The authors

Shane Booth is a biologist with both a degree and Ph.D from the University of York. Originally from Yorkshire, he has worked on both sides of the Atlantic exploiting biological sciences in the public and private sectors. His interest in natural history may stem from the early experience of his family’s activities in pigeon racing, breeding and showing fancy pigeons and rabbits, and growing competition flowers. Whilst progressively specialising in molecular biology and oncology, his interest in natural history, ecology and evolution was maintained, not least through diving and hiking.

A successful undergraduate research project on short term screening for chemical carcinogens led to a research position in the University of York’s Cancer Research Unit, and his eventual Ph.D in carcinogen biology. A post-doctoral position at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle followed, where he researched oncogenes and cancer causing retroviruses, and antisense techniques to analyse and combat them. A frustrating period in the UK’s scientific civil service led him to leave academia for the private sector, where, after enjoying sales and marketing roles, he joined what became Angle plc. In a period of almost twenty years Shane served Angle as an operational manager and consultant in the field of technology and innovation as tools of national economic development. Then, when the company repositioned as a Med Tech developer, he took on the dual roles of Group Technology Officer, and Chief Executive of its North American Division.

Shane has traveled extensively throughout North and South America, the Middle East and Asia. He lives in Cumbria, on the edge of the English lake district, where there is ample opportunity to pursue natural history. His interest in biology continues, particularly with regard to atavism as process in disease, development and evolution, the ecology of bioluminescence, and, of course, Darwin’s loaded dice.

Damien Sanders has a background in history, social science, biology and maritime archaeology, having graduated from the University of York in 1978 with a degree in politics and social science.

As an A level Biology student, he read Arthur Koestler’s ‘The case of the Midwife Toad’, and asked to repeat Paul Kammerer’s experiments with salamanders and toads. The response, predictably, was that this would guarantee failure of his Biology A level special paper, and that any claims to have replicated Kammerer’s results would be ridiculed as fraudulent. The derision in this response startled him, and was to influence his interests and thinking throughout his life; this made more acute by his awareness of the politically charged ‘Nature versus Nurture’ debate in biology and psychology during the 1960s and 1970s. Subsequent personal observations of natural history in Antarctica and elsewhere progressively led him to surmise, however contrary this might be to then-current biological knowledge, heritability of some aspects of life experience. Despite evidence supporting heritability, in animals, of induced alterations to biological characteristics having appeared as early as the 1940s, Damien’s interactions with natural and social scientists repeatedly demonstrated how scientifically contentious and politically provocative this area of biology remained, certainly until late in the twentieth century. He let the matter lie, waiting to see how evolutionary theory developed from continuing scientific research.

After graduating, he became a member of the permanent team on the Mary Rose excavation in 1979 and 1982. In between, he spent three Antarctic summers and two winters with the British Antarctic Survey, on bases at Signy, in the South Orkney Islands ; and at Grytviken, South Georgia, as a Field Diving Officer, supporting the Inshore Marine Biological Programme. Damien then Took a Post Graduate Certificate in Education in Design and Technology and for seventeen years taught Design and Technology as well as Biology in secondary schools, and environmental studies and ecology in outdoor education centres. He was also very active with Friends of the Earth in the Portsmouth area, particularly dealing with issues relating to sewage, contaminated land, vehicle pollution, and household waste. In 2006, he left full time teaching and moved to Dinan, in Brittany, France, to pursue what interested him most: working as a guide on expedition cruise ships, mostly in Polar regions; studying and teaching Maritime History and Underwater Archaeology; and completing a number of writing projects, including the issues raised in ’Darwin’s loaded dice’. French lifestyle generally facilitates this because the weather and food are better, houses are cheaper, most things work, (“except perhaps French administration and bureaucracy”) and life is less crowded and pressured than in the UK. The rich maritime history and archaeology of the region has also kept him off the streets and often under water.

Damien holds British and French nationality, identifies as European, but as Homo sapiens only because he has to.