the whims of the surrounding environment. As Darwin surmised (and the Grants demonstrate how) the numerous finch species that live isolated on these tiny islands all emerged from only one mainland species.
If you are a naturalist and you asked me to recommend just one book, it would probably be this one because it dramatically illustrates just how dynamic nature truly is. Great story, told well.
January 23, 2018
Good book. I found just about every chapter interesting, but my attention would wane by the end of each chapter. Once I got the gist of the chapter’s content, the second and third examples were oftentimes unnecessary. Well structured and well written. I can see why it won a Pulitzer.
November 16, 2024
I've been reading a lot about animals lately - I mean, I'm reading scientific studies during my lunch break, for Pete's sake - and if you read a lot of these kind of things, you'll know that evolution is one of the central concepts of both biology and zoology. Since most roads lead back to evolutionarily concepts, I figured it would be interesting to get some more context on them. This book didn't actually go into the science of evolution as much as it looked at how contemporary scientists are seeing evolution happen before their very eyes, which is an interesting spin on things for someone on the outside-looking-in. *The Beak of the Finch* is an argument for evolution, and it makes its points in a unique, well-written way even if it does get a bit repetitive and have a couple of argumentative faults we can talk about a little later.
The primary crux of this book is Peter and Rosemary Grant's then-twenty years long study of the thirteen species of finches on the Galapagos islands, the chain where the legends say Charles Darwin first birthed his theories of evolution. They specifically focus on Daphne Major, where they started their "two-year-study" in 1973 and sought to band and document every bird on the island to see what kind of adaptive [evolutionary] pressures the different species of birds put on each other. We spend a good part of the early book learning about Charles Darwin and how he was never quite as gung ho about the Galapagos finches as some popular historians would have you believe - in fact, he didn't really show any real interest in the possible divergence between finch species until an ornithologist friend of his pointed some of their features out after Darwin had returned to London. Even then, he spent a lot of his research time on pigeon breeders, and neglected to include any reference to the Galapagos finches in his landmark *Origin of Species*. We also learn the importance which some evolutionary scientists like the Grants put on the shape of a bird's beak, which is carved by the pressures of dietary requirements and available resources. Weiner also tries to tell us what a "darwin" unit is: a complicated mathematical measurement of morphological change over time. And while we hear about various associates of the Grants' measuring beak lengths on Daphne Major, we learn of Trevor Price's observation of a massive drought in 1977 which killed 85% of medium ground finches since their normal seeds got scarcer. The birds with larger beaks who could still crack the larger, leftover nuts were the birds to survive until the next breeding season of '78, where big-beaked males got mates and the cycle continued. After that one year, their average beak length went from 10.68 mm to 11.07; their depth 9.42 mm to 9.96 mm.
This is compelling evidence for evolution as it stands, but one of the best examples is in Chapter 6, which recounts how, in the 70s, a man named John Endler captured a variety of South American guppies whose males seemed to have larger, gaudier spots (for mating purposes) in waters with less predators and more subtle spots in areas with more predators; after all, you can be really attractive, but how will that get your genes passed on if you're dead because those sexually attractive spots also attract predators? He engaged in a bunch of experiments in his tanks to see if the guppies would evolve their spot patterns in response to predators present, and it turned out that they did. Chapter 12 contains another non-finch example, this time relating to fruit flies and how hybridization and/or isolation can lead to the creation of new species. The creation of new species is a significant part of the second third of the book, which also ends up dealing in hybridization, which was seen on Daphne Major after a 1983 El Nino which actually flooded Daphne Major with small seeds and gave smaller-beaked birds the foraging advantage and shrunk the medium ground finch's beaks back down. The final third of the book reiterates a lot of evolutionary concepts otherwise introduced and does go on a pretty interesting slew of tangents about "resistance" (not to the idea of evolution, but of, say, pests developing resistances to human pesticides and other factors through evolutionary growth) before wrapping up with some broad thoughts on how evolution can be seen everywhere...
*The Beak of the Finch* does not read like your average popular nonfiction book. There's a certain flow of phrasing, a certain skill that Weiner has of stringing words together, that makes his book feel a lot less like it was bound to be a science magazine article that got stretched out than some other scientific books I've read. This is the first book I've read on evolution in a long time - I think the only other one was *The Dragons of Eden* by Carl Sagan, which is even twenty years more outdated than *The Beak of the Finch" - and I don't remember Sagan making things flow as well ad Weiner did... honestly, it's just about the best-written nonfiction book I've read all year, along with *With Malice Towards None* by Stephen B. Oates. That being said, for all the pleasant wording throughout the book, our author might let his internal bias towards evolution cloud some of the arguments within his. For example, even though there does seem to be clear evidence does happen, I don't think that humans necessarily had to come out of the process; now, I don't know where else we came from, but I'm a natural-born skeptic. But Weiner, despite showing all the facts and figures on his side, doesn't really dig into any of the opposition. He mentions how crazy it is that some people will nod along with the Grants' study and believe in their results but then not want to call it evolution (because they go to church and all, you know), but once again, doesn't interact with it on an intellectual level. That's really only an issue if you see this book as an argument, like I do, so that may mean nothing bad to you if you interact with it differently.
As far as briefing one on the quintessential evolution topics, Weiner does a pretty good job here. He takes us through the tried-and-true natural selection and sexual selection, explains character displacement (when one species evolves a trait similar to a nearby species' and pushes the original out of their niche), and more. There weren't a lot of concepts I hadn't heard before, but it was nice to put new examples next to them. It didn't all stick with me, though, which I think was a failing of the book and not me. It just failed to latch onto me and really get this information through my skull. Maybe it was something about that practiced flow which prevented the narrative from feeling too blocky and routine and easy to follow; either way, when push comes to shove, by biggest problem with the book will be that it doesn't all seem to have stuck very well.
Another issue that other people have with it is that it's too long and too repetitive, and that you could find just as good information by reading some *real* science, like those papers that I read (which can be about elephant memory or how beavers affect macroinvertebrate populations or how kleptoparasitic spiders distribute themselves or anything like that), which is an argument I initially resonated with - more hard data is better, right? But then I took a step back and admitted that Weiner did a really good job here of introducing these concepts to laymen and that it was never unenjoyable to read; I never thought, "Would John shut up already?" It could've been more succinct, and if I was more learned I probably would've hoped it would be, but for where I'm at right now it did no harm; therefore, I think I'm not holding this against him.
Overall, for all the griping I did about this book, I did really enjoy reading it, even if some things had strangely gone in one ear and right out the other. Therefore, it gets 8/10 - its writing is sharply above average and it'll serve as a good introduction to concepts for the uninitiated, myself included. I don't know if I'll read Weiner again (I wouldn't mind if the opportunity presents itself), but I'm sure to read more about zoology and biology as time goes on. Might buy some tonight; we'll see. Thanks for reading, and here's hoping that you can adapt quickly enough to stay alive till my next review...
The primary crux of this book is Peter and Rosemary Grant's then-twenty years long study of the thirteen species of finches on the Galapagos islands, the chain where the legends say Charles Darwin first birthed his theories of evolution. They specifically focus on Daphne Major, where they started their "two-year-study" in 1973 and sought to band and document every bird on the island to see what kind of adaptive [evolutionary] pressures the different species of birds put on each other. We spend a good part of the early book learning about Charles Darwin and how he was never quite as gung ho about the Galapagos finches as some popular historians would have you believe - in fact, he didn't really show any real interest in the possible divergence between finch species until an ornithologist friend of his pointed some of their features out after Darwin had returned to London. Even then, he spent a lot of his research time on pigeon breeders, and neglected to include any reference to the Galapagos finches in his landmark *Origin of Species*. We also learn the importance which some evolutionary scientists like the Grants put on the shape of a bird's beak, which is carved by the pressures of dietary requirements and available resources. Weiner also tries to tell us what a "darwin" unit is: a complicated mathematical measurement of morphological change over time. And while we hear about various associates of the Grants' measuring beak lengths on Daphne Major, we learn of Trevor Price's observation of a massive drought in 1977 which killed 85% of medium ground finches since their normal seeds got scarcer. The birds with larger beaks who could still crack the larger, leftover nuts were the birds to survive until the next breeding season of '78, where big-beaked males got mates and the cycle continued. After that one year, their average beak length went from 10.68 mm to 11.07; their depth 9.42 mm to 9.96 mm.
