In this lovely, witty mix of travel writing and natural history, Helen Lewis travels to the Galápagos Islands to revisit Darwin’s time there during his voyage on the Beagle. Dispelling the usual myths, she is frank about the reality of his experience: the constant seasickness, the oppressive heat, and more than a little casual animal cruelty in the name of science. Although struggling with the climate herself, Lewis revels in the islands’ spectacular wildlife and the modern conservation efforts trying to protect this “laboratory of evolution” from tourism and invasive species. We also learn how, upon his return to England, Darwin never really ventured far again—his Beagle years leaving him with anxiety, a mysterious chronic illness, and, ahem… spectacular flatulence.
The mythology of blinding-inspiration-in-paradise is so appealing that it has outcompeted the truth. The actual story—the one that drove me here—is that Darwin was above all an empiricist. He took nothing on trust. He wanted to see things for himself, measure them, catalog them, and perhaps even eat them, and he was willing to endure any combination of boredom, nausea, and danger to do so. He was an omnivore, as interested in geology as biology when he toured South America, and his most famous theory drew on economics as well. He had an ego, definitely, but he was also open-minded and curious; he wanted to understand nature, not just plunder it like so many colonial explorers. (In later life, he supported animal charities and called for vivisection to be regulated.) He was willing to push back against editors, too, such as the one who suggested that he should reframe Origin to focus only on pigeons, because “everybody is interested in pigeons.”
More picks on evolution
How Our Grandmothers Made Us and Saved Us
“What evolution owes aging women.”
Baby-Making on Mars
“In the depths of the Cold War, scientists from the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. joined forces to answer a still-urgent question: Can mammals reproduce in space?”
The Geological Sublime
“Butterflies, deep time, and climate change.”
A Clever New Strategy for Treating Cancer, Thanks to Darwin
Robert Gatenby, a radiologist in Tampa, Florida, is rethinking cancer as a chronic illness: studying the link between cancer and Darwin’s principles and finding a way to “outsmart it rather than carpet-bomb it.”
What Does It Mean To Be Human?
How much of your DNA is Neanderthal? In Gibraltar, Gaia Vince analyzes the genetics of ancient humans.
Welcome to Pleistocene Park
In Arctic Siberia, Russian scientists are trying to stave off catastrophic climate change—by resurrecting an Ice Age biome complete with lab-grown woolly mammoths.