IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB251564596

Systems Thinking Versus Population Thinking: Genotype Integration and Chromosomal Organization 1930s–1950s (2015)

Lamm, Ehud (Author)

Journal of the History of Biology
Volume: 48
Issue: 4
Pages: 641-677

URI: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10739-015-9400-0

DOI: 10.1007/s10739-015-9400-0

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Genetics Chromosomes Biology 20th century Dobzhansky, Theodosius Allen, Garland Edward (1936-) Goldschmidt, Richard Benedict

This article describes how empirical discoveries in the 1930s–1950s regarding population variation for chromosomal inversions affected Theodosius Dobzhansky and Richard Goldschmidt. A significant fraction of the empirical work I discuss was done by Dobzhansky and his coworkers; Goldschmidt was an astute interpreter, with strong and unusual commitments. I argue that both belong to a mechanistic tradition in genetics, concerned with the effects of chromosomal organization and systems on the inheritance patterns of species. Their different trajectories illustrate how scientists’ commitments affect how they interpret new evidence and adjust to it. Dobzhansky was moved to revised views about selection, while Goldschmidt moved his attention to different genetic phenomena. However different, there are significant connections between the two that enrich our understanding of their views. I focus on two: the role of developmental considerations in Dobzhansky’s thought and the role of neutrality and drift in Goldschmidt’s evolutionary account. Dobzhansky’s struggle with chromosomal variation is not solely about competing schools of thought within the selectionist camp, as insightfully articulated by John Beatty, but also a story of competition between selectionist thinking and developmental perspectives. In contraposition, Goldschmidt emphasized the role of low penetrance mutations that spread neutrally and pointed out that drift could result from developmental canalization. This account adds to the dominant story about Goldschmidt’s resistance to the splitting of development from genetics, as told by Garland Allen and Michael Dietrich. The story I tell illustrates how developmental thinking and genetic thinking conflicted and influenced researchers with different convictions about the significance of chromosomal organization.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB251564596/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Galperin, Charles; (2000)
Aspects du développement dans la biologie du XXe siècle (/isis/citation/CBB000110069/)

Article Santesmases, María Jesús; (2013)
The Biological Landscape of Polyploidy: Chromosomes under Glass in the 1950s (/isis/citation/CBB001211941/)

Article Mikhail B. Konashev; (2019)
Th. Dobzhansky and the Development of Evolutionary Biology in the USSR (/isis/citation/CBB629293770/)

Article Glick, Thomas F.; (2008)
O Programa Brasileiro de genética evolucionária de populações, de Theodosius Dobzhansky (/isis/citation/CBB001035151/)

Article Rudge, David Wÿss; (2000)
The Complementary Roles of Observation and Experiment: Theodosius Dobzhansky's Genetics of Natural Populations IX and XII (/isis/citation/CBB000770045/)

Article Mallet, James; (2010)
Why Was Darwin's View of Species Rejected by Twentieth Century Biologists? (/isis/citation/CBB001252809/)

Book Brush, Stephen G.; (2009)
Choosing Selection: The Revival of Natural Selection in Anglo-American Evolutionary Biology, 1930--1970 (/isis/citation/CBB001020903/)

Thesis Iida, Kaori; (2012)
Practice and Politics in Japanese Science: Hitoshi Kihara and the Formation of a Genetics Discipline (/isis/citation/CBB001567400/)

Article Volpone, Alessandro; (2018)
Paolo Della Valle ed Edmund B. Wilson sulla natura dei cromosomi: Concezioni a confronto (/isis/citation/CBB023451755/)

Article Dietrich, Michael R.; (2000)
Of Moths and Men: Theo Lang and the Persistence of Richard Goldschmidt's Theory of Homosexuality, 1916-1960 (/isis/citation/CBB000770047/)

Article Lamm, Ehud; (2008)
Hopeful Heretic---Richard Goldschmidt's Genetic Metaphors (/isis/citation/CBB000931574/)

Article Deichmann, Ute; (2014)
The Concept of the Causal Role of Chromosomes and Genes in Heredity and Development: Opponents from Darwin to Lysenko (/isis/citation/CBB001552681/)

Book Harman, Oren Solomon; (2004)
The Man Who Invented the Chromosome: A Life of Cyril Darlington (/isis/citation/CBB000470729/)

Article Harman, Oren; (2003)
Darlington and the “Invention” of the Chromosome (/isis/citation/CBB000600546/)

Article Dietrich, Michael R.; (2011)
Reinventing Richard Goldschmidt: Reputation, Memory, and Biography (/isis/citation/CBB001220958/)

Article Gannett, Lisa; (2013)
Theodosius Dobzhansky and the Genetic Race Concept (/isis/citation/CBB001213345/)

Article Graziela Santos, Cintia; Pereira Martins, Lilian Al-Chueyr; (2013)
Theodosius Dobzhansky e as relações entre genética e evolução (/isis/citation/CBB001214019/)

Book Kolchinskii, E. I.; Manoilenko, K. V.; Konashev, M. B.; (2002)
U istokov akademicheskoi genetiki v Sankt-Peterburge (/isis/citation/CBB000550206/)

Article Delisle, Richard G.; (2011)
What Was Really Synthesized during the Evolutionary Synthesis? A Historiographic Proposal (/isis/citation/CBB001023986/)

Article Nicola Williams; (2016)
Irene Manton, Erwin Schrödinger and the Puzzle of Chromosome Structure (/isis/citation/CBB646777916/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}