Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on the Galápagos Islands [Hardcover]

Edward J. Larson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2001 | ISBN-10: 0465038107 | ISBN-13: 978-0465038107 | Edition: 1

More than any other place on Earth, the Galapagos Islands are the workshop of evolution. Isolated and desolate, they were largely overlooked by early explorers until Charles Darwin arrived there in the 1830s. It was Darwin who recognized that Galapagos' isolation and desolation were advantages: the paucity of species and lack of outside influences made the workings of natural selection crystal clear. Since then, every important advance and controversy in evolutionary thinking has had its reflection on the Galapagos. In every sense-intellectually, institutionally, and culturally-the history of science on these islands is a history of the way evolutionary science was done for the past 150 years. Evolution's Workshop tells the story of Darwin's explorations there; the fabulous Gilded Age expeditions, run from rich men's gigantic yachts, that featured rough-and-ready science during the day and black-tie dinners every night; the struggle for control of research on the Galapagos; the current efforts by "creation scientists" to use the Galapagos to undercut evolutionary teaching; and many other compelling stories.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When Europeans first explored the Galapagos Islands, a rugged archipelago 650 miles off the coast of Ecuador, they were astounded by the forbidding landscape and the odd behavior of the animals and plants they found there. "The place is like a new creation," wrote ship captain George Anson, a nephew of the poet Lord Byron. "The birds and beasts do not get out of our way; the pelicans and sea-lions look in our faces as if we had no right to intrude on their solitude; the small birds are so tame that they hop upon our feet; and all this amidst volcanoes which are burning around us on either hand."

Others who followed, like the onetime sailor and writer Herman Melville, took a dimmer view, calling the place "evilly enchanted ground." Whatever the sentiment, the Galapagos attracted generations of scientists, who, following the example of Charles Darwin, traveled there to test theories of speciation, adaptation, migration, and selection. Their work in the field helped overturn the prevailing orthodoxies of special creation, writes Edward J. Larson in his vigorous history of the islands and their role in the development of modern biological science. Their work also changed the face of the islands themselves, as hundreds and thousands of plants and animals were killed or removed for collections far afield, with a single expedition taking more than 10,000 birds and skins.

Today, the islands face other threats, as tens of thousands of ecotourists travel there each year, disturbing sensitive environments, and as alien plant and animal species are introduced. Still, Larson notes at the close of his fine book, "the archipelago's ecosystem has proved surprisingly resilient in the past," and conservation measures may yet be found to preserve the islands' "age-old solitude." --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

The isolated Gal pagos Islands, lying on the equator 500 miles off the coast of Ecuador, have played a continuing roleone that Larson beautifully evokes herein studies of evolution ever since Charles Darwin spent his celebrated five weeks there in 1835. Larson, who received the Pulitzer Prize in history for Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion, relates the islands' fascinating history since their discovery by a Spanish bishop in 1535. They soon became a sometime base for pirates, and, during the South Seas whaling boom of the late 1700s, English and American vessels fished the surrounding waters. English naturalists called attention to their unique plants and animals, which led to Darwin's visit on the Beagle. The young Herman Melville visited them six years later; he was much less favorably impressed. In the late 1800s, San Francisco-based scientific institutions like the newly founded Stanford University sent expeditions to bring back plants and animals, dead or alive (mostly dead). The American army dynamited an airstrip out of the volcanic rock to protect the Panama Canal during WWII. After the war, UNESCO took steps to protect the wildlife, which had been decimated over the centuries. In recent years tourism and the attendant influx of Ecuadorians have proved a dubious blessing for the islands' unique ecosystem, which still attracts scientists who travel there to study evolution at work, as well as creation scientists who hope to disprove it. The book contains two extensive photo galleries and is larded with drawings from old accounts of the islands, but it would have benefited immensely from a modern topographic map and photographs of the terrain. Nevertheless, Larson's first-rate history not only will entertain and engage lay readers but also is required reading for those seriously interested in Darwin, evolution or these remarkable islands.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1 edition (March 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465038107
• ISBN-13: 978-0465038107
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,151,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Edward J. Larson is the author of seven books and the recipient of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in History for his book Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion. His other books include Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory; Evolution's Workshop; God and Science on the Galapagos Islands; and Trial and Error: The American Controversy Over Creation and Evolution. Larson has also written over one hundred articles, most of which address topics of law, science, or politics from an historical perspective, which have appeared in such varied journals as The Atlantic, Nature, Scientific American, The Nation, The Wilson Quarterly, and Virginia Law Review. He is a professor of history and law at Pepperdine University and lives in Georgia and California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Theory of Evolution Develops from Galapagos Experiences, May 18, 2001

