Sources/ Credits How Life Is Organised the Four Elements of Evolution A
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GENIUS, WOMANHOOD AND THE STATISTICAL IMAGINARY: 1890s HEREDITY THEORY IN THE BRITISH SOCIAL NOVEL by ZOE GRAY BEAVIS B.A. Hons., La Trobe University, 2006 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (English) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) October 2014 © Zoe Gray Beavis, 2014 Abstract The central argument of this thesis is that several tropes or motifs exist in social novels of the 1890s which connect them with each other in a genre, and which indicate a significant literary preoccupation with contemporary heredity theory. These tropes include sibling and twin comparison stories, the woman musician’s conflict between professionalism and domesticity, and speculation about biparental inheritance. The particulars of heredity theory with which these novels engage are consistent with the writings of Francis Galton, specifically on hereditary genius and regression theory, sibling and twin biometry, and theoretical population studies. Concurrent with the curiosity of novelists about science, was the anxiety of scientists about discursive linguistic sharing. In the thesis, I illuminate moments when science writers (Galton, August Weismann, William Bates, and Karl Pearson) acknowledged the literary process and the reading audience. I have structured the thesis around the chronological appearance of heredity themes in 1890s social novels, because I am arguing for the existence of a broader cultural curiosity about heredity themes, irrespective of authors’ primary engagement with scientific texts. Finally, I introduce the statistical imaginary as a framework for understanding human difference through populations and time, as evidenced by the construction of theoretical population samples – communities, crowds, and peer groups – in 1890s social fictions. -
Uniting Micro- with Macroevolution Into an Extended Synthesis: Reintegrating Life’S Natural History Into Evolution Studies
Uniting Micro- with Macroevolution into an Extended Synthesis: Reintegrating Life’s Natural History into Evolution Studies Nathalie Gontier Abstract The Modern Synthesis explains the evolution of life at a mesolevel by identifying phenotype–environmental interactions as the locus of evolution and by identifying natural selection as the means by which evolution occurs. Both micro- and macroevolutionary schools of thought are post-synthetic attempts to evolution- ize phenomena above and below organisms that have traditionally been conceived as non-living. Microevolutionary thought associates with the study of how genetic selection explains higher-order phenomena such as speciation and extinction, while macroevolutionary research fields understand species and higher taxa as biological individuals and they attribute evolutionary causation to biotic and abiotic factors that transcend genetic selection. The microreductionist and macroholistic research schools are characterized as two distinct epistemic cultures where the former favor mechanical explanations, while the latter favor historical explanations of the evolu- tionary process by identifying recurring patterns and trends in the evolution of life. I demonstrate that both cultures endorse radically different notions on time and explain how both perspectives can be unified by endorsing epistemic pluralism. Keywords Microevolution · Macroevolution · Origin of life · Evolutionary biology · Sociocultural evolution · Natural history · Organicism · Biorealities · Units, levels and mechanisms of evolution · Major transitions · Hierarchy theory But how … shall we describe a process which nobody has seen performed, and of which no written history gives any account? This is only to be investigated, first, in examining the nature of those solid bodies, the history of which we want to know; and 2dly, in exam- ining the natural operations of the globe, in order to see if there now actually exist such operations, as, from the nature of the solid bodies, appear to have been necessary to their formation. -
Hermann J. Muller's 1936 Letter to Stalin
