In 1937, a group of researchers in Nazi Germany began investigating tobacco mosaic virus with the hope of using the virus as a model system for understanding gene behavior in higher organisms. They soon developed a creative and interdisciplinary work style and were able to continue their research in the postwar era, when they made significant contributions to the history of molecular biology. This group is significant for two major reasons. First, it provides an example of how researchers were able (...) to produce excellent scientific research in the midst of dictatorship and war. Coupled with the group's ongoing success in postwar Germany, the German TMV investigators provide a dramatic example of how scientific communities deal with adversity as well as rapid political and social change. Second, since the researchers focused heavily on TMV, their story allows us to analyze how an experimental system other than phage contributed to the emergence of molecular biology. (shrink)

The history of biochemistry and molecular biology is replete with examples of erroneous theories that persisted for considerable lengths of time before they were rejected. This paper examines patterns of dissolution of three such erroneous hypotheses: The idea that nucleic acids are tetrads of the four nucleobases (‘the tetranucleotide hypothesis’); the notion that proteins are collinear with their encoding genes in all branches of life; and the hypothesis that proteins are synthesized by reverse action of proteolytic enzymes. Analysis of these (...) cases indicates that amassed contradictory empirical findings did not prompt critical experimental testing of the prevailing theories nor did they elicit alternative hypotheses. Rather, the incorrect models collapsed when experiments that were not purposely designed to test their validity exposed new facts. (shrink)

The traditional practice of establishing morphological types and investigating morphological organization has found new support from evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), especially with respect to the notion of body plans. Despite recurring claims that typology is at odds with evolutionary thinking, evo-devo offers mechanistic explanations of the evolutionary origin, transformation, and evolvability of morphological organization. In parallel, philosophers have developed non-essentialist conceptions of natural kinds that permit kinds to exhibit variation and undergo change. This not only facilitates a construal of species (...) and higher taxa as natural kinds, but also broadens our perspective on the diversity of kinds found in biology. There are many different natural kinds relevant to the investigative and explanatory aims of evo-devo, including homologues and developmental modules. (shrink)

Unlike in physics, the category of thought experiment is not very common in biology. At least there are no classic examples that are as important and as well-known as the most famous thought experiments in physics, such as Galileo’s, Maxwell’s or Einstein’s. The reasons for this are far from obvious; maybe it has to do with the fact that modern biology for the most part sees itself as a thoroughly empirical discipline that engages either in real natural history or in (...) experimenting on real organisms rather than fictive ones. While theoretical biology does exist and is recognized as part of biology, its role within biology appears to be more marginal than the role of theoretical physics within physics. It could be that this marginality of theory also affects thought experiments as sources of theoretical knowledge. Of course, none of this provides a sufficient reason for thinking that thought experiments are really unimportant in biology. It is quite possible that the common perception of this matter is wrong and that there are important theoretical considerations in biology, past or present, that deserve the title of thought experiment just as much as the standard examples from physics. Some such considerations may even be widely known and considered to be important, but were not recognized as thought experiments. In fact, as we shall see, there are reasons for thinking that what is arguably the single most important biological work ever, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, contains a number of thought experiments. There are also more recent examples both in evolutionary and non-evolutionary biology, as we will show. Part of the problem in identifying positive examples in the history of biology is the lack of agreement as to what exactly a thought experiment is. Even worse, there may not be more than a family resemblance that unifies this epistemic category. We take it that classical thought experiments show the following characteristics: They serve directly or indirectly in the non-empirical epistemic evaluation of theoretical propositions, explanations or hypotheses. Thought experiments somehow appeal to the imagination. They involve hypothetical scenarios, which may or may not be fictive. In other words, thought experiments suppose that certain states of affairs hold and then try to intuit what would happen in a world where these suppositions are true. We want to examine in the following sections if there are episodes in the history of biology that satisfy these criteria. As we will show, there are a few episodes that might satisfy all three of these criteria, and many more if the imagination criterion is dropped or understood in a lose sense. In any case, this criterion is somewhat vague in the first place, unless a specific account of the imagination is presupposed. There will also be issues as to what exactly “non-empirical” means. In general, for the sake of discussion we propose to understand the term “thought experiment” here in a broad rather than a narrow sense here. We would rather be guilty of having too wide a conception of thought experiment than of missing a whole range of really interesting examples. (shrink)

