The Beak of the Finch: Epilogue Summary & Analysis

It is March of 1993, and the Grants are back on Daphne Major. They are practically tripping over the numerous finches that are flying and darting everywhere, hopping on the ground before them and perching on their shoulders. There have been three El Niños in a row. It is the Grants’ 21st year on the islands, and more birds are breeding on the island than ever before.

A 1993 poll showed that nearly half of U.S. citizens still do not believe in evolution. But scientists like Schluter insist that Creationists should understand that evolution is, indeed, Creation at work. When the Grants talk to strangers about their work without mentioning the word “evolution” those strangers are fascinated—but often, the minute the word enters the conversation, their faces turn cold. Darwin himself was surrounded by Creationists, yet he could not ignore the reality of evolution.

Trevor Price, Lisle Gibbs, Peter Boag, Laurene Ratcliffe, and Dolph Schluter continue their research projects around the world. The Grants, meanwhile, have overseen two dozen generations of finches during their work on Daphne Major. No other human being has traveled as far along this line of research as the Grants and their many associates have.

The original meaning of the word evolution suggests the unrolling of a scroll. The scroll, in the Darwinian view of evolution, is never finished being written—it’s still being inscribed as it unrolls, its letters composed moment-to-moment.

Just as the finches were able to expand in so many different directions because they were the first to arrive on Daphne Major, humanity continues to radiate because we “stumbled into our new niche” first. Chimpanzees are making tools, though, and becoming more varied in appearance and disposition—and where there is genetic variation, there is room for selection and evolution. Life all over the planet, in fact, from primates to the inanimate molecules that live in the volcanic vents at the bottom of the sea around the Galápagos, continues to evolve.

Now, humanity looks to the planets around us to see if we are truly the first—or just the first on this particular “island” that is our planet.  We are constantly calculating our changes and our futures, gauging whether we will be able to travel to the next rock, the next peak—or whether we will stay where we are.

Geological surveys of the sea floor around the Galápagos show that there are lava cobbles, or stones of cooled lava, that formed above sea level clustered around sunken volcanic peaks. These lava stones, experts suggest, are 5 to 9 million years old. The volcanoes were once above the water, but they’ve now sunken back down—and new islands have taken their places. Daphne Major is a place that was here before us and will be here after us. But one day, it will sink, and something else will rise in its stead.