Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Cropping synonymy: varietal standardization in the United States, 1900–1970.Tad Brown - 2023 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 45 (3):1-27.
    This article examines crop varietal standardization in the United States. Numerous committees formed in the early twentieth century to address the problem of nomenclatural rules in the horticultural and agricultural industries. Making shared reference to a varietal name proved a difficult proposition for seed-borne crops because plant conformity tended to change in the hands of different breeders. Moreover, scientific and commercial opinions diverged on the value of deviations within crop varieties. I review the function of descriptive difference in the seed (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Taxonomy, Race Science, and Mexican Maize.Helen Anne Curry - 2021 - Isis 112 (1):1-21.
    This essay explores the intersection of race science and plant taxonomy in the creation of evolutionary taxonomies (phylogenies) of populations of Zea mays, also known as maize or corn. Following recent work in the history and sociology of race, it analyzes maize taxonomy as technology. Through an analysis of successive attempts to classify diverse maize varieties, especially those originating in Mexico, it shows that taxonomy created possibilities for researchers to intervene in commercial agriculture, state development projects, biological conservation, and domestic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Mendelism, Plant Breeding and Experimental Cultures: Agriculture and the Development of Genetics in France. [REVIEW]Christophe Bonneuil - 2006 - Journal of the History of Biology 39 (2):281 - 308.
    The article reevaluates the reception of Mendelism in France, and more generally considers the complex relationship between Mendelism and plant breeding in the first half on the 20th century. It shows on the one side that agricultural research and higher education institutions have played a key role in the development and institutionalization of genetics in France, whereas university biologists remained reluctant to accept this approach on heredity. But on the other side, plant breeders, and agricultural researchers, despite an interest in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • Hybrids, pure cultures, and pure lines: from nineteenth-century biology to twentieth-century genetics.Staffan Müller-Wille - 2007 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 38 (4):796-806.
    Prompted by recent recognitions of the omnipresence of horizontal gene transfer among microbial species and the associated emphasis on exchange, rather than isolation, as the driving force of evolution, this essay will reflect on hybridization as one of the central concerns of nineteenth-century biology. I will argue that an emphasis on horizontal exchange was already endorsed by ‘biology’ when it came into being around 1800 and was brought to full fruition with the emergence of genetics in 1900. The true revolution (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   21 citations  
  • Mendel on Developmental Information.Yafeng Shan - 2021 - In Chris Meyns (ed.), Information and the History of Philosophy. Routledge. pp. 262-280.
    It has been widely received that one of Gregor Mendel’s most important contributions to the history of genetics is his novel work on developmental information (for example, the proposal of the famous Mendelian ratios like 1:2:1, 3:1, and 9:3:3:1). This view is well evidenced by the fact that much of early Mendelians’ work in the 1900s focuses on the retrodiction (viz. the re-analysis of the pre-exist data with Mendel’s approach). However, there is no consensus on what Mendel meant by development (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • The resisted rise of randomisation in experimental design: British agricultural science, c.1910–1930.Dominic Berry - 2015 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 37 (3):242-260.
    The most conspicuous form of agricultural experiment is the field trial, and within the history of such trials, the arrival of the randomised control trial is considered revolutionary. Originating with R.A. Fisher within British agricultural science in the 1920s and 30s, the RCT has since become one of the most prodigiously used experimental techniques throughout the natural and social sciences. Philosophers of science have already scrutinised the epistemological uniqueness of RCTs, undermining their status as the ‘gold standard’ in experimental design. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • The Emergence of Modern Statistics in Agricultural Science: Analysis of Variance, Experimental Design and the Reshaping of Research at Rothamsted Experimental Station, 1919–1933.Giuditta Parolini - 2015 - Journal of the History of Biology 48 (2):301-335.
    During the twentieth century statistical methods have transformed research in the experimental and social sciences. Qualitative evidence has largely been replaced by quantitative results and the tools of statistical inference have helped foster a new ideal of objectivity in scientific knowledge. The paper will investigate this transformation by considering the genesis of analysis of variance and experimental design, statistical methods nowadays taught in every elementary course of statistics for the experimental and social sciences. These methods were developed by the mathematician (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • (1 other version)Seriality and Scientific objects in the Nineteenth Century.Nick Hopwood, Simon Schaffer & Jim Secord - 2010 - History of Science 48 (3-4):251-285.
    Nick Hopwood, Simon Schaffer and Jim Secord , “Seriality and scientific objects in the nineteenth century”, History of Science, xlviii . Series represent much that was new and significant in the sciences between the French Revolution and the First World War. From periodical publication to the cinema, tabulation to industrialized screening, series feature in major innovations in scientific communication and the organization of laboratories, clinics, libraries, museums and field - XIXe siècle – Nouvel article.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   17 citations  
  • The plant breeding industry after pure line theory: Lessons from the National Institute of Agricultural Botany.Dominic Berry - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 46 (1):25-37.
    In the early twentieth century, Wilhelm Johannsen proposed his pure line theory and the genotype/phenotype distinction, work that is prized as one of the most important founding contributions to genetics and Mendelian plant breeding. Most historians have already concluded that pure line theory did not change breeding practices directly. Instead, breeding became more orderly as a consequence of pure line theory, which structured breeding programmes and eliminated external heritable influences. This incremental change then explains how and why the large multi-national (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • New perspectives in the history of twentieth-century life sciences: historical, historiographical and epistemological themes.Robert Meunier & Kärin Nickelsen - 2018 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 40 (1):19.
    The history of twentieth-century life sciences is not exactly a new topic. However, in view of the increasingly rapid development of the life sciences themselves over the past decades, some of the well-established narratives are worth revisiting. Taking stock of where we stand on these issues was the aim of a conference in 2015, entitled “Perspectives for the History of Life Sciences”. The papers in this topical collection are based on work presented and discussed at and around this meeting. Just (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Bruno to Brünn; or the Pasteurization of Mendelian genetics.Dominic Berry - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 48:280-286.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Towards a philosophy of microbiology.Maureen A. O’Malley & John Dupré - 2007 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 38 (4):775-779.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Charting the history of agricultural experiments.Giuditta Parolini - 2015 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 37 (3):231-241.
    Agricultural experimentation is a world in constant evolution, spanning multiple scientific domains and affecting society at large. Even though the questions underpinning agricultural experiments remain largely the same, the instruments and practices for answering them have changed constantly during the twentieth century with the advent of new disciplines like molecular biology, genomics, statistics, and computing. Charting this evolving reality requires a mapping of the affinities and antinomies at work within the realm of agricultural research, and a consideration of the practices, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • The many lives of experiments: Wilhelm Johannsen, selection, hybridization, and the complex relations of genes and characters.Robert Meunier - 2016 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 38 (1):42-64.
    In addition to his experiments on selection in pure lines, Wilhelm Johannsen performed less well-known hybridisation experiments with beans. This article describes these experiments and discusses Johannsen’s motivations and interpretations, in the context of developments in early genetics. I will show that Johannsen first presented the hybridisation experiments as an additional control for his selection experiments. The latter were dedicated to investigating heredity with respect to debates concerning the significance of natural selection of continuous variation for evolution. In the course (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Heritable changeability: Epimutation and the legacy of negative definition in epigenetic concepts.Anne Le Goff, Patrick Allard & Hannah Landecker - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 86:35-46.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Women as Mendelians and Geneticists.Marsha L. Richmond - 2015 - Science & Education 24 (1-2):125-150.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Writing, printing, speaking: Rhesus blood-group genetics and nomenclatures in the mid-twentieth century.Jenny Bangham - 2014 - British Journal for the History of Science 47 (2):335-361.
    In the 1940s and 1950s, British and American journals published a flood of papers by doctors, pathologists, geneticists and anthropologists debating the virtues of two competing nomenclatures used to denote the Rhesus blood groups. Accounts of this prolonged and often bitter episode have tended to focus on the main protagonists' personalities and theoretical commitments. Here I take a different approach and use the literature generated by the dispute to recover the practical and epistemic functions of nomenclatures in genetics. Drawing on (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations