In one of the great essays on literature and science, Stephen Jay Gould (2002: 51) suggests that Vladimir Nabokov’s rare abilities in both fiction and entomology stemmed from his knack for observation, which revealed “deep similarities in intellectual procedure between the arts and sciences.” Henry James’s (1972: 35) advice to would-be writers—“be one of the people on whom nothing is lost”—would thus apply as well to biologists. This attentiveness was obvious to Julian Huxley, biologist brother of Aldous, who extols the scientific value of observation in “Bird-Watching and Biological Science” (1916). Observation, he argues, involves more than perceiving and recording data: it cuts to the heart of scientific inquiry: “Those who wish to penetrate into those arcana and mysteries of science where the beginnings of Consciousness are being shaped and added to Life cannot do better than observe the behavior of a single species of wild bird or...

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