Agnes Arber

Agnes Arber. An article in the Annals of Botany from 2001 suggest the image was taken ca. 1916 or 1917 (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Agnes Arber. An article in the Annals of Botany from 2001 suggests this image was taken ca. 1916 or 1917 (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Agnes Arber was a British botanist and historian of her subject. In 1946 she became the first female botanist – and the third woman overall – to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, one of the oldest and most esteemed scientific institutions in the world. Not only did this acknowledge Arber’s pioneering research and keen intellect, but it represented a milestone in the recognition of women in science.

Arber’s research focused upon the monocotyledons (often called the ‘monocots’), one of the two major groups of flowering plants (the other being the dicotyledons, also known as ‘dicots’). Arber’s first break-through was in 1912 with the award of a one-year research fellowship at Newnham College, Cambridge where she was given space in the Balfour Laboratory to conduct her research. It was then that she published what has become her best known work Herbals: Their origin and evolution. The book – which is now regarded as a classic and is still in print today – was a reflection of her interest in the history of botany, something that was also manifest in a number of fascinating biographical papers that she wrote on early botanists and naturalists such as Nehemiah Grew (1906), Guy de la Brosse (1913) and John Ray (1943). It should also be noted that Arber was a highly skilled artist, illustrating the majority of her books and papers.

Agnes Arber's entry from the printed College register of Newnham College, Cambridge (Image: Used with permission from Newnham College, University of Cambridge)

Agnes Arber’s entry from the printed College register of Newnham College, Cambridge (Image: Used with permission from Newnham College, University of Cambridge)

Arber also conducted research into the morphological differences of aquatic plants. This became the subject of her second book Water Plants: A Study of Aquatic Angiosperms which was published in 1920. After the publication of her third book The Monocotyledons in 1925, Arber turned her research interests to the Gramineae, that is the grasses and so of central importance to us. This work resulted in her fourth and final book The Gramineae in 1934.

Arber continued to work in the Balfour Laboratory until its closure in 1927. With no space for her to continue her work in the University’s Botany School, she set up a small laboratory in a bedroom of her own house. As an aside, there is an echo of Ronald Fisher in this behaviour, the renowned evolutionary biologist (also at Cambridge) who similarly used a bedroom in his home as a make-shift laboratory. From that point onward, Arber’s house became the centre of operation for her academic research, and aside from a few small research grants, her work was undertaken without financial support from a professional institution. During World War II, the supply situation was so dire that it became too difficult for Arber to maintain her home laboratory so she turned her intellectual pursuits to philosophy and history of science.

Maura Flannery (2005, p.14) sums up the importance that Arber placed upon philosophy:She sees philosophical reflection as important work because only when the larger implications of research are understood can its real value be appreciated and the scientific endeavour truly enriched.” This statement is all the more powerful when one considers that Arber, a botanist, had written her finest philosophical works at a time when philosophy of science was dominated by physicists.

One reason that many ‘forgotten heroes’ of science drifted into obscurity is not because their work lacked scientific merit, but because their writing style was largely inaccessible to a lay audience. The palaeontologist Richard Owen is a good example of a scientist who produced some fine pieces of research, but whose writing style was, arguably, so tedious to read that people often did not bother. However, this is certainly not the case with Arber. Arber wrote with an effortless fluidity, intelligent and concise, along with a succinct and accessible style. Her work remains a pleasure to read. Indeed, Arber’s original works can still be read and enjoyed by a modern audience, which makes her obscurity all the more puzzling. So, what is the reason that so few people have heard of Agnes Arber?

In her eloquent overview on Arber’s contributions to science, Flannery (2005) suggests that it is because she has for so long been labelled as ‘anti-evolutionary’. This is all the more unfortunate because it is incorrect. As Flannery (2005, p.15) explains, Arber was not anti-evolutionary and did not refute the fact that species change over time, rather, she questioned “..the idea that natural selection is the dominant mechanism for that change”. Specifically, Arber believed that parallelism – today more commonly known as ‘convergent evolution’ – had a substantial impact on biological form that wasn’t taken into account by Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.

It should be remembered that the 1940s and 1950s were a time when natural selection was widely embraced as the overarching answer to every question about biological life, when in reality there were many scientists, including the eminent biologist D’Arcy Thompson, pointing out that the evolutionary process was more complicated than could solely be accounted for by natural selection alone. Yes, natural selection is a critical factor, but there are other biological, genetic and physical processes at play too. None of these ideas refute the role of natural selection, rather, they are complimentary to it.

However, for a scientist to be branded ‘anti-evolutionary’ is often a nail in the coffin with regards to historical visibility. Once forgotten, the possibility is that it may have been an unjustly driven nail in the first place and so it becomes all the more difficult to acknowledge and thus remove.

As succinctly summed up by Flannery (2005, p.13)The very fact that Arber achieved scientific recognition despite the lack of an academic position speaks highly of her research and also speaks to the place of women in British science in the first half of the 20th century.”

