Vol 453|5 June 2008 BOOKS & ARTS Command and control A biography of botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker illustrates how science switched in the nineteenth century from being a hobby of aristocrats to a profession paid for by governments. Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the Practices of Victorian Science by Jim Endersby University of Chicago Press: 2008. 400 pp. $35, £18 As we approach next year’s frenzy of celebra- tions for Charles Darwin’s bicentenary and the 150th anniversary of his publication On the Origin of Species, it is important to remem- ber other naturalists who worked in the mid- nineteenth century. Imperial Nature chronicles Joseph Dalton Hooker, who transformed a royal pleasure park into the scientific institu- tion now called the Royal Botanic Gardens at LIBRARY UK/BRIDGEMAN ART HOUSE, KENT, DOWN EVSTAFIEFF; Kew in London. Science, particularly natural history, switched at this time from an activity practised by aristocrats to one paid for by governments. Jim Endersby provides a refreshing record of how scientists worked during this transi- tion, rather than an analysis of the theories they generated. His contention, with which I agree, is that the practice of science provides the context necessary for understanding how theories advanced; without this background, Joseph Hooker (right) and Charles Lyell (standing) discussed evolutionary theory with Darwin (left). scientific progress looks too simple, and leaps seem extraordinary. government funded and part of the UK civil women, and was not considered intellectu- Hooker was a close friend of Darwin. At the service, as a private fiefdom. In the early 1870s, ally demanding. It was also associated with Linnean Society of London, he helped to engi- this style caused a stand-off between Hooker gardening and horticulture. Hooker real- neer the joint reading of Darwin’s abstract of and Acton Smee Ayrton, essentially head of ized that to make his name, he must invent a On the Origin of Species alongside Alfred Rus- the civil service in prime minister William ‘philosophical botany’, a science of plants that sel Wallace’s paper on natural selection,which Gladstone’s government. Ayrton attempted laid out general rules rather than describing Wallace had sent from the field in southeast to impose civil-service hiring and procure- details. But he needed more data than one Asia. Like Darwin, Hooker is usually por- ment rules at Kew, but Hooker fought against man could generate — he needed an army trayed as a whiskered gentleman of the estab- it. Hooker’s friends defended him in letters of collectors. lishment. Unlike the independently wealthy published in Nature, describing him as a self- Hooker’s relationships with these collec- evolutionist, Hooker had to earn his living less man working for the greater good, who tors are the most fascinating part of Enders- from science. Endersby describes Hooker’s was owed a living by the nation. by’s book. As a young man, Hooker collected desire to join the scientific élite and practise Hooker backed down and was forced to plants in Antarctica and India, and some of ‘philosophical’ rather than ‘paid’ science. apologize to Ayrton for insinuating he was the men he met on his travels remained cor- Returning from an expedition to Antarctica a liar. Gladstone commented on Hooker’s respondents and collectors for Kew through- on the ship Erebus, Hooker wrote to his father: behaviour, observing that “scientific men … out his career. Hooker rarely paid for material “My hope and most earnest wish is to be able have a great susceptibility” and are “not sent to Kew but operated a barter system. He to on my return home devote my time solely accustomed to enter in our sturdy conflicts”. exchanged books and equipment for plants to botany.” A scientist giving evidence to parliaments from New Zealand and Australia, ensuring Hooker epitomizes the advent of the profes- today might agree. that the collection of dried plants at Kew sional scientist, but he was at pains to give the In trying to join the scientific élite, Hooker became global. Collectors, however, occa- impression that he worked purely for the love of had the additional burden of being a bota- sionally showed independence. Hooker rep- science, not for pay. Perhaps the relatively low nist. Botany and natural history were then rimanded those who dared to describe new salaries in some modern fields are a legacy of low-status disciplines, below the physical plant species from their area — species could the ambivalent attitude of Victorian scientists sciences, chemistry and geology, but above be described only at Kew, after comparison such as Hooker towards remuneration. medicine. Botany was not taken seriously with its collections. That this was accepted Hooker managed Kew Gardens, which was because it was accessible to anyone, including seems extraordinary, but the collectors 721 