IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB000771333

From Linnaean Species to Mendelian Factors: Elements of Hybridism, 1751-1870 (2007)

Müller-Wille, Staffan (Author)
Orel, Vítězslav (Author)

Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology
Volume: 64
Pages: 171--215

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Hybridization Genetics 19th century 18th century Mendel, Gregor Johann Kölreuter, Joseph Gottlieb Linnaeus, Carolus Gärtner, Carl Friedrich

In 1979, Robert C. Olby published an article titled 'Mendel no Mendelian?', in which he questioned commonly held views that Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) laid the foundations for modern genetics. According to Olby, and other historians of science who have since followed him, Mendel worked within the tradition of so-called hybridists, who were interested in the evolutionary role of hybrids rather than in laws of inheritance. We propose instead to view the hybridist tradition as an experimental programme characterized by a dynamic development that inadvertently led to a focus on the inheritance of individual traits. Through a careful analysis of publications on hybridization by Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Joseph Gottlieb Koelreuter (1733-1806), Carl Friedrich Gärtner (1772-1850), and finally Mendel himself, we will show that this development consisted in repeated reclassifications of hybrids to accommodate anomalies, which in the end allowed Mendel to draw analogies between whole organisms, individual traits, and 'elements' contained in reproductive cells. Mendel's achievement was a product of normal science, and yet a revolutionary step forward. This also explains why, in 1900, when the report he gave on his experiments was 'rediscovered', Mendel could be read as a 'Mendelian'.

...More

Description An “analysis of publications on hybridization by Carl Linnaeus, Joseph Gottlieb Koelreuter, Carl Friedrich Gärtner, and Mendel.” (from the abstract)

Citation URI

http://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000771333/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Book Franklin, Allan; (2008)
Ending the Mendel-Fisher Controversy (/isis/citation/CBB000831102/)

Article Teicher, Amir; (2014)
Mendel's Use of Mathematical Modelling: Ratios, Predictions and the Appeal to Tradition (/isis/citation/CBB001510272/)

Book Rushton, Alan R.; (2009)
Genetics in Medicine in Great Britain 1600 to 1939 (/isis/citation/CBB001020882/)

Book Heim, Susanne; (2002)
Autarkie und ostexpansion: Pflanzenzucht und agrarforschung im nationalsozialismus (/isis/citation/CBB001180612/)

Article Müller-Wille, Staffan; (2007)
Hybrids, Pure Cultures, and Pure Lines: From Nineteenth-Century Biology to Twentieth-Century Genetics (/isis/citation/CBB000831420/)

Article Orel, Vítezslav; (2010)
Science Studies and Mendel's Paradigm (/isis/citation/CBB000954439/)

Article Erik L. Peterson; Kostas Kampourakis; (2015)
The Paradigmatic Mendel at the Sesquicentennial of “Versuche über Pflantzen-Hybriden”: Introduction to the Thematic Issue (/isis/citation/CBB044570085/)

Chapter Marcello Buiatti; (2015)
La storia del gene (/isis/citation/CBB572210343/)

Book Edelson, Edward; (2001)
Gregor Mendel and the Roots of Genetics (/isis/citation/CBB000500034/)

Article M. Susan Lindee; John J. Mulvihill; (2020)
Celebrating Mendel's 200th Birthday July 22, 2022 (/isis/citation/CBB298704434/)

Article Kemp, Martin; (2002)
Peas without pictures: Gregor Mendel and the mathematical birth of modern genetics (/isis/citation/CBB000301254/)

Article Hans-Jörg Rheinberger; (2015)
Re-discovering Mendel: The Case of Carl Correns (/isis/citation/CBB876750608/)

Article Allen, Garland E.; (2003)
Mendel and Modern Genetics: The Legacy for Today (/isis/citation/CBB000600545/)

Article Kampourakis, Kostas; (2013)
Mendel and the Path to Genetics: Portraying Science as a Social Process (/isis/citation/CBB001252323/)

Book Tudge, Colin; (2000)
In Mendel's footnotes: An introduction to the science and technologies of genes and genetics from the nineteenth century to the twenty-second (/isis/citation/CBB000111075/)

Article Lorenzano, Pablo; (2011)
What Would Have Happened If Darwin Had Known Mendel (or Mendel's Work)? (/isis/citation/CBB001034540/)

Article Deichmann, Ute; (2010)
Gemmules and Elements: On Darwin's and Mendel's Concepts and Methods in Heredity (/isis/citation/CBB001230066/)

Book Carlson, Elof Axel; (2004)
Mendel's Legacy: The Origin of Classical Genetics (/isis/citation/CBB000550906/)

Article Ida H. Stamhuis; (2015)
Why the Rediscoverer Ended up on the Sidelines: Hugo De Vries’s Theory of Inheritance and the Mendelian Laws (/isis/citation/CBB635458781/)

Book Gottfried Brem; (2017)
150 Jahre Mendelsche Regeln: Vom Erbsenzählen zum Gen-Editieren (/isis/citation/CBB197972119/)