Francis Bacon's novel New Atlantis (1627) talked of an experimental garden for improving plants; this lecture draws the line to today's biotechnologies.
A lecture by Jim Endersby, Visiting Professor of the History of Science
07 October 2019 6PM BST
www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-an...
Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (1627) imagined a utopian island including an experimental garden, where plants could be made “greater much than their nature”. These new plants were central to Bacon’s dream of a better world, where hunger - and even death itself - might be conquered. Robert Sharrock’s History of the improvement and propagation of vegetables (1660) attempted to apply Bacon’s new learning and improve humanity’s food supply. This lecture will begin with Bacon’s imagined garden, then consider the long-term promise of the experimental or scientific garden, which would eventually lead to today’s biotechnologies.