OPINION NATURE|Vol 453|5 June 2008 needed Hooker and his coordinates. Today we were accused of being ‘anti-evolution’. Evo- gifts: they earned status do the reverse using lution by natural selection remains the most by being involved in the georeferencing. robust explanation for the generation of bio- new science. According to historic logical diversity. Study of what that diversity Hooker had a strong accounts, Hooker was a entails can be theory-free, as Hooker con- vested interest in being reluctant convert to the tended, but studying diversity in the light of the sole person to theory of evolution by evolution is more satisfying. NATURAL HIST. MUS., LONDON HIST. NATURAL define a species. Like natural selection. End- It is surprising how familiar the debates of Darwin, he deplored ersby shows that the nineteenth-century science sound today. By ‘species-mongers’, today story was more complex. concentrating on practice, Imperial Nature known as splitters, who Hooker supported Dar- reminds us that although theories are impor- described variants as win but did not think tant, the evidence on which they are based species in their own Hooker’s drawing of a red alga, Delesseria. that evolutionary theory comes from many sources and through many right. Hooker’s theories affected botany in prac- cultures. One hopes that Hooker’s attempt at of plant distribution depended on a broad tice, noting that the evolutionist must “employ central control could never happen today, species concept, so it was important that he the methods and follow the same principles with our vibrant, diverse and more equitable maintained control of the definitions. He that guide the believer in their being actual communities. ■ also defined localities. Collectors of the time creations”. This view sounds familiar to any- Sandra Knapp is a plant taxonomist in the recorded broad regions of sample origin, one who was involved in the pattern-cladistics Department of Botany, The Natural History such as southern India, rather than specific furore of the 1980s, when a set of systematists Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK. Roberts’s answers are clear. The global Staving off the global food crisis food system, as it is currently structured and driven, is heading for a cataclysm. Roberts The End of Food world after decades of surplus, and widespread offers a sobering scenario of a ‘meltdown’: by Paul Roberts hunger. Or perhaps a technological solution “We are already growing fatter (and hun- Houghton Mifflin/Bloomsbury: 2008. will lessen the tension between a growing grier), depleting more soil organic matter, 416 pp. $26/£12.99 human population and the natural resources drawing down more water tables, using more that feed it. Will there be a continuation of fertilizers and pesticides, losing more acres Sometimes an author gets lucky, or is truly the trends that Roberts documents so well, of of forests and farmland.” Consequently, he prescient. He can work for years researching perpetually lower prices, greater reliance on warns, “There is no longer the possibility of a complex and obscure topic, only to see it hit world trade to source the cheapest commodi- discrete failure; a collapse of one part of the the headlines just as his book is published. ties, the spread of meat-intensive diets with system will have extraordinary ramifications Suddenly, the topic is hot. increasing affluence, and more land used to for everyone else.” Food is hot. If high supermarket prices grow corn for ethanol to fuel our cars? The End of Food makes the case that sys- have not grabbed the average tem-wide collapse is inevitable. citizen’s attention, the world food Roberts starts by recognizing that crisis surely has. With food riots economic forces drive the world from Haiti to Egypt and panic- food system, although our basic buying of rice in Hong Kong and biological needs for nutrition have Vietnam, food scarcity is the not changed since we evolved. This topic of the day. Following on tension between food as an eco- from his earlier best-selling book nomic commodity — produced, L. LIWANAG/AFP/GETTY IMAGES L. LIWANAG/AFP/GETTY The End of Oil, Paul Roberts’s The processed, even speculated on as End of Food taps into these timely if it were copper or steel — and as a concerns. biological necessity is not new. But Food crises tend to recur in Roberts argues that globalization history. The most severe in recent of our food supply and the west- times was the world food crisis ernization of dietary demand have of 1973–75. Even the Old Testa- driven the entire system irrevoca- ment of the Bible talks of years of bly out of balance. glut and famine, and the role of The result is a list of woes. good governance in smoothing The industrialization of the food out supply. industry creates a need for sources Are our worries about food of cheap inputs and continual different this time? Perhaps in supply of new products.