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

5 Responses to “The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time”

1. Byron Fletcher says:

   July 16, 2010 at 11:13 pm

   The Beak of the Finch, while being very informative for scientific reasons, did not flow very well as a tale. The tale starts out as an adventure with the Grant’s in the Galapagos Islands. The impression was that it was to be a novel which tells a tale, while in reality it was full of dull information about the finch. I give the book two stars for the experiments and evolution theories, but as a tale it was not flowing. Overall, I did not delight in the novel due to the falsehood of the tale.
   Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
2. Michael J. Felker says:

   July 17, 2010 at 12:51 am

   After discussing evolution with a friend, she handed me this book to show me that evolution is indeed an observable fact. She told me that this book demonstrated “evolution in action.” This excited me, so I read this book hoping to find some convincing evidence for evolution.

   Jonathan Weiner did a remarkable job of recording the Grant’s work into an extremely readable book, and I hope that what I’m about to say doesn’t detract from the dedicated fieldwork of the Grants, whose incredibly detailed measurements of thousands of birds over a 20-year period on the tiny island of Daphne Major are a major contribution to the study of population dynamics and ecology.

   It is very unfortunate that neither Weiner or the Grants couldn’t know the simple act that, while natural selection is a necessary aspect of the evolution model, demonstrating it does not in and of itself demonstrate evolution(if by evolution you mean single cell creatures apt today’s biosphere). What I mean is that natural selection does not produce NEW GENETIC INFORMATION. For bacteria-to-man evolution to work, there MUST be an increase in new genetic information. Neither Weiner nor the Grants demonstrated one example of an increase in new genetic information. Rather, they demonstrated many examples of a LOSS of information, which is what natural selection does.

   Another unfortunate aspect of this book were the serious misrepresentations of creationists. Both the Grants and Weiner seemed to reflect that any inheritable change in a population is a deathblow to creationists. Nothing could be further from the truth. Creationists have no problem with the concept of “change through time.” What we have a problem with is “change with the increase of NEW GENETIC INFORMATION.” Throughout the book, Wiener makes these straw men, and many more. I could go on all day on how Wiener seriously misrepresented creationists, but I would rather end this review on a excellent note.

   To the creationist, this book momentously confirms the biblical account of creation, that God made plants and animals according to their kind(not species), and that there are genetic limits to these kinds. For me, natural selection is powerful evidence for an intelligent designer, that God plotted each kind of animal with the genetic information to adapt to many different environments.
   Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
3. J. Bair says:

   July 17, 2010 at 2:59 am

   Let’s agree on one thing: Evolution proposes that one species originates from another species as it goes through genetic changes in response to environmental changes.”The Beak of the Finch” claims to show this in real life by relying on observations of moths, fish, bacteria, and especially the finches of the Galapagos Islands. Each example, but, shows that the species in the long run remain the same or nearly so. The finch study, which all ears on beak size, showed that the beak size of finches remained the same after 25 years, though there were some population cycles paralelling El Nino cycles. The conclusion? “Fortis [the finch] has done a lot of evolving just to stay in place!” (p. 192, hardcover) They change lacking changing? Right! Creationists should like this book. If all evolutionary theory sounds this illogical, Darwin doesn’t stand a chance. At another point the book tells us that after Newton’s Principia religion became beside the point–if that is so, why did Newton himself devote most of his life after writing Principia to studies of theology? Bogus logic + bogus history = bogus thesis.
   Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
4. Anonymous says:

   July 17, 2010 at 4:50 am

   I was assigned to read this book for an Environmental class. The book was very informative, but also dry and slow. Some of the factual information was interseting, but for the most part i did not delight in it, beacuse it seemed like a continual listing of facts on evolution.
   Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
5. Yothgoboufnir says:

   July 17, 2010 at 5:15 am

   I feel compelled to share some brief thoughts about this book, because, although it comes highly recommended, I was surprised to learn it was not very excellent.

   Specifically, this book is:

   * Repetitive: on the same page, the leader will regularly have multiple paragraphs adage exactly the same thing; within these paragraphs, sentences repeat each additional as well. The repetition makes the appearance that the leader is inflating the page count, talking down to us, or both.

   * Incorrect: some simplification is necessary, even excellent. But too regularly this book presents material in such a warped, compressed manner as to be simply incorrect. Let me be clear, since the topic is volatile, in specifying that I do not disagree with the theory of evolution by natural selection. When I say this book is incorrect, I mean the leader misrepresents essential topics like what selective pressure is and how scientists use computer models.

   * Overwrought: to me the book sounded like it was trying too hard to tell its tale and show its importance. This book covers some very, very cool material, but to my ears Weiner seemed unwilling to let the awesomeness of the science speak for itself. The leader developed “drama” by relating tales only in small broken bits, perhaps to keep us in suspense, perhaps to avoid overloading our attention spans, and perhaps in either case (or both) to keep us reading. I thought the leader breaking up the tale this way made the narrative more garbled rather than more compelling.

   The book is highly regarded by many, including the Pulitzer board. I like reading books about nearly anything, and to my surprise I did not like this book. I read the book in an undergraduate course on evolution, and I must say that the class of ~15 people reached a rapid consensus that the book was not worth reading. The professor agreed and the book was removed from the curriculum in favor of additional writing on the same research. I do not recommend this book.

   (This review has been heavily edited for tone, but not content.)
   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5