Thomas M. Siebel Professor in the History of Science, Princeton University, Department of History.
Ber Wiss. 2022 Sep;45(3):468-486. doi: 10.1002/bewi.202200022.
This essay considers the mid-twentieth century adoption of genetic explanations for three biological phenomena: nutritional adaptation, antibiotic resistance, and antibody production. This occurred at the same time as the hardening of the neo-Darwinian Synthesis in evolutionary theory. I argue that these concurrent changes reflect an ascendant narrative of genetic selfhood, which prioritized random hereditary variation and selection through competition, and marginalized physiological or environmental adaptation. This narrative was further reinforced by the Central Dogma of molecular biology and fit well with liberal political thought, with its focus on the autonomous individual. However, bringing biological findings into line with this narrative required modifying the notion of the gene to account for various kinds of non-Mendelian inheritance. Hans-Jörg Rheinberger's reflections on narrative and experiment are valuable in thinking about the friction between the postwar ideal of genetic selfhood and actual observations of how organisms adapt in response to the environment.
这篇文章探讨了 20 世纪中叶对三种生物学现象的遗传解释的采纳：营养适应、抗生素耐药性和抗体产生。这与进化理论中新兴的新达尔文综合理论的强化同时发生。我认为，这些同时发生的变化反映了遗传主体的上升叙事，该叙事优先考虑随机遗传变异和通过竞争进行选择，而将生理或环境适应边缘化。分子生物学的中心法则进一步加强了这一叙事，并且非常适合于以自主个体为中心的自由政治思想。然而，将生物学发现与这一叙事保持一致需要修改基因的概念，以解释各种非孟德尔遗传。汉斯-约尔格·莱茵伯格 (Hans-Jörg Rheinberger) 对叙事和实验的思考对于思考战后遗传主体的理想与生物体如何适应环境的实际观察之间的摩擦很有价值。
