Australasia at the centre of Darwin's ideas

In the lead up to Charles Darwin's 200th Birthday (February 12), Sydney University Professor Iain McCalman has released a book that describes Darwinism as a collective enterprise forged in Australasia.

McCalman's new book, Armada: How Four Voyagers to Australasia Won the Battle for Evolution and Changed the World, traces the developments of Darwin's work on natural selection from its beginnings on the HMS Beagle.

The book acknowledges the work of Darwin's scientific confidants Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallace, without whom Darwin's theories may have remained in obscurity. Armada also pays homage to Australasia as the shared locale where four brilliant minds discovered and honed their scientific revelations.

Professor McCalman hopes his history will help shift attention to Australia as having been "absolutely transformative" in the formation of Darwin's ideas.

"The Darwin story usually stops in the Galapagos," Professor McCalman claims. "It [Armada] offers an awareness that our part of the world has been engaged in one of the greatest scientific developments in the world...we really are a central part of it."

<p>Professor McCalman says Darwin together with Hooker, Huxley and Wallace, did what one person alone could not have done - comb the world for evidence of evolution by natural selection and then fight tirelessly in the social and intellectual battle that followed.

"Without the inspiration and impulse of these other three, there's no doubt that Darwin would not have been published in his lifetime," Professor McCalman says. "The science was a collective enterprise, much more than people have realised". Professor McCalman's original inspiration for Armada came when considering the contentious modern science of climate change, where people once again "started to make real observations about how nature changed during the course of the world".

As one of Sydney University's leading experts on Darwin Professor McCalman will be chairing the Sawyer Seminar Series, entitled "The Antipodean Laboratory: Humanity, Sovereignty and Environment in Southern Oceans and Lands, 1700-2009" in its first Australian series later this year. Professor McCalman is available for comment on his book and topics relating to the Charles Darwin anniversary through the Sydney University Media Office.

Media contact: Katrina O'Brien, 9036 7842 or Sarah Stock, 0419 278 715.