IASH welcomes Dr Jamie Freestone to our staff.
Jamie commenced as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the beginning of January to work on Dr Ian Hesketh's ARC Future Fellowship project, The Place of History in Science: Reassessing the Darwinian Revolution.
Jamie comes with an academic background in literature and a professional background in science communication, having previously produced podcasts on scientific research for the Australian National University and been a science correspondent for the ABC. He is interested in how narrrative can be used to convey unambiguously important scientific information and says that "unfortunately, the facts can't speak for themselves and need to be framed in ways that people intuitively understand. I think it's obligatory that we try and figure out how best to communicate it, rather than just dumping more data on people."
During his fellowship, Jamie will be focusing on recent receptions of Darwinism, especially its reach beyond a purely biological theory. "Darwinism is quite insidious," he says. " it is branching out into other disciplines that might not seem to have anything to do with biology. This includes cyber security, cancer research, quantum physics, neuroscience, innovation research, finance and cosmology." Jamie's research will be investigating how selective histories of Darwin and Darwinism are used today for rhetorical ends.
