The Beak of the Finch
*** By Jonathon Weiner. Contrary to popular belief, this is not just a book "about a bird." It's about natural selection and evolution in the wild, and is a very good read.
My aunt (a wildlife biologist in New Hampshire) gave me this book for Christmas several years ago, when I was a junior in college. I dutifully tried to read it, but as I was still in the thick of my studies, it felt too much like work. I gave up after 50 of its 300 pages. Now that I'm safely away from college, I was able to muster up the nerve to give it another go. I've been rewarded for my effort; this is a good book.
The story mostly centers on Peter and Rosemary Grant, evolutionary biologists who have been studying finches on the Galapagos Islands for over 20 years. Because the islands are small and far apart, the Grants have been able to study this population of birds more thoroughly than any other study of any other species of animal in the wild. They know almost every bird on sight, and there are thousands of them. Because they have the capability to be so thorough, they have been able to witness natural selection in action in the wild, something that has never happened before, and something that is one of the main points of the book: not only do we know natural selection makes sense, we've seen it happen. And not only does it happen, it happens in short spans of time.
Going on, the author talks about evolution, and how natural selection gives rise to evolution given a bit of time. It doesn't have to take millions of generations, as Darwin thought. Given the right set of circumstances, it can happen in a human lifetime.
Weiner does an excellent job of making this keystone of wildlife biology sensable and readable. As long as you have a taste for nonfiction (which I didn't in college, thank you very much), you can stand to learn a lot, and derive a lot of enjoyment, from this book.
One fun fact: you know all those medicines and pesticides we have that are supposed to kill bacteria like staph and e.coli? Guess what happens? The few that survive that assault not only live, but pass their strong qualities on, and within a few days you have almost totally resistent strains.
So put away that anti-bacterial soap. Natural selection is not just something that happens to the creatures out in the wild. It's working on you and me every single day of our lives.
Posted by Joe on June 5, 2002 10:12 AM