Journal of the History of Biology最新文献

By the late 1850s, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace had independently formulated similar theories of evolution by natural selection, yet they diverged notably in their treatment of artificial selection. This difference, evident in their 1858 joint presentation to the Linnean Society, has sparked scholarly debate over whether it reflects a deep, enduring divergence or a more superficial misunderstanding. I argue that this difference reflects substantial disagreement, but not for the reasons traditionally offered. I argue that while both Darwin and Wallace acknowledged that artificial selection could lead to (i) traits shaped by the aesthetic preferences, whims, or novelty-seeking tendencies of human breeders, and (ii) organisms highly dependent on the artificial environments in which they were cultivated, they disagreed about whether natural selection could produce comparable outcomes. Darwin thought natural selection could, under certain conditions, yield traits and dependencies analogous to those seen in domesticated varieties, whereas Wallace denied that such parallels could be drawn. This difference, I argue, makes sense in light of their wider respective projects and goals. Finally, turning to the vexed and related question of whether Wallace accepted Darwin's argument by analogy, I agree with previous scholarship that Wallace could have accepted the cogency of Darwin's analogy, both in 1858 and at the time he wrote Darwinism in 1889, since this was consistent with his other theoretical commitments. But he certainly questioned the desirability of drawing such an analogy.

This article analyzes the different career patterns of Naomi Feinbrun, a botanist, and Elisheva Goldschmidt, a geneticist, both of whom began their PhD studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the 1930s, and were among the first women to receive professorships at the same university. Although Feinbrun experienced early career obstacles, she encountered less opposition while on the higher rungs of the academic ladder. In contrast, Goldschmidt, who operated according to a much more ambitious and competitive pattern than Feinbrun, did not suffer significant barriers at the beginning of her academic career, but encountered hurdles at a later stage. This article offers a close, comparative analysis of their careers, so that the distinctions and specificities of early and late career obstacles become clear. It argues that by paying attention to the intersectionality of gender with other categories like social and cultural backgrounds as well as personal characteristics, a complex picture emerges that moves beyond traditional gender-based sociological explanations that draw on the metaphors of "glass ceiling" and "sticky floor." As the article shows, furthermore, even women scientists who belonged to similar disciplines in the same university and were active in the same time period, could face quite different challenges. Such comparative studies on the career patterns of women scientists might offer new possibilities for the many historical challenges faced by women scientists in various global contexts.

This article argues that while the 1975 Asilomar Conference on Recombinant Molecules gave rise to new developments in science policy, the subsequent debates about genetic engineering should not be viewed in isolation, but rather in the larger historical context of discussions on a new biology that began as early as the 1960s. The new field of molecular biology was at that time already hotly debated by holistic biologists, sociologists, and philosophers in West Germany. In part, these debates were a reaction against the utopian views of some leading US scientists whose imaginaries about cloning and genetically modified man came under serious critique after the CIBA Foundation symposium Man and his Future (1962). As a result, some German philosophers, scientists and sociologists framed the new biology against the historical background of Nazi eugenics. In the 1970s and 1980s, when the new social movements (peace movement, anti-nuclear power movement, ecology movement, feminist movement) started to debate genetic engineering, the public and political controversies about recombinant DNA technologies remained closely intertwined with issues of cloning, embryo research and in-vitro fertilization (IVF). This discursive assemblage was often framed by dystopian fears about human genetic engineering. The article traces these multi-layered discourses and analyzes the continuities and changes in the debates from the 1960s to the 1980s in West Germany while comparing them with developments in the United States. It demonstrates how different understandings of gene technologies and their future impact on society collided and how different concepts of risk developed among both scientists and the public after Asilomar.

Elisabeth S. Vrba (1942-2025) was an important figure in paleobiology and evolutionary theory, leaving an indelible mark on macroevolutionary research. Vrba's collaboration with Stephen Jay Gould led to the introduction of the term "exaptation," refining how evolutionary biologists distinguish between traits originally selected for one function and those later co-opted for another; Gould and Vrba also clarified conceptual issues surrounding species sorting and selection, although they would later disagree on the meanings of species selection. Vrba further advanced, with Niles Eldredge, a hierarchical perspective on evolution, emphasizing cross-level causality. Her contributions to macroevolutionary theory, particularly through hypotheses advanced by herself, for example, the Effect Hypothesis, the Resource-Use Hypothesis and the Mass-Heterochrony Hypothesis, underscored the role of environmental pressures in shaping biodiversity. Vrba's contribution, which advanced and defined the field of macroevolution, is one of rigorous theoretical innovation, and more importantly empirical integrative testing using approaches from community ecology, developmental dynamics, and the paleoclimatology of species turnover patterns at large temporal and spatial scales, influencing not only paleontology but evolutionary biology at large. As we bid farewell to one of the field's most influential thinkers, we recognize the lasting impact of her work on how we understand the history of life. Additionally, we highlight points of harmony and disagreement between Vrba, Gould and Eldredge, which we consider mostly missing from historical literature.