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Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on the Galápagos Islands (Hardcover)

Mr. Larson has written one of the most interesting books about evolution and the Galapagos that it has been my happy experience to read. Although I have had the good fortune to visit the Galapagos and observe the animals and plants there, I had many missing segments in my understanding of how scientific thinking got from Charles Darwin to the work of the Grants that is so well displayed in The Beak of the Finch. This volume creates a nice overview for anyone who wants to know more about how our current understanding of evolution occurred or how any important new paradigm develops.

Most people would not have noticed what Darwin did when he visited the Galapagos in 1835 on The Beagle. To make that point, Mr. Larson opens with many quotes from Melville's visit in 1841. Melville hated the place. "But the special curse . . . is that change never comes." Brief visitors often missed the dynamism of the environment because they only made brief stays. Having been there in both the dry and the rainy seasons, I can assure you that the islands are totally different in those two times of the year. And no two rainy seasons are all that similar.

I was especially fascinated to see how much the economic usefulness of the islands affected how they were perceived. These are mostly desert islands with little fresh water in the dry season, and few are going there primarily to farm.

The book has several threads. One looks at how perceptions of the islands have changed. Now, most would agree that they are a world treasure. Poor people from Ecuador are most eager to move there and develop their lives economically from fishing and serving the rapidly increasing numbers of eco-tourists.

Another considers the impact that visits by man has had on the islands. Extinction has been more man-made than environment-made in the last 166 years. This has both been caused by farming, adding new species, and overusing the fragile resources there.

A third dimension looks at the future of eco-tourism, and sees this as both a great risk and a potential saving grace from suffering the "tragedy of the commons."

A fourth dimension is how research methods have changed to allow us to better understand evolution. As the Grants and others have shown, evolution occurs much more rapidly than Darwin ever imagined from the fossil records. Part of this is due to interspecies breeding that was not appreciated until recently. Also, environmental stress can cause sudden shifts in populations to favor the new conditions. The Grants' work with Darwin's finches (ironically, Darwin was more interested in mockingbirds) shows that you can get evolution away from a beak standard and back again in just a few years on an island as the food supply changes.

I came away especially impressed by the need to do longitudinal studies, to have accurate samples and measurement, and to have careful evaluation of the data. Many errors cropped up in the thinking of both those who opposed the theory of evolution and those who developed it due to errors in one or more of these areas.

The book is filled with a lot of subtle, dry humor. When you see juxtaposed views and experiences (which is quite often), assume that you are being invited to have a good laugh. The comparisons of Darwin and Melville in the beginning set that up for you. Keep looking for this humor through to the observations about sexual selection operating with the fashion models in the end.

Even if you can never visit the Galapagos, you should realize that there is an important message that they contain for us all: Life can evolve in more peaceful and colorful ways even in a hostile environment. The birds and animals there do not run from you. The cacti do not have stickers to hurt you. The sexual colorings of males are truly amazing.

How can we create and live in environments on earth that will make the best home for all life?

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Galapagos: History, Importance, and Future, May 4, 2001

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R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on the Galápagos Islands (Hardcover)

When you think of the Galapagos Islands, you think of Darwin, his finches, and the Theory of Evolution. That is, of course, as it should be; evolution is the overarching explanation of biology and although its evidence is all over, it is spectacularly shown in these equatorial and isolated islands. The islands' connection to Darwin is a great story, but it is not the whole story of the Galapagos. A successful attempt to tell the whole story is _Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on The Galapagos Islands_ (Basic Books) by Edward J. Larson. If you are interested in evolution, or if you are going to join the growing numbers of tourists who are heading to the islands, this is a vital book.

Darwin, visiting the islands as the naturalist on the _HMS Beagle_ in 1835, confirmed what his predecessors had seen: "The country was compared to what we might image the cultivated parts of the Infernal regions to be." That was the classic view of the Galapagos, which Darwin would rewrite. He wrote in his private notes as he voyaged home, "The zoology of the Archipelagoes will be well worth examining; for such facts would undermine the stability of species." When he was reading Malthus on population and resources three years later, he hit on the mechanism by which speciation could occur.

Larson tells the stories of the collectors who brought the specimens for academics to study, and how the specimens at first confirmed evolution, and then gave details about its mechanisms. He shows how the philosophy of science has been changed by regarding the islands, were there is death, waste, and indifference. Nonetheless, some biologists (most famously Agassiz) have seen nothing but confirmation of Genesis.

Larson's entertaining and comprehensive book winds up with a summary of how the Galapagos fit into our current world. The islands are prized as jewels of science, but for decades, popularization in books, film, and television have made them targets for eco-tourists or just tourists. It can be shown that the increased tourism has had benefits to the species precariously placed on their little rocks, but the cost of bringing more of the inevitable outside rats, seeds, and insects may be high. Already there are those who go to the Galapagos just for surfing tournaments, and insist on a nightlife, so Larson is not completely optimistic about how well preservation can survive. He gives an amusing symbol of ambiguity towards the book's end, a supermodel posed for the 1998 swimsuit issue of _Sports Illustrated_, whose depicted bare leg had the superimposed text "Charles Darwin's observations of animals here laid the foundation for his theory of evolution." Larson jokes, "Sexual selection apparently played a feature role in this version of the theory."

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where it all began . . ., April 26, 2001

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Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on the Galápagos Islands (Hardcover)

Edward Larson's chronicle of the explorers and scientists visiting the lonely archipelago of the Galapagos America is a treasure. He conveys his knowledge of its visitors, its legends and its place in the world with matchless skill. This book merits a respected place in any library of science and exploration.

Once viewed as a glimpse of Hell, the Galapagos was later transformed as the place best exhibiting life's workings. Early visitors, whether Spanish, Dutch or American, saw them as divine rejects. So remote were they, according to Larson, that pirates successfully used them as a hideaway. English explorers like Cook and Vancouver simply passed them by. Herman Melville, of Moby Dick fame, manifested his aversion to their dark desolation. This negative outlook was changed by one man. The central role played by the Galapagos in Darwin's faith-shattering idea that life isn't divinely originated can't be overstated. Today, many naturalists consider the islands a shrine to reason and science.

Larson establishes the value of the islands in his description of European astonishment at the sight of life in the New World. While no mythical monsters emerged to view, it was clear that all forms of life there were different from European examples. In Larson's view, explaining this conundrum forced the theory of "special creation" - the Christian deity spent a great deal of energy supplying life forms to each region of the globe. It was so special that in the Galapagos unique species were assigned places on each island separately. This challenge to logic gave naturalists a desire for a better explanation. It took Charles Darwin's visit and a further two decades of his thinking to come up with the correct answer. That solution was evolution by natural selection, and Larson spends most of the book in showing how the islands remain pivotal in applying Darwin's insight to events still transpiring there.

Larson relates the numerous expeditions sent by American researchers during the early 20th Century. Perceiving the reduced populations of many species, especially tortoises, they proceeded to slaughter large numbers in order to "learn more about them before they're exterminated." This twisted logic had the virtue of attracting more attention on the islands' role in revealing how evolution works. According to Larson, David Lack, in studying the multiple forms of Galapagos finches, projected Darwin's concept in understandable detail. Coining the term "Darwin's Finches" he created a phrase still used in biology texts. The research on those finches has taken a highly detailed aspect. Larson, discovering Jonathan Weiner's "The Beak of the Finch," adds his tribute to the work of Peter and Rosemary Grant on Daphne Major. Weiner's account need not be repeated here, but all readers are encouraged to obtain his book. The Grants have confirmed Darwin as no other studies have done.

The clash of national interests and scientific research has brought the islands and their natural inhabitants close to grief. Once the site of a prison colony, now the Charles Darwin research station is the target of attention. Visitors arrive daily, and solitary residents are found in remote hideaways. With occupants and explorers bringing goats, rats and other visitors, maintaining the original environment has proved impossible. The Grants have sustained their programme only because Daphne Major remains isolated. Calls by the scientific community to restrain invasion haven't been ignored, but isolation is no longer feasible. Larson avoids judgmental statements, acknowledging that the islands' chief attraction is eco- tourism. With a permanent resident population, encouraging visitors is a major source of income. Conservation efforts, he maintains, are effective, but visitor numbers continue to impact the environment. And more visitors means an enlarging resident population to serve them. Recently, those residents have resisted conservation efforts, sometimes violently, as they, too, struggle to survive an inhospitable realm. Larson depicts this unending story with guarded optimism for improved recognition of the value of evolution's workshop. We can but hope that this book will provide further impetus to balance the needs of Galapagos inhabitants, animal and people alike.