The Mankind Quarterly 43 (3), Spring 2003, pp. 305-319 Hermann J. Muller’s 1936 Letter to Stalin John Glad1 University of Maryland This is the full text of a 1936 letter sent by the American geneticist H.J. Muller to Joseph Stalin advocating the creation of a eugenic program in the USSR. It was rejected by Stalin in favor of Lysenkoism. Key words: eugenics, communism, Lysenkoist theory, liberal roots of eugenics movement, Jewish scholars, Hermann J. Muller, Joseph Stalin, Stalinist, purges. Hermann Joseph Muller (1890-1967) received the Nobel Prize in 1946 for his work on the genetics of drosophila, whose brief generational life made it an ideal laboratory in miniature. Within a decade, however, following the discovery in 1953 of the double helical structure of DNA, drosophila studies began to be regarded as classical genetics and gave way to microbial and molecular genetics devoted to gene structure and function. Muller looked upon his drosophila research as science to be applied to the genetic betterment of the human species. A popular misconception with regard to eugenics is that it was exclusively a product of political conservatism. In point of fact the movement had its roots in the left as much as in the right. Muller himself was a devoted communist and an idealistic believer in human rights. Bearing in mind that Jewish scholars played a significant role in the eugenics movement, it should not come as a surprise to find that Muller was Jewish on his mother’s side. Indeed, he wrote a letter to Stalin on the subject of eugenics at the suggestion of the Russian-Jewish physician Solomon Levit, whose main interests lay in the field of genetics, especially in twin studies. -
Perspectives
Copyright Ó 2007 by the Genetics Society of America Perspectives Anecdotal, Historical and Critical Commentaries on Genetics Edited by James F. Crow and William F. Dove Guido Pontecorvo (‘‘Ponte’’): A Centenary Memoir Bernard L. Cohen1 *Institute of Biomedical and Life Sciences, Division of Molecular Genetics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G11 6NU, Scotland N a memoir published soon after Guido Pontecor- mendation, Pontecorvo applied for and was awarded a I vo’s death (Cohen 2000), I outlined his attractive, small, short-term SPSL scholarship. Thus, he could again but sometimes irascible, character, his history as a apply a genetical approach to a problem related to refugee from Fascism, and his most significant contribu- animal breeding (Pontecorvo 1940a), the branch of tions to genetics. The centenary of his birth (November agriculture in which he had most recently specialized 29, 1907) provides an opportunity for further reflec- with a series of data-rich articles (e.g.,Pontecorvo 1937). tions—personal, historical, and genetical.2 But Ponte was stranded in Edinburgh by the outbreak of Two points of interest arise from the support that war and the cancellation of a Peruvian contract and Ponte received from the Society for the Protection of continued for about 2 years to be supported by SPSL. Science and Learning (SPSL). Formed in 1933 as the The first point of interest is a prime example of the Academic Assistance Council, SPSL aimed to assist the power of chance and opportunity. Renting a small room refugees who had started to arrive in Britain from the in the IAG guest house, Ponte there met Hermann European continent (among them Max Born, Ernst Joseph Muller, who had recently arrived from Russia. -
September: Forskarnas Älsklingsdjur
Forskarnas älsklingsdjur Slå inte ihjäl den irriterande bananflugan nästa gång den lilla, 2-3 mm långa bumlingen surrar runt i köket. Den är ett under- verk när det gäller iakttagelseförmåga och flygprecision. Förundras i Karl von Frisch Konrad Lorenz Nikolaas Tinbergen stället över denna lilla fluga som lärt forskarna så mycket! Nobelpriset i fysiologi eller medicin 1973 tilldelades gemensamt Bananflugan Drosophila( melanogaster) är en favorit för forskare. Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz och Nikolaas Tinbergen ”för deras Redan i början av 1900-talet började man studera bananflugor upptäckter rörande organisation och utlösning av individuella eftersom de är lätta att odla och förökar sig snabbt med en ge- och sociala beteendemönster”. Frisch och Tinbergen studerade insekter, dock inte bananflugor. Läs mer på www.nobelprize.org nerationstid på endast cirka två veckor. Många genetiska varian- Bananfluga (Wikimedia Commons) ter med exempelvis olika ögon- och kroppsfärg har bildats på na- turlig väg eller framkallats med röntgenstålning eller kemikalier. Nobelpristagare som arbetat med bananflugor (se www.nobel- prize.org, Education): Beteendestudier med bananflugor • Thomas