Gordon Maxwell
Six papers! Only six! Why not eight? A much nicer number. Alas, it seems that six it is. Not so easy to select, especially for an academic with an unusual background. How can someone who has been, at various ages and phases in his life so far, a soldier, farmer, teacher and consultant settle for just six papers that shook? Yes, this is a big task. Oh well, be philosophical I tell myself. Face it, you must have done something wrong in the eyes of Gray Williams. This is your punishment: so face the task, settle for six. Onward, here goes!
I take the word 'Paper' here to mean books as well as (shorter) scientific papers. To me, if it's on paper it counts. OK?
1. Ages ago while I was at school in the swinging 60's, I was given an old book called Plants of New Zealand by R.M. Laing and E.W. Blackwell. The first edition was dated 1927. Mine was 1957. Unlike the clinical, ruthlessly rigid botanies around today, this old book combined botanical excursions, stories of early New Zealand and accounts of heroism in the pursuit of plants, with fantastic botanical detail. Laing and Blackwell gave life to plant description. Some of the pages of prose in this work of science could take a reader on a journey to a remote corner of the South Pacific islands of Aotearoa, feed him vegetation science all spiced with the excitement and humor of an Irish story teller and create the desire to botanise; all in one captivating page! I once took this book on an army exercise to a distant and dangerous destination in the Hunua Ranges of the North Island of New Zealand. This was a four man recounaissance and remote penetration exercise (RRPE). I had dreams of combining SAS (Special Air Service) training with botany. I did. But was discovered. The event passed with humor but cost me two dozen beers back at HQ, 1 Ranger Sqn. NZSAS. This book helped to lay a deep and lasting desire to seek botanical detail. To look hard at nature. To see and to believe what was seen. There was something of the Darwinian detail in this book. More recently (c. 1989) while doing my PhD, Richard Corlett and John Hodgkiss re-kindled this botanical spirit when, after one of my bi-annual migrations across the South China Sea from Borneo to Hong Kong, they encouraged me to believe what I did see! Wise and encouraging words. And most uplifting to someone working alone on pristine mangroves in distant N. Borneo, so far away from Pokfulam.
2. Gee, the 1960's must have been a vibrant decade for I can still feel the force of Silent Spring (1962) by that wonderful lady from the U.S., Rachel Carson. In my view, this was the spark behind a whole new energy in ecology. Coming in its wake was the food web and food chain era of homeostatic ecology' popularized by Odum in the 1970's. Silent Spring penetrated deep, not only into my ecological heart but also to millions of others. I ask, would the US have generated enough interest, concern and energy to pass an EIA Act through Congress if Rachel had no written Silent Spring? Would we now have an ecologically inclined US Vice-President? Yes, Odum's ecology may now be well out of fashion. But, happily, ecology is not!
3. I have been in love with mangroves for a long time, but it was not until the mid 1980's that I read William MacNae's (1968) paper entitled, A General Account of the Fauna and Flora of Mangrove Swamps and Forests in the Indo-West-Pacific Region (Advance in Marine Biology 6: 73-270). It's a classic. Seminal. Sadly, many writers of mangrove papers in recent years use MacNae's ideas without even a passing acknowledgement. Some even go along a naughty path and pretend that their idea is new when it is, in fact, taken from this huge, observation-packed, 197 page paper by "Uncle Bill" (MacNae). "Uncle Bill" was honest and historical. Some pages resurrect important observations from the last century, e.g. by Schimper (1891). In a packed paragraph, MacNae can take you on a historical, geographic and ecological analysis (to use a modern, fashionable word) spanning eight decades, four countries and six mangrove species. Mighty MacNae! If you think that I exaggerate then read this paper too. Perhaps we should have a seminar on MacNae's legacy ... come on calm down Gordon! "Uncle Gray" wants a short article on six papers that shook. You were not asked to shake the foundations of coastal ecology or attack the sociology of science!
4. Back in April 1988, I was fortunate to join combined Thai and Australian field research 'workshop' (oh what an unattractive word! Fashionable, but unattractive. Why can't we sound like the biologists of old and not the MBAs of today, and call it 'expedition' rather than 'workshop'?) to Ranong, Southern Thailand. Kevin Hyde, another ex-Borneo man, had put me in touch with this expedition. Here, at Ranong, I met another Kevin, Kevin Boto (K.B.). K.B. was a physical chemist who had 'got into mangroves' while at AIMS, Townsville. K.B. loved mud. So did I. We got on well. I had mentioned to K.B. that since doing my MSc (Auckland) I had been worried that too much mangrove talk had revolved around salinity tolerance. Mangrove biology and distribution ecology seemed to be saturated with salt-dominated thinking. To this comment K.B. reacted with explosive happiness. He said: "bloody shit hot mate... at last I've found one..., someone else who sees beyond salt!" He gave me his paper, called Nutrient and organic fluxes in Mangroves (1982) published as Chapter 14 in Mangrove Ecosystems in Australia, edited by Barry F. Clough. I read it and have never been the same since, for this paper and a whole series by K.B. on such aspects of mangrove biology as mud redox are, to use K.B.'s Australian jargon, "shit hot!"
5. The next paper that shook, may come as something of a shock. It is not strictly about biology. I came across Karl Popper's potent paper on Normal Science and its Dangers while doing a MA (in Education and Philosophy) at Leeds, back in 1978. Karl Popper (K.P.) had been engaged in a philosophical debate with another big name in the philosophy of science, Thomas Kuhn, and K.P. had thought it prudent to say that, "one never reads or understands a book except with definite expectations in one's mind." In other words, he argued, we approach everything in the light of preconceived theory! There is much truth in this and it even has an ethnic dimension too. I have experienced, time and time again, occasions where colleagues throughout the Asia-Pacific fail to believe what they actually see if it goes against the dogma of the day. This is why I was so happy and so much encouraged to have PhD supervisors like Richard and John (see para 1 above). People who allowed my non-conformity and desire to discover to travel along the PhD pathway. It is almost impossible to live in a paradigm-free environment, but we must be mindful of the filtering power of the paradigms which follow us around.
6. Consider these words : "If anyone is going to have a really good new idea, it is you." These are not my words, yet I love them. They encourage confidence. They catalyze discovery. These were the words of John Lawton written in Oikos 65 : 361-362 in the context of a paper on population ecology.
I would like to add more but six is deemed enough.
It would be fair to say that many of these lessons and most of the comments outlined above relate to field science. But not all do. Let's not forget that when we write up our science we use imagination. Imagination and the growth of science go hand in hand ... "oh come on", Gray may say; stop! You've done your six, don't try to sneak in another straight six, this time on pure philosophy. Okay Gray, I'll go away. But now you know the answer to the quiz question: what have Botanies, Silent Spring, Mangroves, Mud, Karl Popper and John Lawton got in common? Answer: they are all in Porcupine!
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