From “Actual Forces” to “Token Stimuli”: Gottfried S. Fraenkel and the Evolutionary “Raison d’Être” of Plant Molecules, 1930s–1960s (2017)
Dentinger, Rachel Mason (Author)
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Volume: 47
Issue: 2
Pages: 127-163
The field of “coevolutionary studies” is the origin of many evocative stories in evolutionary biology, as well as a demonstration of the value of studying the ecological interactions of whole organisms and populations. This field exploded after the publication of “Butterflies and Plants: A Study in Coevolution,” a 1964 paper co-authored by entomologist Paul Ehrlich and botanist Peter Raven. However, this paper argues that the foundation for “Butterflies and Plants” was laid in the previous decades, in the work of economic entomologists, crop-plant breeders, and insect physiologists. Using the work of an influential insect physiologist, Gottfried S. Fraenkel, this paper examines the prehistory of coevolutionary studies, showing that practical research on insect feeding in the 1940s and 1950s transformed plant chemicals into active biological molecules—causal forces modeled on hormones. Insect physiologists were the first to study the effects of these molecules on insects. Yet, rather than redefining insect-plant interactions in terms of reductionist molecular causation, they sought a more integrative explanation. Not only did these insect biologists see plants as active participants in their ecological and evolutionary landscapes, but they also came to see evolutionary history as the “raison d’être” of plant molecules and insect feeding behavior. This paper expands our understanding of the generative role that physiology and molecular methods played in the development of concepts and practices in evolutionary biology. Furthermore, it contributes to a growing literature that undermines the historical division between proximate and ultimate causation in biology.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Kressing, Frank;
Krischel, Matthis;
Fangerau, Heiner;
(2014)
The “Global Phylogeny” and its Historical Legacy: A Critical Review of a Unified Theory of Human Biological and Linguistic Co-Evolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001450835/)
Article
Jean Gayon;
Richard M. Burian;
Laurent Loison;
(2017)
The Contributions – and Collapse – of Lamarckian Heredity in Pasteurian Molecular Biology: 1. Lysogeny, 1900–1960
(/isis/citation/CBB496049162/)
Article
Stamos, David N.;
(2002)
Species, Languages, and the Horizontal/Vertical Distinction
(/isis/citation/CBB000200252/)
Book
Sherrie L. Lyons;
(2019)
From Cells to Organisms: A History of Cell Theory
(/isis/citation/CBB971130807/)
Chapter
Massimo Bernardi;
Adriana Bellati;
Michele Menegon;
(2015)
La specie tra evoluzione e conservazione
(/isis/citation/CBB690125746/)
Article
Young, Robert M.;
(2002)
The Meanings of Darwinism: Then and Now
(/isis/citation/CBB000200031/)
Thesis
Green, Lisa Anne;
(2012)
Science for Survival: The Modern Synthesis of Evolution and the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study
(/isis/citation/CBB001567386/)
Book
Brown, William;
Fabian, Andrew C.;
(2010)
Darwin
(/isis/citation/CBB001023129/)
Article
McNulty, T. Michael;
(1999)
Evolution and Complexity
(/isis/citation/CBB000111916/)
Book
Margulis, Lynn;
Sagan, Dorion;
(2002)
Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species
(/isis/citation/CBB000201471/)
Book
Tudge, Colin;
(2001)
Impact of the Gene: From Mendel's Peas to Designer Babies
(/isis/citation/CBB000102136/)
Book
Domingues, Heloisa Maria Bertol;
Sá, Magali Romero;
Glick, Thomas F.;
(2003)
A recepção do darwinismo no Brasil
(/isis/citation/CBB000640193/)
Essay Review
Green, Richard F.;
(2000)
The Work of W. D. Hamilton
(/isis/citation/CBB000110305/)
Book
Sepkoski, David;
(2012)
Rereading the Fossil Record: The Growth of Paleobiology as an Evolutionary Discipline
(/isis/citation/CBB001210043/)
Book
Ruse, Michael;
Travis, Joseph;
(2009)
Evolution: The First Four Billion Years
(/isis/citation/CBB001232307/)
Article
Galperin, Charles;
(2000)
Aspects du développement dans la biologie du XXe siècle
(/isis/citation/CBB000110069/)
Essay Review
Narveson, Jan;
(2000)
Evolutionary Biology, Altruism, and Moral Theory
(/isis/citation/CBB000110348/)
Article
Kleinman, Kim;
(1999)
His Own Synthesis: Corn, Edgar Anderson, and Evolutionary Theory in the 1940s
(/isis/citation/CBB000111909/)
Chapter
Ruse, Michael;
(2007)
Un réexamen de “Two Evolutionary Theories” de Marjorie Grene
(/isis/citation/CBB001022513/)
Article
Teixidó Gómez, Francisco;
(2010)
El jesuita Jaime Pujiula Dilmé, científico clave de la investigación biológica barcelonesa
(/isis/citation/CBB001033801/)
Be the first to comment!