Rise Of Genetics Research Articles

A History of Biology

A History of Biology

Changing Natures: On Theory and Practice of Breeding in the European Middle Ages

While throughout modern history it has been shown how thoroughly biological discourses were shaped by conceptions originating in the theory and praxis of breeding, for the medieval period similar studies are mostly absent. This paper offers a symmetrical history of theory and praxis of breeding by asking to what extent they shaped medieval conceptions of human ‘race’ and ‘ancestry’ in Europe. For scholarly knowledge of breeding, the analysis relies on Albertus Magnus’ extensive Aristotelian work De animalibus. For the practical knowledge of the breeders, scattered indications from the secondary literature are compiled and promising primary sources are outlined for further research. The paper finds that various concepts and practices whose origins are commonly placed in the early modern period were already present in the Middle Ages, including the concept of reproductive heredity and the view that creation diversified over time through reproductive ancestry. Breeding practices, thus, existed before the rise of genetics in modern biology. The medieval conceptions of ‘race’ and ‘ancestry’ underwent conceptual transfers from the non-human into the human sphere, collapsing the qualitative distinction of the two spheres into one quantitively graded overarching image of nature.

The Norwegian Association for Heredity Research and the Organized International Eugenics Movement. Expertise, Authority, Transnational Networks and International Organization in Norwegian Genetics and Eugenics (1919–1934)

Abstract The Norwegian Association for Heredity Research played a key role in the rise of genetics as a research field in Norway. The immediate background of its establishment in 1919 was the need for an organization that could clarify scientific issues regarding eugenics and coordinate Norwegian representation in the organized international eugenics movement. The Association never assumed this role. Instead, Norway was represented in the international eugenics movement by the so-called Norwegian Consultative Eugenics Commission, whose leader, Jon Alfred Mjøen, was dismissed as a pseudo-scientist by Norwegian geneticists. The paper explores the Association’s role in defining and delimiting scientific expert knowledge in the field of genetics and eugenics in Norway. It demonstrates how struggles about academic authority on the national arena were intertwined with struggles about representation and impact in the international eugenics movement and how transnational scientific networks where mobilized to legitimize and delegitimize notions about Nordic race supremacy, racial mixing and the politics of eugenic sterilizations.

Introduction to Evolutionary Developmental Pathology, or Evo-Devo-Path: on Neodarwinism, Natural Mutants, Hopeful Monsters, Syndromes, Genomics, Variations, Humans, Apes, Chameleons, and Dinosaurs

During the second half of the twentieth century, few authors attempted to combine the increasing knowledge obtained from the study of model organisms and human medicine with data from comparative anatomy, evolutionary biology, “natural mutants,” and variations in order to investigate the links between development, pathology, and macroevolution. However, in the last decades, there has been a renewed interest on these subjects, with the rise of Evolutionary Developmental Pathology (Evo-Devo-Path), a field that is attracting more and more attention across the globe, not only from the scientific community but also from the media and broader public. This is because this field is mainly related to a deeper understanding of developmental anomalies and disease within an evolutionary framework, paying a special attention to “natural mutants,” such as cyclopic sheep, humans with severe congenital malformations, and to so-called “hopeful monsters,” such as chameleons and, to a certain extent, dinosaurs, as will be explained in this issue. These are hot topics within the broader community and for the media, that have been also of main interest to biologists for a long time, for instance to renowned authors such as Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Waddington, Goldschmidt, Gould and Per Alberch. However, these issues became somewhat neglected with the rise of genetics and the increased focus on the “Devo” within Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Evo-Devo), in particular on molecular biology studies and therefore on experimentally produced—and not so much on “natural”—mutations. Another main, and related, reason was the prevalence of Neodarwinism within biology—sometimes defended in a quasi-religious way and using extremist ideas, such as reducing evolution to “selfish genes,” that, we now know, do not correspond to the complex and multifaceted reality of biological evolution within this planet. These subjects will be discussed in this special, and very timely, issue precisely about Evo-Devo-Path, which attests the increasing interest in this field, and thus on natural mutants, “hopeful monsters,” and other ideas of the authors named just above, and shows how new knowledge and tools, for instance about the cardiopharyngeal muscles and syndromes and about genomics and transposable elements, are quickly being integrated in crucial discussions within this field.

