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SUMMARY:Charles Darwin and the margins between flora and fauna in the 1870
 s: the case of insectivorous plants - Francis Neary (Department of History
  and Philosophy of Science)
DTSTART:20130307T163000Z
DTEND:20130307T180000Z
UID:TALK42169@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Helen Curry
DESCRIPTION:On a prolonged summer holiday to the boggy Sussex hollows in 1
 860\, Darwin stumbled across insect-eating sundews. His kitchen experiment
 s (stimulating\, heating\, poisoning\, and cutting them) became a distract
 ion from his writing and letters\, and his daughter Henrietta's illness. H
 e was free to let these macabre experiments dictate future problems to sol
 ve\, becoming fascinated by their animal-like responses\, and how they cau
 ght and digested prey. The project was shelved until the early 1870s\, whe
 n he began to investigate a broader range of species of insectivorous plan
 t that trapped\, drowned\, poisoned\, smothered\, anaesthetised\, and glue
 d their victims. As he grappled with his ignorance of 'vegetable physiolog
 y'\, Darwin sought help from prominent physiologists and chemists working 
 on animal topics\, including John Burdon Sanderson\, Michael Foster\, Eman
 uel Klein\, Thomas Lauder Brunton\, and Edward Frankland. He persuaded usu
 al suspects like Hooker\, Gray and Thiselton-Dyer to work with him on his 
 new passion. The resulting specialist monograph sold less than 3\,000 copi
 es in Darwin's lifetime\, and has been largely ignored by Darwin scholars.
  Yet it is important in showing how Darwin's later work was far from paroc
 hial in the cutting-edge scientific ideas that it mobilised\, the networks
  of scientists that it galvanised\, and the philosophical questions of the
  boundaries between plant and animal\, and the evolution of 'nervous matte
 r'\, that it addressed.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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