Lecture 18: A Cupboard of Dead Bugs

Join Matthew Holmes to explore how both disciplines sought to control insect pests for the benefit of human health and agriculture: one through improved knowledge of insect behaviour and the other through the use of birds as a form of biological control. Matt will examine how the rapid rise of these disciplines was shaped by the demands of Empire, before exploring their equally rapid decline; twentieth-century biology was profoundly influenced by a powerful concoction of political forces and imperial ambition. Alongside empire, economic considerations were more than mere motivations for the application of biological knowledge; they provided important conceptual resources. Alex Aylward will explore how twentieth-century theoretical biologists increasingly tapped into economic metaphors when tackling the evolution of sociality in insects.