Island Press Field Notes

A European honeybee pollinating pink milkweed.

Post by Nancy Baron While not everyone may be interested in your science at first, many people are interested in scientists, as your work seems…mysterious. What do you actually do? Why are you so devoted to it? They want to know what makes you tick. Even if your research can seem obscure, they are often eager to discover a new perspective on the world through your eyes.

Observation and Ecology author Rafe Sagarin discusses art and the environment with poet Eric Magrane from the University of Arizona. Eric Magrane: Rafe, you write and speak about observation, most pointedly in your bookObservation and Ecology, with Aníbal Pauchard. I’d like to discuss the way that observation interacts as a hinge between science—and particularly environmental science—as a way of seeing and understanding the world, and art as a way of seeing.

On Monday, June 18, 1883, “Darwin’s bulldog” made a big mistake. Famous for his pugilistic defense of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, Thomas Henry Huxley played a prominent role in English society—and on this particular day he was delivering the inaugural address to the assembled representatives at London’s “great International Fisheries Exhibition.” Over twenty governmental entities, some as far flung as China and Tasmania, displayed their wares at the Exhibition, so this was no small honor for the great English scientist.