I want to talk about something that runs as a thread through
our history, and is currently growing very strong, yet is often overlooked. It
is the part that amateurs play in science – here I will focus on biology. I
would argue that this phenomenon is of great value, the ripples of which spread
beyond the immediate work done by amateurs, carrying an understanding of and
engagement with science far beyond what professional scientists alone could
achieve. This is important - science after all is an endeavour in which we are all stakeholders,
we contribute to it with our taxes and ultimately its advances impact upon our
lives.
Amateur science has come in many forms, from the fashion for
amateur science amongst the Victorians, to the boom in so-called citizen
science of the last few decades, fuelled and enabled by the internet. Many
amateur science projects make use of the power that large numbers of
enthusiastic volunteers can bring, to collectively achieve tasks that would be
too time consuming for professionals alone. At the same time there
are many amateur scientists with a great deal of experience in a particular
area, sharing much of the specialist knowledge of professional scientists.
Indeed some important biological advances were made by amateurs.
One great example is Gregor Mendel, considered the father of
genetics. He was a monk, albeit one in a somewhat unusual monastery. It was
headed by Cyrill Napp, who himself was involved in science, and at the time the
monks’ duties included teaching mathematics at the Philosophical Institute of
Brüun (now Brno) in Moravia.
Left: Gregor Mendel, Right: example crossing experiment
Mendel had attended the Philosophical Institute in Olomouc
but could not afford to continue to University. It was this that led him to his
life as a monk, however he did not take well too it, reportedly being too shy
to deal with the parishioners. Abbot Napp had him sent to teach Greek and
mathematics to children, which Mendel took too well, however he repeatedly
failed the tests to become an accredited teacher, and eventually returned to
the monastery. Here he was allowed to carry out experiments that turned at last
to those using the garden pea, which would make Mendel famous. Abbot Napp even
had a new greenhouse built for Mendel’s work.
Mendel was happy pottering away in the garden during this
nine year breeding experiment, but also took a meticulous approach in his work,
which aimed to understand the laws of inheritance that governed traits of pea
plants, such as seed colour and plant height. Firstly he spent two years
breeding pure strains of plant with different traits. He then crossed the
plants by transferring pollen between them. The view in that age was that such
crosses would produce intermediates forms for each trait, for example crossing
a plant with yellow seeds with a plant with green would produce a plant with
light green seeds, however in every case Mendel chose, he found that one form
of the trait was dominant over the other, ie. all the offspring from the
mentioned cross had green seeds. But crossing these offspring to each other
produced a surprising result. Some of their offspring showed the dominant form,
but in some the recessive form had re-emerged (eg. yellow seeds).
Mendel determined that this occurred in a ratio of 3:1.
What Mendel had uncovered became a basic law of inheritance
for living things which reproduce sexually. This reasoned that for each trait
there were two factors – in the pure plant with green seeds they where both the
dominant green factors (G,G), and in the pure yellow seeded plant they were
both the recessive yellow factors (y,y). In the first cross all the offspring
got one of each factor from each parent (G,y), and all displayed the dominant
green seeds. However crossing these to each other could give four combinations
(G,G) green seeds, (G,y) green seeds, (y,G) green seeds, or (y,y) yellow seeds,
hence the 3:1 ratio (note there are both (G,y) and (y,G) ie. the G could come
from the mother or the father). It was not until about 100 years later in the
1940’s that it was determined that these factors, now called genes, were coded
in our DNA.
So what effect did the revolutionary findings of this quiet
amateur scientist have? Almost none, that is until after Mendel’s death, when
his ideas were discovered by several scientists in 1900, and at last his ideas were
seen for what they were. The Cambridge
zoologist William Bateson became Mendel’s greatest champion. But at the time
when Mendel published his paper in 1866, scientists had either failed to grasp
the significance of Mendel’s paper, or ignored the findings as they conflicted
with their own ideas (this was the case with Professor Karl von Nägeli with
whom Mendel corresponded, who held to the idea that crossing traits would
produce intermediate traits). This was perhaps partly because of Mendel’s
amateur status. In some cases his paper titled “Elements in Plant
Hybridization” may have simply failed to capture peoples imagination (the copy
that Mendel sent to Charles Darwin was never even opened). Mendel’s ideas may
have been ignored in his lifetime, but they are certainly not today, with the
principles of Mendelian Genetics being second nature to modern biologists.
An area in which amateurs have played an important part is
the discovery of fossils. This tradition goes back to the beginning of the
1800’s, with Mary Anning. Growing up in a poor family in Lyme Regis, by the
Jurassic cliffs, Mary began working to collect and prepare fossils for tourists
to buy. In 1811 Mary’s brother Joseph discovered a fossil skull protruding from
the cliff, and 12 year old Mary carefully dug out what proved to be a dolphin
or shark like creature of reptile origins – the first Ichthyosaur ever discovered. In the next few decades Mary went on to
make several more great discoveries including the first Plesiosaur, the
long-necked sea reptile, and the first Dimorphodon which belongs to the
group of winged Pterosaurs (in fact this was the first Pterosaur find in England). Mary was a keen eyed fossil hunter, and
braved the cliffs during the winter when many new fossils were exposed. She was
out hunting when a cliff slide killed her dog and nearly killed her. But she
was also much more than this, she was bright and taught herself geology and
anatomy.
Her findings of
these long extinct animals would have major influence in the emerging ideas
about the development of life on earth. They contributed significantly to the
concept of a previous age when reptiles dominated. The new idea that life had
not always been how it is today had a major influence on the emerging ideas
about life’s evolution. The value of Anning’s discoveries would also contribute
to the emergence of palaeontology as a scientific field. As a woman, from a poor family of
religious dissenters, she never attained the position that her talent demanded,
yet she did gain respect from many during her lifetime. She was acknowledged as
an expert, and corresponded with and met professional scientists. She was an
honorary member of the Dorset
County museum, and paid an annuity by the British
Association for the Advancement of Science and the Geological Society of
London.
