Biologist for a global village
One Step Sideways, Three Steps Forward: One Woman’s Path to Becoming a Biologist
by B. Rosemary Grant
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2025
$27.95 / 9780691260600
Reviewed by Loÿs Maingon
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“The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event of my whole career, yet it depended on so small a circumstance.” -Charles Darwin
Every life is an art form structured by the choices we make in the circumstances and environments we are handed. How we make those choices depends largely on our education, much of which often depends on what Darwin called “so small a circumstance.” The more diversified the education, the broader the range and subtlety of responses. From as diminutive a factor as the difference of a single gene entirely different trajectories in life and speciation can arise. While the small circumstance can vary, it is still grounded in the overriding importance of our shared values which make every individual equally important and valuable, and yet so wonderfully different.
For an evolutionary biologist such as Rosemary Grant, life is a random roulette of the genetics we inherit, the changes in the ecosystems we inhabit which become an extension of who we are, and the cultural practices through which we bridge differences. Looking back on her long life this autobiography sums up her response to a question that arose in her childhood, and became central to her interest in genetics: “Why are we different?” However, that same question is not used to segregate identities, it is complemented with its obverse: “What makes us also so similar?”
Rosemary Grant’s autobiography comes in the wake of, but independently from, Peter Grant’s autobiography Enchanted by Daphne. It elegantly presents the foundations of her contribution to this remarkable duo of evolutionary biologists whose forty years of research on the Galápagos from 1973 to 2013 began twelve years before that by random chance in 1961 at UBC largely thanks to the generosity of Dr. Ian McTaggart Cowan. It was McTaggart Cowan who brought Peter as a graduate student, and hired Rosemary as a lecturer in embryology. Their marriage is a model of mutual respect and research teamwork which culminated with a series of prestigious joint awards: Darwin Medal (2002), Darwin-Wallace Medal (2009), Kyoto Prize (2009) and the Royal Medal (2017).
Notably, Ian McTaggart Cowan not only supported Peter in his post-doctoral appointment to Yale, but without any prompting wrote ahead to his Yale colleagues to see that Rosemary would be able to pursue her teaching and research interests. McTaggart Cowan was undoubtedly aware of the obstacles that women in science faced, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s. When it comes to attitudes to gender differences, it is interesting to hear Rosemary Grant reflect positively on how refreshing and open-minded her time in UBC’s Biology Department felt in comparison with her experience in Britain in the fifties and subsequently at McGill in the 1960s and early 1970s. For those of us familiar with gender issues at UBC in the 1970s this may strike one as a very relative measure of how far we have come, and a reminder of how far we have yet to go.
Rosemary and Peter Grant are best known for their meticulous work tracking the evolution and speciation of finch populations in the Galápagos. Much of this research is summarized in their two now classic books: How and Why Species Multiply: The Radiation of Darwin’s Finches, and 40 Years of Evolution: Darwin’s Finches on Daphne Major Island. Continuous long-term observation of both bird populations and ecosystem variations over four decades made it possible for them to document in detail three sorts of evolutionary pathways, and collect genetic samples for future research. They were the first to document speciation without a change in chromosome number (homoploid hybrid speciation). They also brought new insights into allopatric speciation with character displacement and into species fusion through introgression. In each case speciation is driven by the adaptation of an individual to environmental extremes.
It helps to know about this research in order to fully appreciate the lines of thought that structure Rosemary Grant’s biography. In Enchanted by Daphne, Peter pointed out the hostility towards the study of evolution in ecology that he endured in the 1970s at McGill. Sadly, this intellectual prejudice remains prevalent among some biologists who resist the implications of the joint climate change and biodiversity crisis. It is characteristic of a vast majority of human beings who persist in tacitly believing in “fixity.” “Fixity” is the belief that the world is well-ordered and that the world and how we live in it is largely unchanging and has always been the same. The world we know today is essentially the world as it has always been. Change, if it happens, proceeds at a glacial pace. This is an alternative modernized form of implicit creationism, frequently found among taxonomists who overlook evolution in keeping with the Linnaean tradition. The recognition of the importance of understanding evolution, diversity, and change are seen as challenges to the order of things, particularly social order. The Grants’ research fundamentally challenges all that, because it focuses on the ever-present reality of continuous change. They have documented biological change evident in speciation, that happens very quickly, within a couple of generations.
Their studies demonstrate that extreme changes in the environment can lead to fairly sudden changes in species and to extinction. What the Grants documented is that evolution and speciation can proceed quickly, as environmental events such as floods or extreme drought, alter the resources that species depend on and are best adapted to exploit. New species arise from the hybridization of outlying individuals who are not part of the main population, but turn out to be better adapted to those extremes, and in the long-term prove to be essential to the re-direction and continuation of species in general. This, of course has huge implications for species around the world as we enter an era of climate chaos. It helps us understand the concern that the Grants express, in their respective autobiographies, about our current climate and biodiversity crisis, and our political crises.
