Rosemary and Peter Grant and those assisting them have spend twenty years on Daphne Major, an island in the Galapagos studying natural selection. They recognize each individual bird on the island, when there are four hundred at the time of the author's visit, or when there are over a thousand. They have observed about twenty generations of finches -- continuously.
Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself.


From Publishers Weekly
Weiner follows scientists Peter and Rosemary Grant who, for the past 20 years, have studied the continuing evolution of the beaks of finches in the Galapagos Islands. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


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


From Booklist
"We will now discuss in a little more detail the struggle for existence," Darwin said, and that's what Weiner does, too, in his account of the study of Galapagos finches undertaken by Peter and Rosemary Grant some 20 years ago. The Grants set up camp on Daphne Major, an island of sheer cliffs and no freshwater except for what falls from the sky, but such inhospitable features ensured that finches would follow their life cycles without human interference. The Grants have documented some 13 species of "Darwin's finches," including one that is flightless; one that cohabits with marine iguanas; one, the vampire finch, that lives on blood; one that is entirely vegetarian; and one, the cactus finch, that makes tools with its beak. The Grants caught and banded thousands of finches and traced their elaborate lineage, enabling them to document the changes that individual species make, primarily to their beaks, in reaction to the environment. (During prolonged drought, for instance, beaks may become longer and sharper, to reach the tiniest of seeds.) Even more fascinating, the Grants have documented changes in DNA among their birds, suggesting a refutation of creationism, if one were needed, and leading Weiner to declare that "Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory. He vastly underestimated the power of natural selection. Its action is neither rare nor slow. It leads to evolution daily and hourly, all around us, and we can watch." An engaging account of a seminal study that introduces the reader to Darwin and to the dedicated, tireless biologists who have proved him right. John Mort


From Kirkus Reviews
An unusual and enjoyable look at the ongoing process of evolution. Think finch. Think Gal pagos. Darwin's finches. All those clever birds adapted to fill niches that might normally be filled by other birds. Each with beak adapted to be long and pointy or stout and deep: whatever it takes to tackle the food of choice. It all happened when the first finch or two blew into the volcano islands millennia ago, right? Wrong. What Weiner (Planet Earth, 1986) sets out to do, and does very well, is demonstrate that evolution happens fast and now. That point is not new to those in the know: Remember those 19th-century English moths that adapted to soot-covered bark by turning from predominantly white to predominantly black in a few moth generations? Weiner's tale focuses on Peter and Rosemary Grant, who have spent 20 years documenting every finch on Daphne Major island and coding data on life history to be plugged into computers back home in Princeton. The story is fascinating: In hard times the species exploit their separate niches: ground feeders of varied-sized seeds, cactus feeders, etc. In soft times they intermingle, even hybridize. Thus the pendulum swings from species fission to species fusion. Now after a few flood seasons, the hybrids are doing very well...but times change. And that is the point--dynamic and constant change. As Weiner winds up his story, he moves on to thee and me: with the bacteria in our guts, with antibiotic and pesticide resistance, global warming and the greenhouse effect--all the manmade changes that are ratcheting up the evolutionary gears. All this is artfully told, with maps and drawings, some by a Grant daughter. There are lots of memorable lines, and telling, even funny anecdotes (don't miss the one about the barnacle that bit) that make this Weiner a winner. (First printing of 40,000; Book-of-the-Month Club selection; Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection; History Book Club selection) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"This book is an extraordinary achievement. It is carefully researched, impeccably crafted, unflinchingly dramatic, yet conscientiously scientific."--School Library Journal


"[An] engaging narrative of a modern scientific study that will forever change the way that we view evolution....This is a rare book: The Beak of the Finch is at once absorbing science history, deftly crafted popular science treatise and engagingly personal narrative....It has an important story to tell, not only of Darwin's finches and evolution but also of the way that forefront scientific research is carried out."--The Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Evocative writing, exhaustive research, and Weiner's memorable portrait of the engaging Grants assure The Beak of the Finch membership in the select pantheon of science books that spark not just the intellect, but the imagination."--Washington Post Book World

"A brilliant book. It is the best book on life and evolution in many a long year--one of those rare books that permanently alters one's view of nature and even of life and death."--Richard Preston


Review
"This book is an extraordinary achievement. It is carefully researched, impeccably crafted, unflinchingly dramatic, yet conscientiously scientific."--School Library Journal


