The Royal Society of Queensland PO Box 6021, St Lucia, Queensland 4067, Australia General enquiries [email protected] President [email protected] ABN 64 658 824 035 Members’ Newsletter 2020 No. 15 10 October 2020 Unexpected Outcomes pre-publication opportunity The Royal Societies of Australia (RSA), a collaboration of which The Royal Society of Queensland is a member, is involved in publishing a new book about Australian science. It is called Unexpected Outcomes and has been written by Emeritus Professor Robert Clancy AM FRSN. The attached flyer and Table of Contents outlines the book’s contents and its novel approach to the subject. It covers the development of Australian science from colonial times to the mid-20th century through its many personalities both famous and less well known. A set of sample pages of the book (not sequential) accompanies this Newsletter (2MB). RSA expects that this 300-page volume will be of particular interest to many of our members and so has given our Society the opportunity to purchase it at significantly below the expected RRP of $49.95. It will be available in time for Christmas this year. Payment is not required at this time, just an indication of numbers of orders. Please send a message to our Administration Coordinator Pam Lauder [email protected] asap if you would like to place an order for this work. Proceedings opportunities The Society has copies of the following volumes in the Proceedings of The Royal Society of Queensland available for purchase now: Volume 124 – Regular annual issue, 2020 – $35 plus $10 postage Volume 125 –The Land of Clouds Revisited: The Biodiversity and Ecology of the Eungella Rainforests – $35 plus $10 postage 1 The table of contents of each of these printed works is available on the Society’s website: http://www.royalsocietyqld.org/proceedings/. The Society will shortly be printing the following volumes and is seeking expressions of interest from members to allow the respective Editors to better estimate the print run: Volume 126 – Springs of the Great Artesian Basin – $50 plus $15 postage Volume 127 – A Rangelands Dialogue: Towards a Sustainable Future – $35 plus $10 postage Volume 128 – Regular annual issue 2020 – $35 plus $10 postage Please note that unlike volume 124, none of these volumes will be distributed free of charge to members. Digital versions will be available online free of charge. Volume 127 is now complete, volume 126 half-complete and volume 128 will be loaded to the website shortly. The Editor has advised that volume 128 has half as many contributions again as volume 124! Please send a message to our Administration Coordinator Pam Lauder [email protected] asap if you would like to place an order for any of these works. A couple of members have already paid for one or more of these volumes and they do not need to contact Pam again. Payment Payment for these volumes now is optional. Our immediate concern is numbers to allow printing to be ordered. If you wish to make payment now, there are three options: Payments by bank transfer: Pay directly to the account of Royal Society of Queensland, BSB 313-140 Account 12266499 but please identify the payer and send a message to Pam explaining your order and the postal address. Payment by credit card or PayPal A PayPal account is not necessary to pay by credit card or PayPal. Go to the Donations page http://www.royalsocietyqld.org/philanthropy/ and click on the Donate button at the bottom of the page. Enter the method of payment and the quantum of money. Send a message to Pam explaining your order and the postal address. 2 Payment by cheque: Place the order with Pam who will respond with a destination for the cheque. Alternatively, place the order with Pam and deposit the cheque at any branch of the Commonwealth Bank into the subsidiary account in the name of The Royal Society of Queensland, BSB 064 001, account number 00901597. Research Fund – Applications open Applications are now invited for grants from the Research Fund closing at midnight on 28 November 2020, under fresh guidelines. The new 2020 Funding Policy encourages applications from citizen science groups. However, to comply with taxation law, applicants will still be required to gain endorsement from a research institution. Applications should be addressed to The Secretary and emailed to [email protected]. Do not send applications to the Society's post box. Members are invited to distribute notice of this call widely amongst their networks. Last year Council member Revel Pointon administered the assessment of applications. With Revel’s changed circumstances (see snippet below), we are now seeking a volunteer willing to tabulate incoming applications, referring them to an independent technical review panel and then tabulating the responses. We will also be seeking members of the review panel, but this can’t be done until applications are received, as we do not select reviewers who are housed in research institutions that lodge applications. Best wishes Ross Hynes President 0428 721 918 3 The Royal Societies of Australia Unexpected Outcomes A new book by Emeritus Professor Robert Clancy AM FRSN The