This is compelling evidence for evolution as it stands, but one of the best examples is in Chapter 6, which recounts how, in the 70s, a man named John Endler captured a variety of South American guppies whose males seemed to have larger, gaudier spots (for mating purposes) in waters with less predators and more subtle spots in areas with more predators; after all, you can be really attractive, but how will that get your genes passed on if you're dead because those sexually attractive spots also attract predators? He engaged in a bunch of experiments in his tanks to see if the guppies would evolve their spot patterns in response to predators present, and it turned out that they did. Chapter 12 contains another non-finch example, this time relating to fruit flies and how hybridization and/or isolation can lead to the creation of new species. The creation of new species is a significant part of the second third of the book, which also ends up dealing in hybridization, which was seen on Daphne Major after a 1983 El Nino which actually flooded Daphne Major with small seeds and gave smaller-beaked birds the foraging advantage and shrunk the medium ground finch's beaks back down. The final third of the book reiterates a lot of evolutionary concepts otherwise introduced and does go on a pretty interesting slew of tangents about "resistance" (not to the idea of evolution, but of, say, pests developing resistances to human pesticides and other factors through evolutionary growth) before wrapping up with some broad thoughts on how evolution can be seen everywhere...
*The Beak of the Finch* does not read like your average popular nonfiction book. There's a certain flow of phrasing, a certain skill that Weiner has of stringing words together, that makes his book feel a lot less like it was bound to be a science magazine article that got stretched out than some other scientific books I've read. This is the first book I've read on evolution in a long time - I think the only other one was *The Dragons of Eden* by Carl Sagan, which is even twenty years more outdated than *The Beak of the Finch" - and I don't remember Sagan making things flow as well ad Weiner did... honestly, it's just about the best-written nonfiction book I've read all year, along with *With Malice Towards None* by Stephen B. Oates. That being said, for all the pleasant wording throughout the book, our author might let his internal bias towards evolution cloud some of the arguments within his. For example, even though there does seem to be clear evidence does happen, I don't think that humans necessarily had to come out of the process; now, I don't know where else we came from, but I'm a natural-born skeptic. But Weiner, despite showing all the facts and figures on his side, doesn't really dig into any of the opposition. He mentions how crazy it is that some people will nod along with the Grants' study and believe in their results but then not want to call it evolution (because they go to church and all, you know), but once again, doesn't interact with it on an intellectual level. That's really only an issue if you see this book as an argument, like I do, so that may mean nothing bad to you if you interact with it differently.
As far as briefing one on the quintessential evolution topics, Weiner does a pretty good job here. He takes us through the tried-and-true natural selection and sexual selection, explains character displacement (when one species evolves a trait similar to a nearby species' and pushes the original out of their niche), and more. There weren't a lot of concepts I hadn't heard before, but it was nice to put new examples next to them. It didn't all stick with me, though, which I think was a failing of the book and not me. It just failed to latch onto me and really get this information through my skull. Maybe it was something about that practiced flow which prevented the narrative from feeling too blocky and routine and easy to follow; either way, when push comes to shove, by biggest problem with the book will be that it doesn't all seem to have stuck very well.
Another issue that other people have with it is that it's too long and too repetitive, and that you could find just as good information by reading some *real* science, like those papers that I read (which can be about elephant memory or how beavers affect macroinvertebrate populations or how kleptoparasitic spiders distribute themselves or anything like that), which is an argument I initially resonated with - more hard data is better, right? But then I took a step back and admitted that Weiner did a really good job here of introducing these concepts to laymen and that it was never unenjoyable to read; I never thought, "Would John shut up already?" It could've been more succinct, and if I was more learned I probably would've hoped it would be, but for where I'm at right now it did no harm; therefore, I think I'm not holding this against him.
Overall, for all the griping I did about this book, I did really enjoy reading it, even if some things had strangely gone in one ear and right out the other. Therefore, it gets 8/10 - its writing is sharply above average and it'll serve as a good introduction to concepts for the uninitiated, myself included. I don't know if I'll read Weiner again (I wouldn't mind if the opportunity presents itself), but I'm sure to read more about zoology and biology as time goes on. Might buy some tonight; we'll see. Thanks for reading, and here's hoping that you can adapt quickly enough to stay alive till my next review...
August 27, 2024
Very interesting. Almost unbelievable how 0.5mm beak difference can mean life or death for a bird. Ahhhh this is so cool. 4.1 stars
July 25, 2018
A description of evolution research and results mostly in the Galapagos Island and mostly on the famous "Darwin Finches" with references to the research that Darwin himself conducted and the (wrong and right) conclusions that he came to.
