Skip to main content

The Historiography of Genetics

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Handbook of the Historiography of Biology

Part of the book series: Historiographies of Science ((HISTSC))

  • 535 Accesses

Abstract

Research on the history of genetics has followed trends in the history of biology more generally as it has moved from histories focused on ideas to more socially contextualized histories, including more geographically diverse histories and histories that center around gender and race, and then to histories that focus on scientific practice and material culture. As new historiographic foci have emerged, older approaches have not been replaced. There remains a strong tradition of considering research in genetics primarily in terms of its scientific development. Genetics is a rich and fast-moving field and there are still many stories to be told. Branching out from more familiar topics presents an opportunity for original research in the history of genetics.

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

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 379.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 449.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abir-Am P (1999) The first American and French commemorations in molecular biology: from collective memory to comparative history. In: Commemorative practices in science: historical perspectives on the politics of collective memory, Osiris, 2nd series, vol 14. Cornell University, Department of Science and Technology Studies, Ithaca, pp 324–372

    Google Scholar 

  • Adams MB (ed) (1994) The evolution of Theodosius Dobzhansky: essays on his life and thought in Russia and America. Princeton: Princeton University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Allen G (1974) Opposition to the Mendelian-chromosome theory: the physiological and developmental genetics of Richard Goldschmidt. J Hist Biol 7:49–92

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Allen GE (1978) Thomas Hunt Morgan, the man and his science. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Allen G (1986) T.H. Morgan and the split between embryology and genetics, 1910–1935. In: Horder TJ, Witkowski JA, Wylie CC (eds) A history of embryology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 113–146

    Google Scholar 

  • Allen GE (2000) The reception of Mendelism in the United States, 1900–1930. Comptes rendus de l’Academie des Sciences, Paris, Sciences de la vie 323:1081–1088

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Allen GE (2016) Reflections on the History of Biology as a Field: 1966–2014. J Hist Biol 49:733–742

    Google Scholar 

  • Ankeny RA (2000) Marvelling at the Marvel: the supposed conversion of A. D. Darbishire to Mendelism. J Hist Biol 33:315–347

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ankeny RA (2001) The natural history of Caenorhabditis elegans research. Nat Rev Genet 2:474–478

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Araújo AM (2001) O salto qualitativo em Theodosius Dobzhansky: Unindo as tradições naturalista e experimentalista. História, Ciências, Saúde 8:713–726

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barahona A (2013) The history of genetics in Mexico in the light of a cultural history of heredity. Hist Philos Life Sci 35:69–74

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Barahona A, Ayala F (2005) The emergence and development of genetics in Mexico. Nat Rev Genet 6:860–866

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Barkan E (1992) The retreat of scientific racism: changing concepts of race in Britain and the United States between the world wars. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Beatty J (1987a) Dobzhansky and drift: facts, values, and chance in evolutionary biology. In: Krüger L et al (eds) The probabilistic revolution, vol 2. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Beatty J (1987b) Weighing the risks: stalemate in the classical/balance controversy. J Hist Biol 20:289–319

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beatty J (1991) Genetics in the atomic age: the atomic bomb casualty commission, 1947–1957. In: Benson K, Rainger R, Maienschein J (eds) The American expansion of biology. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick

    Google Scholar 

  • Beatty J (1993) Scientific collaboration, internationalism, and diplomacy: the case of the atomic bomb casualty commission. J Hist Biol 26:205–231

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benson KR, Maienschein J, Rainger R (1991) The expansion of American biology. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick

    Google Scholar 

  • Berg P, Singer M (2005) George beadle: an uncommon farmer: the emergence of genetics in the 20th century. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor

    Google Scholar 

  • Beurton PJ, Falk R, Rheinberger H-J (2000) The concept of the gene in development and evolution: historical and epistemological perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bonneuil C (2006) Mendelism, plant breeding and experimental cultures: agriculture and the development of genetics in France. J Hist Biol 39:281–308

    Google Scholar 

  • Box JF (1978) R. A. Fisher: the life of a scientist. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Brink RA (1967) Heritage from Mendel. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison

    Google Scholar 

  • Burian RM, Gayon J (1999) The French school of genetics: from physiological and population genetics to regulatory molecular genetics. Annu Rev Genet 33:313–349