Have we seen the geneticisation of society? Expectations and evidence.

Abby Lippman's geneticisation thesis, of the early 1990s, argued and anticipated that with the rise of genetics, increasing areas of social and health related activities would come to be understood and defined in genetic terms leading to major changes in society, medicine and health care. We review the considerable literature on geneticisation and consider how the concept stands both theoretically and empirically across scientific, clinical, popular and lay discourse and practice. Social science scholarship indicates that relatively little of the original claim of the geneticisation thesis has been realised, highlighting the development of more complex and dynamic accounts of disease in scientific discourse and the complexity of relationships between bioscientific, clinical and lay understandings. This scholarship represents a shift in social science understandings of the processes of sociotechnical change, which have moved from rather simplistic linear models to an appreciation of disease categories as multiply understood. Despite these shifts, we argue that a genetic imaginary persists, which plays a performative role in driving investments in new gene-based developments. Understanding the enduring power of this genetic imaginary and its consequences remains a key task for the social sciences, one which treats ongoing genetic expectations and predictions in a sceptical yet open way.

The revolution re-visited: Clinical and genetics research paradigms and the productivity paradox in drug discovery

Breakthroughs in genetics and molecular biology in the 1970s and 1980s were heralded as a major technological revolution in medicine that would yield a wave of new drug discoveries. However, some forty years later the expected benefits have not materialized. I question the narrative of biotechnology as a Schumpeterian revolution by comparing it to the academic research paradigm that preceded it, clinical research in hospitals. I analyze these as distinct research paradigms that involve different epistemologies, practices, and institutional loci. I develop the claim that the complexity of biological systems means that clinical research was well adapted to medical innovation, and that the genetics/molecular biology paradigm imposed a predictive logic to search that was less effective at finding new drugs. The paper describes how drug discovery unfolds in each paradigm: in clinical research, discovery originates with observations of human subjects and proceeds through feedback-based learning, whereas in the genetics model, discovery originates with a precisely-defined molecular target; feedback from patients enters late in the process. The paper reviews the post-War institutional history that witnessed the relative decline of clinical research and the rise of genetics and molecular science in the United States bio-medical research landscape. The history provides a contextual narrative to illustrate that, in contrast to the framing of biotechnology as a Schumpeterian revolution, the adoption of biotechnology as a core drug discovery platform was propelled by institutional changes that were largely disconnected from processes of scientific or technological selection. Implications for current medical policy initiatives and translational science are discussed.

Ernest Everett Just: Egg and embryo as excitable systems.

Ernest Everett Just (1883-1941) was an African American embryologist of international standing whose research interests lay in the area of fertilization and early development in marine invertebrates. Perhaps best known for his discovery of the dynamical and structural blocks to polyspermy that sweep over the egg upon fertilization, E. E. Just also was the first to associate cell surface changes with stages of embryonic development. He was deeply familiar with the natural history of the animals whose eggs he studied, and his knowledge of natural settings led him to emphasize the importance of using laboratory conditions that closely match those in nature. Based on more than 30 years of work, he came to believe that it was the cell surface that played the most critical role in development, heredity, and evolution. He promoted a holistic view of cells and organisms in opposition to the gene-centric view that was becoming more prevalent with the rise of genetics, but rejected the vitalism espoused by some biologists of his era, calling instead for "a physics and chemistry in a new dimension …superimposed upon the now known physics and chemistry" to account for biological phenomena. Just's incisive critique of genetic reductionism finds echoes in contemporary multiscale, systems approaches in biology. His speculations on the relationship between developmental and evolutionary mechanisms resonate with today's evolutionary developmental biology. After a brief biographical sketch, this paper outlines and discusses some of Just's scientific contributions, and shows how his ideas remain relevant today.

Human genes and neoliberal governance: a Foucauldian critique

Introduction Part 1: The Production of Genetic Knowledge and the Rise of Genetics as New Perceptual Regime 1. The Production of Genetic Knowledge 2. Scientific and Economic Strength of Genetic Reductionism 3. Policy Implications: Discourses of Genetic Enlightenment as New Disciplinary Devices 4. Genetic Conceptualisations of 'Normality' and the Idea of Genetic Justice 5. Beyond Genetic Universality and Authenticity, the Lure of the 'Genetic Underclass' Part 2: The Socio-Economic Life of Genes - Genetic Risks and Insurance 6. Commonalties and Variations in Regulation of Genetic Information Flows 7. Previews of the Future as Background 8. Economic and Actuarial Perspectives on Genetics and Insurance 9. Practical and Normative Arguments Against 'Genetic Exceptionalist' Legislation 10. The Changing Social Role of Private Insurance: 'Risk' as a New Representational Regime. Conclusions. References

Genetic screening as a technique of government: The case of neonatal screening for cystic fibrosis in France

The biomedicalization process and the rise of genetics that have occurred in the last few decades raise political issues concerning the ability of subjects in biomedicine to act and make choices. My work examines these issues through a study of the process by which neonatal screening for the genetic disease of cystic fibrosis (CF) was set up in France. It draws on qualitative interviews with 25 national officials making use of the Foucauldian notion of government, which implies power relations among entities recognized as subjects of action. I examine how different agents (or groups) came to form either governing or governable entities within this health policy, and by what means governance in this area is exercised. The study positions relations between governors and the governed in the dynamics specific to them, showing that screening for CF is, to a large degree, a political technique for governing self and others based on a biomedical technique. Two types of subject (a professionals’ association and a patients’ association) are seen to be constituted in different ways and endowed with more or less extensive power. More generally, the study raises the question of the form of the political, through the example of genetic screening.

Genetics, race and medicine

The ‘race’ concept has been entrenched in European culture and literature only since long-distance ocean travel began in the mid-15th Century. Linnaeus, in 1758 classified Homo supiens into four subspecies or races; nearly 20 years later Blumenbach made it five races and introduced a ‘hierarchy of worth’ with Europeans at the top and Africans at the bottom. Throughout the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, western European and American physical anthropologists were obsessed with race, entrenching a scientific racism shaken off only after the excesses of Nazi anthropology were exposed. With the rise of genetics and the demonstration of the ubiquity of genetic polymorphisms in humans, it became possible to study evolutionary processes in a quantitative way. The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2001 has stimulated scientists to study the genetic variation of humans at a level previously unimagined. Such studies confirm the existence of the major human ‘races’ and will facilitate research into the role of natural selection in human evolution, including race formation, as well into the causation of complex diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, the psychoses, asthma, and many others.

Thomas Hunt Morgan and the rise of genetics

Thomas Hunt Morgan and the rise of genetics

The 'Sonderweg' of German eugenics: nationalism and scientific internationalism.

The history of eugenics has become a classic arena for examining how the interplay of culture, social interests and social structures affects the advancement of science. At the same time eugenics demonstrates how in the first half of the twentieth century, the expectation arose that science could offer the solution of social problems; for biology intruded into many areas of social policy during the 1920s and 30s. Historians of science have been struck by the coincidence between the rise of genetics and eugenics after 1900. Genetics underpinned techniques of family reconstruction, which were deployed for the screening of population groups. Areas of social policy such as the prediction of potential criminals and other types of social deviancy relied on eugenic rationales. This poses intriguing problems concerning the extent to which genetic research was motivated by eugenic ideals, particularly in the field of human genetics. At the same time, it is important to recognize that eugenics was a heterogenous agglomeration of sciences: in addition to genetics, a prominent place was taken by anthropology, clinical medicine, statistics, and psychology. These diverse constituents were welded together by cultural and social movements peculiar to respective national contexts.

