Publications

G.H.Harper:  Publications, &c
Articles & books

  1. (with G.B.Thompson) ‘Fleas from Bardsey choughs’, Bardsey Bird Observatory Report no.11: 47-49, 1963.
  2. ‘Notes on the slugs of Bardsey’, Bardsey Bird Observatory Report no.12: 56-57, 1964.
  3. ‘Polymorphism in a Bardsey slug’, Bardsey Bird Observatory Report no.14 for 1961: 47-49, 1967.
  4. ‘The three-dimensional overhead-projector transparency’, Jnl of Biol.Education 8(6): 343-349, 1974.
  5. ‘Darwinism and indoctrination’, Sch.Sci.Rev. 59(207): 258-268, 1977. Reprinted in Creation Res.Soc.Quart., 15(2): 83-87, 1977.
  6. ‘Standards of question-setting in A-level biology’, Sch.Sci.Rev. 59(208): 486-491, 1978.
  7. ‘Textbooks as source material’, Hist.of Educ.Soc.Bull. no.22: 60, 1978.
  8. ‘Survey of Wild Service Tree in Herts & Mddx’, Newsletter of Herts & Mddx Trust for Nature Conservation no.48: 7, 1979.
  9. ‘Alternatives to evolutionism’ Sch.Sci.Rev. 61(214): 15-27, 1979: 15-27. Reprinted in Creation Res.Soc.Quart. 17(1): 49-55, 1979.
  10. ‘The species concept in Lyell’s Principles of Geology‘, Creation Res.Soc.Quart. 16(2): 136-139 & 141, 1979.
  11. ‘The natural history of Oxhey Woods. 1. Preliminary report on the survey’, Trans.Herts.Nat.Hist.Soc. 28(3): 34, 1980.
  12. ‘Textbooks: an under-used source’, Hist.of Educ.Soc.Bull. no.25: 30-40, spring 1980.
  13. ‘Speciation or Irruption: the significance of the Darwin finches’, Jnl of Biol.Educ. 14(2): 99-106, 1980.
  14. ‘Wild Service in Hertfordshire and Middlesex’, Herts.Nat.Hist.Soc.Trans. 28(4): 17-26, 1981.
  15. ‘The natural history of Oxhey Woods. 2. Their history’, Herts.Nat.Hist.Soc.Trans. 28(6): 25-32, 1982.
  16. ‘Why not abolish ecology?’ Jnl of Biol.Educ. 16(2): 123-127, 1982.
  17. Tools & Techniques (Selected Topics in Biology series), Walton-on-Thames: Nelson, 1984.
  18. ‘Teaching symbiosis’, Jnl of Biol.Educ. 19(3): 219-223, 1985.
  19. ‘The irruption theory of the Darwin finches’, Jnl of Biol.Educ. 19(4): 317-321, 1985.
  20. (with T.J.King and M.B.V.Roberts) Biology Advanced Topics, Walton-on-Thames: Nelson, 1987.
  21. ‘A critical review of theories concerning the origin of the Darwin finches (Fringillidae, Passeriformes)’, Jnl of Biogeog. 14: 391-403, 1987.
  22. ‘Teaching life cycles’, Jnl of Biol.Educ. 21(2): 107-116, 1987.
  23. ‘Where is the Shetland fiddle?’ Shetland Life, June 1988, no.92, pp.30-33.
  24. (with G. Marchant & D.G.Boddington) ‘The ecology of the hen flea Ceratophyllus gallinae and the moorhen flea Dasypsyllus gallinulae in nestboxes’, Jnl of Animal Ecology 61(2): 317-327, 1992.
  25. ‘Where does the Slender-billed Curlew nest? New ideas from Russia’, Scottish Bird News (Sept.) no.35, p.5, 1994.