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Burian RM, Zallen D (2009) Genes. In: Bowler P, Pickstone J (eds) Cambridge history of the life and earth sciences. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 432–450

    Google Scholar 

  • Burian RM, Gayon J, Zallen D (1988) The singular fate of genetics in the history of French biology, 1900–1940. J Hist Biol 21:357–402

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Burian RM, Gayon J, Zallen D (1994) Boris Ephrussi and the synthesis of genetics and embryology. In: Gilbert SF (ed) A conceptual history of modern embryology. Plenum Press, New York, pp 207–227

    Google Scholar 

  • Caballero C, Aspinall PJ (2018) Redefining race: UNESCO, the biology of race crossing, and the wane of the eugenics movement. In: Mixed race Britain in the twentieth century. Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp 293–312

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Cain J (2002) Co-opting colleagues: appropriating Dobzhansky’s 1936 lectures at Columbia. J Hist Biol 35:207–219

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Campos L (2015) Radium and the secret of life. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Carlson EA (1966) The gene: a critical history. Iowa State University Press, Ames

    Google Scholar 

  • Carlson EA (1981) Genes, radiation, and society: the life and work of H.J. Muller. Cornell University Press, Ithaca

    Google Scholar 

  • Charnley B, Radick G (2013) Intellectual property, plant breeding and the making of Mendelian genetics. Stud Hist Phil Sci 44:222–233

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cock AG, Forsdyke DR (2008) Treasure your exceptions: the science and life of William Bateson. Springer, Chaim

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen BM (1991) Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov: the explorer and plant collector. Econ Bot 45:38–46

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Comfort N (2001) The tangled field. Barbara McClintock’s search for the patterns of genetic control. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Comfort N (2012) The science of human perfection: how genes became the heart of American medicine. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Crow JF, Dove WF (2000) Perspectives on genetics: anecdotal, historical, and critical commentaries, 1987–1998. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison

    Google Scholar 

  • Curry HA (2016) Evolution made to order: plant breeding and technological innovation in twentieth-century America. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Davis GK, Dietrich MR, Jacobs D (2009) Homeotic mutants and the assimilation of developmental genetics into the evolutionary synthesis. In: Cain J, Ruse M (eds) Descended from Darwin: insights into American evolutionary studies, 1900–1970, vol 99. American Philosophical Society, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, pp 133–154, part 1

    Google Scholar 

  • De Carvalho TB (2020) Modern evolutionary biology and Brazilian population genetics: Theodosius Dobzhansky at the University of Sao Paulo. Perspect Sci 28(2):223–243

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Chadarevian S (2015) Chromosome photography and the recount of human chromosomes. Hist Stud Nat Sci 45:115–146

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Chadarevian S (2018) Whose turn? Chromosome research and the study of the human genome. J Hist Biol 51:631–655

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • de Chadarevian S (2020) Heredity under the microscope: chromosomes and the study of the human genome. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Deichmann U (2011) Early 20th-century research at the interfaces of genetics, development, and evolution: reflections on progress and dead ends. Dev Biol 357:3–e12

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • DeJong-Lambert W, Krementsov NL (2017) The Lysenko controversy as a global phenomenon, vol 1. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, p 1

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dietrich MR (1994) The origins of the neutral theory of molecular evolution. J Hist Biol 27:21–59

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dietrich MR (2000a) From gene to genetic hierarchy: Richard Goldschmidt and the problem of the gene. In: Beurton P, Falk R, Rheinberger H-J (eds) The concept of the gene in development and evolution: historical and epistemological perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 91–114

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Dietrich MR (2000b) From hopeful monsters to homeotic effects: Richard Goldschmidt’s integration of development, evolution, and genetics. Am Zool 4:28–37

    Google Scholar 

  • Dietrich MR (2006) From Mendel to molecules: a brief history of evolutionary genetics. In: Fox CW, Wolf JB (eds) Evolutionary genetics: concepts and case studies. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 3–13

    Google Scholar 

  • Dietrich MR (2008) Striking the hornet’s nest: Richard Goldschmidt’s rejection of the particulate gene. In: Harman O, Dietrich MR (eds) Rebels, mavericks, and heretics in biology. Yale University Press, New Haven, pp 119–136

    Google Scholar 

  • Dietrich MR (2016) Experimenting with sex: four approaches to the genetics of sex reversal before 1950. Hist Philos Life Sci 38:23–41

