Darwin took the best part of 20 years to publish his ideas on natural selection. There has been a lot of speculation as to why he took so long. We here at the Sandwalk have some ideas….

Social media is an increasing part of the toolset that we use as scientists. While I am not yet convinced about the value of things like Researchgate and LinkedIn (but grudgingly participate), have a minimal facebook and no instagram presence, I do engage with twitter. I have found this to be a very useful professional development tool. It’s great for being made aware of new papers, web articles and resources, finding out about what is happening at conferences that I can’t attend and publicizing things like our EcoLincNZ articles. If Darwin had had access to all of this, and given that he was such a great letter writer, I think that he would have loved using twitter. I can just imagine him strolling the Sandwalk trying to think up his twitterhandle (or name). Gee I wonder how many followers he would have had by the end of his life?

I am @Darwinnernz if you are interested!