A Rum Affair: A True Story of Botanical Fraud

by Karl Sabbagh

Book Overview

A Rum Affair is an absorbing tale of scientific chicanery and academic intrigue--critically acclaimed and a finalist for the Los Angeles TimesBook Prize. In the 1940s, the eminent British botanist John Heslop Harrison proposed a controversial theory: Species of plants on the islands off the west coast of Scotland, he said, had survived the last Ice Age. His premise flew in the face of evidence that the last advance of the ice sheets...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306810603
• ISBN13: 9780306810602
• Release Date: August 2001
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

clearly not for everyone

The merest possibility that a geographic botanist would actually falsify a discovery and violate the sanctity of the British scientific aristocracy is not only enough excitement for one book, but plenty for a sensational story. However, you might have to be an unabashed fan of all things Anglo like myself; also perhaps a talented amateur horticulturist who thrills to the details of the growing conditions necessary for the disputed "discoveries" of J. Heslop Harrison (the names of the characters alone make this a fun read). Sabbagh navigates the touchy territory of real peoples' reputations with great subtlety and renders a fascinating picture of the British universities, their scientists and personalities. Of course there is no silly confrontation scene! All the drama is handled with typical British restraint, which makes the book and this true story all the more enthralling for the right type of reader.

A Real-Life Mystery Examined Through Circumstantial Evidence

Science makes progress by the innovations of individuals. Upon noticing something new, others try to replicate the results. When they do, scientists start to feel confidence that reality has been established. When the results cannot be replicated, doubt begins to build. Sometimes, the innovator made a mistake. Sometimes, the emulators don't quite understand what needs to be done. And occasionally, the innovator made up the results in the first place (like the little boy who cried "wolf").This book focuses on parts of the career of Professor John Heslop Harrison of Newcastle University, who was a famous botanist in the British Isles during the first half of the 20th century. Over his career, he had discovered or been present when many rare species had been found in new places. While many of these discoveries were replicated by others, many of the ones he made on the private island of Rum (also spelled Rhum) in the Hebrides did not have that replication. Some botanists became suspicious, and encouraged a talented amateur botanist, John Raven, to inveigle an invitation to Rum to see the specimens. What he saw led Mr. Raven to conclude that someone (possibly the good professor) had planted these specimens on Rum, rather than occurring there naturally. Based on these researches and a letter to "Nature," the professor's discoveries that others could not document were gradually withdrawn from the scientific literature. The book looks at the whole problem from our time now. The author interviewed people who were alive and participating in the controversy then, as well as examined the documents and letters involved. He turns up a series of questionable "discoveries" also including butterflies and beetles that suggest a systemmatic pattern. In a final amusing aside, he visits the professor's home and is amazed to discover that the postal address he used for it is false. He chose to pretend he lived on the most fashionable street in town, when he did not. The circumstantial evidence (and it is hard to have more, unless you see someone literally planting the specimen) does get a bit tedious, but the author does a nice job of considering the motives behind scientific frauds. Generally, they are tied to a desire to make a big breakthrough, and the "scientist" is convinced the theory is right . . . even though the evidence don't show it yet. In Professor Heslop Harrison's case, he wanted to build a new theory of the evolution of species and also wanted to change the view about how the last ice age had occurred in Britain. These "discoveries" tended to support those theories.The book's approach is quite a thorough one, and since Mr. Sabbagh is not a botanist he makes the book more understandable to those of us who are not. He also as a wry sense of humor that makes for comic relief throughout the book. On the other hand, reading exhaustively about weeds, beetles, scientific controversies, and whether the samples were received or not is dull

A Rum Affair is heady stuff!

The mysterious Isle of Rum off the west coast of Scotland is the site of British botanist, John Heslop Harrison's discoveries of rare plant species which helped make him the outstanding scientist of his time. Many botanists, suspicious of the evidence, were unable to prove anything as all investigations were buried deep in a university library.A Rum Affair is not simply an investigation about one particular gentleman in one particular field of science, it is about the history of amateur scientists, the times in which they lived & the clashes of egos in the arcane corridors of British universities during the 100 years in which Charles Darwin's theories shocked the world & scientific hoaxes were the talk of the town.Be prepared for a humorous & learned read. Set a match to the fire, put the kettle on & the cat out, brew a pot & settle back into your highback wing chair because A Rum Affair will take you to one of the most bleak, treeless, monotonous places on earth where a handful of mysterious & rare plants were "discovered" in the 1940s & were never seen again.A Rum Affair is for everyone who loves a good yarn about the humans who trample upon the natural world & the lengths to which they'll go to become immortals in their field! Fascinating! Do visit my site for my full review.

I enjoyed this book.

The topic of the book is: did Professor Heslop Harrison, who was an eminent British botanist during the first half of the 1900s, fake some of his results? This might sound dry, but the book is not. Sabbagh has written an engaging story about the effects of ego on scientific inquiry. As a scientist-in-training myself, I found the story fascinating. Why would someone with an established reputation take such a risk? Or was he merely persecuted by jealous colleagues, as he claimed himself? Why did the scientific community react as it did? As well as detailing the history involved, Sabbagh explores the psychology of the main characters in an attempt to find an answer. The specific scentific issues are explained clearly and concisely. He includes a section briefly discussing other scientific frauds that lends more depth to the analysis of this particular case. This is a good book, funny, and very well written.