Sarkar Lab

Are you ready to talk history to ecologists?

From Matt Chew, Center for Biology and Society, Arizona State University, apparently intended for members of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology, but obviously also relevant to the rest of us who are interested in the history of ecology:

"Are you ready to talk history to ecologists?

At the 2007 meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) -- a week after the ISH meeting in Exeter -- historian Frank Egerton was awarded a distinguished service citation for his work in the history of ecology.  To my astonishment, Dr. Egerton was unaware of ISHPSSB, a situation I have
begun to remedy.

But the time seems ripe for bringing the history of ecology to ecologists. My poster presentation at the ESA meeting, "Invasion Biology's Forgotten Forerunners" was unique among several hundred entries, very popular with attendees, and resulted in an invitation from a major university press to submit a book proposal.  In addition, Dr. Egerton suggested that I organize a history session for the August 2008 ESA meeting in Milwaukee (see http://www.esa.org/milwaukee).

The ESA is a huge organization, just shy of 10,000 members.  Their meetings are organized well, and well in advance.  The deadline for submitting organized oral session proposals for the 2008 meeting is only a month away. Talks are expected to be 15 minutes long, with 5 minutes for questions. If we organize a "symposium" we get 20 minutes for talks, but there are a limited number available so it's more competitive.

Next year is an 'off year' for ISHPSSB.  There were many talks about ecology at Exeter, any of which could be reworked or improved on for ESA in 2008. If you are interested in participating in a 'history of ecology' session at ESA in August 2008, please contact me by 1 September 2007 with at least the germ of an idea, and I will let all respondents know within a day or two of that whether it looks like we have enough interest to move forward with a proposal.

Thanks"
--
Matt Chew
Arizona State University
Center for Biology and Society
PO Box 873301
Tempe, AZ 85287-3301

Al Martinez's "Negative Math"

My colleague, Al Martinez,from our History Department has a new website which is an excellent introduction to his work in the history of physics. Al is presently working on a new book which can be used to introduce students--in particular, future high school science teachers--to the history and philosophy of science.

The Prowling Naturalist: Bukit Timah I: Alfred Russel Wallace in the Malay Archipelago

Unless you are a captain of commerce, by most reasonable standards, Singapore is not an interesting city. But even if you are infatuated with commerce, Singapore is now a city fighting off inevitable decline with China and India emerging as the economic powerhouses of the new Asia. The island state is also one of the most repressive “democracies” in the world, governed by a paternalistic state that tolerates little deviance. If taxis begin to move at speeds higher than the permissible 80 km. per hour, a bell starts to ring inside. Long hair used to be reason enough to deny tourists entry. It is illegal to bring chewing gum into the country. Smoking has not been permitted almost anywhere public for decades. In the 1980s Singapore was the only country in the world promoting positive eugenics, offering well-educated women incentives to bear more offspring and less educated ones equally attractive largesse to be sterilized. As early as 1958, the famously prescient biologist, J. B. S. Haldane, had declared Singapore to be a “police state [1].” It isn’t much better now even though the police is not glaringly visible every day.

But Singapore’s often impossible to avoid if you travel around Southeast Asia partly because Singapore Airlines is about the only truly international carrier from the region. Singapore is also a remarkably green city with all its remaining forests (less than 0.5 per cent of the area) now under protection. If you’re stranded there, as I was last weekend, the only solace—besides good food and general friendliness—is a rather remarkable piece of native habitat about 14 km. northwest of the city center, and surrounded by highways and developments on all sides. That piece of land is the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, a patch of primary Southeast Asian rain forest in the around the highest hill in the city (at 163 m.).

This was not my first visit to Bukit Timah. I had been there a decade ago when I was meandering around the region, trying to follow Wallace’s footsteps during his remarkable travels from 1854 to 1862. It was during the course of that trip that he formulated his version of the theory of evolution by natural selection and ensured his future place in the history of science. (The reminiscences that emerged from these travels, The Malay Archipelago, is also arguably the best travel book ever written.) My trip in 1996 had ended in virtual disaster. Jakarta was in flames the day I arrived in Indonesia, the beginning of the people’s revolt that finally removed Suharto from power. But the troubles made travel dangerous, if not impossible, and over a long and hard summer I managed to cover but a tiny fraction of the areas that Wallace had visited. I abandoned plans to write a book on Wallace’s travels, at least for the foreseeable future, and returned to take up a Fellowship in October at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.