Science Quote by Peter R. Grant

Grant’s line is a polite scalpel aimed at a seductive evolutionary shortcut. “Founder effects” have a satisfying narrative arc: a small, cut-off population, a genetic roll of the dice, a quick route to difference. By flatly noting what the theory “does not explain,” he draws a bright boundary between two kinds of evolutionary stories: those that reshuffle what already exists, and those that account for the arrival of genuinely new traits - the kind that catch a field biologist’s eye, like novel plumage.

The specific intent is corrective. Founder effects can change gene frequencies through drift, especially in tiny founding populations, but drift is not a creative engine. It can amplify, lose, or fix variants; it can’t conjure the developmental and genetic innovations required to build new feather colors, patterns, or structures. By choosing “novel features” and an evocative example, “plumage traits,” Grant pushes the reader away from abstract population genetics and back toward mechanisms: mutation, recombination, selection, gene regulation, and the slow plumbing of developmental pathways.

The subtext is a critique of overreach in evolutionary explanation. In popular retellings (and some academic ones), founder effects become a catch-all for rapid divergence, a way to hand-wave past the hard question of origination. Grant, known for meticulous work on Darwin’s finches, is signaling a research ethic: it’s not enough to explain why populations differ; you have to explain how a trait becomes possible in the first place.