  26. ‘Nature conservation in the CIS: a personal view’, British East-West Jnl no.112, April 1999, pp.14-15.
  27. ‘In praise of techno-literary translation’, In Other Words (Autumn 2000), no.15, pp.48-53.
  28. ‘Биосферное мышление, империализм и заповедники’ (Biosphere consciousness, imperialism and the zapovedniks) Сибирский экологический вестник (Sibirskiy ecologicheskiy vestnik), Autumn 2000, no.15, pp.48-53. In Russian (translated by I.Lyubechansky).
  29. (with G.Peterken) ‘Zapovedniks – scientific nature reserves in Russia’, British Wildlife, December 2003, 15(2): 85-90.
  30. (with D.Prynn) Amur Tiger, Edinburgh: Russian Nature Press, 2004.
  31. (with D.G.Mann & R.Thompson) Phenological monitoring at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Sibbaldia no.2, 2004, pp.33-45.
  32. ‘The Edinburgh Spring Index’, BSS News: the newsletter of the Botanical Society of Scotland, no.85, Sept.2005.
  33. (with Leigh Morris) ‘Flowering and climate change – part I’, Sibbaldia no.4, 2006, pp.71-86.
  34. (with Leigh Morris) ‘Flowering and climate change – part II’, Sibbaldia no.5, 2007, pp.25-42.
  35. (with Lyn Blades, Stephan Helfer, Maria Luisa Lee, Liz Rogers & Sandra Stewart ) ‘Rapid-survey methods for flowering phenology’, Sibbaldia no.6, 2008, pp.163-179.
  36. (with Janette Latta & Clare Morter) ‘A correlation & regression approach to phenology’, Sibbaldia no.7, 2009, pp.139-157.
  37. ‘Lessons from phenology: an interim report’, Sibbaldia no.8, 2010, pp.149-164.
  38. Democracy or Survival: governance & the biosphere crisis, self-published, 2010, & 2nd edition March 2012.
  39. (with Elizabeth Rogers) ‘Flowering curves and the summer-gap mystery’, Sibbaldia no.9, 2011, pp.121-142.
  40. (with Stephan Helfer & Christine Thompson) ‘Phenology’, pp.70-9 in David Rae et al. Catalogue of the Plants 2012, Edinburgh: RBGE.  [For more on phenology, see also Modelling Plant Development in Reports, below]
  41. Grubb, Peter J., Thompson, Christine L. & Harper, Geoffrey H. (2014) ‘Why do some evergreen species keep their leaves for a second winter, while others lose them?’ Forests, 2014, 5, 2594-2612; doi:10.3390/f5112594
  42. Must Future People Suffer? self-published, October 2017.
  43. Democracy & the Biosphere Crisis, self-published, 2019.
  44. Biosphere Crisis: six conditions for solving it, self-published, 2021.
  45. Biosphere Crisis: the Condorcet-Mill-Vernadsky solution, KDP-Amazon, 2024.
  46. Modelling Plant Development using Phenological Data: a report on studies conducted at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh from 2002 to 2014, with Appendix 7: Daily Project, reports for some accessions, report written in December 2014, published 2024; ISBN 9780953299041 [for more details, see the ‘Phenology‘ page.]

