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Darwin-L Message Log 6: 1–30 — February 1994
Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences
Darwin-L was an international discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences, active from 1993–1997. Darwin-L was established to promote the reintegration of a range of fields all of which are concerned with reconstructing the past from evidence in the present, and to encourage communication among scholars, scientists, and researchers in these fields. The group had more than 600 members from 35 countries, and produced a consistently high level of discussion over its several years of operation. Darwin-L was not restricted to evolutionary biology nor to the work of Charles Darwin, but instead addressed the entire range of historical sciences from an explicitly comparative perspective, including evolutionary biology, historical linguistics, textual transmission and stemmatics, historical geology, systematics and phylogeny, archeology, paleontology, cosmology, historical geography, historical anthropology, and related “palaetiological” fields.
This log contains public messages posted to the Darwin-L discussion group during February 1994. It has been lightly edited for format: message numbers have been added for ease of reference, message headers have been trimmed, some irregular lines have been reformatted, and error messages and personal messages accidentally posted to the group as a whole have been deleted. No genuine editorial changes have been made to the content of any of the posts. This log is provided for personal reference and research purposes only, and none of the material contained herein should be published or quoted without the permission of the original poster.
The master copy of this log is maintained in the Darwin-L Archives (rjohara.net/darwin) by Dr. Robert J. O’Hara. The Darwin-L Archives also contain additional information about the Darwin-L discussion group, the complete Today in the Historical Sciences calendar for every month of the year, a collection of recommended readings on the historical sciences, and an account of William Whewell’s concept of “palaetiology.”
---------------------------------------------
DARWIN-L MESSAGE LOG 6: 1-30 -- FEBRUARY 1994
---------------------------------------------
DARWIN-L
A Network Discussion Group on the
History and Theory of the Historical Sciences
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:1>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Tue Feb 1 00:09:11 1994
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 1994 01:20:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: List owner's monthly greeting
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
Greetings to all Darwin-L subscribers. On the first of every month I send
out a short note on the status of our group with a reminder of basic commands.
Darwin-L is now five months old, and we have almost 550 members from nearly
30 countries. I am grateful to all of you for your interest and your many
contributions. A special thanks to all the members new and old who recently
introduced themselves to the group. Any others among us who would like to
introduce themselves in this way they are most welcome to do so; those who
wish to remain in the background and just listen in on our discussions are
perfectly welcome to do that as well.
I have been asked by several people to remind participants to please sign
their messages with a name and e-mail address. Different mail systems work
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in the absence of a signature block, will not be able to tell who the message
came from.
The Darwin-L gopher archive is now open for business on rjohara.uncg.edu
(numeric address 152.13.44.19). There were a few early snags with the gopher
software, but a new release (Gopher Surfer 1.0b5) appears to have fixed these
problems. The Darwin-L gopher contains the logs of our past discussions,
several bibliographies of interest to historical scientists, and gateways to
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friends.
The following are the most frequently used listserv commands that Darwin-L
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To post a public message to the group as a whole simply send it as regular
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I thank you all for your continuing interest in Darwin-L.
Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner
Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:2>From hantuo@utu.fi Tue Feb 1 03:53:02 1994
To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: hantuo@utu.fi (Hanna Tuomisto)
Subject: Re: Who, what, where, when, etc.
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 12:01:06 +0200
Here's an addition to the lists of interrogative words. These come from
Finnish, which is not an Indo-european language. We seem to have two series
of these words, one beginning with k- and the other beginning with mi-. In
addition, there is a series of words that answer these questions, mainly
beginning with si-.
kuka who
kumpi which (out of two)
koska when
kuinka how
mika what, which (out of many) se it
missa where siella there
milloin when silloin then
miksi why siksi because
miten how siten in such a way
As far as I can see, the k-series consists of more or less independent
words, while the mi-series consists of the different cases of the word
mika, and the si-series consists of the different cases of the word se.
Consequently, the mi- and si- series can be considerably lengthened by
using the rest of the available sixteen cases.
As to the interrogative intonation, Finnish has none. All questions are
formed either by the words mentioned above, or in case of yes-no questions
by adding the postfix -ko to the verb, but the intonation remains the same.
I still remember the despair of our (originally British) English teacher at
elementary school; it was very hard to make the pupils grasp the idea of
interrogative intonation.
As to chimp sign boards, I think Craig McConnell may be right: if the
chimps were never given a chance to ask questions, it's difficult to tell
whether they actually would have had the capacity to do so. Correct me if
I'm mistaken, but I recall from somewhere that chimps that were taught the
sign language used by deaf people were able to understand and formulate
questions. Unfortunately I do not have any reference on this; if anyone
does, please let me know.
Hanna Tuomisto
hantuo@utu.fi
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:3>From 00HFSTAHLKE@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu Tue Feb 1 07:43:08 1994
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 1994 08:51:33 -0500 (EST)
From: 00hfstahlke@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu
Subject: Re: Who, what, where, when, etc.
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Hanna Tuomisto writes:
>As to chimp sign boards, I think Craig McConnell may be right: if the
>chimps were never given a chance to ask questions, it's difficult to tell
>whether they actually would have had the capacity to do so. Correct me if
It's difficult to tell much about cognitive capacities of chimps from
what's available on a computer sign board, as in the Lana Project and
its successors at Yerkes. Lana, in the original project, had
lexigrams (the project's term for the symbols she was trained to use)
for objects and persons, relational words like prepositions, and
predicative concepts like verbs. There were also symbols used as
utterance initiators, including a command/request marker, recorded in
computer records as PLEASE, and an interrogative marker, recorded as
QUESTION. In her training and usage, PLEASE was used only with
sentences directing the computer to do something, like dispense food
or open a window. QUESTION was used by Lana to direct humans to do
something and by humans both directively and to ask Lana for
information. Lana did not commonly use QUESTION in the latter way,
but I would have to dig back through data tapes to check that
carefully. A fairly extensive body of data from the Lana project is
reported in several chapters of
Rumbaugh, Duane M. 1977. Language Learning by a Chimpanzee: the
Lana Project. New York: Academic Press.
I strongly recommend the book for anyone interested in a detailed
review of a major primate language project.
