Suárez-Díaz Edna
Departamento de Biología Evolutiva, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Copilco, Coyoacán, Mexico, DF, Mexico. ednasuarez@ciencias. unam.mx
J Hist Biol. 2014 Fall;47(3):443-78.
The use of molecules and reactions as evidence, markers and/or traits for evolutionary processes has a history more than a century long. Molecules have been used in studies of intra-specific variation and studies of similarity among species that do not necessarily result in the analysis of phylogenetic relations. Promoters of the use of molecular data have sustained the need for quantification as the main argument to make use of them. Moreover, quantification has allowed intensive statistical analysis, as a condition and a product of increasing automation. All of these analyses are subject to the methodological anxiety characteristic of a community in search of objectivity (Suárez-Díaz and Anaya-Munoz, Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci 39:451–458, 2008). It is in this context that scientists compared and evaluated protein and nucleic acid sequence data with other types of molecular data – including immunological, electrophoretic and hybridization data. This paper argues that by looking at longterm historical processes, such as the use of molecular evidence in evolutionary biology, we gain valuable insights into the history of science. In that sense, it accompanies a growing concern among historians for big-pictures of science that incorporate the fruitful historical research on local cases of the last decades.
将分子和反应用作进化过程的证据、标记和/或特征已有一个多世纪的历史。分子已被用于种内变异研究以及物种间相似性研究，这些研究不一定会对系统发育关系进行分析。分子数据使用的推动者一直坚持将量化作为使用它们的主要论据。此外，量化使得密集的统计分析成为可能，这是自动化程度提高的条件和产物。所有这些分析都受到一个寻求客观性的群体所特有的方法论焦虑的影响（苏亚雷斯 - 迪亚兹和阿纳亚 - 穆尼奥斯，《科学史与科学哲学杂志：生物学与生物医学科学》39:451 - 458，2008）。正是在这种背景下，科学家们将蛋白质和核酸序列数据与其他类型的分子数据——包括免疫学、电泳和杂交数据进行了比较和评估。本文认为，通过审视长期的历史过程，比如进化生物学中分子证据的使用，我们能对科学史有宝贵的洞察。从这个意义上说，它伴随着历史学家们日益增长的对科学全景的关注，这种全景包含了过去几十年对局部案例富有成果的历史研究。
