Katrina van Grouw, author of The Unfeathered Bird
When Charles Darwin considered how best to introduce his controversial new theory of evolution to the general public, he chose to liken it to the selective breeding of domesticated animals, changed by the hand of man. In her new book, Unnatural Selection, marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s great work on domesticated animals, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, Katrina van Grouw explains why this analogy was uncannily appropriate. Artificial selection is, in fact, more than just an analogy for natural selection–it is the perfect example of evolution in action.
Katrina van Grouw, author of The Unfeathered Bird (Princeton University Press), inhabits that no-man’s land midway between art and science. She holds degrees in fine art and natural history illustration, and is a former curator of ornithological collections at a major national museum. She’s a self-taught scientist with a passion for evolutionary biology and its history.
Lecture and book signing.
Free with museum admission.