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The Scientific Method

Warbler FinchThe Scientific Method has been essential to the work of the Grants and all of the other experimentalists mentioned in The Beak of the Finch. The conclusions that have built on Darwin's work have come from application of the Scientific Method.  Darwin did a lot of supposing but also conducted experiments, from soaking seeds in salt water to breeding his own pigeons. The Grants and their colleagues have continued this tradition - carefully measuring beaks, counting seeds, studying DNA - and have used their observations, following the framework of the Scientific Method, to come to their own conclusions. It is important to remember that science is never finished even when a theory is well accepted. Scientists keep checking, rechecking, and trying new approaches. Learn more about the Scientific Method:

The above links come from Vision Learning, a National Science Foundation funded educational resource for faculty and students. The site includes sections on Darwin’s The Origin of Species, Natural Selection, and Descent with Modification. 

Image: Elizabeth Gould, “Warbler Finch (Certhidea Olivacea)” in Charles Darwin (ed), Zoology of the Voyage of H. M.S. Beagle, Part III:  Birds (London:  1839-1843). Image courtesy of the John Hay Library, Brown University.