Scientific Discrimination and the Activist Scientist: L.C. Dunn and the Professionalization of Genetics and Human Genetics in the United States

During the 1920s and 1930s geneticist L.C. Dunn of Columbia University cautioned Americans against endorsing eugenic policies and called attention to eugenicists’ less than rigorous practices. Then, from the mid-1940s to early 1950s he attacked scientific racism and Nazi Rassenhygiene by co-authoring Heredity, Race and Society with Theodosius Dobzhansky and collaborating with members of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) on their international campaign against racism. Even though shaking the foundations of scientific discrimination was Dunn’s primary concern during the interwar and post-World War II years, his campaigns had ancillary consequences for the discipline. He contributed to the professionalization of genetics during the 1920s and 1930s and sought respectability for human genetics in the 1940s and 1950s. My article aims to elucidate the activist scientist’s role in undermining scientific discrimination by exploring aspects of Dunn’s scientific work and political activism from the 1920s to 1950s. Definitions are provided for scientific discrimination and activist scientist.     

His Own Synthesis: Corn, Edgar Anderson, and Evolutionary Theory in the 1940s

Tracing the contributions of Edgar Anderson (1897--1969) of the Missouri Botanical Garden to the important discussions in evolutionary biology in the 1940s, this paper argues that Anderson turned to corn research rather than play a more prominent role in what is now known as the Evolutionary Synthesis. His biosystematic studies of Iris and Tradescantia in the 1930s reflected such Synthesis concerns as the species question and population thinking. He shared the 1941 Jesup Lectures with Ernst Mayr. But rather than preparing his lectures as a potentially key text in the Synthesis, Anderson began researching Zea mays -- its taxonomy, its origin, and its agronomic role. In this study, Anderson drew on the disciplines of taxonomy, morphology, genetics, geography, anthropology, archaeology, and agronomy among others in his own creative synthesis. Though his maize research in the 1940s represented the most sustained work of his career, Anderson was also drawn in many directions during his professional life. For example, he enjoyed teaching, working with amateurs, and popular writing. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Hufeland's interest in plant movements.

Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (1762-1836) was one of the eminent physicians at the time of Goethe. When only 21 years old, he followed his father as a medical practitioner in Weimar. In 1793 he became Professor of Medicine at the University of Jena, from where he moved, in 1801, to Berlin as the physician in ordinary to king Friedrich Wilhelm III, council of state, and Professor at the leading hospital, the Charité. Hufeland pioneered in what today would be called public hygiene. Many of his lectures and publications were addressed to the educated laymen. In his most read book, the 'Makrobiotik', he emphasizes the importance of the 24-h periodicity as a basic unit of biological chronometry. In view of this, Hufeland has become a kind of 'patron saint' to modern chronobiologists.     

The physiologist Johann Autenrieth (1772–1835) at Tübingen University: early reports on biological rhythms and their use for medical lectures

Johann, Heinrich, Ferdinand von Autenrieth [1772–1835], was a teacher of anatomy, physiology and pharmacology at the University of Tübingen, Germany. He was the author of a famous textbook on Physiology and one of the earliest pharmacologists [Öffentlicher Lehrer der Arzneykunst]. In his textbooks, he presented a lot of information that and how biological rhythms influenced physiological functions in the human body, the book was used for his medical lectures for students. He can be regarded as on of the earliest chronophysiologists. Most important, he assumed a chemical stimulation responsible for generating the periodicities in the human body.     

Keeping up with Dobzhansky: G. Ledyard Stebbins, Jr., plant evolution, and the evolutionary synthesis

This paper explores the complex relationship between the plant evolutionist G. Ledyard Stebbins and the animal evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky. The manner in which the plant evolution was brought into line, synthesized, or rendered consistent with the understanding of animal evolution (and especially insect evolution) is explored, especially as it culminated with the publication of Stebbins's 1950 book Variation and Evolution in Plants. The paper explores the multi-directional traffic of influence between Stebbins and Dobzhansky, but also their social and professional networks that linked plant evolutionists like Stebbins with Edgar Anderson, Carl Epling, and the 'Carnegie team' of Jens Clausen, David Keck, and William Hiesey with collaborators on the animal side like I. Michael Lerner, Sewall Wright and L.C. Dunn and other 'architects' of the synthesis like Ernst Mayr, Julian Huxley and George Gaylord Simpson. The compatibility in training, work styles, methodologies, goals, field sites, levels of analysis, and even choice of organismic systems is explored between Stebbins and Dobzhansky. Finally, the extent to which coevolution between plants and insects is reflected in the relationship is explored, as is the power dynamic in the relationship between two of the most visible figures associated with the evolutionary synthesis.     