Book reviews

‘Controversial, after all these years’, review of P.R.Grant Ecology and Evolution of Darwin’s Finches, New Scientist no.1566, 25 June 1987.

‘M.F.M.M.’, Scottish Bird News (March) no.37, p.11, 1995. (About M.F.M.Meiklejohn )

J.E.Jackson Biology of Apples and Pears, CUP, 2003, Edinburgh Jnl of Botany 61(1): 95-97.

Translations

Expedition diary of Theodosius Dobzhansky in 1926 to the Jungarsky Alatau, Kazakhstan (not published).

Golden Warriors of the Ukrainian Steppes (main text), City Art Centre, Edinburgh District Council, 1993.

V.P.Belik ‘Where on earth does the Slender-billed Curlew breed?’ Wader Study Group Bull. 75: 37-38, 1995.

V.L.Shevchenko ‘The Sociable Plover Chettusia gregaria north of the Caspian Sea’, Wader Study Group Bull. 87: 48-50, 1998.He

V.K.Ryabitsev One Season in the Taiga, Edinburgh: Russian Nature Press, 1998.

V.M.Smirin & Yu.M.Smirin Animals in Nature, Edinburgh: Russian Nature Press, 1999.

V.V.Morozov ‘Current status of the southern subspecies of the Whimbrel Numenius phaeopus alboaxillaris (Lowe 1921) in Russia and Kazakstan’, Wader Study Group Bull. 92: 30-37, 2000.

F.R.Shtil’mark History of the Russian Zapovedniks 1895-1995, Edinburgh: Russian Nature Press, 2003.

David Prynn Amur Tiger, Edinburgh: Russian Nature Press, 2004. (7 chapters are extracts from Russian literature)

Report

Oxhey Woods, their History & Vegetation; the report of a survey carried out from 1978 to 1980, unpublished report deposited in Watford Public Library, Hertfordshire.

PhD thesis

The Treatment of Nature, God and Man in 19th Century Biology and Geology Teaching, PhD thesis, University of London, 1981.

Letters

‘Open mind on evolution’, Times Higher Education Suppl. 18 March 1977.

‘A-level questions’, Times Higher Education Suppl., 1 August 1980, p.22.

‘When a psychologist lied’, Radio Times, 22-28 May 1982.

Cassettes

(with A.R.Cruickshank) ‘I, Transmutationism and the steady state theory of species; II, Interpretation of the fossil record’, Audio Learning, 1982.
 We can assume that men will know that, if they have a duty to those not yet born, that duty is not to give them existence but to give them happiness            Condorcet, Progress of the Human Mind Individualism & short-sightedness […] are the deepest causes of unsustainability     Donella Meadows, Limits to GrowthWhat has posterity ever done for me?   (various sources)

I could not but meditate on the equality nature had conferred on men and the inequality they had created for themselves     Rousseau, Discourse on Inequaltiy

 The American way of life is not negotiable    George H W Bush

 it is fortunate that the victims are so little known and so far away, but it is a fact that an animal with whom we have spent a deal of our life matters more to us than the life of a child we never knew     Jane Austen (quoted by R.A.Sharpe, The Moral Case against Religious Belief)

 He who dies with the most toys wins     Paul & Anne Ehrlich, One with Nineveh

 When I consider any social system that prevails in the modern world, I can’t […] see it as anything but a conspiracy of the rich to advance their own interests under the pretext of organized society     Thomas More, Utopia

 It is astonishing […] with what little intelligence the world is ruled     Theodor Herzl, quoted in Rose, The Question of Zion

 If you cannot lead, leave it to the rest of us. Get out of the way    Papua New Guinea delegate to US delegate, at Bali meeting, 2007

 A free market cares little for the  environment    New Scientist, 5.ix.98

 the future has few votes    James O’Connell in Duncan Poore, Where Next?

 a  plurality of suffrages is no guarantee of truth where it is at all of difficult discovery, as in such cases it is much more likely that it will be found by one than by many    Descartes, Discourse on Method

 Democratic government […] always implies the existence of a very civilized & educated society      Alexis deTocqueville,  Democracy in America

 For the masses, it is the short-run view that counts    Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy

 Freedom to breed will bring ruin to us all      Garrett Hardin,  ‘Tragedy of the Commons’

Might we, like our hunter-gatherer forebears, learn to be satisfied with having fewer needs more easily met, embrace the economic Utopia imagined by Keynes, and in doing so break out of the destructive spiral of endless growth and development? If so much of our species’ history was spent hunting & gathering, mustn’t there surely still be something of the hunter-gatherer in all of us?     James Suzman Affluence wihout Abundance

[…] an ignorant public is the long-term problem in American public life     Susan Jacoby  The Age of American Unreason