I just finished the most wonderful Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent and I recommend it highly to anyone interested in Charles Darwin or natural history. The cool thing about it (to me anyway) is that it doesn't really delve into Darwin's whole Theory of Evolution at all - this book is about the making of Darwin, the naturalist, something that gets lost all the time in conversations and articles about him. As the author, Lyanda Haupt, is primarily interested in birds it is that aspect of Darwin's journals that she focuses on. But she lays out why she did what she did and how and all of that in the beginning so readers who might wonder why there isn't more about bugs or mammals in the book will understand. She does a great job of pulling from his journals and letters home and showing specifically how he changed his way of looking at wildlife - how he became more studious of animal behavior and what it could mean in a larger picture. The whole thing is really fascinating reading and got me to thinking about all sorts of things but most especially about what really makes a naturalist.

I have been an avid reader of all things Gerald Durrell for quite some time and Durrell was certainly a hands-on sort of naturalist, something I am beginning to realize most great naturalists truly are. David Carroll, who just won the MacArthur Genius Grant, is an example of another. (His latest book is Self-portrait with Turtles and it's totally on my list of future purchases.) I can't help but add Steve Irwin onto this list and I kind of wonder if maybe the people who have had negative things to say/write about him have become so distanced from what naturalists used to do (and the fact that he was a hyper guy on tv which is something that no other naturalist has been), that he seems to be shocking or too different or not serious/academic enough.

But really - is that so wrong? Do you need to be in classrooms for years or should more of your time be spend out in the field? What is the better place for a naturalist to learn? (And I'm not suggesting that academics are a waste of time, but I'm wondering if too much time is spent studying dead specimans and not watching live ones.) Haupt has an interesting piece at the end of her book about a 2001 article in Natural History called, "Would Darwin Get a Grant Today?" She writes:

Much that he [Darwin] found noteworthy would not be considered "statistically significant" today, would not find entry into the mathmatical models that characterize modern ecological science, and would certainly not meet hte criteria of controlled replicability required by reputable biological studies. Much of Darwin's most important work would be confined to the scientific rubbish heap labeled "anecdote". Yet it is from his string of stories, attended over a lifetime, that Darwin's elegant theory of natural selection and all that it implies was gathered.

In the Natural History piece, journalist TV Rajan explains that the study of "whole organisms" in natural selection is "becoming antiquated as enthusiasm for molecular biology gains power." Field biology no longer claims the fundamental place in ecological study. I am sure when biologists see people like Irwin or Jeff Corwin running around on the Animal Planet channel they dismiss them as hobbyists, of even worse. But what was Darwin but a hobbyist, really - and what was Durrell? And didn't they spend a lot of time running around looking at animals (and collecting them - but that has changed with the times). They clearly changed the world for the better, something that Irwin has certainly done as well with his satellite tracking program for crocodiles.

It's an interesting issue and something I hope to read more about as more natural history books come my way. I do have to say though that Haupt's book is the first one that really made Darwin seem human to me - seem just like the rest of us. It has made me believe that anyone could see the world the way he did, and also make great leaps of logic - great changes in what we think we know and what we thoughtfully discover. I just think maybe being amateur naturalists (dare I say "hobbyists") is something that should come back in fashion. It used to be what made people cool; wouldn't it be lovely if Steve Irwin got another generation to think that way as well?