>I'm mistaken, but I recall from somewhere that chimps that were taught the
>sign language used by deaf people were able to understand and formulate
>questions. Unfortunately I do not have any reference on this; if anyone
>does, please let me know.
I can't speak to this directly, but I can recommend the following
additional bibliography on the topic. As is to be expected in such a
controversial area, you'll find a wide variety of viewpoints expressed
in these works.
de Luce, Judith, and Hugh T. Wilder. 1983. Language in primates:
perspectives and implications. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Premack, David. 1986. Gavagai! or the Future History of the Animal
Language Controversy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Sebeok, Thomas A. and Jean Umiker-Sebeok (eds). 1980. Speaking of
apes: a critical anthology of two-way communication with man. New
York: Plenum Press.
Terrace, Herbert S. 1979. Nim. New York: Knopf.
Wallman, Joel. 1992. Aping language. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
I'd like to put the question about questions in a slightly different
way. That is, do chimpanzees who have been trained in some form of
linguistic behavior (note I am treating as moot the question of
whether chimps can learn language) express in their linguistic terms
their evident capacity for inquisitive behavior. The answer, as some
of the conversations in the Rumbaugh book indicate, is pretty clearly
yes. Does this mean that they have a syntactic form called
interrogative? Only if they've been taught it. There are other ways
of expressing that illocutionary force.
Herb Stahlke
============================================================================
Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D., Associate Director (317) 285-1843
Consulting and Planning Services (317) 285-1797 (fax)
University Computing Services 00hfstahlke@bsuvc.bsu.edu
Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306 hstahlke@bsu.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:4>From SPAMER@say.acnatsci.org Tue Feb 1 13:04:39 1994
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 14:15:58 -0500 (EST)
From: Earle Spamer <SPAMER@say.acnatsci.org>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: RE: changing taxonomies
Ken Jacobs' student should be totally engrossed by the works of Constantine
Rafinesque, who in several privately published books attempted to revise
the whole of nature(!).
These are:
Specchio della scienze o giornale enciclopedico di Sicilia
(Mirror of the Sciences, or encyclopaedic journal of Sicily)
1814
Precis des decouvertes et travaux somiologiques
(Epitome of the somiological discoveries)
1814
Principes fondamentaux de somiologie...
(Fundamental principles of somiology...)
1814
Analyse de la nature ou tableau de l'univers...
(Analysis of nature or tableau of the universe...)
1815
Fortunately, all of these have been translated into English in one volume,
accompanied by a good introduction and notes:
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque Schmaltz on classification; a translation of
early works by Rafinesque with introduction and notes. By A. J. Cain.
TRYONIA, no. 20, 240 pp. (1990).
Although Rafinesque did finally settle down to create havoc just in the
animal and plant kingdoms, he also took on the classification of rocks,
minerals, cosmology, atmospheric events, oceanography, general geology...
well, he just goes on and on. His phrasiology and creation of terms are
joys to behold.
I hope this helps out.
Earle Spamer
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia
spamer@say.acnatsci.org
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:5>From phlkcs@gsusgi2.gsu.edu Tue Feb 1 13:56:45 1994
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 15:05:24 -0500 (EST)
From: "Kelly C. Smith" <phlkcs@gsusgi2.gsu.edu>
Subject: Re: what evolution is
To: Robert Brandon <rbrandon@acpub.duke.edu>
On Fri, 28 Jan 1994, Robert Brandon wrote:
> First a brief introduction. I am a philosopher of biology at Duke. My
> interests span most of population biology.
> Creighton asks when the identification of evolution with change in gene
> pool took place, and what, if anything, it had to do with the hegemony of
> molecular biology/genetics. I've written on this ('Evolution' Phil. Sci. 45
> (1978),pp. 96-109).
> The earliest reference I found making this identification was Dobzhansky
> in 1937 (Genetics and the Origin of the Species). Thus the definition in
> question comes out of, and is still current in, population genetics. It is
> entirely independent of molecular genetics.
> My 1978 article attempts to give a genetic definition of evolution that is
> more satisfactory than change in gene frequency. Nowadays I would prefer
> something like the following: evolution is any change in the distribution
> of heritable characters over generational time.
> Cheers,
> Robert Brandon
Robert is absolutly right (and not just because he is my advisor).
Please note that I am being a good boy, Robert...
Kelly Smith
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:6>From schoenem@QAL.Berkeley.Edu Tue Feb 1 16:46:54 1994
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 13:41:03 -0800 (PST)
From: Tom Schoenemann <schoenem@QAL.Berkeley.Edu>
Subject: Re: Who, what, where, when, etc.
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Regarding the question of whether chimps given linguistic training have
ever been known to use interrogatives, I recently attended a lecture by
Allen and Beatrix Gardner in which this question was raised. For those
who are not familiar with their work, the Gardners attempted to teach
American Sign Language to a number of chimps (Washoe being the most
famous). They reported that their chimps regularly used the signs "what"
and "who" in sentences in which they (the chimps) clearly wanted a
response from their handlers. Beatrix Gardner specifically stated that
their chimps would often sign THAT WHAT?, point to a novel object, and
look at the handler while waiting for a response. After the handler
formed the sign for the particular object, the chimp would appear
satisfied (i.e., would stop signing THAT WHAT? and stop looking at the
handler). The chimps apparently would go through periods in which they
would repeat this process many times (to many different objects) during
a single study session.
In their 1989 review article of their work (Gardner, R. A. and B. T.
Gardner. "Early signs of language in cross-fostered chimpanzees." HUMAN
EVOLUTION V.4(5):337-365) they include the signs "what" and "who" in their
table of signs reliably used by 4 of their chimps (Washoe, Moja, Tatu, and
Dar). The entry for "what" includes the following specific example where
it was used by Moja:
(during tickle play with teddy bear)
Susan (human handler): WANT TICKLE MORE?
Moja: TICKLE
Susan: WHO TICKLE YOU?
Moja: THAT WHAT? (of teddy bear)
Susan: BABY
Moja: BABY
The entry for "who" includes the following example from Tatu:
(of Naomi's photo on driver's license)
Tatu: THAT WHO?
