Finch Beaks
The identification of thirteen different species of finches calling Galapagos home rather the single common species which Charles Darwin mistakenly assumed has served to situate them as the definitive symbol of proof of his theory of natural selection. Each of the different species are identifiable by specific variations in the development of their beaks which, as a result of adaptations stemming from the process of natural selection, manifest as divergences in diet.
Beaks Not Wings
Beaks and not wings are anatomical feature which the most important for classifying the differentiations in bird species. This is because it is the beak rather than wings (which would seem to be the case simply as a result of placement on the body) that is most important for finding and getting at food. As the author points out, this makes beaks the symbolic equivalent of human hands rather than the physically proximate human mouth.
“Darwin’s finches”
The finches have been consistently referred to as “Darwin’s finches” even in scientific textbooks despite the fact that Darwin himself mistook them for all being the same species. The resulting revelation of thirteen different species identified by subtle variations in their beaks has served to make them, as indicated, the central symbol of observable proof of natural selection in action. As if this isn’t galling enough for creationists who nevertheless continue to insist there is not a shred of proof supporting evolution, the author asserts that this fact also implicates the birds as the evolution’s symbolic equivalent of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.
Manchester’s Moths
Black soot spewing forth from factories built during the Industrial Revolution in Manchester, England made being one of the millions of white moths who made the surrounding area their home a much more dangerous situation. The rapid change in atmospheric conditions made evolutionary adaptation a do-or-die necessity and stimulated the process of natural selection to speed up at an unnatural rate. The species quickly transformed into one dominated by “black mutants” while the formerly domain white members of the species began to die out. Those “black mutants” are not the finches equivalent of the symbol of human activity’s impact upon the evolutionary process.
Tusks
Poachers only see elephants with larger tusks as having value, in order to exploit this value the elephant must be killed. The result of poaching only elephants with the most value—the biggest tusks—means fewer elephants in the wild large tusks successfully competing for females and more elephants with no tusks successfully mating. The result of more tuckless males mating with females means more tuskless males in the population. This cycle has served to make tusks—or, more precisely, tusklessness—a symbol of the unforeseen and definitely unintended consequences of capitalism on evolution.