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dietrich MR, Skipper RA Jr (2013) R. A. Fisher and the foundations of mathematical genetics. In: Harman O, Dietrich MR (eds) Outsider scientists: routes to innovation in biology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 147–160

    Google Scholar 

  • Dietrich MR, Tambasco BH (2007) Beyond the boss and the boys: women and the division of labor in Drosophila genetics in the United States, 1934–1970. J Hist Biol 40:509–528

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dobzhansky T (1981) In: Lewontin RC, Moore JA, Provine WB, Wallace B (eds) Dobzhansky’s genetics of natural populations. Columbia University Press, New York, pp I–XLIII

    Google Scholar 

  • Dronamraju K (2017) Popularizing science: the life and work of JBS Haldane. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunn LC (1965) A short history of genetics; the development of some of the main lines of thought, 1864–1939. McGraw-Hill, NY

    Google Scholar 

  • Duster T (1990) Backdoor to eugenics. Routledge, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • East EM (1923) Mendel and his contemporaries. Sci Mon 16:225–237

    Google Scholar 

  • Falk R (2008) Wilhelm Johanssen: a rebel or diehard. In: Harman O, Dietrich MR (eds) Rebels, mavericks, and heretics in biology. Yale University Press, New Haven, pp 65–83

    Google Scholar 

  • Fitzgerald D (1990) The business of breeding: hybrid corn in Illinois, 1890–1940. Cornell University Press, Ithaca

    Google Scholar 

  • Fortun M, Mendelsohn E (eds) (1999) The practices of human genetics. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaissinovitch AE, Adams MB (1980) The origins of Soviet genetics and the struggle with Lamarckism, 1922–1929. J Hist Biol 13:1–51

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Galperin C (1998) From cell lineage to developmental genetics. Hist Philos Life Sci 20:301–350

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Galton F (1889) Natural inheritance. London: Macmillan

    Google Scholar 

  • Gannett L (2013) Theodosius Dobzhansky and the genetic race concept. Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci 44:250–261

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gayon J (1998) Darwinism’s struggle for survival: heredity and the hypothesis of natural selection. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Gayon J, Burian R (2000) France in the era of Mendelism. Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, Series III: Sciences de la vie 323:1097–1106

    Google Scholar 

  • Gayon J, Burian R (2004) National traditions and the emergence of genetics: the French example. Nat Rev Genet 5:150–156

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gayon J, Zallen D (1998) The role of the Vilmorin company in the promotion and diffusion of the experimental science of heredity in France, 1840–1920. J Hist Biol 31:241–262

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert SF (1978) The embryological origins of the gene theory. J Hist Biol 11:307–351

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert SF (1988) Cellular politics: Ernest Everett Just, Richard B. Goldschmidt, and the attempt to reconcile embryology and genetics. In: Rainger R, Benson KR, Maienschein J (eds) The American development of biology. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, pp 311–346

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert SF (1991) Induction and the origins of developmental genetics. In: Gilbert SF (ed) A conceptual history of modern embryology. Plenum Press, New York, pp 181–206

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert SF (1998) Bearing crosses: a historiography of genetics and embryology. Am J Med Genet 76:168–182

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert SF, Optiz J, Raff RA (1996) Resynthesizing evolutionary and developmental biology. Dev Biol 173:357–372

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gormley M (2009) Scientific discrimination and the activist scientist: L.C. Dunn and the professionalization of genetics and human genetics in the United States. J Hist Biol 42:33–72

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Graham LR (1990) Science and the Soviet social order. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Graham LR (2016) Lysenko’s ghost: epigenetics and Russia. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Griffiths P, Stotz K (2014) Genetics and philosophy: an introduction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Griffiths PE, Tabery J (2008) Behavioral genetics and development: historical and conceptual causes of controversy. New Ideas Psychol 26(3):332–352

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grodwohl J (2017a) Natural selection, adaptive topographies and the problem of statistical inference: the Moraba scurra controversy under the microscope. J Hist Biol 50:753–796

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Grodwohl J (2017b) “The theory was beautiful indeed”: rise, fall and circulation of maximizing methods in population genetics (1930–1980). J Hist Biol 50:571–608