Sir Charles Edward Saunders, Dominion cerealist.

Charles Edward Saunders was born in London, Ontario, in 1867. His father, Sir William Saunders, was the first director of the Dominion Experimental Farms (1886-1911). Charles received his B.A. with honours in science from the University of Toronto in 1888 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1891. He attempted a career in music, his first love, from 1893 to 1902. With his father, Charles attended the 1902 International Conference on Plant Breeding and Hybridization in New York, where he learned of Mendel's theories of inheritance and their applicability to plant breeding. When he began work in 1903 in the Division of Cereal Breeding and Experimentation at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, he used the knowledge he had gained at that conference. It was Charles's goal to achieve "fixity" in the varieties that had been bred and released using phenotypic mass selection, prior to his tenure as Cerealist. He selected four heads from the wheat variety Markham and in the winter of 1904 he performed a "chewing test" to select for gluten elasticity and colour. Seeds from two heads were chosen, and seeds from one went on to produce the variety Marquis after extensive yield trials on the Prairies. Marquis was 7 to 10 days earlier than Red Fife, the standard bread wheat of the Prairies. The earliness and tremendous yield of Marquis wheat resulted in the rapid and successful settlement of the Great Plains and countless billions of dollars in revenue to Canada. By 1923, 90% of the spring wheat in Canada and 70% in the USA was Marquis. Charles continued as Dominion Cerealist until his retirement in 1922. He was knighted in 1934, and died in 1937.     

A humble man in tireless pursuit: Shu Chien, a 2010 national medal of science awardee

On his 70th birthday, Shu Chien's colleagues put together a 600-page book of letters, essays, and photographs as a tribute not only to his contributions to the field of bioengineering but also in honor of his character as a valued friend, research collaborator, and family member. Perhaps they thought that the book would commemorate the moment when Chien began to consider retirement. But in the last decade, he has added more than 140 publications to an already impressive list of 379. And he shows no sign of slowing down.     

Ergonomics studies in Thailand: a future prospect

Ergonomics studies in Thailand began in 1967 after Professor Kovit Satavuthi graduated from the University of Birmingham, where he worked with Professor Nigel Corlett. Ergonomics was offered as an elective in the IE curriculum at Chulalongkorn University. Professor Satavuthi was later invited to teach manufacturing process and system at the Department of Occupational Health and Safety, School of Public Health, Mahidol University. He then added the ergonomics concept to the class as part of his lectures. The first international conference was organized by the Central Coordinating Board of SEAMEO-TROPMED Project, and it was held in Bangkok from 19-23 June 1972, thus bringing ergonomics into public attention. Most participants came from medical science and public health fields, however. Ergonomics popularity has begun to gain momentum in the past 4-5 years. This could be the result of more universities paying serious consideration to provide ergonomics knowledge to their students. It is also well-accepted that ergonomics is a multidisciplined subject. It requires knowledge from medical sciences, sociology, psychology, public health, and engineering. The results of ergonomics studies will have greater chances of success if they are concluded from all disciplines of knowledge. This paper reports some previous studies in Thailand and discuss how to build up an ergonomics team and to produce reasonable results with a sound application plan.     

From Charles Darwin's botanical country-house studies to modern plant biology

As a student of theology at Cambridge University, Charles Darwin (1809–1882) attended the lectures of the botanist John S. Henslow (1796–1861). This instruction provided the basis for his life-long interest in plants as well as the species question. This was a major reason why in his book On the Origin of Species , which was published 150 years ago, Darwin explained his metaphorical phrase 'struggle for life' with respect to animals and plants. In this article, we review Darwin's botanical work with reference to the following topics: the struggle for existence in the vegetable kingdom with respect to the phytochrome-mediated shade avoidance response; the biology of flowers and Darwin's plant–insect co-evolution hypothesis; climbing plants and the discovery of action potentials; the power of movement in plants and Darwin's conflict with the German plant physiologist Julius Sachs; and light perception by growing grass coleoptiles with reference to the phototropins. Finally, we describe the establishment of the scientific discipline of Plant Biology that took place in the USA 80 years ago, and define this area of research with respect to Darwin's work on botany and the physiology of higher plants.     

