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Darwin and the Barnacle

Darwin and the Barnacle
Library Shelf Location 36.DARW
Publication Date Mar 2003
Description

Synopsis: The story of one tiny creature and history's most spectacular scientific breakthrough. In 1846, Charles Darwin has a secret: an essay, sealed in an envelope and locked in his study drawer, which will overturn human understanding of time and nature forever. Now he must publish and take the consequences. But he hesitates. First, Darwin decides to undertake just one small task: to solve the riddle of a tiny barnacle he picked up on the shores of Southern Chile, the last of his Beagle specimens. As it turns out, he could not have made a more fateful choice. Barnacles are common to almost every shoreline in the world, but this barnacle doesn't fit established definitions or accepted archetypes. He promises himself a month or so studying this creature, this potential key, to try to understand the process of natural selection within this particular species. But eight years later, his study filled with hundreds of barnacle specimens in labelled pill-boxes posted from around the world, the case is still unclosed. Was Darwin hesitating? Or was he testing his 'dangerous idea' to destruction? Lavishly illustrated and superbly told, Darwin and the Barnacle is the fascinating story of how genius sometimes proceeds through indirection - and how one small item of curiosity contributed to history's most spectacular scientific breakthrough.

ISBN 9780571209668
Quantity 1
Pages 309 Pages
Author Rebecca Stott
Format Hardback
Publisher Faber and Faber, London
Categories Non-art books relating to BALTIC exhibitions, Natural History and Ecology
Keywords Natural History, Evolution
Language English

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