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Harman O (2004) The man who invented the chromosome: a life of Cyril Darlington. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Harris JA (1923) Galton and Mendel: their contribution to genetics and their influence on biology. Sci Mon 16:247–263

    Google Scholar 

  • Harwood J (1993) Styles of scientific thought: the German genetics community, 1900–1933. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Harwood J (2015) Did Mendelism transform plant breeding? Genetic theory and breeding practice, 1900–1945. In: Phillips D, Kingsland S (eds) New perspectives on the history of life sciences and agriculture. Springer, Cham, pp 345–370

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Holmes FL, Summers WC (2006) Reconceiving the gene: Seymour Benzer’s adventures in phage genetics. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Hull DL (1979) Reduction in genetics. Philos Sci 46:316–320

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Iida K (2009) Practice and politics in Japanese science: Hitoshi Kihara and the formation of a genetics discipline. J Hist Biol 43:529–570

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Iida K (2015a) A controversial idea as a cultural resource: the Lysenko controversy and discussions of genetics as a ‘democratic’ science in postwar Japan. Soc Stud Sci 45(4):546–569

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Iida K (2015b) Genetics and “breeding as a science”: Kihara Hitoshi and the development of genetics in Japan in the first half of the twentieth century. In: Phillips D, Kingsland S (eds) New perspectives on the history of life sciences and agriculture. Springer, Cham

    Google Scholar 

  • Joravsky D (1986) The Lysenko affair. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kampourakis K (2017) Making sense of genes. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kass LB (ed) (2013) Perspectives on Nobel Laureate Barbara McClintock’s publications (1926–1984): a companion volume. The Internet-First University Press. https://hdl.handle.net/1813/34897

  • Keller EF (1983) A feeling for the organism: the life and work of Barbara McClintock. W.H. Freeman, San Francisco

    Google Scholar 

  • Keller EF (2000) The century of the gene. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Keller EF (2014) From gene action to reactive genomes. J Physiol 592:2423–2429

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Kim K-M (1994) Explaining scientific consensus: the case of Mendelian genetics. Guilford Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Kimmelman BA (2006) Mr. Blakeslee builds his dream house: agricultural institutions, genetics, and careers 1900–1915. J Hist Biol 39:240–280

    Google Scholar 

  • Kirsh N (2004) Geneticist Elisabeth Goldschmidt: a twofold pioneering story. Israel Stud 9(02):71–105

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kohler R (1994) Lords of the fly: Drosophila genetics and the experimental life. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Kottler MJ (1974) From 48 to 46: cytological technique, preconception, and the counting of human chromosomes. Bull Hist Med 48:465–502

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Laubichler MD, Rheinberger HJ (2004) Alfred Kühn (1885–1968) and developmental evolution. J Exp Zool B Mol Dev Evol 302B:103–110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leonelli S (2007) Growing weed, producing knowledge: an epistemic history of Arabidopsis thaliana. Hist Philos Life Sci 29:55–87

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis EB (1994) Homeosis: the first 100 years. Trends in Genetics 10:341–343

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewontin RC (1991) The doctrine of DNA: biology as ideology. Penguin, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Lima-de-Faria A (2003) One hundred years of chromosome research and what remains to be learned. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lindee MS (1994) Suffering made real: American science and the survivors at Hiroshima. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lindee MS (2008) Moments of truth in genetic medicine. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

    Google Scholar 

  • Love AC, Raff RA (2003) Knowing your ancestors: themes in the history of Evo-Devo. Evol Dev 5:327–330

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Maas WK (2001) Gene action a historical account. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Mackenzie D, Barnes SB (1975) Biometriker versus Mendelianer. Eine Kontroverse und ihre Erklarung. Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 13:165–196

    Google Scholar 

  • Magnello ME (2004) The reception of Mendelism by the biometricians and early Mendelians (1899–1909). In: Keynes M, Edwards AWF, Peel R (eds) A century of Mendelism in human genetics. CRC Press, Boca Raton, pp 19–32

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Maienschein J (1991) Transforming traditions in American biology, 1880–1915. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

    Google Scholar 

  • Maienschein J (2016) Garland Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan, and development. J Hist Biol 49(4):587–601

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Martin A (2004) Can’t any body count? Counting as an epistemic theme in the history of human chromosomes. Soc Stud Sci 34:923–948

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Millstein RL (2008) Distinguishing drift and selection empirically: “the great snail debate” of the 1950s. J Hist Biol 41:339–367

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell MX (2017) Screening out controversy: human genetics, emerging techniques of diagnosis, and the origins of the social issues committee of the American Society of Human Genetics, 1964–1973. J Hist Biol 50:425–456

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Morange M (2000a) Francois Jacob’s lab in the seventies: the T-complex and the mouse developmental genetic program. Hist Philos Life Sci 3:397–412

    Google Scholar 

  • Morange M (2000b) A history of molecular biology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Morange M (2020) The black box of biology: a history of the molecular revolution. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Morgan TH (1923) The bearing of Mendelism on the origin of species. Sci Mon 16:237–247

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan TH (1926) The theory of the gene. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Morgan TH (1934) Embryology and genetics. Columbia University Press, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Nelkin D, Susan Lindee M (1995) The DNA mystique: the gene as a cultural icon. W.H. Freeman, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Olby R (1989) The dimensions of scientific controversy: the biometric-mendelian debate. Br J Hist Sci 22:299–320

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Onaga L (2010) Toyama Kametarō and Vernon Kellogg: Silkworm inheritance experiments in Japan, Siam, and the United States, 1900–1912. J Hist Biol 43:215–264

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Palladino P (1994) Wizards and devotees: on the Mendelian theory of inheritance and the professionalization of agricultural science in Great Britain and the United States, 1880–1930. Hist Sci 32:409–444

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Panofsky A (2014) Misbehaving science: controversy and the development of behavior genetics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Paul DB (1987) Our load of mutations revisited. J Hist Biol 321–335

    Google Scholar 

  • Paul DB (1998) The politics of heredity: essays on eugenics, biomedicine, and the nature-nurture debate. State University of New York Press, Albany

    Google Scholar 

  • Paul DB, Brosco JP (2013) The PKU paradox: a short history of a genetic disease. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Paul DB, Kimmelman B (1988) Mendel in America: theory and practice, 1900–1919. In: Rainger R, Benson KR, Maienschein J (eds) The American development of biology. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, pp 281–310

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Pavan C, Brito da Cunha A (2003) Theodosius Dobzhansky and the development of genetics in Brazil. Genet Mol Biol 26:387–395

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pence CH (2011) “Describing our whole experience”: the statistical philosophies of W. F. R. Weldon and Karl Pearson. Stud Hist Philos Sci C 42:475–485

    Google Scholar 

  • Phillips D, Kingsland S (eds) (2015) New perspectives on the history of life sciences and agriculture. Springer, Cham

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinar S (2002) The emergence of modern genetics in Spain and the effects of the Spanish civil war (1936–1939) on its development. J Hist Biol 35:111–148

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Porter TM (2004) Karl Pearson: the scientific life in a statistical age. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Portin P (1993) The concept of the gene: short history and present status. Q Rev Biol 56:173–223

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Provine W (1971) The origins of theoretical population genetics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Provine WB (1973) Geneticists and the Biology of Race Crossing. Science. 182: 790–796

    Google Scholar 

  • Provine W (1986) Sewall Wright and evolutionary biology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Provine W (1988) Progress in evolution and the meaning of life. In: Nitecki M (ed) Evolutionary progress. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Provine W (1989) Founder effects and genetic revolutions in microevolution and speciation: a historical perspective. In: Giddings LV, Kaneshiro K, Anderson W (eds) Genetics, speciation, and the founder principle. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 43–78

    Google Scholar 

  • Provine W (1992) The R. A. Fisher-Sewall Wright controversy. In: Sarkar S (ed) The founders of evolutionary genetics. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 201–229

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Rader KA (1998) “The mouse people”: murine genetics work at the Bussey Institution, 1909–1936. J Hist Biol 31:327–354

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rader KA (2004) Making mice: standardizing animals for American biomedical research, 1900–1955. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Radick G (2005) Other histories, other biologies. Royal Institute of Philosophy 8:21–47

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Radick G (2013) The professor and the pea: lives and afterlives of William Bateson’s campaign for the utility of Mendelism. Stud Hist Phil Sci 44:280–296

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Radick G (2015) Beyond the “Mendel-Fisher” controversy: worries about fraudulent data should give way to broader critiques of Mendel’s legacy. Science 350:159–160

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rainger R, Benson KR, Maienschein J (eds) (1988) The American development of biology. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick

    Google Scholar 

  • Reardon J (2005) Race to the finish: identity and governance in an age of genomics. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Rheinberger H-J (2000) Ephestia: the experimental design of Alfred Kühn’s physiological developmental genetics. J Hist Biol 33(3):535

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Richmond ML (2001) Women in the early history of genetics: William Bateson and the Newnham College Mendelians, 1900–1910. Isis 92:55–90

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Richmond ML (2006) The “domestication” of heredity: the familial organization of geneticists at Cambridge University, 1895–1910. J Hist Biol 39:565–605

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richmond ML (2007) The cell as the basis for heredity, development, and evolution: Richard Goldschmidt’s program of physiological genetics. In: Maienschein J, Laubichler MD (eds) From embryology to Evo-Devo: history of evolutionary development. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Roll-Hansen N (1980) The controversy between biometricians and mendelians: a test case for the sociology of knowledge. Soc Sci Inf 19:501–517

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roll-Hansen N (2000) Theory and practice: the impact of mendelism on agriculture. Sciences de la Vie 323:1107–1116

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Roll-Hansen N (2006) The Lysenko effect: the politics of science. Humanity Books, Amherst

    Google Scholar 

  • Santesmases MJ (2017) Circulating biomedical images: bodies and chromosomes in the post-eugenic era. Hist Sci 55:395–430

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sapp J (1983) The struggle for authority in the field of heredity, 1900–1932: new perspectives on the rise of genetics. J Hist Biol 16:311–342

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sapp J (1987) Beyond the gene: cytoplasmic inheritance and the struggle for authority in genetics. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarkar S (ed) (1992) The founders of evolutionary genetics. Kluwer, Dordrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • Schaffner KF (1976) Reductionism in biology: prospects and problems. In: Cohen RS, Hooker CA, Michalos AC, Van Evra JW (eds) PSA 1974, Boston studies in the philosophy of science, vol 32. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 613–632

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz J (2008) In pursuit of the gene: From Darwin to DNA. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shapin S (1982) History of science and its sociological reconstructions. Hist Sci 20:157–211

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shull GH (1923) A permanent memorial to Galton and Mendel. Sci Mon 16:263–270

    Google Scholar 

  • Skipper RA (2002) The persistence of the R. A. Fisher-Sewall Wright controversy. Biol Philos 17:341–367

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smocovitis VB (1996) Unifying biology: the evolutionary synthesis and evolutionary biology. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Smocovitis VB (2000) G. Ledyard Stebbins, architect of the evolutionary synthesis. Nature 404:562

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Smocovitis VB (2009) The plant Drosophila: E. B. Babcock, the genus Crepis and the evolution of a genetics research program at Berkeley, 1912–1947. Hist Stud Nat Sci 39:300–355

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Smocovitis VB (2011) Genetics behind barbed wire: Masuo Kodani, emigré geneticists, and wartime genetics research at Manzanar Relocation Center, 1942–1945. Genetics 187:357–366

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Stern A (2012) Telling genes: the story of genetic counseling in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sturtevant AH (1964) A history of genetics. Harper and Row, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Subramanian S (2020) A dominant character: the radical science and restless personality of J. B. S. Haldane. W. W. Norton, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Tabery J (2014) Beyond versus: the struggle to understand the interaction of nature and nurture. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Veigl S, Harman O, Lamm E (2020) Friedrich Miescher’s discovery in the historiography of genetics: from contamination to confusion, from nuclein to DNA. J Hist Biol 53:1–34

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weiss SF (2006) Human genetics and politics as mutually beneficial resources: the case of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics during the Third Reich. J Hist Biol 39:41–88

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wolfe AJ (2012) The cold war context of the golden jubilee, or, why we think of mendel as the father of genetics. J Hist Biol 45:389–414

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Zallen D, Burian R (1992) On the beginnings of somatic cell hybridization: Boris Ephrussi and chromosome transplantation. Genetics 132:1–8

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael R. Dietrich .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Dietrich, M.R. (2021). The Historiography of Genetics. In: Dietrich, M.R., Borrello, M.E., Harman, O. (eds) Handbook of the Historiography of Biology. Historiographies of Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90119-0_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics