IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001320042

Weismann Versus Morgan Revisited: Clashing Interpretations on Animal Regeneration (2013)

Esposito, Maurizio (Author)

Journal of the History of Biology
Volume: 46
Pages: 511--541
Publication date: 2013
Language: English

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Regeneration Experimental biology Biology Discipline formation 19th century 20th century, early Germany United States Weismann, August Morgan, Thomas Hunt

This paper has three principal aims: first, through a detailed analysis of the hypotheses and assumptions underlying Weismann's and Morgan's disagreement on the nature of animal regeneration, it seeks to readdress the imbalance in coverage of their discussion, providing, at the same time, a fascinating case-study for those interested in general issues related to controversies in science. Second, contrary to Morgan's beliefs according to which Weismann employed a speculative and unempirical method of scientific investigation, the article shows that Weismann performed experiments, made observations and proposed 'undogmatic' theories open to refutation. Third, through the reconstruction of Weismann's and Morgan's disagreement, this study illustrates how biology, during the very late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was undergoing important changes. I argue that this controversy clearly and convincingly demonstrates how some important epistemic assumptions became increasingly problematic for some members of the younger generations of biologists. At the end of my discussion I will also argue that Weismann and Morgan both had strong well-grounded arguments supporting their conclusions; for this reason I suggest a few factors ("taken-for-granted" beliefs or assumptions) that could explain why their disagreement was doomed to remain unresolved. In particular, I will analyze their diverse explicative interests, their different theoretical concerns and their distinct use of the available evidence.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

...More

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB001320042

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article deJong-Lambert, William; Krementsov, Nikolai; (2012)
On Labels and Issues: The Lysenko Controversy and the Cold War (/p/isis/citation/CBB001250824/)

Article Sunderland, Mary Evelyn; (2010)
Regeneration: Thomas Hunt Morgan's Window into Development (/p/isis/citation/CBB001022368/)

Chapter Martins, Lilian Al-Chueyr Pereira; (2010)
Regeneration as a Difficulty for the Theory of Natural Selection: Morgan's Changing Attitudes, 1897--1932 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001250587/)

Article Giulia Frezza; Mauro Capocci; (2018)
Thomas Hunt Morgan and the Invisible Gene: The Right Tool for the Job (/p/isis/citation/CBB951679295/)

Article Zottoli, Steven J.; Seyfarth, Ernst-August; (2015)
The Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole) and the Scientific Advancement of Women in the Early 20th Century: The Example of Mary Jane Hogue (1883--1962) (/p/isis/citation/CBB001422102/)

Article Kingsland, Sharon E.; (2007)
Maintaining Continuity through a Scientific Revolution: A Rereading of E. B. Wilson and T. H. Morgan on Sex Determination and Mendelism (/p/isis/citation/CBB000773116/)

Book Strick, James E.; (2015)
Wilhelm Reich, Biologist (/p/isis/citation/CBB001510003/)

Chapter Milam, Erika Lorraine; (2009)
“The Experimental Animal from the Naturalist's Point of View”: Behavior and Evolution at the American Museum of Natural History, 1928--1954 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001022524/)

Article Gall, Yasha M.; Konashev, Mikhail B.; (2001)
The Discovery of Gramicidin S: The Intellectual Transformation of G. F. Gause from Biologist to Researcher of Antibiotics and on Its Meaning for the Fate of Russian Genetics (/p/isis/citation/CBB000770067/)

Thesis Cosans, Christopher Ernest; (1993)
The Beginnings of Experimental Biology: Scientific Realism and Anatomy (/p/isis/citation/CBB001562720/)

Book Churchill, F. B.; (2015)
August Weismann: Development, Heredity, and Evolution (/p/isis/citation/CBB001551937/)

Article Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg; (2008)
Heredity and Its Entities around 1900 (/p/isis/citation/CBB000931145/)

Article Vorms, Marion; (2014)
The Birth of Classical Genetics as the Junction of Two Disciplines: Conceptual Change as Representational Change (/p/isis/citation/CBB001451842/)

Chapter Schwartz, Astrid; (2009)
Baron Jakob von Euxküll: Das Experiment als Ordnungsprinzip in der Biologie (/p/isis/citation/CBB001023716/)

Article Pereira Martins, Lilian Al-Chueyr; (2012)
Um representante do estilo de pensamento científico “compreensivo,” William Bateson (1861--1926): ciência, política e arte (/p/isis/citation/CBB001212025/)

Article Erlingsson, Steindór J.; (2013)
Institutions and Innovation: Experimental Zoology and the Creation of the British Journal of Experimental Biology and the Society for Experimental Biology (/p/isis/citation/CBB001252458/)

Chapter Martins, Lilian A.-C. P.; (2002)
Um achado inusitado no laboratório de Morgan: a Drosophila de olhos brancos (/p/isis/citation/CBB000750288/)

Article David Ceccarelli; (2021)
“The bad habit of wandering”: Morgan, Osborn and the issue of evolutionary causality in genetics and paleontology (/p/isis/citation/CBB874691467/)

Chapter Wilkins, Adam; (2011)
Why Did the Modern Synthesis Give Short Shrift to “Soft Inheritance”? (/p/isis/citation/CBB001500092/)

Thesis Epting, Susan; (2012)
Casualties of the Spirit: The Development of Military Psychology and Psychiatry in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, 1914--1945 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001562791/)