Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T18:02:12.152Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Decisions, Decisions: Why Thomas Hunt Morgan Was Not the “Father” of Evo-Devo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jeffrey H. Schwartz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the construction of neo-Darwinism grew out of Thomas Hunt Morgan's melding of Darwinism and Mendelism, his evidence did not soley support a model of gradual change. To the contrary, he was confronted with observations that could have led him to a more “evo-devo” understanding of the emergence of novel features. Indeed, since Morgan was an embryologist before he became a fruit-fly geneticist, one would have predicted that the combination of these two lines of research would have resulted in early formulations of concepts relevant to evolutionary developmental biology. It is thus of interest to review Morgan's thought processes and arguments for at first rejecting both Darwinism and Mendelism, and then for later dismissing data that would have yielded a model of rapid morphological change in favor of a model of change based on the accumulation of minor mutations and their morphological consequences.

Type
Advances in Genomics and Its Conceptual Implications for Development and Evolution
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 73 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2004 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers. Edited by Miriam Solomon , December 2006 , pp. 918 - 929
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

I thank Karola Stotz for inviting me to participate in her session at the 2004 meeting of the PSA and for her comments, as well as those of Paul Griffiths and Jim Griesemer, on Morgan.

References

Ast, G. (2005), “The Alternative Genome,” Scientific American April: 58–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bateson, W. (1894), Materials for the Study of Variation, Treated with Especial Regard to Discontinuity in the Origin of Species. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bateson, W. (1913), Problems of Genetics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Carroll, S. B., Grenier, J. K., and Weatherbee, S. D. (2005), From DNA to Diversity: Molecular Genetics and the Evolution of Animal Design. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. (1859), On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. (1868), The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (2 vols.). London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. (1872), On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. 6th ed. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
de Beer, G. R. (1930), Embryology and Evolution. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
de Vries, H. (1910), The Origin of Varieties by Mutation (2 vols.). London: Open Court.Google Scholar
Dobzhansky, T. H. (1941), Genetics and the Origin of Species. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. A. (1930), The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldschmidt, R. ([1940] 1982), The Material Basis of Evolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Maresca, B., and Schwartz, J. H. (2006), “Sudden Origin: A General Mechanism of Evolution Based on Stress Protein Concentration and Rapid Environmental Change,” The Anatomical Record (Part B: New Anatomist) 289B:38–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayr, E. (1942), Systematics and the Origin of Species. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Mivart, St. G. (1871), On the Genesis of Species. London: John Murray.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, T. H., Sturtevant, A. H., Muller, H. J., and Bridges, C. B. ([1915] 1926), The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity. New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Morgan, T. H., Sturtevant, A. H., Muller, H. J., and Bridges, C. B. (1903), Evolution and Adaptation. New York: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, T. H., Sturtevant, A. H., Muller, H. J., and Bridges, C. B. (1909), “What Are `Factors' in Mendelian Explanations?” Proceedings of the American Breeder's Association 5:365–368.Google Scholar
Morgan, T. H., Sturtevant, A. H., Muller, H. J., and Bridges, C. B. (1910), “Chance or Purpose in the Origin and Evolution of Adaptation,” Science 31:201–210.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morgan, T. H., Sturtevant, A. H., Muller, H. J., and Bridges, C. B. (1916), A Critique of the Theory of Evolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, T. H., Sturtevant, A. H., Muller, H. J., and Bridges, C. B. (1925), Evolution and Genetics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, T. H., Sturtevant, A. H., Muller, H. J., and Bridges, C. B. (1935), The Scientific Basis of Evolution. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Raff, R. A. (1996), The Shape of Life: Genes, Development, and the Evolution of Animal Form. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schindewolf, O. (1950), Basic Questions in Paleontology: Geologic Time, Organic Evolution, and Biological Systematics. Translated into English by J. Schaefer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schwartz, J. H. (1999a), Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence of Species. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Schwartz, J. H. (1999b), “Homeobox Genes, Fossils, and the Origins of Species,” The Anatomical Record/(New Anatomist) 257:15–31.3.0.CO;2-8>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, J. H. (1999c), “Can We Really Identify Species, Fossil or Living?” Anthropologie 37:221–230.Google Scholar
Schwartz, J. H. (2005a), “Darwinism versus Evo-Devo: A Late 19th c. Debate,” in Mueller-Wille, S. and Reinberger, H.-J. (eds.), A Cultural History of Heredity III: Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century. Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Preprint Series, 294:67–84.Google Scholar
Schwartz, J. H. (2005b), “Molecular Systematics and Evolution,” in Meyer, R. A. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Molecular Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine (EMCBMM). Weinheim: Wiley-VCH Verlag, 515–540.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. (1975), “A Theory of Evolution Above the Species Level,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 72:646–650.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stotz, K. (2006), “With ‘Genes’ Like That, Who Needs an Environment? Postgenomics’ Argument for the ‘Ontogeny of Information,’” Philosophy of Science 73 (5), in this issue.CrossRefGoogle Scholar