It seems that I have read so many books about Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" and so many books that refer to "On the Origin of Species" that it is about time I read "On the Origin of Species"…… To some extent, it is like the Bible, I prefer to read references, books about and interpretations of the Bible than reading the book itself……. Hmmmm….. Interesting and significant comparison……..In many levels.
The book itself gave various examples where we (i.e. researchers) can see evolution happening in our lifetime and less.
We are introduced to the research done by the Peter Raymond Grant and Barbara Rosemary Grant, a British couple, who studied finches for over 20 years , mostly in one secluded Galapagos Island named Daphne Major,. The finch population in this island is small enough so that the researchers could track and record practically each individual bird from birth to death, but large enough to have diversity with thirteen species of finches. Five of these are tree finch, one warbler finch, one vegetarian finch, and six species of ground finch. The Weather of this Island is extreme, with some dry years and some especially wet years. The effect of the weather on the population size, behavior , size of beak and other parameters, clearly showed natural selection even in very few generations.
Except for the work of the Grants, the book discusses other similar researches and conclusions, and how the result of these researches coexist with the way Darwin saw things as reflected in his books.
I admit that I found the book a bit garbled. The examples that were given, were convincing but in my humble opinion , I have seen more convincing examples in many other book like The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions or Why Evolution Is True
Or many of Richard Dawkins books.
My mind may be saturated from so many evolution books or this book may be out dated or just not well written, but I did find it boring and over detailed at some points.
July 2, 2015
Extraordinary. This work expands upon the two biographies I read recently about Charles Darwin and evolution. Weiner is a fantastic writer. He takes a science subject and makes it understandable and then at the end of science-sections he inserts beautiful almost poetic prose that makes you sigh. The setting is a tiny island called Daphne Major in the Galapago Islands, and the work is about a 21 year finch study conducted by Rosemary and Peter Grant. The Grants have proven that evolution can happen quickly, and that pressure makes species evolve. Interspersed are passages from Darwin's works and also summaries of his thoughts. It's also explained where Darwin's work is incomplete. Other studies are also detailed that deal with different species such as moths and guppies. I had a lot of questions as I read the book, and pretty much all of them were answered by the time I got to the end. Questions like how do pesticides and antibiotics make creatures evolve, and why don't humans show the variations that Daphne Major finches do? How did consciousness evolve? Well, that question isn't answered, but it is addressed. I leave this work looking forward to reading some of Weiner's other works, and I am wondering how species will evolve in response to the pressures of climate change. Plus, can bees evolve and save themselves? Some scientists recommend this route (recent edition of National Geographic) talks about this- though others worry they will go extinct before they can evolve to be mite and pesticide resistant. So much to think about in this book- timely!
May 28, 2016
Lầy lội qua một cuốn sách. Lần này thì không thể đổ lỗi cho non-fiction là khó đọc :((
Đầu tiên là quá thán phục cặp vợ chồng Grant dành hết đời sống ở quần đảo trứ danh trong thuyết tuyến hóa, những nhà khoa học yêu nghề có rất nhiều (trong sách nhắc đến hơn chục nhà), nhưng chẳng được nhắc mấy trong giới công chúng, mà toàn tràn ngập những nghệ sĩ nửa vời trên báo. Vốn tính nhà khoa học chỉ chuyên tâm cống hiến cho sự nghiệp, nhưng cũng đến lúc giới thiệu cho mọi người nhiều hơn, các tiện nghi và thành tựu hiện nay có được phần nhiều là cho họ.
Hai là tác giả dẫn truyện xuất sắc, cảm giác như một nền khoa học đang được viết lại bằng ngòi mực văn chương. Phần lời cảm ơn cũng là điểm sáng lớn, sau này làm luận văn gì đó nghi đạo lại phần này để viết cho sáng tạo quá. Nếu tiến hóa học là thứ xa lạ với bạn, bạn vẫn sẽ thích giọng văn trong sách.