Q & A. [interview

George Oster is Professor of Biophysics, University of California, Berkeley. He received his B.S. at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and his Ph.D. at Columbia University. He began his career in biophysics as a postdoc at the Weizmann Institute under Aharon Katchalsky, where his research involved membrane biophysics and irreversible thermodynamics. His concern for environmental issues led him into population biology, which shaded into evolutionary biology and thence to developmental biology, cell biology and, most recently, protein motors and bacterial motility and pattern formation. His tools are mathematics, physics and computer simulation. He is currently a faculty member in the Departments of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the College of Natural Resources at Berkeley.     

War and world of Erwin Chargaff (Dedicated to 110th anniversary of birth)

The article shortly describes the life path of Erwin Chargaff, one of the most famous figures in the history of molecular biology and genetics. Chargaff was born in Chernivtsi (Austria-Hungary, now Ukraine) but during the First World War his family was forced to move to Vienna. After graduating from the University of Vienna, Chargaff worked in Berlin, where he studied bacterial lipids. Due to Nazis coming to power in Germany, Chargaff moved to Paris and later (1935) emigrated to the USA and obtained a position at the Columbia University, where he initially invastigated the role of phospholipids in blood clotting. In year 1944, applying novel methods Chargaff initiated intensive investigation of the chemical composition of nucleic acids from taxonomically distant species and established two rules, which were later named after him. The first Chargaff's rule provided a significant support to Watson and Crick in construction of their double helical DNA model. The explosion of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced Chargaff to think about the moral responsibility of researchers and science to mankind. He began to raise these issues in the press and manifested himself as a talented journalist, who criticized the bureaucratization of science and its transformation into a way of earning money. Despite decades of life in America, spiritually Erwin Chargaff always remained a European, who never forgot his roots and always remembered his native land.     

The discovery of biological enantioselectivity: Louis Pasteur and the fermentation of tartaric acid, 1857--a review and analysis 150 yr later

Nearly a decade after discovering molecular chirality in 1848, Louis Pasteur changed research direction and began investigating fermentations. Conflicting explanations have been given for this switch to microbiology, but the evidence strongly suggests that Pasteur's appointment in 1854 to the University of Lille--an agricultural-industrial region where fermentation-based manufacturing was of great importance--and an appeal for help in 1856 by a local manufacturer experiencing problems in his beetroot-fermentation-based alcohol production played a significant role. Thus began, in late 1856, Pasteur's pioneering studies of lactic and alcoholic fermentations. In 1857, reportedly as a result of a laboratory mishap, he found that in incubations of ammonium (+/-)-tartrate with unidentified microorganisms (+)-tartaric acid was consumed with considerable preference over (-)-tartaric acid. In 1860, he demonstrated a similar enantioselectivity in the metabolism of tartaric acid by Penicillium glaucum, a common mold. Chance likely played a significant role both in Pasteur's shift to microbiology and his discovery of enantioselective tartrate fermentations, but he rejected pure serendipity as a significant factor in experimental science and in his own career. Pasteur's milestone discovery of biological enantioselectivity began the process that in the long run established the fundamental importance of molecular chirality in biology.     

Proteomics data mining

Marc Wilkins completed his undergraduate and doctoral studies at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. During his doctoral studies, he defined the concept of the proteome and coined the term. After postdoctoral studies in Geneva, Switzerland, during which he co-edited the first book on proteomics, he returned to Australia, where he cofounded the company Proteome Systems. More recently, Marc took a position as Professor of Systems Biology at the University of New South Wales. He has established and directs the NSW Systems Biology Initiative, and is currently researching the role that protein post-translational modifications play in the regulation of protein-interaction networks.     