Naomi: THAT ME NAOMI
Tatu: THAT NAOMI
The learning environment that they used with the chimps closely resembled
how human children are treated (in stark contrast to Terrace's relatively
sterile operant conditioning methods) and they achieved much better
results. It seems to be the case that the highest level of learning in
chimps occurs in informal, social settings. This is not to say that their
results are anecdotal. The Gardners (and more recently Savage-Rumbaugh's
work with Kanzi) used rigorous double-blind methodologies for testing the
extent of their vocabularies. Given that humans and chimps last shared a
common ancestor ~5 million years ago, whereas chimps and rats last shared
a common ancestor ~70 million years ago, I do not find it suprising that
chimps learn better in a more human environment! But this is another
question all together.
Tom Schoenemann
Department of Anthropology
University of California, Berkeley
schoenem@qal.berkeley.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:7>From IAP8EWH@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU Tue Feb 1 20:00:19 1994
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 1994 18:07 -0800 (PST)
From: IAP8EWH@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU
Subject: mineral classification
To: DARWIN-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
In response to the request by Ken Jacobs for references on the
history of mineral classification, here are a few:
For the 18th century, Albury and Olroyd (1977), Brit. J. Hist. Sci.,
33: 187.
For raw data, Linnaeus summarizes contemporary classifications
before presenting his own in the 12th ed. of Systema Naturae.
For the 19th century, the 6th ed. of Dana's System of Mineralogy
(E. S. Dana, 1892) reprints the prefaces of the first five editions,
which recount J. D. Dana's reluctant switch from systems based on
natural history, as used in the previous century, to systems based
on chemistry, as used more recently. One edition (the 3rd, I think)
includes both systems.
By way of introduction, I'm a mathematical psychologist
interested in what information classifications provide about the
classifiers and the things classified. This list is fascinating.
Eric Holman
Psychology Dept., UCLA
iap8ewh@mvs.oac.ucla.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:8>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Wed Feb 2 00:06:36 1994
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 1994 01:17:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: February 2 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
FEBRUARY 2 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES
1786: SIR WILLIAM JONES, English jurist and student of Oriental languages,
delivers his Third Anniversary Discourse as president of the Asiatick Society
of Bengal. It will come to be regarded by future generations of scholars as
one of the founding documents of historical linguistics: "The Sanscrit
language, whatever be its antiquity, is a wonderful structure; more perfect
than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than
either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of
verbs, and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by
accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three
without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps,
no longer exists. There is a similar reason for supposing that both the
Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the
same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same
family, if this were the place for discussing any question concerning the
antiquities of Persia."
Today in the Historical Sciences is a feature of Darwin-L, an international
network discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.
For more information about Darwin-L send the two-word message INFO DARWIN-L to
listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, or gopher to rjohara.uncg.edu (152.13.44.19).
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:9>From ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu Wed Feb 2 08:41:17 1994
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 09:51:51 -0500
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu (Jeremy Creighton Ahouse)
Subject: horizontal transfer
Hello Darwin list folk (DLF?),
I am preparing a short lecture on reticulate patterns in evolution
and on "horizontal transfer" of genetic information. My interest was
piqued by the results of "systemic gene expression after intravenous DNA
delevery into adult mice." (Zhu, et. al. Science v261, July 9, 1993).
Subsequently I heard about experiments where flies of "different"
species were kept together and genes were seen to move from one group to
the other, supposedly because they carried the same parasitic mites (do any
of you have the reference for this).
In my own work I spend lots of time and energy transfecting
mammalian cells lines with fancy constructs and I am impressed that this
may in fact happen "all the time" and easily (the Zhu result* is really
wild)
I have also been reading the introduction Mayr and Provine's _The
evolutionary synthesis_ and am impressed that the climate for discussing
these kinds of phenomena would have been more conducive before the
synthesis. And maybe only now with the distance of 5 decades is there
enough institutional forgetfullness so that these issues are reraised.
Though this may be a confused conclusion (thus my posting to this list) is
there a continuous strain of work on "lateral" transfer and reticulate
evolution that parallels the expansion of the "single tree of life" notion
(with its most potent endpoint in cladistics)?
Thanks,
Jeremy
*"A single intravenous injection of expression plasmid:cationic liposome
complexes into adult mice efficiently transfected virtually all tissues."
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Jeremy Creighton Ahouse
Biology Dept. & Center for Complex Systems
Brandeis University
Waltham, MA 02254-9110
(617) 736-4954
email: ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu
Mail from Mac by Eudora 1.3.1 RIPEM/PGP accepted.
"Si un hombre nunca se contradice, sera porque nunca dice nada"
- Miguel de Unamuno
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:10>From LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU Wed Feb 2 10:04:22 1994
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 10:04:22 -0600
From: "JOHN LANGDON" <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: horizontal transfer
In message <9402021453.AA08956@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu> writes:
> Hello Darwin list folk (DLF?),
> I am preparing a short lecture on reticulate patterns in evolution
> and on "horizontal transfer" of genetic information. My interest was
> piqued by the results of "systemic geneexpression after intravenous DNA
> delevery into adult mice." (Zhu, et. al. Science v261, July 9, 1993).
> Subsequently I heard about experiments where flies of "different"
> species were kept together and genes were seen to move from one group to
> the other, supposedly because they carried the same parasitic mites (do any
> of you have the reference for this).
M.A. Houck, et al., 1991. Possible horizontal transfer of Drosophila genes by
the mite Proctolaelaps regalis. Science 253:1125-1129. (also commentary in same
issue)
S Hart 1992. Stolen heirlooms. Discover (April):22.
JOHN H. LANGDON email LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY FAX (317) 788-3569
UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS PHONE (317) 788-3447
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46227
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:11>From princeh@husc.harvard.edu Wed Feb 2 17:39:43 1994
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 18:42:26 -0500 (EST)
From: Patricia Princehouse <princeh@husc.harvard.edu>
Subject: Conference: The Architecture of Science (fwd)
To: Darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
I hope the following conference announcement will be of interest to
Darwin-L readers.
Patricia Princehouse
Princeh@harvard.edu
.............................................................
Subject: Conference: The Architecture of Science
Friends:
Peter and I would like to call your attention to an
interdisciplinary conference that we are organizing on The Architecture
of Science, to be held here at Harvard in May.
A poster/flyer will be sent out to advertise the program later
this spring. In the meantime, I am tossing the following e-message
into "The Net," hoping to reach colleagues far and wide. Please
forward this information to any potentially interested parties.
Many thanks, Emily Thompson
...........................
The Architecture of Science
Harvard University
Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall
21-22 May 1994
A conference co-sponsored by the Department of History of Science, the
Graduate School of Design and the Harvard Medical School
Organized by:
Peter Galison, Mallinckrodt Professor of History of Science and Physics
Emily Thompson, Postdoctoral Fellow in History of Science
All sessions are open to the public.
Direct questions to Emily Thompson, ethomps@husc.harvard.edu
SCOPE: This conference will bring together scientists, architects,
historians and anthropologists, to examine aspects of the relationship
between architecture and science. Some participants will explore the
role that buildings play in defining the practice of science and the
nature of scientific knowledge; others will focus upon scientific ideas
as aesthetic motivation for the design of structures; still others will
consider how architectural theory has affect the development of
scientific philosophies; and some speakers will analyze how the
scientific and technical aspects of construction affect the design process.
PROGRAM:
SESSION 1: Saturday 21 May 1994, 9 AM - 12 PM
Science and Architecture in Early Modern Europe
Chair: Katherine Park, Professor of History, Wellesley College
Dr. Alberto Perez-Gomez, Saidye Rosner Bronfman Professor of the History of
Architecture, McGill University
The Impact of Early Modern Science on Architectural Theory:
The Work of Claude Perrault
Pamela O. Long, Historian, Washington DC
Openness and Empiricism: Values and Meaning in Early Architectural
Writings and in the New Experimental Philosophy
Paula Findlen, Professor of History, UC Davis
Masculine Prerogatives: Gender, Space and Knowledge in the
Early Modern Museum
William Newman, Professor of History of Science, Harvard
The Alchemist in His Laboratory: Representations from the
Early Modern Period
SESSION 2: Saturday 21 May, 2 - 5 PM
Modern/Post-Modern
Chair: Mario Biagioli, Professor of History, UCLA
Caroline Jones, Professor of Art History, Boston University
and
Peter Galison, Mallinckrodt Professor of History of Science and Physics,
Harvard University
Laboratory, Studio and Factory: Dispersing Sites of Production
Kenneth Frampton, Ware Professor of Architecture, Columbia
The British Debate, 1960-1980: Techno-Science Versus Architecture
Robert R. Wilson, Director Emeritus, Fermilab and Professor Emeritus of
Physics, Cornell University
Architecture at Fermilab
Moshe Safdie, Moshe Safdie Associates Inc, Former Ian Woodner Professor
of Architecture and Professor of Urban Design, Harvard
From D'Arcy Thompson to the SSC
SPECIAL SESSION: Saturday May 21 1994, 8 - 10 PM
A Case Study in Science and Space: The Lewis Thomas Laboratory
for Molecular Biology at Princeton
Chair: Thomas Hughes, Mellon Professor of History and Sociology of Science,
University of Pennsylvania
Robert Venturi, Venturi Scott Brown Associates Inc.
Thoughts on the Architecture of the Scientific Workspace:
Community, Change and Continuity
Denise Scott Brown, Venturi Scott Brown Associates Inc.
The Hounding of the Snark
Arnold J. Levine, Harry C. Wiess Professor in the Life Sciences and
Chair, Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton
Living in the Lewis Thomas Laboratory
SESSION 3: Sunday 22 May 1994, 9 AM - 12 PM
Building Science: Reflections on the Nineteenth Century
Chair: Warwick Anderson, Professor of History of Science, Harvard
George Stocking, Stein-Freiler Distinguished Professor of Anthropology
and Conceptual Foundations of Science, University of Chicago
The Spaces of Cultural Representation: Museum Arrangements and
Anthropological Theory in the Boasian and Evolutionary Traditions
Norton Wise, Professor of History, Princeton
Architectures for Steam: Engine Houses and Berlin Gardens
Myles Jackson, Postdoctoral Fellow in History of Science, Harvard
Illuminating the Opacity of Glass Making: Joseph von Fraunhofer's
Use of Monastic Culture and Architecture in Achromatic-Lens
Production
Sophie Forgan, Principal Lecturerer, Institute of Design, Teesside
Models, Machines and the Architecture of Science in Later 19th
Century British Universities
SESSION 4: Sunday 22 May 1994, 2 - 5 PM
Modern Science, Modern Structures
Chair: Neil Levine, Emmet Blakeney Gleason Professor of Fine Arts, Harvard
Adrian Forty, Architectural Historian, The Bartlett,
University College London
Scientific Metaphors in the Language of Architecture
Emily Thompson, Postdoctoral Fellow in History of Science, Harvard
Listening to/for Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the
Development of Modern Spaces in America
Michael Hays, Professor of Architecture, Harvard
Hannes Meyer, The Bauhaus and the "Scientization" of Architecture
Allan Brandt, Amalie Moses Professor of the History of Medicine, Harvard
Of Beds and Benches: Building the Modern American Hospital
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:12>From mwinsor@epas.utoronto.ca Wed Feb 2 17:53:09 1994
From: mwinsor@epas.utoronto.ca (Mary P Winsor)
Subject: Re: horizontal transfer
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 19:02:11 -0500 (EST)
There was a review in a recent issue of Systematic Biology of a book
claiming that certain echinoderms, whose metamorphosis is more radical
than a caterpillar's, and whose larvae resemble the larvae of quite
different echinoderms, originated by the hybridization of highly
dissimlar echinoderm parents. sorry I can't recall particulars, but
someone else on the list will know what I'm talking about.
Polly Winsor mwinsor@epas.utoronto.ca
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:13>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Wed Feb 2 22:59:56 1994
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 1994 00:11:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Changing mineralogical arrangements
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
Ken Jacobs asks the history of early systematic arrangements of minerals.
