Roll-Hansen N
Department of philosophy, University of Oslo, PO Box 1020, Blindern, 0315 Oslo, Norway.
C R Acad Sci III. 2000 Dec;323(12):1107-16. doi: 10.1016/s0764-4469(00)01259-2.
The purpose of this paper is a reexamination of the success story of how Mendelian genetics gave birth to a revolution in plant and animal breeding which produced the spectacular 20th century agricultural progress and made it possible to feed the exploding population of the Earth. Critics have pointed to the problematic social effect of the agricultural revolution, and they have doubted the importance of the new genetics, especially during the first three or four decades of the 20th century. This paper argues that the criticism has tended to take a narrow instrumental view of science underestimating the guiding role of theory in practical matters. Plant and animal breeding continued to depend mainly on the old 19th century techniques, hybridization, mass selection and individual selection. But they were combined and used in much more efficient ways than before. New theoretical knowledge, general theories as well as particular knowledge about species, strains and individuals, radically improved the planning and execution of breeding work.
本文的目的是重新审视孟德尔遗传学如何引发动植物育种革命这一成功故事，这场革命带来了20世纪惊人的农业进步，使养活地球上不断膨胀的人口成为可能。批评者指出了农业革命带来的有问题的社会影响，他们质疑新遗传学的重要性，尤其是在20世纪的头三四十年。本文认为，这种批评往往对科学采取了狭隘的工具主义观点，低估了理论在实际事务中的指导作用。动植物育种仍然主要依赖19世纪的旧技术，即杂交、混合选择和个体选择。但它们以比以前更有效的方式结合和使用。新的理论知识，包括一般理论以及关于物种、品系和个体的特定知识，从根本上改进了育种工作的规划和实施。
