A pioneering woman: the Welsh palaeobotanist Dr Emily Dix

On the centenary of votes for women in the UK, it seems appropriate to write about a pioneering  woman who lived in the early twentieth century. My choice is the palaeobotanist Dr Emily Dix.

A few years ago, I visited the wonderful Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, and amongst the exhibits, I was surprised to discover plant fossils attributed to a woman who was brought up in an area of South Wales not far from my own. This was Dr Emily Dix, and her story is an interesting one.

Dr Emily Dix with colleagues, around 1930 . Source: http://www.palaeobotany.org/page/pioneers/emily-dix

To begin with, she was one of the few women who studied Geology in the early Twentieth Century, and it was rare indeed for a woman to earn a doctoral qualification at that time. Emily was subsequently awarded the post of lecturer at Bedford College, London. In addition to these achievements, her research on plant fossils in coal measures in Wales and elsewhere made a significant contribution to the subject of biological stratigraphy, which in turn had a significant impact on the understanding of the age and composition of coal deposits. This knowledge was of great value to the coal industry within Wales and beyond, and Emily’s expertise was appreciated at scientific meetings and conferences across Europe.

In addition to her obvious intelligence, Emily was apparently an enthusiastic and friendly person. But this changed during the Second World War, when something happened to her which triggered a major breakdown. This cut short her academic and research career, and her key role in geology became obscure. Authors such as Cynthia Burek and Chris Cleall have attempted to remedy this in recent years.

More thoughts on History

Some of Hilary Mantel's points about interpretation of the past were echoed by Christopher Kissane in his ‘Reformation 2017’ Guardian article on 12.8.17 (Saturday Review). He commented on ways in which history is often ignored, over-simplified, or changed: history and historiography is often a matter of perspective. That perspective is, of course, often links to politics, and Christoper Kissane says that:

"Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan legitimise their autocracy with historical myths" 

Ref to Orwell's '1984'

This highlights the importance of the 'control' of the past, and why there should be ease  of access to the historical record. This is also why online, global, editable ‘knowledge repositories’ such as Wikipedia have such value.

Re-thinking History

Our knowledge and understanding of the past generally relies on academic historians and the evidence they find and interpret. Where there is substantial evidence, and the testimony of those who participated in events, then the historical picture can be more accurate. But the further back in time we go, the fewer the fragments that can be used to piece together the reality of the past, and the more we rely on interpretation. This means that a historian, particularly an ancient historian, could get things very wrong.

This issue was highlighted by Hilary Mantel in her recent Reith Lectures, in particular, her first lecture, entitled ‘The Day is for the Living’. She quotes Patrick Collinson who points out that historians can come to radically different conclusions, mainly because they rarely have access to more than 1% of evidence about an event or period. Add to this the possible bias of the historian – the fact that ‘history is written by the victors’ – and you start to wonder about the veracity of anything much before 1700. This is a fundamental point, and makes us realise how critical we should be about history, yet how accepting we often are. It also alerts us to the unconscious interpretation we all practice: what we see and hear passes through the filter of our preconceptions and preferences before it is remembered.

. Photo: BBC

The point is also a key element in Mantel’s defence of historical fiction. She is effectively saying that everyone makes up their own version of the past, historians included, but at least authors of fiction are honest about the fabrication. Not that she advocates a jettisoning of the facts – on the contrary, Mantel maintains that she became a novelist to tell the truth. The words she puts in Thomas Cromwell’s mouth are her words, not his, and yet they are convincing. The reader of ‘Wolf Hall’ or ‘Bring up the Bodies’ is not only entertained by well-crafted fiction, but develops a greater understanding of Tudor life and politics.

Brains and Gender

The BBC’s Horizon programme last night was entitled, rather provocatively:  ‘ Is your brain male or female?’ (http://bbc.in/1sJl1jI ). 

picture from Morguefile.com

It was primarily designed to entertain,  but nonetheless gave an useful view of the some current evidence about the nature – nurture debate re. gender-based differences in brain function. Both nature and nurture are almost certainly involved: on the nature side, for example, there is the fact that there are more autistic boys than girls. On the nurture side was the really interesting observation about differences in the ‘wiring’ of left and right hemisphere which may be present in adults but not children (http://bit.ly/18C4Ivw ). One part of the programme that particularly reinforced the ‘nurture’ argument, I thought, showed how mothers tend to underestimate the crawling ability of female babies  but not male (see:  http://bit.ly/IOBX2F ).  This example shows how insidious social factors can be re. gender stereotyping, and indicates that ‘society’ has to work harder at equality. As far as education is concerned, evidence discussed by Daniel Willingham in his blog points to few advantages of single-sex schools (http://bit.ly/1rC4ATT ), but we do need to think about the ways in which science is taught and portrayed, and the careers advice that girls receive