Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu ([128.111.125.82]) by mtapop3.verizon.net (InterMail vM.4.01.03.00 201-229-121) with ESMTP id <20001022193334.CRPT4151891.mtapop3.verizon.net@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> for ; Sun, 22 Oct 2000 14:33:34 -0500 Received: from ucsbuxa (ucsbuxa [128.111.125.82]) by ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA11525 for ; Sun, 22 Oct 2000 12:33:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mailre03.arb1.te.uudial.us.uu.net (mailre-vif03.arb1.te.uudial.us.uu.net [206.137.114.143]) by ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA11521 for ; Sun, 22 Oct 2000 12:33:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 23454 invoked from network); 22 Oct 2000 19:33:33 -0000 Received: from 1cust149.tnt7.nyc3.da.uu.net (HELO 4rij0) (63.23.122.149) by mailre-vif03.arb1.te.uudial.us.uu.net with SMTP; 22 Oct 2000 19:33:33 -0000 Message-ID: <001501c03c78$0e8f7a80$957a173f@4rij0> From: "Kurt Johnson" To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" References: <001701c03acf$f8d00ec0$1b61183f@oemcomputer> Subject: Re: Nabokov in SCIENCE magazine; Nabokov at Harvard & NPR Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 15:33:05 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="x-user-defined" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 This message was originally submitted by belina@DELLNET.COM to the NABOKV-L list at LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU. If you simply forward it back to the list, using a mail command that generates "Resent-" fields (ask your local user support or consult the documentation of your mail program if in doubt), it will be distributed and the explanations you are now reading will be removed automatically. If on the other hand you edit the contributions you receive into a digest, you will have to remove this paragraph manually. Finally, you should be able to contact the author of this message by using the normal "reply" function of your mail program. ----------------- Message requiring your approval (74 lines) ------------------ Two orders of business: 1. the two Nabokov butterfly books were reviewed in SCIENCE (Oct. 6), which, along with NATURE are the two most prestigious magazines for professional scientists of all persuasions. It was a two-age/ 3 column each plus two color photos review). A couple comments on these below (electronic copy at least not available from me). 2. Bob Pyle, Kurt Johnson and Steve Coates speak at the Harvard Museum of Natural History on Tues. night Oct. 24th at 6 PM. I think the particulars of this event were announced earlier; unfortunately, with bag in had right now, I do not have them with me. But, the Harvard Museum etc. should not be difficult to locate/telephone etc. if you are in the area. They will be introduced by Nabokov's old friend Dr. Charles Remington, emeritus professor of genetics at Yale and contributor to The Garland Companion for Nabokov. The presentation is part of a fall/winter series on butterflies and Harvard history etc. and followed by a reception in the event exhibit area. 3. The next day, Kurt Johnson and Brian Boyd (by phone) will be interviewed on Oct. 25th, on National Public Radio's "The Connection" which, at least out of Boston runs at 11 a.m E.D.T. and, I think, is often rebroadcast in the evening in various places as well. Bob Pyle will be on a plane at this time and not available. Now, a couple quotations from SCIENCE's review "Blue Book Value", Science Vol. 290, Oct. 6, 2000, pp. 57-58. Re Nabokov's Butterflies Berenbaum says "present[s] a dazzling span of work [then a thumbnail of the contents]. The editors also offer chapters on Nabokov written to their own strengths; Boyd recounts Nabokov's life, and Pyle details his entomological contributions. Berenbaum summarizes later "[Nabokov] is the best writer about insects of the 20th century, and possibly evere. As Pyle so aptly says, Nabokov is simply the "foremost literary interpreter of butterflies and moths." This is no small accomplishment." Of Nabokov's Blues, Berenbaum says "Johnson and Coates do an outstanding job of laying out the importance of alpha-taxonomy (the classification and description of species), and it seems safe to say that never before has this desperately underfinanced and utterly essential subdiscipline of biology been so engagingly depicted. Their conservation message, tied to taxonomy (or what is now called "biodiversity inventory") is also eloquent and compelling." However, if there is any negative it is that Berenbaum seems, as do many, to take the conclusions of both books as "givens" and, without a sense of the historical flow of the books' storylines considers both "too strident" in trying to defend Nabokov's science. For instance, she takes Nabokov to task for criticizing natural selection with regard to mimicry-- forgetting, as both books make clear, that populations genetics (the key to understanding mimicry in the light of natural selection) HAD NOT YET BEEN elucidated during Nabokov's active years as a publishing entomologist. She also complains that Nabokov must have already been recognized as a significant lepidopterist early on [thus, not needing "rehabilitation"] because, before 1950, he had three species named after him. Again, she forgets that those three species patronyms emanated from friends or taxonomic colleagues while, meantime, well into the 1990's virtually NONE of Nabokov's classifications for blues were being used or accepted anywhere. Its hard to see how reviewers miss these major points, but they seem to. But these were minor things compared to the important of attention to Nabokov is a venue as important as SCIENCE. Kurt Johnson The reviewer, May Berenbaum of the Univ. of Illinois was quite positive about both books, although felt they perhaps tried "too hard" to "stump" for Nabokov the scientist