Most importantly, these insights were made possible by the teamwork and complementary interests of Rosemary and Peter, which were focused on the same topic: “how and why new species are formed.” As she points out, Peter’s approach was ecological, but hers was genetic. If we are interested to know how their joint-discoveries came about, it is also important to understand the obstacles she faced and how she was able to overcome them, especially as this did not follow the most straightforward route.
As most young women of her generation, Rosemary Grant was told, even by her father, that higher education was wasted on women. The patriarchal argument was that women would get married, have children and never make use of their education. Of course, Rosemary Grant did the first two of these things, but made excellent use of her education, contrary to prejudice.
Not to spoil a good read, Rosemary overcomes those prejudices by bucking the rules, and having the good fortune to be mentored in that art by her geography teacher, Miss Crawford. Miss Crawford took the time to develop her education outside of the confines of her boarding school, introducing her to outdoor naturalist pursuits and a love of the arts, gifts that endured throughout Rosemary’s career, a point which she recognizes throughout the text even late in life.
She then also had the extremely good fortune to do her biology degree under the guidance of three extraordinary geneticists post-war, something she acknowledges in an understatement. First, she was acquainted through an aunt with Charlotte Auerbach (1899-1994) whose work on mutagenics, and introductory books on both genetics and on the nuclear age, led to her receiving the Darwin Medal in 1976. Auerbach remains a leading anti-nuclear conscience of our age. She also had as a teacher at the University of Edinburgh, Douglas Falconer (1913-2004), whose classic book Introduction to Quantitative Genetics created the field, and obviously provided the foundation for all of her later research. Last but not least, the Biology Department was headed by C.H. Waddington (1905-1975) whose theory of genetic assimilation linked genetics and the environment, and thereby laid the foundations for the Grants’ research. Unique among his peers, Waddington was a polymath at a time that saw the growth of narrow specialization increasingly rewarded. He bucked the growing stultifying technocratic fashion. He was as equally at ease in the arts and humanities as he was in the sciences, and he insisted, as Rosemary Grant notes, that biology students devote equal time to the arts and humanities and to the sciences. His 1969 book Behind Appearance; a Study of the Relations Between Painting and the Natural Sciences in This Century (MIT press) is still considered a key contribution to bridging the disciplines. Waddington understood, as few scientists do today, the importance of a well-balanced education in the training of scientists, if only to avoid a well-documented propensity to mental breakdowns.
The excellence and intellectual diversity of Rosemary Grant’s autobiography shows the lasting impact of Waddington. Each chapter starts with a pertinent quote which also reveals the breadth of the author’s interests and education. This rich education is reflected in her adaptability and balanced response to adversities and challenges.
An autobiography is often just about an individual. However, when the narrative focuses on the principles that have guided the path of an individual’s development and where they originated, it becomes more than about the individual. It confirms the adage that it takes a village to raise a child. That makes for interesting thoughtful reading as Grant identifies the elements of her life that pre-disposed her to success. She skillfully links her childhood in pre-war and wartime Britain with the important gift of the incredible “ordinary” people in the village of Arnside, who taught her not only basic social skills, but how to value life and education.
In a sense it is not unlike her research on evolution. It is, as Darwin often notes, about “so small a circumstance” that pre-disposes and sets unforeseen directions. It is about the evolution of outliers and individuals and their inherent value to the community. It is about the importance of collaboration and respect for diversity across genders and cultures, not just as a social posture or ideology, but as a practice. In her words:
The common thread running through my journey to becoming a scientist is a fascination with biological and cultural diversity and how it leads to change…. Throughout I was guided by the understanding, fostered by my parents, that a life devoted to science requires critical thinking, following exceptions to your pet theory, respect for others, and strong ethical values.”
As it should, the autobiography begins with her place of birth and her parents – her mother, a child separated from her parents by the First World War, and her father, a country doctor first educated as a classicist to read Greek and Latin. She grows up in a medical household which is the centre of the village of Arnside, on the south side of the Kent estuary. The formative elements that come from those origins resonate throughout her life and career, but what is most important is the understanding of place that she gets from Arnside. Childhood in Arnside roots her in nature.
