We think we know the story: Charles Darwin hitched a ride on the HMS Beagle to a distant Pacific archipelago called the Galápagos Islands. Looking around, he noticed some, well, peculiar-looking birds and turtles, and voila! In a blinding revelation, the theory of evolution emerged.
In truth, the Galápagos as the hallowed site where evolutionary lightning struck shortchanges Darwin’s real story, and the way science itself progresses. The Beagle spent just five weeks in the Galápagos, out of five-years of global travels, four years of which were in South America. From the journal and field notes Darwin kept, and his letters home, we know that he was taken by the islands, but he recognized nothing paradigm-shattering about them.
Read Full Article »
