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Historical Records Australian Science Publishing Historical Records of Australian Science Volume 14, 2002–03 © Australian Academy of Science 2002 All enquiries and manuscripts should be directed to: Professor R. W. Home Department of History and Philosophy of Science The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Vic. 3010, Australia Telephone: +61 3 8344 6556 Fax: +61 3 8344 7959 Email: [email protected] Published by CSIRO PUBLISHING for the Australian Academy of Science www.publish.csiro.au/journals/hras Historical Records of Australian Science, 2002, 14, 209–249 Book Review Section Compiled by Libby Robin with assistance from John Jenkin Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (CRES), Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia. Email: [email protected] Roger Cross: Fallout: Hedley Marston detachment and adds to our knowledge of and the British Bomb Tests in Australia. the politics and personalities involved in Wakefield Press: Kent Town, 2001. Australia’s atomic adventures. xii + 226 pp., illus., ISBN: 1 862 54523 5 Hedley Marston, Chief of CSIRO’s (PB), $24.95. Division of Biochemistry and General Nutrition, was approached by British authorities in 1955 to assist in studying the effects of radiation on animals. After initial firings in 1952–3, the British atomic testing program was about to recommence in the Monte Bello Islands, and at the newly-established mainland test site known as Maralinga. Marston decided to examine the take-up of radioactive fallout in grazing animals by measuring the concentration of radioactive iodine in their thyroid glands. His research indicated that fallout was being deposited over a much wider area than the physicists on the Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee (AWTSC) had publicly admitted. Either they were fools or charlatans, and Marston became increasingly determined to bring In the 1950s CSIRO biochemist Hedley them down. Marston became embroiled in what Roger Roger Cross provides a detailed account Cross describes as ‘the single most impor- of Marston’s anger and frustration as he tant crisis’ of his professional life. tried to force the AWTSC, led by Leslie Research into fallout from the British Martin and Ernest Titterton, to admit their atomic tests in Australia brought Marston errors. Attempts at mediation by Fred into bitter conflict with the government- White, CSIRO’s Chief Executive Officer, appointed Safety Committee. It was a and Mark Oliphant, Marston’s close friend, dispute that involved many of the major failed. Rancour and recrimination esca- players in the Australian scientific commu- lated as Marston strove to publish his nity, and one that culminated in ‘perhaps findings, only to meet obstruction and the most unseemly episode in twentieth- delay. Even when his work was finally century Australian science’. This is a fasci- made public, the controversy continued, as nating story of ‘jealousy, hate and power’ the AWTSC sought to have a rebuttal that takes us behind the facade of scientific accepted for publication. Oliphant finally © Australian Academy of Science 2002 0727-3061/02/02020910.1071/HR02011 210 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 14 Number 2 brought an unpleasant battle over who fortable with the public role assigned him would have the last word to a halt. In the as first chairman of the AWTC. What end, Marston’s revelations seem to have doubts and torments might Marston’s prov- had little immediate impact, but as Cross ocations have engendered? Oliphant, as demonstrates, public opinion was already always, is difficult to pin down. At times he on the turn as opposition to atmospheric tries to soothe Marston, but on other occa- nuclear testing, both in Australia and over- sions he carelessly fuels his friend’s burning seas, mounted. rage. Might he have done more to help? It is Marston imagined himself a champion a measure of the book’s success that such of science and a defender of truth, but questions emerge. There can be no easy Cross reveals a much more complex figure. answers once we try to explore the human Marston was egotistical and belligerent, dimensions of scientific controversy. ready to take the credit for his colleagues’ The book provides a good read, even research into coast disease, and prepared to though the complex chronology of events bully anyone who stood in the way of his makes it difficult to keep track of who said ambitions. His high standing within the what to whom and when. It makes excel- agricultural community, and his carefully lent use of oral and archival sources and is cultivated circle of influential friends, gave thoroughly documented. Of course, you him a sense of power that he clearly end up wishing for a full biography of relished. He was no anxious whistleblower. Marston, but that hardly detracts from the As Cross shows, most clearly in Marston’s current volume. If only other attempts at correspondence with Oliphant, his attacks scientific biographies