Mà cũng nhân cơ hội bị bệnh liệt giường mà đọc được hết sách. Giờ xong tiệc rồi thì quay lại guồng quay chán ngắt khoa học không thi vị :P
Đầu tiên là quá thán phục cặp vợ chồng Grant dành hết đời sống ở quần đảo trứ danh trong thuyết tuyến hóa, những nhà khoa học yêu nghề có rất nhiều (trong sách nhắc đến hơn chục nhà), nhưng chẳng được nhắc mấy trong giới công chúng, mà toàn tràn ngập những nghệ sĩ nửa vời trên báo. Vốn tính nhà khoa học chỉ chuyên tâm cống hiến cho sự nghiệp, nhưng cũng đến lúc giới thiệu cho mọi người nhiều hơn, các tiện nghi và thành tựu hiện nay có được phần nhiều là cho họ.
Hai là tác giả dẫn truyện xuất sắc, cảm giác như một nền khoa học đang được viết lại bằng ngòi mực văn chương. Phần lời cảm ơn cũng là điểm sáng lớn, sau này làm luận văn gì đó nghi đạo lại phần này để viết cho sáng tạo quá. Nếu tiến hóa học là thứ xa lạ với bạn, bạn vẫn sẽ thích giọng văn trong sách.
Mà cũng nhân cơ hội bị bệnh liệt giường mà đọc được hết sách. Giờ xong tiệc rồi thì quay lại guồng quay chán ngắt khoa học không thi vị :P
June 26, 2022
I will happily read an extremely detailed account of tedious biological studies without such enchanting prose, but I suppose I can't complain. I could do without the last few chapters on antibiotic resistance, global warming, and the effect of humanity on the environment, however - perhaps in 1994 these topics were not yet legally required to be covered in every remotely related book, but by now I have no need of reading these same stories in addition to the delightfully informative details of actual interest.
January 19, 2018
The single best non-academic, book-length riposte to doubters of natural selection. Brilliant and accessible to readers without any special scientific background, patient and uncondescending toward creationists (though firmly dismissing creationist claims), it made for the perfect accompaniment to my recent Galapagos island trip. You will also learn more about — and enjoy learning more about — finches, and El Niños, and the Humboldt current, and Darwinian angst than you ever thought possible.
November 13, 2018
One of the best books about evolution and science ever written. Read this, and then read The Voyage of the Beagle by Darwin.
July 5, 2019
It took me awhile to read this, simply because I was working a ton in June and this is not a reflection on the book. I loved this - it was mind blowing, eye opening, engaging, and informative. I would like to go read everything Peter & Rosemary Grant have ever written, and also go read Origin of the Species (again). The complex interactions that rule the world and the Galapagos were explained in detail and examples, which I found to be really helpful. I really enjoyed reading about the boom/bust of rain/drought and how that influenced finches to eat everything (rainy season) or very particular food items they are adapted for (drought), and how that further pushed/pulled the species closer or apart.
I have always wanted to go to the Galapagos and this only added onto that desire. Maybe someday I'll get there - hopefully as a scientist, but if not that then as a visitor will work for me too.
I have always wanted to go to the Galapagos and this only added onto that desire. Maybe someday I'll get there - hopefully as a scientist, but if not that then as a visitor will work for me too.
August 12, 2007
This book is really important. The study of how micro-evolution happens from one year to the next to the next in the Galapagos gave me a lot of insight into how the environment shapes species. Traits are constantly changing, yet the graph jitters back and forth around some more-or-less average value. It's really not average, though, because climate, rainfall, etc. are all fundamentally chaotic systems. Organisms tend to track generation by generation the conditions as they fall out. Over geologic time that can either result in vast changes or effective stasis, depending on the situation. It's cool to picture how macro-evolution happens as a result of thousands of years of micro-evolution.
January 4, 2021
This is a remarkable book, aiming primarily to correct the misconception that evolution is too slow a process to be witnessed in any living person's lifetime, so slow that it can for all practical purposes be considered to have stopped. Buttressing this misconception is the observation that no person, living or dead, has observed the emergence of any new species. Jonathan Weiner corrects this misconception by pointing to several long-running field observation studies that have documented dramatic shifts in the variability of animal populations in very short periods of time.
But first a definition. Evolution is commonly understood to represent the emergence of new life forms; but Weiner uses a more scientifically sound, yet narrower definition: a change in the distribution of an attribute in a population (neck length, cranial size, etc.). One "darwin" equals a 1 percent change in an attribute over one million years. This is a glacial pace of change, but what field researchers observe is that change happens much faster over shorter periods of time. Periodic climatic cycles dramatically affect the survival rate of individuals, often affected by microscopic differences in attributes. The survivor population therefore can demonstrate sharp changes in variability. However, climatic cycles often reverse themselves, and the population reverts to the pre-bottleneck distribution. Averaged over time, the evolutionary rate appears to be much slower than the periodic zigs and zags.