This paper proposes an experiment-based methodology for both classical genetics and molecular biology by integrating Lindley Darden’s mechanism-centered approach and C. Kenneth Waters’s phenomenon-centered approach. We argue that the methodology basing on experiments offers a satisfactory account of the development of the two biological disciplines. The methodology considers discovery of new mechanisms, investigation of new phenomena, and construction of new theories together, in which experiments play a central role. Experimentation connects the three type of conduct, which work as both ends (...) and means, occurring in a circular way and constituting an overall process of scientific practice from classical genetics to molecular biology. (shrink)

Erwin Schrödinger’s 1944 publication What is Life? is a classic of twentieth century science writing. In his book, Schrödinger discussed the chromosome fibre as the seat of heredity and variation thanks to a hypothetical aperiodic structure – a suggestion that famously spurred on a generation of scientists in their pursuit of the gene as a physico-chemical entity. While historical attention has been given to physicists who were inspired by the book, little has been written about its biologist readers. This paper (...) examines the case of the English evolutionary botanist and cytologist Irène Manton, who took an interest in What is Life? for its relevance to her own research in chromosome structure as a clue to plant phylogeny. Drawing on recently discovered correspondence between Manton and Schrödinger, the paper reconstructs Manton ‘s path to the book and her response to it by way of throwing new light on a pivotal moment in the history of the debate on chromosome structure. (shrink)

Bruno Latour, as part of his advocacy of science studies urges us to move beyond what he calls ‘the Modernist Settlement’ that, among other things, separated science from politics and subject from object. As part of this project he has frequently called for the abolition of epistemology, including quite specifically the historical epistemology/epistemological history of Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem. Pierre Bourdieu, on the other hand, deploys the resources of historical epistemology, to dismiss Latour’s science studies. After examining the charges (...) against historical epistemology and their rebuttal, I rule in favor of the defense. However, I also suggest that Latour raises genuine concerns about how to equip ourselves to tackle problems such as those associated with climate change; these are problems that require engagement with the politics of nature, with the politics of the sciences of nature and with the epistemological challenges associated with the need to deploy multiple disciplines in the service of complex, practical, policy-relevant problem solving. (shrink)

Historians tend to speak of the problem of the origin of species or the species question, as if it were a monolithic problem. In reality, the phrase refers to a, historically, surprisingly fluid and pluriform scientific issue. It has, in the course of the past five centuries, been used in no less than ten different ways or contexts. A clear taxonomy of these separate problems is useful or relevant in two ways. It certainly helps to disentangle confusions that have inevitably (...) emerged in the literature in its absence. It may, secondly, also help us to gain a more thorough understanding, or sharper view, of the history of evolutionary thought. A consequent problem-centric look at that history through the lens of various origin of species problems certainly yields intriguing results, including and particularly for our understanding of the genesis of the Wallace–Darwin theory of evolution through natural selection. (shrink)

Historians tend to speak of the problem of the origin of species or the species question, as if it were a monolithic problem. In reality, the phrase refers to a, historically, surprisingly fluid and pluriform scientific issue. It has, in the course of the past five centuries, been used in no less than ten different ways or contexts. A clear taxonomy of these separate problems is useful or relevant in two ways. It certainly helps to disentangle confusions that have inevitably (...) emerged in the literature in its absence. It may, secondly, also help us to gain a more thorough understanding, or sharper view, of the history of evolutionary thought. A consequent problem-centric look at that history through the lens of various origin of species problems certainly yields intriguing results, including and particularly for our understanding of the genesis of the Wallace–Darwin theory of evolution through natural selection. (shrink)

There has been a long-standing opposition to genetically modified organisms worldwide. Some studies have tried to identify the deep-lying philosophical, conceptual as well as psychological motivations for this opposition. Philosophical essentialism, psychological essentialism, and vitalism have been proposed as possible candidates. I approach the plausibility of the claim that these notions are related to GMO opposition from a historical perspective. Vitalism and philosophical essentialism have been associated with anti-GMO stance on account of their purported hostility to species and organismic mutability. (...) I show that vitalism has often been associated to various mutabilist theories, whereas the case for philosophical essentialism as motivating GMO opposition depends on the now discredited Essentialism Story that had constructed essentialism as a predominant view in pre-Darwinian science. Further, as philosophical essentialism taken seriously is incompatible with the reality of genetic engineering, it is unlikely to be a reason for opposition. Psychological essentialism, involving an instinctive repulsion from the practice of manipulating what is thought to be the essence of living beings, is a more likely reason for resistance to transgenesis. Yet even here, historical considerations are crucial. Not only lay people tend to essentialize genes, but scientists themselves can be shown to have been complicit in essentialist tendencies. From the advent of modern genetics, the imagery of the all-powerful genes, often depicted by scientists themselves metaphorically as material counterparts of the now obsolete vitalistic agent, has permeated the language of leading scientific figures, whose influence in shaping public opinion should not be downplayed. Enthusiasm for genetic engineering and the abhorrence from it might both derive from the same unrealistic image of the essential gene, the revision of which thus holding out the hope for transcending the present impasse of the GMO controversy. (shrink)