Hunt Morgan (1933) beskrev kromosomernas be- Vilda bananflugor massförökas ofta inomhus tydelse för hur egenskaper ärvs. på sensommaren om övermogen frukt får ligga • Hermann Joseph Muller (1946) upptäckte att röntgenstrål- framme. Fånga in dem i en burk med en tuss ning ger mutationer. bomull indränkt med vinäger. Se även www. • Edward B. Lewis, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard och Eric F. bioresurs.uu.se (Inköp/Levande organismer) för Wieschaus (1995) studerade embryonalutveckling. adresser till företag som säljer bananflugor. Odlingsrör med bananflugor och parande bananflugor Klassiska skollaborationer är korsningsförsök med bananflugor Bygg en testkammare av två stora petflaskor. -
Darwin and Linnaean Classification Phylogenetics Willi Hennig
11/7/2013 The major points of this short section: 1. Trait evolution hypotheses must be • You can build a hierarchical arrangement of evaluated/tested anything – Need a phylogeny • To recover the evolutionary history of 2. Phylogenies are hypotheses! organisms we need a method that is – Mo data mo betta – Empirical 3. Taxonomy should reflect phylogeny! – Objective – Names and ranks are meaningful – Testable Darwin and Linnaean Classification Phylogenetics • Pre-Darwin Classification all true classification is genealogical; that community • Post-Darwin Classification of descent is the hidden bond which naturalists have been unconsciously seeking, and not some unknown plan of creation, or the enunciation of general propositions, and the mere putting together and separating objects more or less alike. – Charles Darwin Willi Hennig (1913-1976) Phylogeny • A phylogeny is a hypothesis of ancestor- descendent relationships • Usually shown as a cladogram (C(P(R(W,H)))) 1 11/7/2013 Phylogeny is genealogy Not a pedigree • Phylogeny is a genealogy writ large • Pedigrees are reticulate Interpreting a phylogeny You spin me right round • Stratford, draw a sample • Tips are _______ • Nodes are________ • Branches are ______ • A clade is _________ • Traits are plotted _______ Phylogram END DAY 1 2 11/7/2013 CHRONOGRAM Phylograms: Quantifying differences You’re like, in the outgroup Higher organisms? – no way dude • Organisms are only more ancestral or more derived for a set of characters • Never use “higher” or “lower” What to do with a phylogeny – opsis -
Timeline of Genomics (1901–1950)*
Research Resource Timeline of Genomics (1901{1950)* Year Event and Theoretical Implication/Extension Reference 1901 Hugo de Vries adopts the term MUTATION to de Vries, H. 1901. Die Mutationstheorie. describe sudden, spontaneous, drastic alterations in Veit, Leipzig, Germany. the hereditary material of Oenothera. Thomas Harrison Montgomery studies sper- 1. Montgomery, T.H. 1898. The spermato- matogenesis in various species of Hemiptera and ¯nds genesis in Pentatoma up to the formation that maternal chromosomes only pair with paternal of the spermatid. Zool. Jahrb. 12: 1-88. chromosomes during meiosis. 2. Montgomery, T.H. 1901. A study of the chromosomes of the germ cells of the Metazoa. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 20: 154-236. Clarence Ervin McClung postulates that the so- McClung, C.E. 1901. Notes on the acces- called accessory chromosome (now known as the \X" sory chromosome. Anat. Anz. 20: 220- chromosome) is male determining. 226. Hermann Emil Fischer(1902 Nobel Prize Laure- 1. Fischer, E. and Fourneau, E. 1901. UberÄ ate for Chemistry) and Ernest Fourneau report einige Derivate des Glykocolls. Ber. the synthesis of the ¯rst dipeptide, glycylglycine. In Dtsch. Chem. Ges. 34: 2868-2877. 1902 Fischer introduces the term PEPTIDES. 2. Fischer, E. 1907. Syntheses of polypep- tides. XVII. Ber. Dtsch. Chem. Ges. 40: 1754-1767. 1902 Theodor Boveri and Walter Stanborough Sut- 1. Boveri, T. 1902. UberÄ mehrpolige Mi- ton found the chromosome theory of heredity inde- tosen als Mittel zur Analyse des Zellkerns. pendently. Verh. Phys -med. Ges. WÄurzberg NF 35: 67-90. 2. Boveri, T. 1903. UberÄ die Konstitution der chromatischen Kernsubstanz. Verh. Zool. -
Evolution by Natural Selection
