Botany staff contribute to Darwin Festival
Botany staff were among those representing the Natural History Museum at a recent major international festival held to mark 200 years since Charles Darwin’s birth and 150 years since the publication of his famous work ‘On the Origin of Species’.
Dr Sandy Knapp speaking at the Festival © Darwin 2009 Festival
The Darwin 2009 Festival, hosted by the University of Cambridge from 5-10 July 2009, combined science, arts and the humanities.
Over 100 outstanding thinkers, authors, artists and performers joined together to debate and celebrate the enduring influence of Darwin's ideas. Among them were Dr Karen James - attending in her role as Darwin200 science coordinator - and Dr Sandy Knapp, who gave a presentation called ‘On the Origin of Species: speciation studies now’.
Using examples from her own work with the Solanum genus that includes tomato and potato species, Dr Knapp shared a real-world view of species with the audience and discussed the importance of world-wide biodiversity inventories.
Dr James commented: ‘The festival provided a brilliant opportunity to listen to and chat to a diverse mix of people. Among the many events I enjoyed was a beautifully detailed and chronologically referenced history of Darwin’s slow epiphany. His ideas and theories changed the way we look at the natural world, how we study it, and how we see our place within it, and they continue to give us a lot to talk about.’