A central idea of developmental systems theory is ‘parity’ or ‘symmetry’ between genes and non-genetic factors of development. The precise content of this idea remains controversial, with different authors stressing different aspects and little explicit comparisons among the various interpretations. Here I characterise and assess several influential versions of parity.

In the advertising discourse of human genetic database projects, of genetic ancestry tracing companies, and in popular books on anthropological genetics, what I refer to as the anthropological gene and genome appear as documents of human history, by far surpassing the written record and oral history in scope and accuracy as archives of our past. How did macromolecules become "documents of human evolutionary history"? Historically, molecular anthropology, a term introduced by Emile Zuckerkandl in 1962 to characterize the study of primate (...) phylogeny and human evolution on the molecular level, asserted its claim to the privilege of interpretation regarding hominoid, hominid, and human phylogeny and evolution vis-à-vis other historical sciences such as evolutionary biology, physical anthropology, and paleoanthropology. This process will be discussed on the basis of three key conferences on primate classification and evolution that brought together exponents of the respective fields and that were held in approximately ten-years intervals between the early 1960s and the 1980s. I show how the anthropological gene and genome gained their status as the most fundamental, clean, and direct records of historical information, and how the prioritizing of these epistemic objects was part of a complex involving the objectivity of numbers, logic, and mathematics, the objectivity of machines and instruments, and the objectivity seen to reside in the epistemic objects themselves. (shrink)

This paper explores the special problems encountered by the biographer of a living scientific subject. In particular, it explores the complex of problems that emerges from the intense interpersonal dynamic involving issues of distance, privacy and trust. It also explores methodological problems having to do with oral history interviews and other supporting documentation. It draws on the personal experience of the author and the biographical subject of G. Ledyard Stebbins Jr., the botanist, geneticist and evolutionist. It also offers prescriptives and (...) recommendations for future research. (shrink)

Forty years’ experience as a bacterial geneticist has taught me that bacteria possess many cognitive, computational and evolutionary capabilities unimaginable in the first six decades of the twentieth century. Analysis of cellular processes such as metabolism, regulation of protein synthesis, and DNA repair established that bacteria continually monitor their external and internal environments and compute functional outputs based on information provided by their sensory apparatus. Studies of genetic recombination, lysogeny, antibiotic resistance and my own work on transposable elements revealed multiple (...) widespread bacterial systems for mobilizing and engineering DNA molecules. Examination of colony development and organization led me to appreciate how extensive multicellular collaboration is among the majority of bacterial species. Contemporary research in many laboratories on cell–cell signaling, symbiosis and pathogenesis show that bacteria utilise sophisticated mechanisms for intercellular communication and even have the ability to commandeer the basic cell biology of ‘higher’ plants and animals to meet their own needs. This remarkable series of observations requires us to revise basic ideas about biological information processing and recognise that even the smallest cells are sentient beings. (shrink)

Forty years’ experience as a bacterial geneticist has taught me that bacteria possess many cognitive, computational and evolutionary capabilities unimaginable in the first six decades of the twentieth century. Analysis of cellular processes such as metabolism, regulation of protein synthesis, and DNA repair established that bacteria continually monitor their external and internal environments and compute functional outputs based on information provided by their sensory apparatus. Studies of genetic recombination, lysogeny, antibiotic resistance and my own work on transposable elements revealed multiple (...) widespread bacterial systems for mobilizing and engineering DNA molecules. Examination of colony development and organization led me to appreciate how extensive multicellular collaboration is among the majority of bacterial species. Contemporary research in many laboratories on cell–cell signaling, symbiosis and pathogenesis show that bacteria utilise sophisticated mechanisms for intercellular communication and even have the ability to commandeer the basic cell biology of ‘higher’ plants and animals to meet their own needs. This remarkable series of observations requires us to revise basic ideas about biological information processing and recognise that even the smallest cells are sentient beings. Previous article in issue. (shrink)

