Galapagos: following in Darwin's footsteps (original) (raw)

Abstract

Report on trip to the Galapagos Islands. Rolston recalls Darwin's experience encountering hundreds of "most disgusting, clumsy lizards," three-foot marine iguanas. Not "pretty," but then again not "disgusting." He is not surprised that the weird wildlife had set the young Darwin thinking. Strangely, Darwin's genius at recognizing these remote islands as an evolutionary hotspot led to a revolution in the human view of who we are, where we are, and even of life itself.