I know virtually nothing about this subject unfortunately, but I have one
conviction about it that I hope someone might be able to confirm. If you
look at the arrangement of minerals in the first edition of Linnaeus's
_Systema Naturae_ (1731; available in facsimile) you will see that the
mineral column runs from "Nitrum" through other salts, then through the
"Sulphura" to the metals, culminating in copper, silver, and gold. This
seems surely to be a chain of being arrangement with alchemical overtones,
yes? All the other substances are "unripe gold" as the alchemists might
have said, and through ripening it is possible for them to ascend this
scale. Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs recently published a wonderful book on
Isaac Newton's alchemical work called _The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role
of Alchemy in Newton's Thought_ (1991, Cambridge University Press), and I
for one had a whole new historical world opened to my eyes when I read it,
like Keats looking into Chapman's Homer. I suspect many of the vitalistic
and alchemical ideas she discusses pervade the early literature of natural
history to a much greater extent that we suspect. (Or at least than I would
have suspected myself. I shouldn't presume to speak for the real historians
of science who know this material a lot better than I do.) In support of
this assertion I offer a recent paper by Arthur Cain which suggests there
is certainly more to Linnaeus that meets the moderns systematist's eye:
Cain, Arthur J. 1992. Was Linnaeus a Rosicrucian? _The Linnean_,
8(3):23-44.
I also might mention that I chose the word "arrangement" above in my subject
header consciously, in place of "taxonomy" or "classification". If what we
are looking at in the case of Linnaeus's mineral arrangement, for example,
is a chain of being, then the _grouping_ contains only a portion of the
information he is trying to convey. He recognizes only three major _groups_
of minerals in his central column, but the _arrangement_ of these is not
arbitrary: salts come first, "Sulphura" come second, and the metals come last.
And also within each group the arrangement carries information: the metallic
group isn't just a box containing the various metal species, it is an
arrangement showing which ones are lowest and which are highest (least ripe
and most ripe, perhaps).
Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner
Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:14>From laudan@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu Wed Feb 2 23:42:23 1994
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 94 19:50:51 HST
From: Rachel Laudan <laudan@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: mineral classification
Hate to self-cite, but I say a good bit about the foundations of mineral
classification in my Mineralogy to Geology, University of Chicago Press,
1987.
Rachel Laudan (laudan@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu)
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:15>From p_stevens@nocmsmgw.harvard.edu Thu Feb 3 08:16:36 1994
Date: 3 Feb 1994 09:08:35 U
From: "p stevens" <p_stevens@nocmsmgw.harvard.edu>
Subject: Larval evolution and Linnaean series
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Two responses, to Polly Winsor & Bob O'Hara.
I think the book on animal evolution and hybridisation being responsible for
patterns of similarities in many animal groups - larve seem clearly similar to
one group, adults seems clearly similar to another (and quite different) group
- is by D. I. Williamson, "Larvae and evolution: toward a new zoology."
Chapman & Hall. 1992. It seems to me that Williamson's idea could be tested by
identifying genes responsible for larval development and looking at phylogenies
suggested by sequence analysis of those genes. Probably more easily said than
done.
As to Bob's comments on Linnaeus - how fascinating. There are obviously two
issues here - the kind of information L. was using, and how he organised it.
Cain's paper is very interesting, and the "quinarian" thinking that is evident
in some of Linnaeus work (five ranks in the system, five main parts of the
fructification) are also evident in some of Linnaeus's "occult sources". That
continuity is evident in L's arrangement of minerals is nice, because Cain
found it within what we would call molluscs (Amer. Malac. Bull. 2: 82. 1983), I
seem to remember that Polly Winsor has noted a distinctive serial arrangement
of some insect groups (Taxon 25: 57-67. 1976), and it is also evident in the
plant/animal boundary" (J. Arnold Arboretum 71:179-220. 1990).
What perhaps becomes of some interest to twentieth century systematists is that
the same catena-like distribution of characters that characterises Linnaeus's
arrangement is evident in Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu's work (Jussieu is the
"father of the (botanical) natural system (sic)", and also an early influence
on Cuvier), and the the young Cuvier discusses relationships in terms of
continuity (and continued to). Although Cuvier did not believe in the -scala
naturae-, he seems to have allowed a branching continuity. To the extent that
systematists through the twentieth century recognised relationships by directly
chaining groups, you may well expect to see a similar "Linnaean" pattern of
distribution of characters.
But Adam Smith long ago recognised that the direct linkage of facts was the
procedure adopted by the common man, as opposed to the philosopher...
Peter Stevens
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:16>From BOTCFNR@vm.uni-c.dk Fri Feb 4 07:38:00 1994
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 94 14:20:43 DNT
From: Finn N Rasmussen <BOTCFNR@vm.uni-c.dk>
Subject: Re: Peter Stevens, Quinarianism
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Peter Stevens wrote:
>As to Bob's comments on Linnaeus - how fascinating. There are obviousl two
>issues here - the kind of information L. was using, and how he organise it.
>Cain's paper is very interesting, and the "quinarian" thinking that is vident
>in some of Linnaeus work (five ranks in the system, five main parts of he
>fructification) are also evident in some of Linnaeus's "occult sources" That
>continuity is evident in L's arrangement of minerals is nice, because Cin
>found it within what we would call molluscs (Amer. Malac. Bull. 2: 82. 983), I
>seem to remember that Polly Winsor has noted a distinctive serial arranement
>of some insect groups (Taxon 25: 57-67. 1976), and it is also evident i the
>plant/animal boundary" (J. Arnold Arboretum 71:179-220. 1990).
- A number of rather recent authors have promoted the idea of viewing
life as organized into "5 kingdoms". Evidently, at least 3 kingdoms are para-
phyletic and thus not admissable in a phylogenetic classification. Is the
"5-kingdom view" a kind of neo-quinarianism - a ghost from Victorian
taxonomy?
Finn N Rasmussen
botcfnr at vm.uni-c.dk
Botanical Laboratory, Univ. Copenhagen
PS: Didn't "today in historical sciences" overlook W. Johansen, inventor of
the term gene, on 03 Feb?