Patricia Smith Churchland's Neurophilosophy argues that a mind is the same thing as the complex patterns of neural activity in a human brain and, furthermore, that we will be able to find out interesting things about the mind by studying the brain. I basically agree with this stance and my comments are divided into four sections. First, comparisons between human and non?human primate brains are discussed in the context, roughly, of where one should locate higher functions. Second, I examine Churchland's (...) views on reduction and levels of organization, which I find mostly congenial. Third, a key point of disagreement about the relationship and importance of language to specifically human cognition is taken up. I like Churchland's critique of certain sentential paradigms, but I try to show using an analogy with cellular coding systems why we need to get a better theory of ?sentences?. Finally, I discuss how the models introduced in the last chapter might be extended to make better contact with neurobiology and language. (shrink)

The thesis of theory-ladenness of observations, in its various guises, is widely considered as either ill-conceived or harmless to the rationality of science. The latter view rests partly on the work of the proponents of New Experimentalism who have argued, among other things, that experimental practices are efficient in guarding against any epistemological threat posed by theory-ladenness. In this paper I show that one can generate a thesis of theory-ladenness for experimental practices from an influential New Experimentalist account. The notion (...) I introduce for this purpose is the concept of ‘theory-driven data reliability judgments’, according to which theories which are sought to be tested with a particular set of data guide reliability judgments about those very same data. I provide various prominent historical examples to show that TDRs are used by scientists to resolve data conflicts. I argue that the rationality of the practices which employ TDRs can be saved if the independent support of the theories driving TDRs is construed in a particular way. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the discovery of the DNA structure by Francis Crick and James Watson, which has provoked a large historical literature but has yet not found entry into philosophical debates. I want to redress this imbalance. In contrast to the available historical literature, a strong emphasis will be placed upon analysing the roles played by theory, model, and evidence and the relationship between them. In particular, I am going to discuss not only Crick and Watson's well-known model (...) and Franklin's x-ray diffraction pictures (the evidence) but also the less well known theory of helical diffraction, which was absolutely crucial to Crick and Watson's discovery. The insights into this groundbreaking historical episode will have consequences for the ‘new’ received view of scientific models and their function and relationship to theory and world. The received view, dominated by works by Cartwright and Morgan and Morrison ([1999]), rather than trying to put forth a ‘theory of models’, is interested in questions to do with (i) the function of models in scientific practice and (ii) the construction of models. In regard to (i), the received view locates the model (as an idealized, simplified version of the real system under investigation) between theory and the world and sees the model as allowing the application of the former to the latter. As to (ii) Cartwright has argued for a phenomenologically driven view and Morgan and Morrison ([1999]) for the ‘autonomy’ of models in the construction process: models are determined neither by theory nor by the world. The present case study of the discovery of the DNA structure strongly challenges both (i) and (ii). In contrast to claim (i) of the received view, it was not Crick and Watson's model but rather the helical diffraction theory which served a mediating purpose between the model and the x-ray diffraction pictures. In particular, Cartwright's take on (ii) is refuted by a comparison of Franklin's bottom-up approach with Crick and Watson's top-down approach in constructing the model. The former led to difficulties, which only a strong confidence in the structure incorporated in the model could circumvent. How to Get to the Structure 1.1 X-ray diffraction and its synthesis 1.2 Model building and Pauling's panache 1.3 The structure of proteins 1.3.1 A failed inference to the best explanation 1.3.2 The misleading 5.1 Å spot in proteins and how to get rid of it 1.3.3 Derived predictions from Pauling's alpha-helix of protein molecules The CCV Theory of Helical X-Ray Diffraction 2.1 The role of the CCV theory in the discovery of the DNA structure Killing the Helix 3.1 Appreciating all evidence—in vain Conclusion Epilogue: Chargaff's Ratios CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This article is a systematic critical survey of work done in the philosophy of biology within the logical empiricist tradition, beginning in the 1930s and until the end of the 1950s. It challenges a popular view that the logical empiricists either ignored biology altogether or produced analyses of little value. The earliest work on the philosophy of biology within the logical empiricist corpus was that of Philipp Frank, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, and Felix Mainx. Mainx, in particular, provided a detailed analysis (...) of biology in the 1930s and 1940s in his contribution to the logical empiricists’ Encyclopedia of Unified Science. However, the most important contributions to the philosophy of biology were those of Joseph Henry Woodger and Ernest Nagel. Woodger is primarily remembered for deploying the axiomatic method in biology but he also used semiformal methods for the analysis of many biological problems. While Woodger’s axiomatic work was often derided by some later philosophers of biology (e.g., David Hull and Michael Ruse), this article defends both the biological and the philosophical significance of some of that work, for instance, those aspects that led to the recognition of the conceptual complexity of mereology and temporal identity in biological systems. Woodger’s semiformal analyses were even more important, for instance, his explication of the concepts of the Bauplan and of innateness. Nagel’s importance lies in his analyses of reduction and emergence in the context of all empirical sciences and his use of these analyses in a careful exploration of biological problems. While Nagel’s model of reduction was generally rejected by philosophers of science in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly for biological contexts, it has recently been sympathetically reconstructed by many commentators; this article defends its continued relevance for the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

Throughout its history, the relationship between government and science in the United States has been mutually beneficial but also contentious. This article reviews the recent history of this relationship and attributes the conflict to different norms and values in each of the institutions. A policy culture is the result. It sets the limits of government action and shapes the policy agenda, the debates, and their outcomes. The evolving norms of policy culture are examined on the basis of two specific controversies: (...) pork-barrel support of science and university-industry relations. The article concludes with a discussion of why the study of a policy culture helps us understand the ways in which values shape science policy. (shrink)

It is now twenty years since James Watson published his personal account of the discovery of the structure of DNA and triggered the growing scholarly study of the roots of molecular biology. Watson himself was not concerned with the study of nucleic acids before he became directly involved but at least three detailed histories of the early development of molecular biology have subsequently appeared, together with books, papers and reviews from others who took part, or their partisan representatives. Of these (...) three histories, only one does justice to Avery's work. His surviving DNA collaborator, MacLyn McCarty, believes that only Olby inThe Path to the Double Helixdeals adequately with Avery's contribution. (shrink)

In this article I consider some central aspects of the naturalist philosophy of science and science and technology studies in dealing with the contested status of technoscience in medicine. Focusing on the concepts of realism and representation, I argue that theories of science-as-practice in naturalist philosophy of science should expand their scope so as to reflect more thoroughly on the social and political context of technoscience. I develop a hermeneutic of technomedical objects in order to highlight the internal connectedness between (...) social action, material agency, and the actions of scientific communities. The framework thus developed is used to re-consider the genomic turn in medicine. Pointing to the discrepancies between socially dominant representations of genomic technology and the actual interventions brought about through those technologies, I raise the question of how and where to address problems of theory and policy. (shrink)

A major theme in biological research is the quest for mechanism, embodied in explanatory reductionism: the interpretation of phenomena through links to the entities and laws of more fundamental sciences. For example, the form of Starling's Law of the Heart, relating contractile force to heart volume, follows from the sliding-filament hypothesis of muscle contraction, a molecular concept. Although alternative mechanisms for muscle contraction and cardiac regulation could be deduced from biochemical principles, the formulation provides clear correspondence with the phenomena and (...) a deeper understanding of cardiac function. Moreover, even if the reduction provides no better formulation of the phenomenon, of the macro-regularity, it is still prized as a nearer approach to physical reality, as a step toward realizing fundamental unities and codifying general principles, and as a door to new experimental opportunities. (shrink)

The history of what we call molecular biology today is not just the story of DNA. Molecular biology emerged from and was supported by a multiplicity of widely scattered, differently embedded, and loosely, if at all connected experimental systems for characterizing living beings to the level of biologically relevant macromolecules. By implementing different modes of technical analysis, these systems created a new space of representation in which the central concepts of molecular biology gradually became articulated. The paper describes the establishment (...) of the rat liverin vitro protein synthesis system of Paul Zamecnik and his group a the Collis P. Huntington Memorial Hospital of Harvard University between 1947 and 1952. Insofar as such systems orient the research activity, they may also prove helpful for the orientation of the historian. Experimental systems „have a life of their own. (shrink)

Although molecular biology has meant different things at different times, the term is often associated with a tendency to view cellular causation as conforming to simple linear schemas in which macro-scale effects are specified by micro-scale structures. The early achievements of molecular biologists were important for the formation of such an outlook, one to which the discovery of recombinant DNA techniques, and a number of other findings, gave new life even after the complexity of genotype–phenotype
relations had become apparent. Against this (...) background we outline how a range of scientific developments and conceptual considerations can be regarded as enabling and perhaps necessitating contemporary systems approaches. We suggest that philosophical ideas have a valuable part to play in making sense of complex scientific and disciplinary issues. (shrink)

One observes regulation at every biological level. Organisms, cells, and biochemical processes operate efficiently, normally wasting neither material nor energy, and adjusting their functions to external influences. Nature evidently has evolved mechanisms specifically dedicated to regulation at many levels. What is the molecular basis of this control?In the 1950s these molecular control mechanisms began to be explored seriously. The discoveries of feedback inhibition of enzyme activity were important because they gave an initial example of how regulation is achieved at the (...) molecular level. We showed that certain enzymes are composed of two parts, one for catalysis and another distinct part present only to regulate this catalysis. Catalytic activity can be either stimulated or inhibited when a small molecule in the environment combines with the enzyme's regulatory site. In particular, a final product of a metabolic pathway generates a feedback loop which automatically limits its own excessive production, by combining with the regulatory site of an early enzyme in that pathway. Later studies showed that catalytic and regulatory structures of some enzymes could be separated physically.The discovery of regulatory sites and their interaction with molecules unrelated to their substrates was the basis for the generalized allosteric concept. This concept extends the regulatory site idea to a wide variety of processes such as control of gene expression, hormone action, and cellular growth. (shrink)

The Pajama (Pardee, Jacob, Monod) experiment provided a breakthrough in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms by which gene expression is regulated. Today, twenty‐five years later it provides a paradigm for thinking about problems of gene expression, such as growth regulation and differentiation. From this experiment emerged entities such as repressors, regulatory genes, the operon as a group of jointly controlled genes, and messenger RNA.

Steve Fuller has argued that a scientific discovery will not be recognized unless it can be justified within the history of the relevant science. He cites Mendel's work on genetics, which was not recognized until thirty-five years after its publication, as an example. This essay argues that Mendel's work comes out of the tradition of work by both agricultural breeders and academics in nineteenth century Austria. Thus, Fuller is mistaken, and one must look elsewhere for the neglect of Mendel's work. (...) This essay also places Mendel's work within the philosophy of Jan Comenius, whose work was very likely known to Mendel.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------. (shrink)

We argue that the physics of complex materials and self-organizing processes should be made central to the biology of form. Rather than being encoded in genes, form emerges when cells and certain of their molecules mobilize physical forces, effects, and processes in a multicellular context. What is inherited from one generation to the next are not genetic programs for constructing organisms, but generative mechanisms of morphogenesis and pattern formation and the initial and boundary conditions for reproducing the specific traits of (...) a taxon. There is no inherent antagonism between this “physicalist” perspective and genetics, since physics acts on matter, and gene products are essential material components of living systems whose variability affects the systems’ parameters. We make this notion concrete by summarizing the concept of “dynamical patterning modules” (DPMs; Newman and Bhat, Phys Biol 5:1–14, 2008; Int J Dev Biol 53:693–705, 2009), an explicit physico-genetic framework for the origin and evolution of multicellular form in animals, as well as (when differences in interaction toolkit genes and applicable physical processes are taken into account) in multicellular plants (Hernández-Hernández et al., Int J Dev Biol 56:661–674, 2012). DPMs provide the missing link between development and evolution by revealing how genes acting in concert with physics can generate and transform morphology in a heritable fashion. (shrink)

François Jacob’s The Logic of Life: A History of Heredity has shown an enduring relevance for the history and philosophy of biology. In this article, resisting the received view that regards this book merely as an application of Foucault’s archaeological method, I reconstruct a silent debate between François Jacob and Jacques Monod. More precisely, I argue that Jacob’s history of biology offers a riposte to Monod’s claims in Chance and Necessity. First, I show that the distinction between a “history of (...) ideas” and a “history of objects” captures two ways of looking at the history of science that characterize Monod’s and Jacob’s own approaches. Next, I present Monod’s search for a “theory of the natural selection of ideas.” Then I argue that the concept of “integron,” introduced by Jacob in his conclusion, covertly undermines Monod’s argument for the use of evolutionary models of cultural and scientific change. These contrasting perspectives shed new light on why the Nobel colaureates and former colleagues expressed little interest in each other’s books. More generally, the Monod-Jacob divide illustrates the use and rejection of biological models in writing the history of science and the importance of situating Jacob within his own milieu. (shrink)

In this paper the scientific trajectory of Spanish influential biochemist Alberto Sols (1917–1989) is presented in comparative perspective. His social and academic environment, his research training under the Cori's in the US in the early 1950s and his works when coming back to Spain to develop his own scientific career are described in order to present the central argument of this paper on his path from physiological research to research on enzymatic regulation. Sols' main contributions were both scientific and academic. (...) He and his collaborators not only contributed to biological knowledge on the biochemistry of metabolic regulation but to the active reception of biochemistry in the Spanish academia and to update of Spanish medical education. -/- . (shrink)