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Making a Monkey out of Darwin

When Darwin finally published the On the Origin of Species, he tried to avoid controversy by ignoring human origins. Yet evolution was soon being attacked as the godless ‘monkey theory’.

The story of the deep, biogeophysical planetary connections and how these are intensifying the effects of climate change and economic development, is told through personal research and expeditions to remote locations across the world (including some that were previously unexplored).

Darwin, Breeding and Barnacles

Following the Beagle voyage, Darwin settled down to a quiet married life, relying on correspondence to gather facts. He wrote thousands of letters as he gathered facts to support his still-secret theory.

Making New Plants: A History

This lecture examines the work of Hugo de Vries, a Dutch botanist who was one of the first to claim that science would allow plants and animals to be designed to order.

Gardens of Empire: The Role of Kew and Colonial Botanic Gardens

Sydney’s botanic garden, founded in the early nineteenth century, was expected to ship new plants 'home' to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, from where they could be transplanted to other colonial gardens, to see if they could become valuable new crops to enrich the British Empire.

A History of the Eye

This lecture explores the politics of scientific theories about eyes.

Infection, Immunity and Cancer

This lecture will also consider one of the fastest moving areas of cancer treatment, stimulating the immune system to attack cancers.

Experimental Gardens from Francis Bacon to Today

This lecture will begin with Bacon’s imagined garden, then consider the long-term promise of the experimental or scientific garden, which would eventually lead to today’s biotechnologies.

The Changing Impact of Infections as We Go Through Life and Age

The changing pattern of disease as we progress in life has implications for treatment and prevention.

Energy and Matter at the Origin of Life

The origin of life is one of the biggest questions in science, but until recently it was, experimentally, a question in chemistry. Now, gene sequences and a better understanding of cell growth under extreme conditions are giving insights from biology.

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