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:17>From mahaffy@dordt.edu Fri Feb 4 10:18:45 1994
Subject: Whittaker's 5 kingdom was Re: Peter Stevens, Quinarianism
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 10:21:57 -0600 (CST)
From: James Mahaffy <mahaffy@dordt.edu>
Finn N. Rasmussen wrote:>
> - A number of rather recent authors have promoted the idea of viewing
> life as organized into "5 kingdoms". Evidently, at least 3 kingdoms are para-
> phyletic and thus not admissable in a phylogenetic classification. Is the
> "5-kingdom view" a kind of neo-quinarianism - a ghost from Victorian
> taxonomy?
I doubt if Whittaker was influenced by ghosts from the past. There
are only so many major groups you can subdivide living taxa into and if
you are a bit of a splitter, five kingdoms seems to be more reflective
of the major morphological kinds then another number of kingdoms.
Remember this split predated the popularity of cladistics based on molecular
data.
--
James F. Mahaffy e-mail: mahaffy@dordt.edu
Biology Department phone: 712 722-6279
Dordt College FAX 712 722-1198
Sioux Center, Iowa 51250
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:18>From KIMLER@social.chass.ncsu.edu Fri Feb 4 14:09:31 1994
From: KIMLER@social.chass.ncsu.edu
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 14:45:52 EST5EDT
Subject: Adam Smith quotation
Once again DARWIN-L serendipitously provides valuable service! Peter
Stevens ended his posting with the remark:
But Adam Smith long ago recognised that the direct linkage of
facts was the procedure adopted by the common man, as opposed to
the philosopher...
This is just the point about causation and explanations that I was
trying to make today in my History of Darwinism class. I think this
is the most powerful insight of Smith's -- that indirect causation
can be the organizing force, e.g., the "invisible hand" providing
order to economic systems by the operation of self-interested
interactors, thus needing no divine, designing, intervening force or
mind, nor minds aware of the full consequences of what they
individually do. Furthermore, this kind of causal model seems far
more important for Darwin's thinking than the pop-history story of
him "seeing English economics (competition) in the world of biology."
Evolution by natural selection is also a model of indirect,
unintended consequences. As Robert Stauffer pointed out in a paper
in 1960 (_Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc._ 104: 235-41), this model of
interaction and balance is to be found in Linnaeus's ecological
writings (albeit with an emphasis on the Designer), even before
Smith's _Wealth of Nations_. Darwin studied Linnaeus more
closely and directly than his readings about Smith's economics.
A query to Peter Stevens: can you provide the exact citation for the
Smith remark? Thanks.
William Kimler
Dept. History, North Carolina State University
kimler@ncsu.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:19>From KMURRAY@pitvax.xx.rmit.edu.au Sat Feb 5 00:58:02 1994
Date: Sat, 05 Feb 1994 17:58:27 -0500 (EST)
From: KEVIN MURRAY <KMURRAY@pitvax.xx.rmit.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Peter Stevens, Quinarianism
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Diagrams I have seen of the `five kingdoms' often use the hand as a
graphic device, for obvious reasons. It does seem to give nature a
sense of intention, purpose, even craftsmanship.
The fifth kingdom (`little pinkie') does seem quite curious. Has anyone
thoughts about the relationship between protoctista and queer theory?
(both assert an identity that lies in between established catetories).
Kevin Murray
kmurray@pitvax.xx.rmit.edu.au
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:20>From p_stevens@nocmsmgw.harvard.edu Sat Feb 5 08:08:14 1994
Date: 5 Feb 1994 09:08:43 U
From: "p stevens" <p_stevens@nocmsmgw.harvard.edu>
Subject: quinarianism (and smith)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Why quinarism? Why five kingdoms? Why not binarism? (well, there were two
kingdoms of life until recently.) I think that the "answer" may lie in the
fact that there are five figures in the (U.S.A.) zip code, not more. Nine
numbers in the zip code or twelve kingdoms would simply be too hard to
memorise. The title of G. A. Miller's article in Psychol. Rev. 63: 81-97. 1956
says it all: "The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our
capacity for processing information." It is perhaps easier to remember things
in small groups, and then one remembers that things come in small groups with
the same number of things in them, and then this becomes evidence of some
underlying reality... In the early 19thC naturalists were flirting with a
whole variety of number systems from two to seven, as far as I remember.
There is also a very interesting paper by E. W. Holman, "Statistical properties
of large published classifications," J. Classific. 9: 187-210. 1992 that show
such small numbers as being a recurring and pervasive feature of well-worked
out biological classifications. Indeed, one of the authors (Bentham) of the
botanical classic of the 19thC, the -Genera plantarum-, by George Bentham & J.
D. Hooker, was specifically trying to interpolate ranks throughout the
classificatory hierarchy so that no group would include more than 3 to 6 (to
12) members at the next lowest hierarchical rank. And that is exactly what they
succeeeded in doing, chunking up plants in such a way that the classification
as a whole fuctioned as a good memory system. One attempts to extract
biological (= evolutionary, phylogenetic) meaning from such classifications at
some peril.
I haven't look at "folk" classifications from this point of view, but my guess
is that there is going to be some sort of intersection of prototype theory as
invoked by Berlin in his recent "Principles of Ethnobiological Classification",
at least some of the variants of biological typological thought (perhaps
particularly Farber's "classification type concept"), and these number systems.
However, it is going to be important to look at the informal groupings of such
systems as well as the formal groupings.
As to Adam Smith, the reference I have is to "Essays on Philosophical Subjects"
[edited by W. P. D. Wightman and J. C. Bryce], Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980,
II[roman]:12 - It refers not to the pagination of the book, but to Smith's
writings included in it.
Peter Stevens.
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:21>From ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu Sat Feb 5 11:50:25 1994
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 12:52:26 -0500
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu (Jeremy Creighton Ahouse)
Subject: Re: quinarianism (and smith)
>The title of G. A. Miller's article in Psychol. Rev. 63: 81-97. 1956
>says it all: "The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our
>capacity for processing information."
>
>There is also a very interesting paper by E. W. Holman, "Statistical
>properties of large published classifications," J. Classific. 9: 187-210. 1992
>that show such small numbers as being a recurring and pervasive feature of
>well-worked out biological classifications.
A similar thing may be happening in "sturctural biology" right now.