Weiner's primary source of information is the remarkable long-running study of six species of Darwin's finches on one small island in the Galapagos, by a husband-and-wife team of evolutionary biologists, Peter and Rosemary Grant. Returning every year often for six months at a time to Daphne Major, a dormant volcanic cone, the Grants studied the finches for three decades, tracing our entire family trees. One big drought event early in their study showed that survival rates were affected by microscopic differences (millimeters) in beak length, allowing some birds to break open larger tribulus seeds, dramatically increasing their survival rate. After the natural selection of the drought, sexual selection kicked in: with far fewer female survivors, only the largest males could find breeding partners, further reinforcing the preference for size. In one short year, the Grants were able to demonstrate rapid evolution in size and beak length (several thousand darwin units).
But natural selection and sexual selection do not work in parallel always. In another remarkable study, John Endler studied guppies in mountain streams in Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago. His special interest is on the bright (almost neon) spots on the bodies of male guppies. Males with bigger and more colorful spots are more attractive to females, but it also increases their visibility to the guppies' natural predator, chiclid fish. Colorful males reproduced more successfully and passed on their trait to offspring - but only if they survived long enough to mate. Endler found that the color pattern of male guppies varied based on the presence of predators in the mountain streams in which they lived: moreover, controlled experiments in the artificial ponds he set up back on campus showed that the distribution of color patterns adjusted quickly, in the space of a few generations, depending on the presence or absence of predators.
One other interesting finding is that species adjust not just to the presence of predators, but also to the presence of other species that occupy similar ecological niches. "Character divergence" or differentiation happens when species that compete for the same resources develop traits that allow them to exploit other available resources. Eventually, this differentiation can lead to speciation.
Weiner states that speciation is not a one-way street. Species can split as well as fuse, for example through hybridization that creates an intermediate type better adapted to the specific environmental conditions available in that territory. But hybridization is normally a dead end, since successful species occupy "ecological peaks" - a form particularly well-adapted to that environment. Since hybrids are likely to display intermediate traits, they will not occupy an ecological peak making them less fit. But rapid environmental change can create the conditions for hybrids to flourish. And not just environmental change - the same stresses can be introduced by the proliferation of new diseases or the arrival of invasive species.
Weiner corrects another misconception about species formation. It is commonly supposed that speciation requires physical isolation of a population. In such isolated populations, mutations accumulate over time with the result that the populations diverge over time. Weiner however points out that speciation can happen entirely due to behavioral causes ("invisible coasts"). For example, males and females can choose mates matching slightly different characteristics, which over time leads to divergence. The case in point is Darwin's finches: though they look identical to the untrained eye and the species often browse in mixed groups, individuals of any one species are much much more likely to choose mates displaying specific bird songs, nest building practices and other behaviors. Careful experiments showed that Darwin's finches have a vocabulary of songs, which sons often learn from their fathers (though sometimes from other males in the same area). This ensures that their mates too would be from the same species, since preference for songs seems to be species-specific. However, hybrid pairs when they form are fertile, and some recent data suggests that hybrids may be successful in times of environmental change.
In addition to providing a fresh perspective on evolution, Weiner has also succeeded in writing a beautiful travelog. Far from being a barren expanse of rock and cactus, Daphne Major emerges with its own natural beauty: bursting into a mantle of green after the rains, sea squalls rolling in from the ocean, low hanging clouds brushing the volcanic peak in the rainy season, cactus blossoms blooming, the shimmer of sun on hot rock.
But first a definition. Evolution is commonly understood to represent the emergence of new life forms; but Weiner uses a more scientifically sound, yet narrower definition: a change in the distribution of an attribute in a population (neck length, cranial size, etc.). One "darwin" equals a 1 percent change in an attribute over one million years. This is a glacial pace of change, but what field researchers observe is that change happens much faster over shorter periods of time. Periodic climatic cycles dramatically affect the survival rate of individuals, often affected by microscopic differences in attributes. The survivor population therefore can demonstrate sharp changes in variability. However, climatic cycles often reverse themselves, and the population reverts to the pre-bottleneck distribution. Averaged over time, the evolutionary rate appears to be much slower than the periodic zigs and zags.
