The Life Organic: The Theoretical Biology Club and the Roots of Epigenetics by Peterson Erik L

Author:Peterson, Erik L. [Peterson, Erik L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780822981985
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 2017-02-09T16:00:00+00:00

By any measure, a new and improved mechanism had emerged out of the Second World War and had shrugged off the challenges leveled at mechanism by the organicists of the 1920s and ’30s. One could witness this trend in small, personal cases—Medawar’s ambivalence toward organicism and falling out with Woodger in the midst of his rising success in less theoretical, more practical matters. In addition, broader scientific and even sociocultural changes were visible. Nagel’s critique and the work of his followers became ensconced as disciplinary wisdom in a midcentury analytical philosophy of science preoccupied with physics rather than biology. Asimov’s promotion of DNA-centrism certainly struck a chord with his American audiences. Intelligent Man’s Guides surpassed mere best-seller status to become a classic example of twentieth-century science writing.

Upon reflection, the mid-1950s situation in biology echoed trends seen a half century earlier. In that era, it was Wilhelm Roux who attempted to extend mechanism over what was thought to be the last mystery of biology, embryonic development, through his Entwicklungsmechanik program. Back then, sea urchin cells nudged apart by Roux’s follower, Hans Driesch, had slowed the locomotive of mechanism for a time. In the 1950s, just as molecular biology was extending a new and improved reductionistic mechanism focused on the behavior of DNA in the nuclei of cells, Waddington was conducting experiments on Drosophila that would again highlight the promise of epigenetics as the new “third way” biology of the future.

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