It has become painfully (to some) obvious that the protein folding problem
is not going to have a strictly algorithmic solution. Rather a hybrid
approach between the "dictionary" and "algorithm" approaches is being
suggested. So a handful of major classes is being suggested for basic
protein motif building blocks and then refinement on those with dynamic
molecular simulations will bridge the gap to structure prediction. I have
heard structural biologists comment on how amazing it is that there are
just this "handful" of basic structures, and I wonder to myself if this
isn't in large part due to the demand of having a usable classification in
the first place.
- Jeremy
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Jeremy Creighton Ahouse (ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu)
Biology Dept.
Brandeis University
Waltham, MA 02254-9110
(617) 736-4954
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:22>From asap@u.washington.edu Sat Feb 5 17:41:55 1994
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 15:39:55 -0800 (PST)
From: Andie Palmer <asap@u.washington.edu>
Subject: quinarianism
To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Regarding Peter Stevens' posting earlier today:
"The title of G. A. Miller's article in Psychol. Rev. 63: 81-
97. 1956 says it all: "The magical number seven, plus or
minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing
information." "
and
"I haven't look at "folk" classifications from this point of
view, but my guess is that there is going to be some sort of
intersection of prototype theory as invoked by Berlin in his
recent "Principles of Ethnobiological Classification", at
least some of the variants of biological typological thought
(perhaps particularly Farber's "classification type
concept"), and these number systems."
Of interest in this area is the upcoming article:
Place Names, Population Density, and the Magic Number 500, by
Eugene Hunn, in Current Anthropology, Volume 35, Number 1,
February 1994, pp. 81-85. (Pagination is given according to
preprints.)
Hunn's article presents some interesting ideas regarding the
constraints of human memory on categorization. In
particular, Hunn examines the correlation between toponymic
(placename) density and population density for 10 Native
American groups (plus groups in Tonga and Australia) and
finds that " the relationship between population density and
toponymic density is mediated by individual memory, in
particular by an information-processing limitation that I
will call the magic number 500." Individuals from each group
are found to have place-name repertoires close to 500,
whether from densely or sparsely populated areas, within
their respective territories.
I expect this interesting article to spur those
anthropologists and others working with Native American
languages to re-examine their own data sets of collected
place names with respect to Hunn's findings. I mention this
regardless of the fact that the article's author is my
dissertation advisor!
Andie Palmer
Department of Anthropology, DH-05
Unviersity of Washington
Seattle, WA 98103
asap@u.washington.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:23>From phlkcs@gsusgi2.gsu.edu Sun Feb 6 12:23:44 1994
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 1994 13:22:04 -0500 (EST)
From: "Kelly C. Smith" <phlkcs@gsusgi2.gsu.edu>
Subject: extragenetic inheritance
To: darwin-L <DARWIN-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu>
Scholarly help needed:
I am looking for good examples of heritable, non-genetic factors that
influence phenotypic form. I'm particularly interested in cases of
heteroplasmy (of which I have vague memories w.r.t. plants and
drosophila) that might be construed as a mechanism for generating
phenotypic variance parallel to that of sexual rearrangement of genomes -
but I'll accept just about any examples from biology.
Thanks in advance,
Kelly Smith
phlkcs@gsusgi2.gsu.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:24>From GGALE@VAX1.UMKC.EDU Sun Feb 6 12:41:26 1994
Date: Sun, 06 Feb 1994 12:41:20 -0600 (CST)
From: GGALE@VAX1.UMKC.EDU
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 140
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
It was nice to see George Miller's justly famous "Magic Number Seven..." art-
icle cited by Peter Stevens--it was a major milestone in my own intellectual
development [such as THAT was!]. Miller's thesis, if memory serves, was that
each sensory channel, considered solely as an information-theoretical medium,
had its own limits on information flow-rate. Additionally, each channel had
a fairly solid breakpoint on the relation "x bits = 1 chunk". It was this
breakpoint which approximated x = 7, the magic number.
I think Peter is on to something significant, in looking for a relation between
this kind of constraint's being built into the information-processing
equipment, and the form of the output of the equipment. Or, put more
trenchantly, our knowledge schemes, for example, taxonomies, are shaped
in their form/structure by our knowing faculties, for example, our minds.
But other human activities, in addition to knowledge-making, might be
shaped by something like Miller's constraint. Administration-theory, so
far as I remember it, speaks about an administrator's "span-of-control"
being 7-8 [the Army squad has eight members]; and what's the optimum number
of people to have sitting around a round table, talking in one conversation?
Seems to me that it's about 8, as well.
Certainly this might be numerological in part. But my suspicion is that
constraints such as Miller's are and have been significant features in the
evolution of human beings. Moreover, I suspect that Miller's magic number must
be mirrored in some way in human language... but, beyond saying that, I
could say no more; luckily enough, there are lots of linguists reading these
words, among which might be one or two who actually know something about
these issues.
George Gale
ggale@vax1.umkc.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:25>From ad201@freenet.carleton.ca Sun Feb 6 13:31:56 1994
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 1994 14:31:28 -0500
From: ad201@freenet.carleton.ca (Donald Phillipson)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Adam Smith's Invisible Hand: cf. Darwinism
>William Kimler [kimler@ncsu.edu] wrote Fri, 4 Feb 1994:
>
>This is the most powerful insight of Smith's -- that indirect
>causation can be the organizing force, e.g., the "invisible hand"
>providing order to economic systems by the operation of
>self-interested interactors, thus needing no divine, designing,
>intervening force or mind, nor minds aware of the full consequences
>of what they individually do. Furthermore, this kind of causal model
>seems far more important for Darwin's thinking than the pop-history
>story of him "seeing English economics (competition) in the world of
>biology."
>
>Can you provide the exact citation for the Smith remark?
Oxford Book of Quotations cites Adam Smith, Theory of Model Sentiments
IV, i, 10: thus: "The rich only select from the heap what is most
precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in
spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity... they divide with
the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an
invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries
of life which would have been made, had the earth been divided into
equal portions among all its inhabitants."
Everybody usually refers to Wealth of Nations as the principal source,
so a search ought to be made, but I have not done this.
Your "Evolution by natural selection is also a model of indirect,
unintended consequences" implies the Invisible Hand and Natural
Selection are analogous, so you may wish to consider Popper's
critique of the concept of "law."