Adaptation as process: the future of Darwinism and the legacy of Theodosius Dobzhansky

Conceptions of adaptation have varied in the history of genetic Darwinism depending on whether what is taken to be focal is the process of adaptation, adapted states of populations, or discrete adaptations in individual organisms. I argue that Theodosius Dobzhansky's view of adaptation as a dynamical process contrasts with so-called "adaptationist" views of natural selection figured as "design-without-a-designer" of relatively discrete, enumerable adaptations. Correlated with these respectively process and product oriented approaches to adaptive natural selection are divergent pictures of organisms themselves as developmental wholes or as "bundles" of adaptations. While even process versions of genetical Darwinism are insufficiently sensitive to the fact much of the variation on which adaptive selection works consists of changes in the timing, rate, or location of ontogenetic events, I argue that articulations of the Modern Synthesis influenced by Dobzhansky are more easily reconciled with the recent shift to evolutionary developmentalism than are versions that make discrete adaptations central.     

Acrobat to academic: A sketch of the life and carrer of Frederick E. Samson,Jr.

Fred Samson's carrer began in osteopathy and show business. After service as a medic during World War II, he earned, a doctoral degree in physiology at the University of Chicago and joined the faculty of the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 1952. There he conducted pioneering research on cerebral energy metabolism and axoplasmic transport while inspiring a generation of students in the classroom and lab. During the mid 1960s, he began a fruitful and lasting collaboration with the Neurosciences Research Program and its founder, Francis O. Schmitt. In 1973 he became director of the Ralph Smith Mental Retardation Research Center in Kansas City, where he added metabolic mapping of the brain in relation to seizure activity and drug toxicity to his research accomplishments. He retired in 1989, still pursuing new problems and continuing to inspire colleagues with his enthusiasm for neurochemistry and the joy of science.Special issue dedicated to Dr. Frederick E. Samson.     

Sir William Jardine and the Ichnology of Annandale

ABSTRACT

Sir William Jardine was a polymath; he was one of the world's foremost ornithologists, and ichthyologists, as well as a knowledgeable geologist, entomologist and botanist. He was a talented and skilled artist and engraver and a keen hunter and fisherman. He was also the author of the book The Ichnology of Annandale that represents the first book ever published on the subject of ichnology. It was here in this volume that Jardine coined the word ichnology. It is also one of the rarest ichnology publications, as it is believed that only 135–140 copies were ever printed. This volume remains the most lavishly illustrated book in vertebrate ichnology literature. This paper discusses the work of Jardine, the finds from his estate and his role in defining ichnology as a science.     

Edmund Beecher Wilson, Class of '81

Edmund Beecher Wilson was born in Geneva, Illinois in 1856.He attended Antioch College, the University of Chicago, Yale,and Johns Hopkins (Ph.D. 1881). Most of his professional lifewas spent in the Zoology Department of Columbia University togetherwith his close friend, Thomas Hunt Morgan. They were dominantfigures in developing the Chromosome Theory of Heredity. Wilsonbegan his professional life as a conventional 19th century biologiststudying problems of systematics, morphology, and phylogeny.Soon he became a key figure in the newer experimental disciplinesof embryology, cytology, and heredity. He is remembered todaylargely for his superb synthesis of these three fields in TheCell in Development and Heredity. He died in 1939.     

Speaking out about the social implications of science: the uneven legacy of H. J. Muller

H. J. Muller (1890-1967) was unusual as a scientist because he spoke out on numerous occasions about the uses and abuses of genetics in society. In this article, I follow Muller's efforts to do so and the consequences that they had on his career, his productivity as a research scientist, and his reputation. The shifting sites of Muller's work--which ranged from Columbia University to Texas, from Berlin to Moscow and Leningrad, from Madrid to Edinburgh, and from Amherst to Indiana University--made his activism unusual. Muller paid a price for his activism, and his reputation today is still marred by what most historians would consider risky judgments and reversals of position about genetics and society. My analysis is not a defense but rather an evaluation of the circumstances that led him to these positions and an analysis of the consequences of challenging society when scientists believe their science is being ignored or abused.     

Jonathon Howard.

Jonathon 'Joe' Howard (Fig. 1) is Group Leader and Director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics; he and his research group moved to Dresden, Germany, in July 2001. Howard received his PhD in neurobiology in 1983 from the Australian National University in Canberra. He did postdoctoral research there and also at the University of Bristol, UK, and at the University of California, San Francisco. In 1989, he joined the faculty at the University of Washington. His book "Mechanics of Motor Proteins and the Cytoskeleton" was published earlier this year. [interview by Mari N. Jensen]