Approaches to studying animal behavior Foundations of modern study of behavior 1. Evolution by natural selection 2. Genetics and inheritance 3. Comparative method Evolution by natural selection Evolution by natural selection Species are not immutable Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913) Charles Darwin (1809-1882) Contributions to the Theory Origin of Species, 1859 of Natural Selection, 1870 Descent of Man, 1871 Thomas Malthus Descent from a common ancestor Evolution by natural selection Comparative method Reasons why Darwin‟s (and Wallace‟s) ideas weren‟t widely accepted: Comparative method: comparing traits and environments across taxa in search of correlations Lord Kelvin: Earth is only 15-20 million years old that test hypotheses about adaptation Darwin had no idea where genetic variability came from Thomas Hunt Morgan Darwin didn‟t George Romanes understand inheritance (1848-1894) Gregor Mendel 1 Ethology Ethology Scientific study of animal behavior Oskar Heinroth (1871-1945) Charles Otis Whitman (1842-1910) Appetitive behavior Wallace Craig (1876-1954) Douglas Spalding (1841-1877) tests the concept of instinct Consummatory behavior Rise of ethology Experimental ethology Karl von Frisch (1886-1982) Jakob von Uexkϋll (1864-1944) von Uexkϋll‟s tick and the Umwelt Ethology’s triumvirate Ethology’s triumvirate Konrad Lorenz Niko Tinbergen Karl von Frisch (1903-1989) (1907-1988) (1886-1982) 2 Sign stimuli Sign stimuli Lorenz‟s accidental discovery of sign stimuli or releasers Experimental ethology Experimental ethology Tinbergen‟s experiments -
Psychology Old and New
University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons IRCS Technical Reports Series Institute for Research in Cognitive Science 1-1-2001 Psychology Old and New Gary Hatfield University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports Part of the Psychology Commons Hatfield, Gary, "Psychology Old and New" (2001). IRCS Technical Reports Series. 23. https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports/23 University of Pennsylvania Institute for Research in Cognitive Science Technical Report No. IRCS-01-07. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports/23 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Psychology Old and New Abstract Psychology as the study of mind was an established subject matter throughout the nineteenth century in Britain, Germany, France, and the United States, taught in colleges and universities and made the subject of books and treatises. During the period 1870-1914 this existing discipline of psychology was being transformed into a new, experimental science, especially in Germany and the United States. The increase in experimentation changed the body of psychological writing, although there remained considerable continuity in theoretical content and non-experimental methodology between the old and new psychologies. This paper follows the emergence of the new psychology out of the old in the national traditions of Britain (primarily England), Germany, and the United States, with some reference to French, Belgian, Austrian, and Italian thinkers. The final section considers some methodological and philosophical issues in these literatures. Disciplines Psychology Comments University of Pennsylvania Institute for Research in Cognitive Science Technical Report No. IRCS-01-07. -
Perspectives
Copyright 2000 by the Genetics Society of America Perspectives Anecdotal, Historical and Critical Commentaries on Genetics Edited by James F. Crow and William F. Dove Guido Pontecorvo (ªPonteº), 1907±1999 Bernard L. Cohen IBLS Division of Molecular Genetics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G11 6NU, Scotland UIDO Pontecorvo died on September 25, 1999, and enjoy Aristophanes in Greek. During studies in the G age 91, of complications following a fall while col- Faculty of Agriculture in the University of Pisa, his inter- lecting mushrooms in his beloved Swiss mountains; he est in genetics was aroused by E. Avanzi, a plant geneti- was a signi®cant contributor to modern genetics. He cist. And in my recollection of a distant conversation, his was also an irascible yet genial friend and advisor who orientation toward agriculture resulted from working a attracted the great affection and admiration of col- relative's chicken farm when he was a teenager. Under- leagues and students worldwide and who, as head of graduate friends, among them Enrico Fermi (known department and Professor of Genetics, served the Uni- even then as ªthe Popeº because of his infallibility), were versity of Glasgow with distinction from 1945 until 1968. also in¯uential mountaineering and skiing companions. It was characteristic that in 1955, when promoted to the After two years' compulsory military service in the light newly created Chair of Genetics and also elected Fellow horse artilleryÐand somehow the image of Lieutenant of the Royal Society, he circulated a note saying that Pontecorvo exercising the commanding of®cer's horse henceforth the head of department should be known seems not at all incongruous!ÐPonte became assistant as ªPonteºÐmeaning of course no change; he was any- to Avanzi, now director of an experimental agricultural thing but pompous. -