Arnside is best known for the extremely dangerous tidal bore of the River Kent at Morecambe Bay. The bore rushes in at 50km/h. It raises the level of the tide 9.5m in about 15 minutes and then reverses at the same rate. This environmental phenomenon shapes the lives of every inhabitant of Arnside. As Rosemary Grant explains from time immemorial, before the modern advent of a siren system, the safety of adults and children working or playing around the estuary has always depended on having a keen understanding of the tidal bore and its relationship to tides and lunar cycles. The rhythms of the tidal bore define the holistic relationship to place that shapes the cosmology of the inhabitants of Arnside. That cultural grounding in place allows her to better understand the infinite wisdom of the humble fisherman Julian who knows all the stars and currents of the Galápagos. It is a deeply ingrained sense of place that she keeps and which proved essential to her life and research on the Galápagos where tides and currents proved equally important to research, survival, and speciation.
This sense of place also echoes throughout her understanding of the cultures that shape place, which she experiences in the cultural traces of the Lake Country. It contributes, even back in 1960 when it was not fashionable, to her appreciation of the value of First Nations cultures and the tragedy of residential school policies. For her the enduring cultural distinctiveness of her native Westmorland is expressed in the ways in which local shepherds still count their sheep, in the coracles that their forefathers build which she sees again in Tibet, in the techniques that are used to make charcoal around the world. Her cultural knowledge of place is used to observe and find links with the aboriginal cultures she observes in the Americas or in Asia. Just as genetics do, cultures create individuals, but both genetics and cultures also create bridges that tie us all together. They both tell us that we hold more in common than makes us differ.
Even in adversity her education predisposes her to still encounter opportunities for personal growth, because of her altruistic interests. In the 1970s, as most other Canadian universities, McGill University discouraged the joint appointment of married couples in the same department. This meant that while Peter taught ecology, Rosemary was barred from teaching and registering to complete a PhD which she had put on hold since her marriage in 1962. Instead, she did a teaching qualification to teach in a private school for girls. There she learnt about the extremely successful Finnish educational system, which sought to remedy social inequalities. The two keys of the Finnish system were: a much more rigorous five-year post-graduate teacher training programme which elevated teachers on a par with medical doctors (“a teacher trains the mind while a doctor cures the body”) and curricula designed for each individual child in small schools, encouraging creativity and focusing on “problem solving, multiculturality and prevention of learning difficulties.” As she notes, compared to the USA or North American system, the results are staggering: “Finland spends 30 percent less per person…Ninety-three percent of Finnish students graduate from high school, compared to 75 percent of US students. Sixty-six percent of Finns go on to higher education compared to 38 percent of the US students. Sixty-six percent go on to higher education compared to 38 percent in the United States..” In education as in genetics, success comes from the focus on the inherent value of the diversity and variety of the individual. It is the outlier that enables speciation and survival in environmental adversity.
It is therefore entirely fitting that out of sheer serendipity, she was finally given the opportunity to complete a PhD in the Baltics, in Sweden. Ironically, she was given the opportunity because she had been invited to talk about her research at the University of Uppsala where she was presented as “Dr. R. Grant.” She had to correct her host and point out that she did not have a PhD. The Swedes remedied the oversight. In 1986, she was offered the possibility of completing a PhD by the University of Uppsala in a programme tailored to her individual needs and merits. The PhD enabled her to overcome gender barriers and pursue a normal academic path as a researcher and professor at Princeton University with Peter.
One can only be stunned by the fact that while she was already an internationally recognized scholar who resided at UBC, Yale, McGill, Ann Arbour, and Princeton, no one in the North American higher education system saw fit to grant or facilitate her PhD. It is a failure of a system blinded by a bureaucratic obsession to “fulfill requirements” rather than open doors. This part of her path to becoming a biologist is a stunning indictment of a systemic failure in the North American educational system to recognize and remedy barriers to women in science.
This extremely interesting autobiography is not just about her research, promotions, and awards. Fittingly it is largely about her extraordinary rich and diverse education, as she quotes from Socrates: “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” It is about the fire that creates a generous outlook on life, and its author, an outstanding biologist for a global village.
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Dr. Loÿs Maingon was arrested at Clayoquot Sound in 1993 and remains a strong advocate for social, economic, and environmental change. He contributed a chapter to Clayoquot & Dissent (Ronsdale Press: 1994), and authored Field Guide to Basic Lichens of Strathcona Park (Strathcona Wilderness Institute Press: 2022). [Editor’s note: Dr. Loÿs Maingon has reviewed books by Sarah Boon, Rhonda Bailey (ed.) andThe Cumberland Museum and Archives, M.V. Ramana, Arthur S. Reber, Frantisek Baluska and William B. Miller Jr., Peter R. Grant, and Joel Bakan, Melissa Aronczyk & Maria I. Espinoza, William K. Carroll (ed.) for The British Columbia Review.]
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Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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