The discovery of fossils continues to be an area where
amateurs make their mark. Perhaps the most extraordinary case is that of Jerry
MacDonald, who discovered an incredible number of Permian (the time
predating the dinosaurs) footprints in New Mexico.
After hearing that such footprints had been found in the region, he is said to
have sought places where the sandstone (formed on land) met limestone (formed at sea) reasoning that shorelines would be the ideal place for tracks to be
made.
Eventually he found such a site where the abundance of tracks included
everything from those of a ten-foot sail-backed pelycosaur (the reptiles which
predated the dinosaurs) to ancient millipedes.
At the time - in the late 1980’s - he was undertaking a PhD
in sociology, but gave this up when he realised the significance of what he had
found. When Jerry discovered the tracks he said that they “communicated life to me”. They showed the animals’ gaits, and even suggested details like their speed
and the interactions between them. Over the years Jerry stripped back the
mudstone layer by layer, carefully recording the rocks so entire trackways
could be pieced together. He is said to have carried around 18,000 kilograms of slabs in a single year.
When he presented them to the scientific community, many
dismissed the tracks as fakes,
but Jerry’s finds have come to be marvelled at. Ichnologist (fossil-footprint
expert) James Farlow described the finds as “one of the best footprint faunas of any kind, any age, anywhere”.
Jerry credits his amateur naivety as being important, as “The Robledo mountains are a nightmare geologically… You'd look at that and say there is no way that continuous tracks could survive. So nobody did it”.
Top: Jerry MacDonald, Bottom: One of his fossilised Permian trackways
Another extraordinary amateur biologist is the Breton taxi
driver Pierre Morvan. He has always held a passion for the living world,
studying horticulture, but ended up taking hotel work. In this time something
fascinated Pierre which was that a
type of ground beetle found in the Pyrenees mountains
was also present in the Caucasus mountains. He began
travelling to other mountain regions to search for beetle species, until his boss
had had enough. He then became a taxi driver, gaining the flexibility to travel
all over the world, particularly the Himalayas. In
explanation of what he does, Pierre uses the Breton phrase “andavanon
caravanon” - “the unknown consumes me”. He is thought to have now discovered 600-700 new species. He
studies his finds in great detail, and this has allowed him to identify a
feature – two tiny dots on either side of the head – which he has found to be
a hallmark sign of the sub-genus Batenus.
This is a great tool for classifying the notoriously
problematic ground beetles. In 1987 Pierre’s work was recognised with the Rolex
award for enterpise, which has funded two more Himalayas trips, and allows him
to dedicate his time to documenting his vast collection back in Brittany.
According to entomologist Thierry Deuve, Pierre’s work “will underpin the research of entomologists all over the world, and allow specialists to better understand the evolution of the Carabidae”.
One man may be capable of discovering new species, but for
the ongoing monitoring of wildlife huge numbers of observers are needed.
Thankfully many amateurs are involved is in the monitoring of wildlife, and
this is the first way that I encountered amateur science. I had a primary
school teacher - Mr Duncan - who was an experienced birdwatcher, and who would
take a group of us each week to record the birds in the countryside around the
school.
He was also involved in bird ringing, a project which relies
on 2,700 trained amateurs to catch birds, record details of their age (judged
by the number of their flight feathers), weight etc. and then fit a ring with a
unique identifying number.
All of this information is stored in a database, and is updated when birds are
re-caught or found dead. Along with data from the nest record scheme, this work
is allowing us to understand how bird populations are changing over time, and
how for example the changing climate is impacting upon our native birds. I was
lucky enough that he also ran an after-school club where a small group of us
helped with bird ringing in the school’s surroundings. On a couple of occasions
I also went along with him to Languard fort where volunteers have carried out daily bird ringing throughout most of the year, since the 1980’s. Situated on a
long spit, just south the UK’s
largest port, this jumble of earthworks and military buildings built from 1543
onwards, is now overgrown and home to many birds. Crucially it is also a
stopping point for many migrant birds on their way to and from the continent,
making it an ideal point to monitor bird populations. This illustrates the
great value that amateur scientists can bring to the wider community, and the
particular benefit of having school teachers who are also involved in science.
These days the internet is also revolutionising amateur
science. One project capitalising on this is eyewire. The basic idea is that
people, as intelligent beings, still far outstrip the best supercomputers at
many tasks. In this project the precise wiring diagram of all the nerves in the
eye is being mapped, based upon extremely detailed serial electron miscroscopy
images. The surface of a biological sample is imaged, before a 50 nanometre
wafer is shaved off and the sample imaged again. Finally the images can be
assembled to create a 3D reconstruction of the sample. Eyewire then uses
computer software to trace neurons and their connections within the retina, but
the software is always directed by people, who can quickly identify features
within the image, and correct errors that the software makes. It is hoped that the detailed understanding of the eyes wiring will help us understand how vision works, and this approach may also be utilised in the future for studying even more complex regions of nerves within the brain. The beauty of
this project is in bringing together amateurs from all over the world, in order
to undertake such a huge task.
The increasing involvement of amateurs in biology, means that people from many walks of life are gaining a deep understanding of this field of science and an increasing say in its future directions. This should help finally pull down the gates of the ivory tower (or percieved ivory tower) and aid in the democratisation of science.
The increasing involvement of amateurs in biology, means that people from many walks of life are gaining a deep understanding of this field of science and an increasing say in its future directions. This should help finally pull down the gates of the ivory tower (or percieved ivory tower) and aid in the democratisation of science.
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