EVOLUTION'S WORKSHOP: God and Science on the Galapagos Islands

In Evolution's Workshop, Edward J Larson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and American academic historian of science, has written the remarkable story for the general reader of these isolated islands, their discovery, how they came to play a central role in the development of Darwin's theory of evolution and what has happened to them since. The equatorial Galapagos Islands emerge from the depths of the Pacific Ocean around 1,200 km west of Ecuador and mainland South America. By historical and biological accident, this scattering of small inhospitable rocks have become world famous and known by many other names--Darwin's Eden, The Galapagos Wonderland, The Enchanted Isles or Encantadas. Darwin and many eminent scientists since his day have found personal and scientific inspiration there. Fitzroy, captain of the Beagle which carried Darwin around the world, viewed the islands as "a shore fit for pandemonium"--Milton's hell. But for playwright Tom Stoppard it is an Eden where "one walks among iguanas, herons, doves, mocking birds, and finches as Adam and Eve in medieval paintings". Fortunately, the islands became Ecuador's first national park, a founding "Man in the Biosphere" preserve for UNESCO and one of the first of United Nations World Heritage Sites. But as Larson shows, the advent of eco-tourism is making the Galapagos "a test case for environment protection from the people who love it too much". Larson first visited the islands in 1992 and became enchanted with them. The more he looked into their history the more he became fascinated by them. Evolution's Workshopis the splendid result of that obsession, a nest of stories about the islands, from discovery through evolution, the development of post-Darwinian ideas about evolution and conservation. Pages of notes show the breadth and depth of Larson's research and provide the stepping stones for all of us who are hooked by this absorbing story.--Douglas Palmer