And this is The Science Show on RN, indulging in some reflection on this, our 39th birthday. But in two weeks Ockham's Razor as well will be 30. The first Ockham's Razor talk went out on September 16, 1984, starring Peter Farrell, now head at ResMed. But one of my all-time favourites is this one, presented by Liz Truswell of Canberra, fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. It is little known as a tale, startling and very moving.
Elizabeth Truswell: The story of Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole has become one of the best-known feats of heroism in the 20th century. Scott and his companions reached the South Pole in January 1912, only to find there the Norwegian flag. They had been beaten in the race to the pole by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who later announced his victory to the world from the steps of the Hobart GPO.
The route of Scott's party had taken them up the Beardmore Glacier onto the polar plateau. They perished on the return journey from the pole, just 11 miles short of one of their supply depots. The bodies of Scott, of Edward Wilson and of naval lieutenant 'Birdie' Bowers, were found in the tent by a search party in the following season.
The diaries that Scott and others of his party kept on this, the Terra Nova expedition, Scott's second to Antarctica, were retrieved with their bodies. Their subsequent publication made a huge public impact. They elevated Scott to the role of an exemplary hero at a time just before World War I, when heroism and self-sacrifice were being demanded of young men sent into battle for Britain. At the time, few questions were asked about the causes of the disaster at the Pole, though subsequent critics have attempted, largely unsuccessfully, to dethrone Scott from his pedestal as iconic hero. Among the diaries found in the tent, most were intensely personal, but Scott also left a message to the public, stressing very strongly the heroism of Englishmen. The words of this are by now well-known:
'We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of providence, determined still to do our best to the last. Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman.'
Less widely known, perhaps, is that with the bodies in the tent, there were found some 35 pounds of rock, kept by the party after they had jettisoned much of their equipment. The rocks were collected on the trek down the Beardmore Glacier in February 1912, on the return journey, after defeat in the race to the pole. On 8th February, near Mt Buckley, they made camp, and decided to spend the day geologising. It was a precious day, given their condition and the short time they had to reach their supply depot. The collection of the rocks on that day was recorded by Scott thus: 'We found ourselves under perpendicular walls of sandstone, weathering rapidly and carrying veritable coal seams. From the last, Wilson, with his sharp eyes, has picked several pieces of coal, with beautifully traced leaves in layers.'
Edward Wilson, who kept detailed records and sketches of all that he saw, reported in his notebook that the fossil leaves reminded him of the leaves of English beech, although the veins in the leaf were finer and more abundant, but still 'beech-like'.
This collection of fossils was sent to an eminent palaeobotanist, AC Seward of Cambridge, who published a full account of the material in 1914. Seward confidently identified the leaf fragments, not as beech as Wilson thought, but, on the basis of the patterns of leaf veins, as Glossopteris indica, previously described from Gondwana rocks of India. The implication of these fossils was scientifically of great significance. Glossopteris is the index fossil for the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, which included (besides India) Australia, South Africa and South America. These fossil leaves indicated that not only had Antarctica once experienced a milder climate, but perhaps most importantly, that it was a key piece in the jigsaw of this supercontinent, which must have extended across the south polar regions.
The discovery of these plant fossils, particularly the recognition that Antarctica was central to Gondwana, was a scientific triumph for Scott's expedition. It refutes the strident criticisms made of Scott by Roland Huntford in his 1979 book Scott and Amundsen. In that, Huntford, determined to dethrone Scott from his hero's pedestal, claimed that the expedition had achieved no science of any note. He called the collection and retaining of the rocks a pathetic gesture designed to salvage something from defeat at the pole and the wreck of their hopes. Half the weight in seal meat would have saved them.
Given that the polar party clung to these fossils in the face of great adversity, the question might be asked; did they know they were so important? And if so, how? The answer to this lies perhaps in a meeting that Scott had had some years before, with a young woman who was later to become one of the most famous and influential figures of the 20th century.
Few people know that Marie Stopes, before she ventured into the arena of birth control and women's sexuality, was a palaeobotanist, and a very good and productive one, working at a time when there were few women in geology at all. A very full account of Marie Stopes the palaeobotanist has been given by Professor Bill Chaloner of the University of London. After taking an accelerated degree in botany and geology from University College, Marie went on to do a doctorate, in German, in Munich. She pursued her research into ancient plants in Britain, in Canada, and in Japan (where the story of her romantic attachment to a married Japanese colleague caused some scandal).
She was the youngest person, at 24, to be awarded the degree of Doctor of Science from London University. She was appointed to Manchester University as a demonstrator in botany in 1904, amid protests against the appointment of a woman in a scientific post. Arising from her diverse interests in ancient plants, she did much pioneering work on the structure and properties of coal, a topic of major concern to the British government during the First World War. She was recruited into the war effort on the basis of her expertise, and her classification of coal into a number of distinct types, reflecting their origins, is still used by coal scientists today.
But by 1915 her preoccupation with the science of palaeobotany was beginning to wane. She had already completed the first draft of the book she called Married Love. This, essentially a sex manual for women and believed to result from her first marriage, which she claimed was never consummated, was eventually published in 1918, after a struggle with publishing houses. The manuscript was first sent to Blackie and Sons, who had previously published her popular textbook on palaeobotany. This new text was all too much for Walter Blackie. He wrote back to her: 'Dear Dr Stopes. Thanks, but the theme doesn't please me. There is far too much writing and thinking about these things already. The world is suffering from too many physiologists and psychologists and I don't want to add my hand.' He suggested she should delay publication until after the war, saying, 'There will be few enough men then for girls to marry, and a book like that would frighten off the few!' Eventually, a small publisher was found to take it on, and the book was a sell-out, launching her on a lifelong crusade to enable women, particularly those from poorer backgrounds, to control their own fertility and acknowledge their sexuality.
Her eventual success in this entailed notorious conflict with the established churches, both Catholic and Anglican, and with the medical profession. There was a famous court case wherein she sued a Catholic doctor whom she felt had defamed her. She lost, won on appeal, lost again in the House of Lords. The costs incurred in these cases, and the costs of setting up her first birth control clinic in London in 1921, were largely met by her second husband, Humphrey Roe, brother of AV Roe, whose company, AVRO, was one of the world's first builders of aircraft. With the backing of Humphrey, Marie Stopes' career in the field of sexuality and fertility control flourished. Largely this was due to her nature and to her extreme self-confidence. Her biographers have described her as 'headstrong, ambitious, single-minded and outspoken'. With this she won through. Today there are some 560 Marie Stopes clinics in some 50 countries around the world, including nearly 50 in India and over 100 in Bangladesh.
But what of her encounter with Captain Scott? Records from the University of Manchester reveal that she met Scott in 1904 when he was touring England to raise funds for his second Antarctic expedition, and to pay off debts incurred on his first. They met at a lunch, later at a ball, where, obviously impressed by the dashing naval officer, she confided to a friend that he was the most divine waltzer and reverser she had ever met. She tried to persuade Scott to take her on his next expedition. He, being a diplomatic soul, agreed to give her his decision at the end of the evening. Feeling unable to accede to her wishes (due no doubt to naval protocols, and perhaps to the fact that he was by then married to the bohemian sculptor Kathleen Bruce), he said that he would however search for the plant fossils she thought must be there. Later he visited her at the university to familiarise himself with the fossils, accepting her offer of a crash course in palaeobotany.
Did this meeting with Marie Stopes influence Scott's decision to cling to the extra weight of these rocks when all seemed lost, and their collection may have delayed the party's retreat to safety? Did he know what the fossil plants were, and how scientifically significant they might be? Unfortunately, there are no records of what was discussed during his palaeobotanical lesson. From the diaries, it was Edward Wilson who found the fossils, and who noted their resemblance to British beech, rather than Glossopteris. Scott in his diaries makes no mention of the possible identification of the leaves. But it was he who insisted that the fossils be kept in spite of their critical extra weight. Was this an instinct that they might be valuable, or was it a recollection of his meeting with the young woman scientist in Manchester? Alas, we will probably never know.
Nevertheless, there remains a fascination in this story of the encounter between two of the most celebrated figures of the 20th century: one a polar explorer who inspired a generation, the other a scientist who, in another career, profoundly influenced one of the major social issues of our times.
Robyn Williams: One of my favourite Ockham's Razor talks, presented by Liz Truswell, who is a geologist herself, working in Canberra. And Ockham's Razor is 30 very soon, and today The Science Show is 39.