Embodied Selves an ANTHOLOGY of PSYCHOLOGICAL TEXTS 1830-1890
Embodied Selves AN ANTHOLOGY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TEXTS 1830-1890 Edited by Jenny Bourne Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD Contents introduction Xlll List of Illustrations xix Section I. Reading the Mind 1 Introduction 3 1. PHYSIOGNOMY 8 JOHN CASPAR LAVATER On physiognomy 8 JOHN CONOLLY The physiognomy of insanity 18 CHARLES DICKENS Our next-door neighbour 22 2. PHRENOLOGY 25 FRANZ JOSEPH GALL On the functions ofthe brain 25 GEORGE COMBE A system of phrenology 29 GEORGE COMBE The constitution of man 29 CHARLOTTE BRONTE The professor 40 GEORGE COMBE Phrenology and education 41 ANDREW COMBE Observations on mental derangement 42 ANON. Applications of phrenology 44 PAUL PRENDERGAST A 'page' of phrenology 45 ANON. The dispositions of nations 46 3. MESMERISM 49 W. C. ENGLEDUE A letter from Dr Elliotson 49 CHAUNCY HARE TOWNSHEND Mesmeric sleepwaking 51 HARRIET MARTINEAU The healing power of mesmerism 53 ANON. Electro-biology 57 ANON. What is mesmerism? 58 JAMES BRAID Hypnotism 59 WILLIAM BENJAMIN CARPENTER Mesmerism, scientifically considered 63 Section IL The Unconscious Mind and the Workings of Memory 65 Introduction 67 VII CONTENTS 1. ASSOCIATIONISM AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY 73 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE A critique of Hartley's associationism 73 JOHN ABERCROMBIE Philosophical, local, and arbitrary association 76 WILLIAM HAMILTON Three degrees of mental latency 80 HERBERT SPENCER On consciousness and the will 83 GEORGE HENRY LEWES Feeling and thinking 87 GEORGE HENRY LEWES Psychological principles 89 ENEAS SWEETLAND DALLAS On imagination 91 FRANCES POWER COBBE On unconscious cerebration 93 WILLIAM BENJAMIN CARPENTER The power ofthe will over mental action 95 2. DREAMS 102 ROBERT MACNiSH The prophetic character of dreams, and nightmare 102 HENRY HOLLAND On sleep, and the relations of dreaming and insanity 106 GEORGE HENRY LEWES A theory of dreaming 110 FRANCES POWER COBBE Dreams as an illustration of involuntary cerebration 113 JAMES SULLY The dream as a revelation 115 3. -
William Bateson: a Biologist Ahead of His Time
Ó Indian Academy of Sciences PERSPECTIVES William Bateson: a biologist ahead of his time PATRICK BATESON* Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, University of Cambridge, Madingley, Cambridge CB3 8AA, UK William Bateson coined the term genetics and, more than son in a letter to Adam Sedgwick in 1905 when he hoped anybody else, championed the principles of heredity dis- to be appointed to a new chair (B. Bateson 1928). covered by Gregor Mendel. Nevertheless, his reputation William Bateson was the most vigorous promoter of is soured by the positions he took about the discontinui- Mendel’s ideas at the beginning of the twentieth century ties in inheritance that might precede formation of a new and effectively launched the modern subject of genetics. species and by his reluctance to accept, in its full- Historians of biology acknowledge the importance of this blooded form, the view of chromosomes as the control- contribution but criticise his ideas on sudden changes in lers of individual development. Growing evidence sug- evolution leading to the origin of new species and his gests that both of these positions have been vindicated. questioning of the role of chromosomes (Mayr 1982). In New species are now thought to arise as the result of this article I re-examine these criticisms of Bateson in the genetic interactions, chromosomal rearrangements, or light of modern advances in biology. both, that render hybrids less viable or sterile. Chromo- Bateson was born on 8 August 1861. He was raised in somes are the sites of genes but genes move between a comfortable home and had an eminent father who was chromosomes much more readily than had been previ- for 24 years Master of St John’s College, Cambridge.