Text copyright © 2015 Victoria Ling. All rights reserved.

References
Arber, A. (1906) Nehemiah Grew and the study of plant anatomy.  Science Progress 1, 150-158.
Arber, A. (1912) Herbals: Their origin and evolution.  Cambridge University.
Arber, A. (1913) The botanical philosophy of Guy de la Brosse: A study in seventeenth-century thought. Isis 1, 359-369.
Arber, A. (1943) A seventeenth century naturalist: John Ray. Isis 34, 319-324.
Flannery, M.C. (2005) Agnes Arber in the 21st century.  The Systematist 24, 13-17.
Packer, K. (1997) A laboratory of one's own: The life and works of Agnes Arber, F.R.S. (1879-1960). Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 51, 87-104.
Schmid, R. (2001) Agnes Arber, nee Robertson (1879-1960): Fragments of her life, including her place in biology and in women's studies. Annals of Botany 88, 1105-1128.
Thomas, H.H. (1960) Agnes Arber. 1879-1960. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 6, 1-11.

Michael Faraday

Photograph of Michael Faraday taken by John Watkins in the 1860s (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Photograph of Michael Faraday taken in the 1860s by John Watkins. Watkins was known for his portrait photographs of high-profile individuals (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Michael Faraday (1791-1867) stands out as one of the most influential of scientists. His career began as a chemist but it is his work in physics, particularly electromagnetism, where he made his greatest scientific contributions, opening the doors to the age of electricity. Faraday was also one of the founders of electrochemistry, an area of research which seeks to understand the interplay between electricity and chemical reactions. Faraday was a man of high morals and he strongly believed in the importance of communicating science to the general public. He established the renowned Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1825, and these have continued in different guises to this present day.

Faraday’s journey into science reads like a work of fiction; the tale of a gifted underdog who through hard work, imagination, dedication, and an insatiable sense of curiosity for how the world works, overcame overwhelming odds to become one of the world’s greatest scientists. But this is not fiction, it is a true story, and is all the more inspirational for it.

Faraday came from a poor background, which in the world of nineteenth century England stacked the odds against anyone hoping to pursue a scientific career. In order to help support his family Faraday left school at the age of 13 to take a job as an errand boy for a local bookshop, run by one Georg Riebau. This became the initial rung of the ladder in Faraday’s scientific career and the first in a series of serendipitous events. Faraday’s hard work impressed his employer who promoted him to apprentice bookbinder. This opened up a new world to the young Faraday, providing him with access to a wealth of information that with his poor background he would otherwise have had no access to.

Faraday spent his free time reading the precious books that all day he had worked to bind. Of all that he read it was science that piqued his interest, particularly chemistry. Although his wages were small, he saved what he could in order to purchase materials that would enable him to replicate and test the experiments and principles that he learnt in the books. So began Faraday’s fondness – and natural ability – for scientific discovery through practical experimentation, something he was encouraged to undertake by Riebau who allowed him to use a space at the back of the bookshop.

In another serendipitous moment, one of Riebau’s customers gave Faraday a ticket to a series of lectures by the chemist and inventor Sir Humphry Davy. At the time Davy was one of the most famous scientists in England and Faraday took detailed notes at the lectures. These he later bound and sent to Davy as a token of respect. This act of veneration was to have fortuitous ramifications for the young Faraday; when Davy was injured in an experiment that impeded his ability to write, he remembered the impeccable notes that Faraday had sent and contacted him to ask if he would like to serve as his amanuensis for a few days. Faraday jumped at the opportunity and ultimately this led to Davy offering him the position of Chemical Assistant at the Royal Institution in 1813.

Faraday remained with the Royal Institution for the next 54 years. Here he succeeded Davy in 1825 (in the previous year he had been elected to the Royal Society), and in 1833 was made Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution.

Faraday was a prolific scientist and inventor. One could write volumes detailing his many and varied discoveries, but consider a few of his ‘greatest hits’:

– Gas liquefaction (1823). Using mechanical pumps to apply pressure, gases with high critical temperatures such as ammonia can be liquefied. Faraday also observed that when ammonia evaporates it causes its surroundings to cool. This ‘absorption cooling’ is the principle upon which refrigerators work;

– Discovery of benzene (1825). Faraday originally named this chemical compound ‘bicarburet of hydrogen’, and today benzene is used in the manufacture of a wide range of drugs, plastics, and detergents;

– Discovery of electromagnetic induction (1831). When a magnet is moved inside a coil of wire it causes electricity to flow. Accordingly, electricity could be generated by the rotation of magnets rather than by using metal plates and chemical solutions. Most of the electricity we use is a direct result of Faraday’s insight;

