Darwin's Radio

AFTERWORD

I’ve made a substantial effort in this novel to make the science accurate and the speculations plausible. The ongoing revolution in biology is far from over, however, and it is very likely that many of the speculations here will turn out to be wrong.

As I’ve done my research and spoken to scientists around the world, I’ve come away with an unshakable sense that evolutionary biology is about to undergo a major upheaval — not in the next few decades, but in the next few years.

Even as I finish revisions, articles are appearing in the scientific literature that support a number of speculative details. Fruit flies, it seems, can adapt in only a few generations to gross changes in climate. The implications of this are still controversial. The most recent, in the December — January 1998-99 issue of New Scientist, points up the contributions that human endogenous retroviruses might make to the progress of HIV, the AIDS virus; Eric Towler, of the Science Applications International Corporation, says he “has evidence that HERV-K enzymes may help HIV to evade potent drugs.” This is similar to the mechanism of swapped viral tool kits that frightens Mark Augustine.

The mystery, as it unfolds, will be absolutely fascinating; we truly are on the verge of discovering the secrets of life.