Re: zpd of tadpoles

Windward, Rolfe (windward who-is-at lindsey.edu)
Mon, 14 Jun 1999 12:49:01 -0500

What we truly observe, in sympathy as the biologist Barbara McClintock
might say, changes as well as informs us. E.O. Wilson (1994) comments
on some of the early influences in his life are in a similar
vein. In the summer of 1936, at the age of 7, he describes an encounter
with an "astonishing jellyfish ...that existed outside my previous
imagination" (which he later learned was a "sea nettle," a scyphozoan
called Chrysaora quinquecirrha). His early explorations of Perdido Bay in
Florida begin at that time which, perhaps not coincidentally, is also the
time his parents separate.

He then says, "Why do I tell you this little boy's story of medusas, rays,
and sea monsters, nearly 60 years after the fact? Because it illustrates I
think, how a naturalist is created. A child comes to the edge of deep water
with a mind prepared for wonder. Hands on experience at the critical time,
not systematic knowledge, is what counts in the making of a naturalist.
Better to be an untutored for a while, not to know the names or anatomical
detail. Better to spend long stretches of time just searching and
dreaming."

Wilson, E. O. (1994). Naturalist. Washington, D.C.: Island Press/Shearwater
Books.