Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

R. A. Fisher, Lancelot Hogben, and the Origin(s) of Genotype–Environment Interaction

  • Published:
Journal of the History of Biology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This essay examines the origin(s) of genotype–environment interaction, or G × E. “Origin(s)” and not “the origin” because the thesis is that there were actually two distinct concepts of G × E at this beginning: a biometric concept, or G × EB, and a developmental concept, or G × ED. R. A. Fisher, one of the founders of population genetics and the creator of the statistical analysis of variance, introduced the biometric concept as he attempted to resolve one of the main problems in the biometric tradition of biology – partitioning the relative contributions of nature and nurture responsible for variation in a population. Lancelot Hogben, an experimental embryologist and also a statistician, introduced the developmental concept as he attempted to resolve one of the main problems in the developmental tradition of biology – determining the role that developmental relationships between genotype and environment played in the generation of variation. To argue for this thesis, I outline Fisher and Hogben’s separate routes to their respective concepts of G × E; then these separate interpretations of G × E are drawn on to explicate a debate between Fisher and Hogben over the importance of G × E, the first installment of a persistent controversy. Finally, Fisher’s G × EB and Hogben’s G × ED are traced beyond their own work into mid-20th century population and developmental genetics, and then into the infamous IQ Controversy of the 1970s.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Allen, Garland E. 1986. The Eugenics Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, 1910–1940: An Essay in Institutional History Osiris 2: 225–264

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, T.W. 1996. R.A. Fisher and Multivariate Analysis Statistical Science 11: 20–34

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aronson, J.K. 1985. An Account of the Foxglove and its Medical Uses, 1785–1985. Oxford: Oxford University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Barkan, Elazar 1991. Reevaluating Progressive Eugenics: Herbert Spencer Jennings and the 1924 Immigration Legislation Journal of the History of Biology 24: 91–112

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bennett J.H. (ed.). 1983. Natural Selection, Heredity, and Eugenics: Including Selected Correspondence of R.A. Fisher with Leonard Darwin and Others. Oxford: Clarendon Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Bennett J.H. (ed.). 1990. R. A. Fisher, Statistical Inference and Analysis: Selected Correspondence of R. A. Fisher. Oxford: Oxford University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Blacker, C.P. 1952. Eugenics: Galton and After. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Box, Joan Fisher 1978. R. A. Fisher: The Life of a Scientist. New York: John Wiley and Sons

    Google Scholar 

  • Cochran, William G. 1980. Fisher and the Analysis of Variance. In S. E. Fienberg and D. V. Hinkley (eds.) R.A. Fisher: An Appreciation. New York: Springer-Verlag. pp. 17–34

    Google Scholar 

  • Crews F.A.E., Dakin W.J., Heslop Harrison J., Hogben, Lancelot T., Huxley, Julian S., Johnston J., Marshall F.H.A., Robson, Guy C., Saunders, A.M. Carr, MacLean Thompson J. 1923. The British Journal of Experimental Biology. Science 58: 102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, A.W.F. 1990. Fisher, W, and the Fundamental Theorem. Theoretical Population Biology 38: 276–284

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Erlingsson, Steindor. 2005. The Rise of Experimental Zoology in Britain in the 1920’s: Hogben, Huxley, Crew, and the Society for Experimental Biology. Unpublished Dissertation, University of Manchester

  • Falconer, D.S., and Mackay T.F.C. 1996. Introduction to Quantitative Genetics. Essex: Longman Group Limited

    Google Scholar 

  • Finney, D.J. 1964. Sir Ronald Fisher’s Contributions to Biometric Statistics Biometrics 20: 322–329

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, Ronald A. 1918. The Correlation between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 52: 399–433

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, Ronald A. 1925. Statistical Methods for Research Workers. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd Ltd

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, Ronald A. 1932. Review of Lancelot Hogben’s Genetic Principles in Medicine and Social Science Health and Empire 7: 147–150

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, Ronald A. 1958. The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Dover: New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, Ronald A., and Mackenzie W.A. 1923. Studies in Crop Variation. II. The Manurial Response of Different Potato Varieties. Journal of Agricultural Science 13: 311–320

    Google Scholar 

  • Gottlieb, Gilbert 1995a. Some Conceptual Deficiencies in ‹Developmental’ Behavior Genetics. Human Development 38: 131–141

    Google Scholar 

  • Gottlieb, Gilbert 1995b. Reply to Commentaries. Human Development 38: 165–169

    Google Scholar 

  • Griffiths, Paul E. and Tabery, James. Forthcoming. “Behavioral Genetics and Development: Historical and Conceptual Causes of Controversy.” New Ideas in Psychology

  • Gurdon, John B., and Nick Hopwood 2000. The Introduction of Xenopus laevis into Developmental Biology: Of Empire, Pregnancy Testing and Ribosomal Genes International Journal of Developmental Biology 44: 43–50

    Google Scholar 

  • Haldane J.B.S. 1932. A Programme for Human Genetics: A Review of Lancelot Hogben’s Genetic Principles in Medicine and Social Science Nature 129: 345–346

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot 1927. Principles of Evolutionary Biology. Cape Town: Juta

    Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot 1931a. The Nature of Living Matter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf

    Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot 1931b. The Foundations of Social Biology Economica 31: 4–24

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot 1931c. The Genetic Analysis of Familial Traits. I. Single Gene Substitutions Journal of Genetics 25: 97–112

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot 1932a. Genetic Principles in Medicine and Social Science. New York: Alfred A. Knopf

    Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot 1932b. The Genetic Analysis of Familial Traits. II. Double Gene Substitutions, with Special Reference to Hereditary Dwarfism Journal of Genetics 25: 211–240

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot 1932c. The Genetic Analysis of Familial Traits. III. Matings Involving One Parent Exhibiting a Trait Determined by a Single Recessive Gene Substitution with Special Reference to Sex-Linked Conditions Journal of Genetics 25: 293–314

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot 1933a. Nature and Nurture, Being the William Withering Memorial Lectures. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd

    Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot 1933b. The Limits of Applicability of Correlation Technique in Human Genetics Journal of Genetics 27: 379–406

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot 1937. Mathematics for the Million. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc

    Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot 1938. Science for the Citizen: A Self-Educator Based on the Social Background of Scientific Discovery. New York: Alfred A. Knopf

    Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot 1998. Lancelot Hogben, Scientific Humanist: An Unauthorized Autobiography. Suffolk: Merlin Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot T., Winton, Frank R. 1922a. The Pigmentary Effector System. I. – Reaction of Frog’s Melanophores to Pituitary Extracts. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 93: 318–329

    Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot T., Frank R. Winton 1922b. The Pigmentary Effector System. II. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 94: 151–162

    Google Scholar 

  • Hogben, Lancelot T., Frank R. Winton 1923. The Pigmentary Effector System. III. – Colour Response in the Hypophysectomised Frog. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 95: 15–31

    Google Scholar 

  • Huxley, Julian 1932. Eugenics: A Review of Lancelot Hogben’s Genetic Principles in Medicine and Social Science Eugenics Review 23: 341–344

    Google Scholar 

  • Huxley, Julian S., Lancelot T. Hogben 1922. Experiments on Amphibian Metamorphosis and Pigment Responses in Relation to Internal Secretions. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 93: 36–53

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jensen, Arthur R. 1969. How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement? Harvard Educational Review 39: 1–123

    Google Scholar 

  • Jensen, Arthur R. 1972. The IQ Controversy: A Reply to Layzer Cognition 1: 427–452

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jensen, Arthur R. 1973. Educatability and Group Differences. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnstone D.J. 1987. Tests of Significance Following R.A. Fisher British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38: 481–499

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kevles, Daniel J. 1995. In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Krafka, J. 1920. The Effect of Temperature Upon Facet Number in the Bar-eyed Mutant of Drosophila Journal of General Physiology 2: 409–464

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laudan, Larry 1977. Progress and its Problems. Berkeley: University of California Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Layzer, David 1972. Science or Superstition? (A Physical Scientist Looks at the IQ Controversy) Cognition 1: 265–299

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Layzer, David 1974. Heritability Analyses of IQ Scores: Science or Numerology Science 183: 1259–1266

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewontin, Richard C. 1974. The Analysis of Variance and the Analysis of Causes American Journal of Human Genetics 26: 400–411

    Google Scholar 

  • Ludmerer, Kenneth M. 1972. Genetics and American Society: A Historical Appraisal. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Lush, Jay L. 1937. Animal Breeding Plans. Ames: Collegiate Press, Inc

    Google Scholar 

  • Lush, Jay L. 1943. Animal Breeding Plans Second edition. Ames: Collegiate Press, Inc

  • Lynch, Michael, Bruce Walsh 1997. Genetics and Analysis of Quantitative Traits. Sunderland, Massachusetts: Sinauer Associates, Inc

    Google Scholar 

  • MacKenzie, Donald A. 1981. Statistics in Britain: 1865–1930, The Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Mahalanobis, P.C. 1964. Professor Ronald Aylmer Fisher Biometrics 20: 238–250

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mather, K. 1964. R.A. Fisher’s Work in Genetics Biometrics 20: 330–342

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mazumdar, Pauline M.H. 1992. Eugenics, Human Genetics, and Human Failings: The Eugenics Society, Its Sources and Its Critics in Britain. London: Routledge

    Google Scholar 

  • Moran P.A.P., Smith C.A.B. 1966. Commentary on R. A. Fisher’s Paper on the Correlation Between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance Eugenics Laboratory Memoirs 41: 1–62

    Google Scholar 

  • Norton B.J. 1975. Biology and Philosophy: The Methodological Foundations of Biometry Journal of the History of Biology 8: 85–93

