Week3

You had said in class that a decent amount of historians felt that Darwin's findings had been more a product of the time he lived in than his own doing. I forget the exact term you had used, it might have been convergence, but you cited the fact that Wallace came up with a very similar theory at just about the same time as evidence that it might not be any huge act of Darwin. I was wondering your thoughts was it just the growing body of scientific understanding around them, or was it a specific thing that would have brought humanity to the point where two independent men came up with such similar theories.

http://www.michaelshermer.com/darwins-shadow/excerpt/

Mendel was a member of the clergy. How did his findings of this semi-randomness sit well with the Church? One would think it would be considered against the Church.

This is based off the Columbia University article on Thomas Hunt Morgan.

One of Thomas Hunt Morgan's major contributions to scientific research was a system of running a laboratory in a more meritocratic, democratic fashion then was common for his time. According to Columbia, this innovation was inspired by American cultural traits, which are less rigidly hierarchical than those of the German culture in which contemporary laboratories were developed.

However, by Columbia's own admission, all previous major American research institutions took their cues from the German laboratory system, without much regard to any culture gap it might have entailed.

I was wondering: Were there any other underlying reasons that led Morgan to break tradition by further empowering his subordinates?

My question arose from our class discussion about the article written by T.H. Morgan, 'What are 'Factors' in Mendelian Explanation.

We spoke of how Morgan had trouble with how Mendel used a hypothesis to make another hypothesis. I'm understanding it as it is saying the same thing as you can't build a sturdy house without a solid foundation. Assuming that I was understanding correctly, I think that Mendel performed enough expiriments to make a solid conclusion about the pea plants heredity which could in turn be used to make more hypotheses. Why would Morgan, being a scientist himself, not like that theory without trying the expiriments himself? Did he disprove any of Mendel's work with the plants?

How did other scientists/biologists view T.H. Morgan's flip-flop on Mendelian inheritance as he radically changed his position on the issue in just a few years.

I was reading Controlling Human Heredity and in the first chapter I noticed pictures of signs containing “Unfit Human Traits”. Now I actually have one of those traits (epilepsy) and I was just wondering who decided what was considered “unfit” back then and their backing for it. I understand that there wasn’t any medicine for things like epilepsy in the 1920’s however I don’t understand why some traits were on the board (color of guinea pig?).

In The Century of the Gene the author writes “But will the new lexicon ever cohere into explanatory framework providing anything close to the satisfaction that genes once offered?” What satisfaction is the author referring to here?

What do people hope to learn from our quest to uncover the “mystery of the gene” or of DNA sequencing… What exactly is this breakthrough going to provide except more questions? When will people feel we have reached true enlightenment? As stated in the book there is a large gap between STRUCTURAL genomics and FUNCTIONAL genomics.

I clearly see the scientific and medical benefits to uncovering one more piece of the puzzle. However, it seems that there is also an emotional connection between the question “why we exist” and DNA sequencing.