showed the same on the AWTSC were driven as much by willingness to deal with their subject’s anger and revenge, as by a desire to protect flaws and complexities. the public and defend the standards of Was this the most unseemly episode in science. twentieth century Australian science? Who Roger Cross has given us a picture of a knows? So little has been written about the flawed man, a would-be hero barely able to feuds and conflicts. So much lies hidden rise above his own pettiness and insecuri- behind euphemisms such as ‘a difficult ties. Our understanding of Marston and his man’, or ‘a controversial figure’. Roger bitter crusade is greatly enriched by Cross’ Cross hopes that his story will aid our efforts to examine the personality of the understanding of ‘the tensions that lurk man and not just the persona of the scien- behind the bland face of ‘science rhetoric’ tist. Unfortunately, we don’t gain as much here in Australia’. Here’s hoping that insight into his opponents. Titterton clearly others will follow his lead. had an ego to match Marston’s, but Les Tim Sherratt Martin seems a much more enigmatic History Program, figure. From Cross’ account, and other Research School of Social Sciences sources, it appears that Martin was uncom- Australian National University Book Review Section 211 Brad Collis: Fields of Discovery: Fields of Discovery does important Australia’s CSIRO. Allen & Unwin: Crows work by putting a human face on the nexus Nest, NSW, 2002. 540 pp., illus., between Australian nationhood and indu- ISBN: 1 865 08602 9 (HB), $49.95. stry. CSIRO as Australia’s flagship research science organisation does (inter)national science for the (inter)national economy. Whether it is food technologies, or in the mapping of the ocean floor, even beyond the earth to moon missions and outer space, Australia’s understandings of itself and its place in the world have been mediated by science. Are there too few national stories with scientists as heroes? Yes, particularly for the twentieth century. Australian historians have, perhaps, been put off by the techni- calities of recent science. But they have also been reluctant to write histories of big bureaucracy. There have been important exceptions: for example, Ken Inglis’ pioneering work, This is the ABC, and Brad In 1926, the Commonwealth government Collis’ own book Snowy — the Making of established the Council for Scientific and Modern Australia are examples of the very Industrial Research, now CSIRO. This was few stories of industrial Australia. Like the a very significant step, taken at a time ABC and the Snowy Mountains Hydro- when financial conditions were difficult. Electric Scheme, CSIRO is ‘an Australian Science was very much tied up with Aus- icon’ (This is the phrase used on the front tralia’s interwar views of its emerging flap of the book). Iconic status brings nationhood. In his address to the 1939 problems and expectations as well as a (jubilee) meeting of ANZAAS, Australian niche market. The challenge is to write history Professor Ernest Scott of the Uni- interestingly and on a human scale about versity of Melbourne, prophesied that the twentieth century ‘Big Science’, which is ‘future of Australia was bound up with the typically dominated by large teams of progress of science’. workers and labyrinthine administrative The twentieth century has borne out structures. Scott’s prophesy. Australia has been Collis, with his journalist’s eye, has shaped by science in an extraordinary grasped the nettle of the ‘human-sized number of ways. Historians, however, have narrative’ with extraordinary success. largely neglected these stories in their tales Fields of Discovery offers a rich pastiche of the nation. In 1988 Roy MacLeod in The of individual stories that unfold in the Commonwealth of Science, commented dramatic style of an adventure or travel that ‘despite their importance in our every- narrative. Collis begins with the scientific day lives, scientists and science have been war on ‘alien invaders’, the acclimatised posted to the periphery of our history’ plants and animals that have thrived (p. 1). Despite a growing number of excessively in Australia’s distinctive eco- studies of Australian identity and culture, systems, and this war is full of individual the idea that science is integral to that and unlikely heroes. Scientist Wendy identity has still seldom been explored. Forno appears in her fisherman’s waders, 212 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 14 Number 2 scouring Brazil for a natural enemy to the Collis has a real gift for explaining floating aquatic weed, Salvinia molesta. science in plain English — and for making Forno was building on a long history of personal connections that enliven his nar- finding biological controls for pest species. rative. In 1940s, the mission to recover The early CSIR had built its reputation on wool from sheepskins demanded funda- the success of the Cactoblastus moth in mental protein biochemistry.
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