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norton B.J. 1978. Fisher and the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis. In E. G. Forbes (ed.) Human Implications of Scientific Advance. Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of the History of Science. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp. 481–494

    Google Scholar 

  • Paul, Diane B. 1995. Controling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Paul, Diane B. 1998. The Politics of Heredity: Essays on Eugenics, Biomedicine, and the Nature–Nurture Debate. Albany: State University of New York Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Pearson, Karl, Alice Lee 1903. On the Laws of Inheritance in Man: I. Inheritance of Physical Characters. Biometrika 2: 357–462

    Google Scholar 

  • Plutynski, Anya 2006. What was Fisher’s Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection and what was it for? Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37: 59–82

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Porter, T. 2004. Karl Pearson. Princeton: Princeton University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Preece, D.A. 1990. R.A. Fisher and Experimental Design: A Review Biometrics 46: 925–935

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Provine, William B. 2001. The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Rao C. Radhakrishna 1964. Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher-The Architect of Multivariate Analysis Biometrics 20: 286–300

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sarkar, Sahotra 1996. Lancelot Hogben, 1895–1975 Genetics 142: 655–660

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarkar, Sahotra 1998. Genetics and Reductionism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarkar, Sahotra 1999. From the Reaktionsnorm to the Adaptive Norm: The Norm of Reaction, 1909–1960 Biology and Philosophy 14: 235–252

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmalhausen, I.I. 1949. Factors of Evolution Chicago: University of Chicago Press

  • Skipper, Robert A. Jr. 2002. The Persistence of the R. A. Fisher-Sewall Wright Controversy Biology and Philosophy 17: 341–367

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Soloway, Richard A. 1990. Demography and Degeneration: Eugenics and the Declining Birthrate in Twentieth-Century Britain. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Tabery, James 2004. The ‹Evolutionary Synthesis’ of George Udny Yule Journal of the History of Biology 37: 73–101

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tabery, James. 2006. Looking Back on Lancelot’s Laughter Mendel Newsletter 15: 10–17

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor N.B. 1931. The Relation of Temperature to the Heart Rate of the South African Frog (Xenopus dactylethra) Journal of Physiology 71: 156–168

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson E.A. 1990. R.A. Fisher’s Contributions to Genetical Statistics Biometrics 46: 905–914

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turkheimer, Eric, H. Hill Goldsmith, Irving I. Gottesman. 1995. Commentary on Gottlieb’s ‹Some Conceptual Deficiencies in ‹Developmental’ Behavior Genetics’. Human Development 38: 142–153

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waddington, Conrad H. 1957. The Strategy of the Genes. London: Allen and Unwin

    Google Scholar 

  • Wells G.P. 1978. Lancelot Thomas Hogben Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London 24: 183–221

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wells, G.P. n.d. “Father and Son.” Lancelot Hogben Papers (A.38), University of Birmingham

  • Werskey, Gary 1978. The Visible College: The Collective Biography of British Scientific Socialists of the 1930s. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston

    Google Scholar 

  • Winton, Frank 1927. A Contrast between the Actions of Red and White Squills The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. 31: 137–144

    Google Scholar 

  • Yates F. 1964. Sir Ronal Fisher and the Design of Experiments Biometrics 20:307–321

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yates F., Mather K. 1963. Ronald Aylmer Fisher Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London 9: 91–120

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yule, George Udny. 1902. “Mendel’s Laws and Their Probable Relations to Intra-Racial Heredity.” The New Phytologist 1: 193–207, 222–238

Download references

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to a number of individuals for enlightening conversations about G × E: Avshalom Caspi, Roderick Cooper, Gilbert Gottlieb, Terrie Moffitt, Robert Plomin, and Michael Rutter. Also, André Ariew, Paul Griffiths, Leslie Hogben, Sandra Mitchell, Robert Olby, Kathryn Plaisance, Michael Pogue-Geile, and Kenneth Schaffner read portions or earlier drafts of this work and offered invaluable feedback. Archivists at the University of Adelaide Library helpfully made available to me correspondence between R. A. Fisher and Lancelot Hogben along with the image of Fisher. Versions of this article were presented at the History of Science Society’s annual meeting (November 2005, Minneapolis, MN), the British Society for the History of Science’s annual meeting (July 2005, Leeds, UK), the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology’s biannual meeting (July 2005, Guelph, CA), the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science’s annual meeting (May 2005, London, CA), and Beyond Dichotomies, Across Boundaries (April 2005, Minneapolis, MN). Conversations with a number of␣conference participants helped me to clarify ideas on the topic. Finally, three anonymous referees provided me with insightful comments and suggestions. Any errors that remain are my own.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

    James Tabery

Authors
  1. James Tabery
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to James Tabery.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Tabery, J. R. A. Fisher, Lancelot Hogben, and the Origin(s) of Genotype–Environment Interaction. J Hist Biol 41, 717–761 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-008-9155-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-008-9155-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation