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The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Half past seven on Daphne Major..." (more)
Key Phrases: magnirostris magnirostris, finch watch, medium beaks, Daphne Major, Peter Grant, Santa Cruz (more...)

4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (77 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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.

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Product Details

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Vintage (May 30, 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 067973337X
ISBN-13: 978-0679733379
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (77 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #25,039 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in these categories: (What's this?)
#44 in Books > Outdoors & Nature > Birdwatching
#76 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Evolution

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› Visit Amazon's Jonathan Weiner Page

Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
Half past seven on Daphne Major. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
magnirostris magnirostris, finch watch, medium beaks, paulistorum complex, invisible coasts, beak depth, ground finches, small ground finch, black mutants, tree finches, small beaks, beak length, medium ground finch, cactus finch, adaptive landscape, cactus seeds, finch beaks, cactus trees, soft seeds, incipient species, invisible characters, character displacement, gill rakers, thirteen species

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Daphne Major, Peter Grant, Santa Cruz, Finch Unit, South America, The Smithsonian Institution, United States, Peter Boag, Laurene Ratcliffe, Thalia Grant, Trevor Price, Dolph Schluter, David Lack, Gal�pagos Islands, Charles Darwin Research Station, Darwin's Beaks, Rosemary Grant, San Crist�bal, British Columbia, Lisle Gibbs, Puerto Ayora, Cosmic Partings, John Endler, New Zealand, Twenty-five Thousand Darwins

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

Citations (learn more)

This book cites 82 books:

Natural Selection (Phoenix 60p paperbacks) by Charles Darwin on 30 pages
The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin on 17 pages
On the Origin of Species (Penguin Classics) by Charles Darwin on 16 pages
The Descent of Man (Great Minds Series) by Charles Darwin on 5 pages
The Descent of Man (Penguin Classics) by Charles Darwin on 5 pages

See all 82 books this book cites

100 books cite this book:

The Beast Within: Why Men Are Violent by Neil Boyd on 5 pages
Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong by Jonathan Wells on 4 pages
The Disciplined Mind: Beyond Facts and Standardized Tests, the K-12 Education that Every Child Deserves by Howard Gardner in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
The Counter-Creationism Handbook by Mark Isaak on page 22, page 89, and Back Matter
A Simpler Way by Myron Kellner-Rogers in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)

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Books on Related Topics (learn more)

Evolution by Douglas J. Futuyma

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Bioinquiry by Nancy L. Pruitt

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Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells

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Customer Reviews

77 Reviews

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
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Average Customer Review

4.5 out of 5 stars (77 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Positively Brilliant, June 2, 2000

By	A music fan (Newport Beach, CA) - See all my reviews

Weiner's The Beak of the Finch is a positively brilliant work on the topic of evolution. A great introduction for the student of evolutionary biology, or the layman. Weiner's book destroys two of the greatest myths about evolution. 1. It's slow. 2. It can't be observed. The study of the Galapagos Finches not only proves the importance of evolution as a contemporary subject but as one that can be observed RIGHT NOW in the world around us. It's almost astonishing to see how simple evolution truly is, how it occurs in quantifiable baby steps that we can see, if we only take the time to carefully observe. Weiner not only demystifies evolution, but makes it as a topic, thoroughly accessible to the interested layman. His prose is neither dry nor technical and in fact, makes for quite an enjoyable read. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

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58 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Darwin's fascinating finches., February 14, 2004

By	G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

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

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

G. Merritt

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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Turn around! Evolution is happening NOW!, October 3, 2001

By	M. Nichols-Haining - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Weiner sets the reader down with the ghost of Darwin, on the Galapagos Islands where the Grants have been studying since 1973. He introduces us to 'Darwin's finches,' the same birds Darwin observed and wrote about in "Origin of the Species".

We're introduced to a populationg that is perfect for evolutionary studies--a limited number of species in a closed ecosystem on an isolated island. Darwin couldn't have known what his observations would lead to so many years later, but Weiner shares with us the Grants meticulous study of over 20 generations of finches. Thousands of individual birds were measured, and their progeny tracked. Through this book, we see what they saw--evolution in action.
Weiner weaves facts into a nice story. The book is engaging and reads like a novel, so much so that my 13 year-old daughter is now reading it.

The conclusions (and no, this isn't a spoiler) are that evolution by natural selection occurs and that selection can occur quickly (it's not always a slow process). Weiner (and the Grants) also touches on speciation in fish populations, and bacterial and viral evolution.

This was required reading in an introductory evolution class in college. I hope, someday, students in high school will be assigned this book. It was excellent, and will probably be wrapped up as Christmas gifts for a few of my friends and family.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Evolution, Up Close & Personal
The story of Rosemary and Peter Grant's twenty-year study of the finches of the Galapagos islands goes far beyond ornithology and even beyond biology: the author contends that the... Read more

Published 1 month ago by C. Macauley

5.0 out of 5 stars On complexity of Nature
'The Beak of the Finch' is a book on evolution which was the recipient of the nonfiction Pulitzer Prize. That and the fact that it was only about 300 pages clinched my interest. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Valentin

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece
This book rightfully won the Pulitzer. The author focuses his exposition on evolution on the work of Peter and Rosemary Grant, who study the finches of the Galapagos Islands... Read more

Published 8 months ago by The Nerd

5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable and Enlightening
This book is a well written and enjoyable text that makes the science of evolution understandable to everyone. The dedication of Peter and Rosemary Grant are inspiring. Read more

Published 8 months ago by Andrea M. Tucker

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, as well as scientific
We visited Galapagos recently and saw the island where most of the story takes place, but were not allowed to land. Read more

Published 16 months ago by Carol

3.0 out of 5 stars A Reasonable Introduction to Evolution
Beak of the Finch appears to be unique among popular evolution texts in the way that the author illustrates his points by highlighting measurable changes in the physical... Read more

Published 16 months ago by Gary Schroeder

3.0 out of 5 stars A time for every finch
A serious effort to educate the layman about the intricacies of evolution, against a historical background, with the emphasis on Darwin's thoughts and the work of the Grants. Read more

Published 23 months ago by Calochortus

1.0 out of 5 stars Often Repetitive, Occasionally Incorrect, and Usually Overwrought
I feel compelled to share some brief thoughts about this book, because, although it comes highly recommended, I was surprised to discover it was not very good... Read more

Published on October 18, 2007 by Yothgoboufnir

5.0 out of 5 stars The Beak of the Finch
Brilliant writing and organization shows that evolution can occur in as short a time frame as two years. Never boring. Read more

Published on July 16, 2007 by C. Chapin

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful science and a great narrative

"Beak" is perhaps the best popular book on evolution between Darwin and Dawkins.

Thoughtful, educated persons must know certain facts about the physical... Read more

Published on April 13, 2007 by Peter D. Brown

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