Adam Smith may have thought he was citing a law, but it looks to me
like an empirical proposition that deserves verification in specific
times and places. In Popper's terms it is falsifiable, so worth
considering; and in my opinion untrue. Perhaps it was true in 1776
but I do not think it true today that the rich "consume little more
than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and
rapacity... they divide with the poor the produce of all their
improvements." (Reaganite "trickle-down theory" is contradicted by
actual data on incomes etc., in both the US and Canada.)
Your association of the Invisible Hand and Natural Selection suggests
both have either positive force (indirect causation) or predictive
power. Current evolutionary theory (as reviewed by S.J. Gould in
Wonderful Life and elsewhere) abjures both predictive power and all
connotations of "force." Darwinian Theory is unprovable by Popperian
canons because, while important and probably true, no experimental
results, not even surprises, could be interpreted unambiguously as
falsifying it.
To my eye the Invisible Hand was a plausible generalization that may
have been justified in some other society but not in ours, and Natural
Selection has a different ontological status, being unfalsifiable.
This would make me reluctant to cite either as models of the same sort
of general thing.
--
| Donald Phillipson, 4050 Hall's Road, Carlsbad |
| Springs, Ont., Canada K0A 1K0; tel: (613) 822-0734 |
| "What I've always liked about science is its independence from |
| authority"--Ontario Science Centre (name on file) 10 July 1981 |
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:26>From HOLSINGE@UCONNVM.BITNET Mon Feb 7 06:58:35 1994
Date: Mon, 07 Feb 1994 07:51:00 -0500 (EST)
From: "Kent E. Holsinger" <HOLSINGE%UCONNVM.BITNET@KU9000.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: extragenetic inheritance
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Kelly Smith asks for examples of "heritable, non-genetic factors that influence
phenotypic form." I presume that "heritable, non-nuclear factors that
influence phenotypic form" is meant. If so, I can think of a couple of
examples from plants.
Many gynodioecious plants (e.g., thyme) exhibit cytoplasmic inheritance of
male sterility. The genetic factors are generally thought to be encoded by
mitochondrial genes (as has been definitively demonstrated for cytoplasmic
male sterility in corn).
Plastome mutants in Oenothera often show chlorotic regions on their leaves,
and many horticultural varieties with white stripes or mottling on their
leaves are the result of chloroplast mutants being expressed in certain cell
lineages.
-- Kent
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Kent E. Holsinger Internet: Holsinge@UConnVM.UConn.edu |
| Dept. of Ecology & BITNET: Holsinge@UConnVM |
| Evolutionary Biology, U-43 |
| University of Connecticut |
| Storrs, CT 06269-3043 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:27>From J_LIMBER@UNHH.UNH.EDU Mon Feb 7 07:54:59 1994
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 8:53:56 -0500 (EST)
From: J_LIMBER@UNHH.UNH.EDU (JOHN LIMBER)
Subject: Re: extragenetic inheritance
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
There are also some mitochondial effects in humans--various diseases have been
documented. These may have been the basis for Allan Wilson's notorious
suggestion that human language arose via a recent mutation in mtDNA in
some "EVe" 200,000 years ago. (See, for example, Brown's (1991) account of this
in "The Search for Eve." Harper.)
John Limber, Psychology, University of New Hampshire
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:28>From bjoseph@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Mon Feb 7 09:26:53 1994
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 94 10:26:50 EST
From: Brian D Joseph <bjoseph@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Query re evolution in elementary schools
My third-grade son is interested in doing a project for school on
evolution (don't you love how kids choose focused topics?!) and I thought
I might take advantage of the expertise in this list to get some advice.
First, does anyone out there have experience with the teaching of
evolution in elementary schools and how one might approach it?
Second, are there any good books at about a 5th-grade level (he's a pretty
strong reader) on evolution?
Third, we have a copy of the book "After Man. A Zoology of the Future"
at home and my sone has been fascinated with that. It made me wonder
what the appraisal of the book among those in the know in the life
sciences was? It provided us with an idea for a project for my son,
namely to pick some current life form and do a "future zoology" of
it (he is very captivated by beavers, for some reason, and has been
for years, so they would be a natural for him). Does anyone have any
ideas on whether such a project might "work", in the sense of getting
him to learn about evolution and then try to apply what he has learned?
Finally, does anyone know of good biographies of Charles Darwin that are
geared at about a 5th-grade level (we will try our local librarians,
who are always helpful and knowledgeable, but again I thought one
of you might have some first-hand experience that would be useful here).
Following a tradition onthe LINGUIST net, people may respond to me
individually and then I will summarize my "findings" to a posting
to the whole DARWIN list, but if people want to respond publically,
that's OK with me.
Many thanks in advance.
Brian D. Joseph
Linguistics, The Ohio State University
bjoseph@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:29>From ANWOLFE@ECUVM.CIS.ECU.EDU Mon Feb 7 10:08:22 1994
Date: Mon, 07 Feb 94 11:07:16 EST
From: ANWOLFE@ECUVM.CIS.ECU.EDU
Subject: Re: Query re evolution in elementary schools
To: Multiple recipients of list <darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu>
Contact Eugenie Scott at the National Center for Science Education
in Berkeley CA (510) 526-1674. She can answer all of your questions.
Linda Wolfe
_______________________________________________________________________________
<6:30>From phlkcs@gsusgi2.gsu.edu Mon Feb 7 11:59:52 1994
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 12:58:22 -0500 (EST)
From: "Kelly C. Smith" <phlkcs@gsusgi2.gsu.edu>
Subject: clarification of extragenetic
To: darwin-L <DARWIN-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu>
It seems I wasn't clear about what I meant by "extragenetic" when asking
for examples of extragenetic inheritance. I am trying to locate cellular
examples of factors other than nucleic acids (whether they are
cytoplasmically or nuclear encoded) with heritable effects. For example,
centrioles, basal bodies and other protein structures are good candidates
(but not mitochodiral DNA sequences).
Thanks,
Kelly Smith
phlkcs@gsusgi2.gsu.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
Darwin-L Message Log 6: 1-30 -- February 1994 End
