Wilkins en route

In which our hero discovers the joys of walking...

Next on my trip, I visited David Williams, a paleobiologist at the Museum of Natural History in London. We talked at length about the nature of systematics (which is something I am increasingly less certain about) and of the history of species concepts. Then he showed me some of the marvellous architecture that Richard Owen commissioned when he built the place. It really is made to look like a Cathedral of Science, with mock Gothic architecture and vaulting ceilings, all decorated with biological themes, I am pleased to say. Despite his bad reputation, I find myself liking old Owen.

The next day we went to Darwin's estate at Down, a small village that is still, amazingly enough, in the countryside despite being only a few miles from London. The building has been restored, of course, particularly after being used as a girl's school, so it's not exactly as the Darwins left it, but it was interesting nonetheless. Not because of any "aura of greatness" - I don't believe in such occult properties - but because it gave me an idea of what a rich member of the gentry lived like, which suggests how others may have lived. Darwin died as what in our terms would be a multimillionaire. One wonders how different his views would have been if he'd been born in poverty.

After visiting Downe House and trying to find out if Darwin had a particular book (Whatley's Elements of Logic) that would strengthen my thesis (he didn't. I am unmoved, however) and walking along Darwin's "thinking path" trying to look learned, I went with my host, Robin Levett, on a tour of the Kent countryside trying to find that bookshop that didn't know what it had and would sell to me for peanuts. Alas, they either didn't have what I wanted or knew what they had and charged accordingly. Damn internet.

Then to Paris. My old friend and costudent (we both had Gary Nelson as a PhD advisor, about the same time) Malte Ebach met me at the airport after some travail, and for the next three days I saw Paris broadly. Malte likes a walk (me, I like a snooze, but then, I'm old, and he's still enthusiastic), so off we went to see the catacombs, where we nominated a skull to be Lamarck's, who was buried in poverty in a mass grave that was later exhumed for health reasons and the bones taken to old Roman quarries. One of France's greatest biologists deserved better, and better than Cuvier's Éloge (eulogy), which was basically a posthumous assassination. One the reverse side of Lamarck's statue at the Jardin des Plantes is a little note from his daughter, pointed out to me by Malte, which says "You will be avenged, my father". Well, not by her, but by many others - Lamarck is much better known than Cuvier with all his statues. Despite the ways in which he was subsequently abused by the neo-Lamarckians, and the neo-Darwinians, Lamarck's ideas continue to inspire people.

It was hot in Paris. Why I go to northern climes during their summer I don't know - I get sunburned in Europe and the US, which is at best ironic for an Australian. Where London got to 32°, Paris was 35°+ and humid, right into the night. So we discovered (at Malte's and his wife Caitlin Hulcup's flat) that Parisians in the summer stay up till 2 am (at the Cuban restaurant downstairs, directly under my window). And talk loudly. Despite the lack of sleep, we went and saw the Notré Dame, named after some American university football team, I gather, the Sorbonne, Marie Curie's laboratory, the Monmartre, the Arc de Triomph (of course) and had lovely picnics (sorry, picque-niques ... really) by the Seine. Left bank, of course. I can't begin to list all the places my sadistic friends dragged me to. They were all wonderful. Next time I'm hiring a Segway, though. Paris is the city of stairs and sirens. I must have climbed half an Everest, and seen a hundred police, ambulance and fire/rescue cars, trucks, and boats go by with their sirens on. I was actually surprised when I saw a policeman (no, they don't call them Gendarmes, at least not in writing) walk by without his siren on.

We went to the cemetery at Père Lachaise, where Buffon is buried, along with Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. Wilde's memorial is covered in lipstick kisses, along with messages of him being various people's hero or ideal man. Funnily enough, I met an Australian, from Perth, who asked me who Wilde was. So I delivered a short lecture, as is my wont. He'd heard of The Importance of Being Earnest, though, so he wasn't completely unaware. I also translated the Greek phrase on Morrison's tomb as best I could for one of the disciples of the Doors who was there (the translation was "according to his own spirit" - KATA TON DAIMONIA EAUTON if I remember rightly). It's no longer covered in graffiti.

I met a couple of people through Malte - one was Juan Morrone, a professor at UNAM in Mexico City, although he is Argentinian himself and has the exact same voice and accent as the late actor Raoul Julia. Juan is a weevil specialist, who also does biogeography, which is the study of regions of endemism and their relations. He and Malte are the founders of a new biogeographic society, The Systematic and Evolutionary Biogeographical Association (SEBA). We discovered a mutual love of schlock horror and science fiction movies. Over several beers he, Malte and I argued the nature of science and classification. I can't recall who won.

I also met Donato Bergandi, a philosopher and ethicist of ecology at the Museum d' Histoire Naturelle, which was home to Vic D'Azyr, Cuvier, Buffon and of course Lamarck and that other underappreciated genius of French science, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Donato and I spent a day comparing notes (boy, the system there is different to what I'm used to) and talking about research techniques on a computer. I bet you didn't know that you can download entire books in PDF facsimile form from the Bibliothèque nationale's Gallica project. I got Linnaeus' Systema Naturae from there, for example. I also showed Donato how to use various Macintosh tools to make his own PDF books.

Donato, having access to the Museum after hours, took us to the Halle des Evolution late at night, where we sipped cognac and wandered past the exhibits in what was probably the only air conditioned building in the city. Despite having some amazing stuffed animals, there was a notable lack of evolution in the hall of evolution. I wondered if that was due to the French being parochial about Lamarck versus Darwin - apparently there was a political move to not name it that way that the museum staff resisted.

The trip to Chicago was painless, although I managed to screw up dialing phones the American way, and thought I was talking to an operator when I was actually talking to David Hull. The obligatory tourist moment out of the way, he picked me up and we went to dinner (good fish and chips, with Scottish beer in my case), where we talked about things, people and ideas we have a common interest in. He cautioned me about how my book will be received by historians and biologists - I'm starting to wonder if it's a good idea (I should just publish the chapters as papers, maybe). David is not the first to tell me I'm in for heavy weather. Chicago is where I now am. When I get back to Australia and have the film developed and digitised, I'll put up some pictures somewhere for those whose lives are less interesting than mine (poor buggers!).

David was a charming host, and I very much value his friendship, not least because he has helped me get into philosophy professionally. But he's also a nice man, who does a lot of good for a lot of people who are otherwise marginalised in American society. Oddly, the other houseguest there was a lecturer from the same university as Donato, there to help organise the Gay Games in Chicago a week earlier. He left for Paris the same time I left for Bloomington.

But... wrong Bloomington! My Australian travel agent sent me to the one in Illinois. I was trying to get to the one in Indiana, where the university is (and where I now type). So, an expensive trip back to Chicago and then to Indianapolis, and I got here about midnight last night... On to the workshop tomorrow. And yes, it's hot here too. And raining.

I must thank my hosts - in London, Robin and Cathy (and their charming 8.5 year old daughter Jenine, who told a friend as "the Australian is here" - I apparently represent the whole nation, which bodes badly for my homeland), in Paris, Malte and Caitlin, and in Chicago, David and his housemate, for their generosity. Despite meeting people with weary and cynical views, they, and almost all the people I meet, are open, friendly and helpful. Time to reiterate the Wilkins 95:95 rule: 95% of all people are decent 95% of the time. It is my fortune to meet many decent people who exceed that threshold. Remember that when you are bombarded by bad news on CNN.

I hope Jenine will forgive me for not bringing the fluffy kookaburra. I will send it on when I get back, I promise. With a surprise.