Royal Societies of Australia has partnered with Halstead Press in the promotion, sale and distribution of a new book by Emeritus Professor Robert Clancy AM FRSN on the impact of the work of Australian scientists, both familiar and unfamiliar, up to the mid-20th century. Entitled Unexpected Outcomes, the book seeks to answer the crucial question of what we can learn from the scientific thinking and practice of the past. Professor Clancy takes an in-depth look at the practice of scientific research and discovery from the colonial period up to the mid-20th century in Australia. Professor Clancy examines over 100 individual scientists and their work to discover what enabled the dramatic success of Australian research on both a global and domestic stage. This is no romantic celebration of an imagined golden age, but rather an evidence-based study of the assets, obstacles and limitations that both supported and undermined the course of scientific achievement in this country. Included in this list of key players are: Joseph Banks Frank Macfarlane Burnet William and Lawrence Bragg David Masson Anton Breinl Douglas Mawson Thomas Brisbane Ferdinand von Mueller William and Ida Browne Georg von Neumeyer John Cornforth C.Y. O’Connor Allan Cunningham Joseph Pawsey Tannatt William Edgeworth David Ruby Payne-Scott Howard Florey David Rivett Rita Harradence James Sprent Robert Logan Jack Frederick Wolseley Germaine Joplin Richard Woolley Unexpected Outcomes describes how the spirit of the Enlightenment energised and transformed discovery in colonial Australia and identifies local influences which sharpened our methods – a harsh landscape, unique flora and fauna; a less stratified society than the one often found in the Old World and a national myth encouraging ordinary individuals to ‘have a go’. Clancy reviews the contributions of women who faced structural discrimination that seems incredible today and acknowledges that Indigenous peoples were achieving comparable breakthroughs but faced unequal obstruction when it came to contributing to a national conversation. The book takes pains to recognise the vital role played by Royal Societies in science education and practice during colonial times and in the early 20th century and aims to contribute to the revival of multidisciplinary science in Australia. Unexpected Outcomes presents its thesis in an exhaustively researched, highly readable fashion, liberally illustrated with aesthetically appealing and engaging scientific imagery. Robert Clancy is a leading clinical immunologist and pioneer in the field of mucosal immunology. He is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Newcastle’s School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy. In addition to his professional medical interests, Professor Clancy has long been involved in historical research in the areas of medical history and colonial cartography and has developed a History of Medicine course through the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. This hardcover book comprises approximately 300 pages with nearly 100 illustrations in full colour and black and white. John Hardie FRSN FHEA FGS President Unexpected Outcomes by Robert Clancy TABLE OF CONTENTS DOES IT MATTER? 6 IN THE BEGINNING 26 NATURAL HISTORY: THE ENLIGHTENMENT EPIPHANY 31 The Banks Era 42 Colonial Natural History: Science Finds its Own Feet (1820–1900) 38 Post-Federation Botanical Science (1900–50): Taxonomy Replaced by Ecology and Plant Physiology 49 IMPORTANT BOTANISTS 43 ZOOLOGY: BETTER LATE THAN NEVER 54 IMPORTANT ZOOLOGISTS 59 AGRICULTURE AND PASTORAL SCIENCE: SCIENCE FOR SURVIVAL 68 Wheat 70 Sheep 74 Beef Cattle 79 Water 84 SCIENTISTS IN AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL SCIENCE 90 ANTHROPOLOGY: A FOCAL POINT 113 IMPORTANT ANTHROPOLOGISTS 120 CHEMISTRY 129 IMPORTANT CHEMISTS 139 BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE 149 IMPORTANT BIOMEDICAL SCIENTISTS 160 GEOLOGY 189 IMPORTANT GEOLOGISTS 200 EPILOGUE 1 215 NATURAL PHILOSOPHY: “THE NAVIGATION SCIENCES” 217 THE SCIENCE OF SURVEY 217 IMPORTANT SURVEYORS 226 ASTRONOMY 232 IMPORTANT ASTRONOMERS 249 PHYSICS 262 IMPORTANT PHYSICISTS 271 ENGINEERING 279 IMPORTANT ENGINEERS 284 EPILOGUE 2 290 The End Game: A FABRIC FOR SCIENCE 291 Sources Index Does it Matter? The question has to be asked. Why write a book on science in Colonial and early 20th century Australia? Many historians believe they have this covered. Some later, where the modern scientist can do a sequential offer a dismissive observation that apart from the odd base analysis of your genome overnight (while she or he ephemeral discovery, science in colonial Australia was is home with the kids) for a couple of hundred dollars, all about collecting trophies of a unique natural history and the astrophysicist anticipates a data load from the for British scientists. From this position their views One Square Kilometre Array in Western Australia of range through to the limiting idea that any discovery 1.5 petabytes, more than the entire Internet! There are was “utilitarian and localised,” as Ian Inkster and Jan so many positives for working in science today.