"[An] engaging narrative of a modern scientific study that will forever change the way that we view evolution....This is a rare book: The Beak of the Finch is at once absorbing science history, deftly crafted popular science treatise and engagingly personal narrative....It has an important story to tell, not only of Darwin's finches and evolution but also of the way that forefront scientific research is carried out."--The Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Evocative writing, exhaustive research, and Weiner's memorable portrait of the engaging Grants assure The Beak of the Finch membership in the select pantheon of science books that spark not just the intellect, but the imagination."--Washington Post Book World

"A brilliant book. It is the best book on life and evolution in many a long year--one of those rare books that permanently alters one's view of nature and even of life and death."--Richard Preston


Book Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize


From the Publisher
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize


From the Publisher
"This book is an extraordinary achievement. It is carefully researched, impeccably crafted, unflinchingly dramatic, yet conscientiously scientific."--School Library Journal


"[An] engaging narrative of a modern scientific study that will forever change the way that we view evolution....This is a rare book: The Beak of the Finch is at once absorbing science history, deftly crafted popular science treatise and engagingly personal narrative....It has an important story to tell, not only of Darwin's finches and evolution but also of the way that forefront scientific research is carried out."--The Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Evocative writing, exhaustive research, and Weiner's memorable portrait of the engaging Grants assure The Beak of the Finch membership in the select pantheon of science books that spark not just the intellect, but the imagination."--Washington Post Book World

"A brilliant book. It is the best book on life and evolution in many a long year--one of those rare books that permanently alters one's view of nature and even of life and death."--Richard Preston


From the Inside Flap
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

On a desert island in the heart of the Galapagos archipelago, where Darwin received his first inklings of the theory of evolution, two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have spent twenty years proving that Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory.  For among the finches of Daphne Major, natural selection is neither rare nor slow: it is taking place by the hour, and we can watch.

In this dramatic story of groundbreaking scientific research, Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself.  The Beak of the Finch is an elegantly written and compelling masterpiece of theory and explication in the tradition of Stephen Jay Gould.


From the Back Cover
"The Beak of the Finch is brilliant . . . one of those rare books that permanently alter one's view of nature and even of life and death." -- Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone

"Evocative writing, exhaustive research, and Weiner's memorable portrait of the engaging Grants assure The Beak of the Finch membership in the select pantheon of science books that spark not just the intellect, but the imagination."
--Washington Post Book World



About the Author
Jonathan Weiner, formerly a writer and editor for The Sciences, is the author of Planet Earth and The Next One Hundred Years.  He lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with his wife and their two sons.

ANNOTATION

On a remote outpost of the Galapagos, where Darwin received his first inklings of the theory of evolution, two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have spent 20 years measuring the beaks of generations of finches--to prove that Darwin did not know the strength of this own theory. "Spark(s) not just the intellect, but the imagination."--Washington Post Book World. 50 illustrations. Map.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Beak of the Finch tells the story of two Princeton University scientists - evolutionary biologists - engaged in an extraordinary investigation. They are watching, and recording, evolution as it is occurring - now - among the very species of Galapagos finches that inspired Darwin's early musings on the origin of species. They are studying the evolutionary process not through the cryptic medium of fossils but in real time, in the wild, in the flesh. The finches that Darwin took from Galapagos at the time of his voyage on the Beagle led to his first veiled hints about his revolutionary theory. But Darwin himself never saw evolution as Peter and Rosemary Grant have been seeing it - in the act of happening. For more than twenty years they have been monitoring generation after generation of finches on the island of Daphne Major - measuring, weighing, observing, tracking, analyzing on computers their struggle for existence. We see the Grants at work on the island among the thousands of living, nesting, hatching, growing birds whose world and lives are the Grants' primary laboratory. We explore the special circumstances that make the Galapagos archipelago a paradise for evolutionary research: an isolated population of birds that cannot easily fly away and mate with other populations, islands that are the tips of young volcanoes and thus still rapidly evolving as does the life that they support, a food supply changing radically in response to radical variations of climate - so that in a brief span of time the Grants can see the beak of the finch adapt. And we watch the Grants' team observe evolution at a level that was totally inaccessible to Darwin: the molecular level, as the DNA in the blood samples taken from the birds reveals evolutionary change. Here, brilliantly and lucidly recounted - with important implications for our own day, when man's alterations of the environment are speeding the rate of evolutionary changes - is a scientific enterprise in the grand m

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Weiner follows scientists Peter and Rosemary Grant who, for the past 20 years, have studied the continuing evolution of the beaks of finches in the Galapagos Islands. (June)

Library Journal