Milestones and Rates of Growth in the Development of Biology

An attempt has been made to examine the exponetial rate of increase of the great discoveries, the "milestones," in the rise of biology from the beginning of the seventeenth century, and particularly in the rise of genetics from the beginning of the twentieth century. The biological sciences in general, during the three centuries named, exhibit a doubling of the number of great discoveries in each fifty years. Genetics, in the twentieth century, has risen much faster. Its doubling time for the most significant discoveries has been about twenty-two and a half years. Either of these rates is of course far slower than the exponential rise in the total output of biological science, the number of scientists, or the cost of science, which have been generally reported to double about every ten years or less. It follows that, as time passes, and until these exponetial rates become considerably altered, a relationship of diminishing returns is quite evident. As time passes, even though the most significant discoveries continue to increase exponetially, it takes a greater total output, a greater number of (assisting?) scientists, and greater amounts of money to yield a set quantity of major new findings. The rapid rise of the life sciences cannot continue its present course into the twenty-first century without meeting ineluctable limits to expansion. It may be argued that as in other human spheres of activity, so too in natural science there are limits to growth which we are rapidly approaching. From the predictable asymptote only unpredictable breakthroughs might deliver us.

Sydney John Hickson, 1859 - 940

S. J. Hickson died on 6 February at Cambridge after sixty years of active and distinguished professional life devoted to zoological research and to the establishment of zoology as a satisfactory subject of study in the universities and schools of this country. Born in the year 1859, be took an active part in the application of the principles of Darwinian evolution to morphology and embryology, and he was keenly interested in the rise of genetics which occurred early in the present century: later, he returned to the basal subject of systematics, a subject soon to be illuminated by experimental work in the laboratory and in the field. At the same time he was instrumental in establishing biology as a school subject and did much for the encouragement of popular natural history. He was elected a Fellow in 1895. He was the youngest of a family of nine, his father being a prosperous boot and shoe manufacturer whose works were situated within the City of London. His father had a large house at Hampstead, which was then in the country, and drove daily to his office. On one side was a brickfield, while on the other an attempt was made to develop a ‘Vauxhalf Park for North London, which never was a social success.

Fifty Years of the American Society of Naturalists

Next article No AccessFifty Years of the American Society of NaturalistsEdwin G. ConklinEdwin G. Conklin Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The American Naturalist Volume 68, Number 718Sep. - Oct., 1934 Published for The American Society of Naturalists Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/280559 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 4Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, Daniel I. Bolnick, Christopher M. Moore, and Patricia L. Morse Trends and Transitions in 150 Years of The American Naturalist, The American Naturalist 196, no.66 (Oct 2020): 663–678.https://doi.org/10.1086/711418Toby A. Appel Biological and Medical Societies and the Founding of the American Physiological Society, (Jan 1987): 155–176.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7528-6_7Jan Sapp The struggle for authority in the field of heredity, 1900?1932: New perspectives on the rise of genetics, Journal of the History of Biology 16, no.33 (Jan 1983): 311–342.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00582405 L. C. Dunn The American Naturalist in American Biology, The American Naturalist 100, no.915915 (Oct 2015): 481–492.https://doi.org/10.1086/282444

The Rise of Genetics. II

The Rise of Genetics. II

Problems of Evolution and Present Methods of Attacking Them

Next article FreeProblems of Evolution and Present Methods of Attacking ThemEdwin G. ConklinEdwin G. Conklin Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The American Naturalist Volume 46, Number 543Mar., 1912 Published for The American Society of Naturalists Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/279263 Views: 82Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Jan Sapp The struggle for authority in the field of heredity, 1900?1932: New perspectives on the rise of genetics, Journal of the History of Biology 16, no.33 (Jan 1983): 311–342.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00582405