The Linnean Society of London was delighted to welcome Dr Sandra Knapp and Professor Quentin Wheeler, editors of the Society’s new publication Letters to Linnaeus at an evening meeting on March 3rd 2009.
Professor Quentin Wheeler, University Vice President and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State began the meeting by explaining that “Letters to Linnaeus” had been prompted by the wish to mark the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the publication of Carl Linnaeus’ groundbreaking 10th edition of Systema Naturae. He, together with Dr Knapp, Research Botanist at the Natural History Museum, London, had decided to invite approximately 50 people to write a letter to Linnaeus to express their feelings on the scientific impact of his work, and perhaps also to ‘inform’ him of how things had changed.
Although both editors had been keen to show the humanity behind the science, Professor Wheeler reflected that they had had some initial concerns about the project. There were initial uncertainties about a publisher for such a strange subject, especially sight unseen, and they were also reticent to ask authors to write letters without securing a publisher. There was also a need to create a varied publication but would all the letter-writers focus on the same topic? Would they all choose to focus on the simplicity of Linnaeus’ binomial system for example? Such concerns were unfounded and the resulting publication is a set of very varied correspondence, with some writers lecturing Linnaeus, and others communicating in a more comedic tone. Prof Wheeler mentioned Dennis Stevenson’s (The New York Botanic Garden) letter in particular in which he provides feedback following Linnaeus’ application for a role as Professor Emeritus, citing his lack of government funding alongside his lack of published works in journals of great public recognition (“high impact” as measured by today's citation indices) as reasons for his application being initially unsuccessful.
The meeting continued with a number of the authors who had contributed to the publication reading extracts from their letters and reflecting on the experience of writing a letter to Linnaeus. Richard Fortey (The Natural History Museum), Charles Godfray (University of Oxford), Stephen Hopper (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew), Gaden Robinson (Natural History Museum), Malcolm Scoble (Natural History Museum) and Dick-Vane Wright (Natural History Museum) all contributed to the meeting.
The reading of these contemporary letters was interspersed with extracts from the Linnaean correspondence. Sandra Knapp read an extract from a letter from Anders Berlin (1746-1773), one of Linnaeus’ students, on the outset of his journey to Africa, which indicated that he realised he may not return; he died only three months after arriving in Africa. She also read an extract from a letter from Pehr Kalm (1716-79), another of Linnaeus’ students reflecting that Linnaeus often sighed upon receiving Kalm’s letters, with their terrible handwriting and extraneous detail. The excerpt outlined Kalm’s visit to London, and his lack of English. He was boarding with a house full of talkative women and had been assured that “after a fortnight with them he will be able to manage on his own without help”.
Dr Knapp concluded the meeting by reading an excerpt from E.O. Wilson’s contribution reflecting on Linnaeus seminal contribution to cataloguing all the species on Earth, but on the vital and extensive work still left to do!
‘Today, almost 250 years later, we still have discovered only as few as 10 percent of the species of organisms living on Earth. Most kinds of flowering plants and birds have been discovered, but our knowledge of insects and other small invertebrates, of fungi, and bacteria and other microorganisms is shockingly incomplete. For example, about 60,000 species of molds, mushrooms, and other kinds of fungi are known to science, but the true number has been estimated to exceed 1.5 million. The number of known species of nematode roundworms, the most abundant animals on Earth, with four out of every five animals being nematode roundworms, is about 16,000 but the number could easily be in the millions. On the order of 10,000 species of bacteria are known to science, but 5,000 to 6,000 are found in a handful of fertile soil, almost all unknown to science, and some four million are estimated to live in a ton of soil. As far as our knowledge of them goes, they might as well be on Mars.
Each of these and millions of other species is exquisitely well adapted, and interlocked in intricate ecological webs of interaction we have scarcely begun to understand. Yet they are a large part of the foundation of the world’s ecosystems. Our lives depend utterly upon this largely unknown living world.
We live, in short, on a little known planet. When dealing with the living world, we are flying mostly blind.’
Letters to Linnaeus is available to purchase from the Linnean Society of London at a price of £15 plus P&P.