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Rediscovering a lost hero of science

Posted on October 2, 2017 by Sonoma Valley Sun

Andrea_WulfThe historian and author Andrea Wulf discusses her new book, “The Invention of Nature,” a New York Times Best Seller biography of Alexander von Humboldt, who Darwin called the “greatest scientific traveler who ever lived.” The lecture wll be presented on Friday, October 13 at Quarryhill Botanical Garden.

Wulf brings this lost hero to science and the forgotten father of environmentalism back to life. Humboldt, Wulf writes, “was the first to explain the fundamental functions of the forest for the ecosystem and climate.” In his time, she says, “the effects of the human species’ intervention were already incalculable, Humboldt insisted, and could become catastrophic if they continued to disturb the world so ‘brutally.’”

Friday, October 13. $35-$45. 5:30 p.m. Quarryhill Botanical Garden. 12841 Highway 12, Glen Elen. Quarryhillbg.org.

 




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