Weiner's primary source of information is the remarkable long-running study of six species of Darwin's finches on one small island in the Galapagos, by a husband-and-wife team of evolutionary biologists, Peter and Rosemary Grant. Returning every year often for six months at a time to Daphne Major, a dormant volcanic cone, the Grants studied the finches for three decades, tracing our entire family trees. One big drought event early in their study showed that survival rates were affected by microscopic differences (millimeters) in beak length, allowing some birds to break open larger tribulus seeds, dramatically increasing their survival rate. After the natural selection of the drought, sexual selection kicked in: with far fewer female survivors, only the largest males could find breeding partners, further reinforcing the preference for size. In one short year, the Grants were able to demonstrate rapid evolution in size and beak length (several thousand darwin units).
But natural selection and sexual selection do not work in parallel always. In another remarkable study, John Endler studied guppies in mountain streams in Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago. His special interest is on the bright (almost neon) spots on the bodies of male guppies. Males with bigger and more colorful spots are more attractive to females, but it also increases their visibility to the guppies' natural predator, chiclid fish. Colorful males reproduced more successfully and passed on their trait to offspring - but only if they survived long enough to mate. Endler found that the color pattern of male guppies varied based on the presence of predators in the mountain streams in which they lived: moreover, controlled experiments in the artificial ponds he set up back on campus showed that the distribution of color patterns adjusted quickly, in the space of a few generations, depending on the presence or absence of predators.
One other interesting finding is that species adjust not just to the presence of predators, but also to the presence of other species that occupy similar ecological niches. "Character divergence" or differentiation happens when species that compete for the same resources develop traits that allow them to exploit other available resources. Eventually, this differentiation can lead to speciation.
Weiner states that speciation is not a one-way street. Species can split as well as fuse, for example through hybridization that creates an intermediate type better adapted to the specific environmental conditions available in that territory. But hybridization is normally a dead end, since successful species occupy "ecological peaks" - a form particularly well-adapted to that environment. Since hybrids are likely to display intermediate traits, they will not occupy an ecological peak making them less fit. But rapid environmental change can create the conditions for hybrids to flourish. And not just environmental change - the same stresses can be introduced by the proliferation of new diseases or the arrival of invasive species.
Weiner corrects another misconception about species formation. It is commonly supposed that speciation requires physical isolation of a population. In such isolated populations, mutations accumulate over time with the result that the populations diverge over time. Weiner however points out that speciation can happen entirely due to behavioral causes ("invisible coasts"). For example, males and females can choose mates matching slightly different characteristics, which over time leads to divergence. The case in point is Darwin's finches: though they look identical to the untrained eye and the species often browse in mixed groups, individuals of any one species are much much more likely to choose mates displaying specific bird songs, nest building practices and other behaviors. Careful experiments showed that Darwin's finches have a vocabulary of songs, which sons often learn from their fathers (though sometimes from other males in the same area). This ensures that their mates too would be from the same species, since preference for songs seems to be species-specific. However, hybrid pairs when they form are fertile, and some recent data suggests that hybrids may be successful in times of environmental change.
In addition to providing a fresh perspective on evolution, Weiner has also succeeded in writing a beautiful travelog. Far from being a barren expanse of rock and cactus, Daphne Major emerges with its own natural beauty: bursting into a mantle of green after the rains, sea squalls rolling in from the ocean, low hanging clouds brushing the volcanic peak in the rainy season, cactus blossoms blooming, the shimmer of sun on hot rock.
November 14, 2020
Though it's 25 years old by now (showing its age a bit with discussions of 90s technology), this book was a fascinating look at a married couple of scientists who studied "Darwin's finches" for twenty years, documenting natural selection at work in a way that no one had been able to do before. It also looked at Darwin's writings and ideas in general, including how he came to his conclusions and what he simply didn't have the tools to know during his time. It was a neat glimpse at the rigor of scientific work, and leaves the reader with questions to ponder about biology (human and animal) and also how we're treating this planet now.
August 9, 2025
,, Pentru toate speciile, inclusiv a noastră, adevărata ilustrare a vieții este o pasăre cocoțată undeva care se uită alertă și agitată in toate părțile gata să țâșnească într-o clipă. Viața este întotdeauna pregătită de zbor."
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