Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T00:34:45.589Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Darwin, Mendel, Morgan: The Beginnings of Genetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Marcel Blanc
Affiliation:
Paris

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Traditionally genetics is said to be the science of heredity. At least this was how William Bateson defined it in 1906. Today this is no longer the case. Since about ten years ago. when biologists learned to extract genes from cells, to transfer them from cell to cell, to dissect them, to analyze them biochemically, in short to manipulate them, the term genetics has tended rather to designate the science of the action of genes in cells. (This is what was formerly called physiological genetics). In any case this is the form of genetics which today is in the forefront of biological research. (This is also called molecular genetics). This kind of genetics is also in the forefront in the media, because of its present or potential applications, in the realms of biotechnology, genetic therapy and so on.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

Allen, G.E., “Thomas H. Morgan et la naissance de la génétique modeme”, La Recherche, 166, 592599, 1985.Google Scholar
Blanc, M., “Gregor Mendel: la légende du génie méconnu”, La Recherche, 151, 4659, 1984.Google Scholar
Bowler, P.J., “Hugo De Vries and Thomas Hunt Morgan: the mutation theory and the spirit of Darwinism“, Annals of Science, 35, 5573, 1978.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darden, L., “Reasoning in scientific change: Charles Darwin, Hugo De Vries and the discovery of segregation”, Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci, 7, 127169, 1976.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayr, E., The Growth of Biological Thought, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Olby, R.C., Origins of Mendelism, Schocken Books, 1966.Google Scholar
Olby, R.C., “Mendel no Mendelian?”, Hist. Sci., 17, 5372, 1979.Google Scholar
Orel, V., and Arnogathe, J.R., Mendel, un inconnu célèbre, Belin, 1985.Google Scholar
Serre, J.L., “La genèse de l'œuvre de Mendel”, La Recherche, 158, 10721081, 1984.Google Scholar
Proceedings of the symposium on “Past, present and future of genetics”, Brno, 26 August-1 September 1982.Google Scholar
The Origin of Genetics: A Mendel Source Book, (Stern, C., Sherwood, E.R. eds), Freeman, W.H., 1966.Google Scholar