– Invention of the ‘Faraday Cage’ (1836), a cage-like structure composed of a metallic mesh which shields its contents from electromagnetic energy by distributing the charge around the exterior of the cage. The Faraday cage has a vast array of applications, from microwave ovens where it restricts the escape of electromagnetic radiation, to purpose-built cages around telecommunications equipment to protect them from lightning strikes;

A Faraday cage in operation.  The women inside  the cage are perfectly safe because the cage distributes the charge around the outside of the structure (Image: Antoine Taveneaux/Wikimedia Commons)

A Faraday cage in operation. The women inside are perfectly safe because the charge is distributed around the outside of the cage (Image: Antoine Taveneaux/Wikimedia Commons)

– Discovery of the Faraday Effect (1845), the first experimental evidence to show that electromagnetism and light are related. The idea was later developed by the Scottish mathematical physicist James Clerk Maxwell in the 1860s, which established that light is an electromagnetic wave.

Faraday also flags up a common misconception that science and religion are mutually exclusive. In the media today, there is a time-worn formula for presenting the interplay between science and religion. On the one hand we have coverage of extreme religious opinions, whilst on the other hand we have prominent scientists (and comedians) who adopt a vocal atheist stance.

Any topic which presents a conflict of opinion between these two views has become staple ‘news’, but does it represent reality? This over-simplified polarization of views bears little resemblance to day-to-day life, with reality being somewhat more nuanced. Today, as in the past many scientists are atheists, some (like the great biologist Thomas Huxley) are agnostic, whilst others subscribe to a specific faith. For example, Faraday had no doubt of what he thought of as God’s agency in the world. Specifically, he belonged to the Sandemanian denomination which was an offshoot of the Church of Scotland. Nor was he alone. Recall, for example, that Gregor Mendel (the father of genetics) was an Augustinian monk, and Charles Lyell (the father of modern geology) was a devout Christian.

We know that Faraday was one of the world’s finest scientists, but where did he stand upon the subject of evolution? The answer is that we do not know. Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1861, just six years before Faraday’s death. Faraday made no disparaging comments about evolution, but Colin Russell (2000) suggests that his silence on the matter may have been because, like many physical scientists of the time, he dismissed evolution as “only a theory”.

However, one cannot help but wonder how, had Faraday lived longer, he may have reconciled his faith with the ever-growing body of scientific evidence for evolution. For example, Charles Lyell had enormous difficulty reconciling his Christian beliefs with natural selection. Despite this, Lyell and Darwin remained firm friends, happy to discuss their differences with respect and candor; a fitting tribute to the intelligence and open-mindedness of both men.

Faraday was hugely respected within his lifetime and so too the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein held Faraday in enormous esteem as one of his three scientific heroes (the other two being Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell). Regardless of his success and veneration, Faraday remained a man of modesty and firm principles; twice he was offered the presidency of the Royal Society, one of the world’s oldest and most eminent scientific institutions, but on both occasions declined the honour. Faraday had come a long way, and it is worth noting that Joseph Banks, an earlier President, had rejected Faraday’s application for a job as a bottle washer as unworthy of a reply.

Faraday’s expertise in chemistry led the British government to ask him how chemicals could be used against Russia in the Crimean War. Faraday was more than capable of applying his knowledge to develop such weapons, but he found the very notion morally repugnant and refused to assist. Faraday also made a tremendous contribution to the public understanding of science, which included 123 Friday evening public discourses. Similarly, he was keen to apply science to the broader public good and this he did through his work on the efficiency of lighthouses and safety in coal mines. During his life he was offered a final resting place in the company of Kings and Queens at London’s Westminster Abbey, but he respectfully declined, choosing instead to be interred in the more humble surroundings of Highgate Cemetery, London.

Text copyright © 2015 Victoria Ling. All rights reserved.

References
Arianrhod, R. (2005)  Einstein's Heroes: Imagining the world through the language of mathematics.  Oxford University Press.
Cantor, G. (1991)  Michael Faraday: Sandemanian and Scientist.  A study of science and religion in the nineteenth century.  Palgrave Macmillan.
Ecklund, E.H. and Scheitle, C.P. (2007)  Religion among academic scientists: Distinctions, disciplines, and demographics.  Social Problems 54, 289-307.
Gooding, D. (1991)  Experiment and the Making of Meaning: Human Agency in Scientific Observation and Experiment.  Springer.
Gooding, D. and James, F.A.J.L.  (eds.) (1985)  Faraday Rediscovered: Essays on the Life and Work of Michael Faraday, 1791‐1867. Stockton Press.
Hamilton, J. (2003)  Faraday: The Life.  HarperCollins.
James, F.A.J.L.  (ed.)( 2002)  The Common Purposes of Life: Science and Society at the Royal Institution of Great Britain.  Ashgate Publishing Limited.
James, F.A.J.L. (2010)  Michael Faraday: A very short Introduction.  Oxford University Press.
Russell, C. A. (2000)  Michael Faraday: Physics and faith. Oxford University Press.